Last Night at the Lobster (9 page)

She doesn’t owe him any loyalty, he supposes (now that she has her check), and he can greet, so it’s okay. While part of him feels deserted, he wouldn’t want his abuelita or Deena sitting alone in the dark either, if that’s actually true.

“What happened with Eddie?” he asks, peeling off his jacket so she won’t see the damage.

“I guess they were worried about the snow. It’s supposed to get worse.”

“Did somebody call?”

“They just showed up and said he had to go.”

“We lose anybody else?”

“No, but I don’t think you’ll be serving dinner anyway.”

“You never know,” Manny says, smiling and shrugging as if it’s a joke.

“I’ve gotta go,” Kendra says, and this time he has a chance to shake her hand and thank her for all her work.

“Okay,” she says, and backs away as if he’s crazy. “I hope you guys get home safe.”

“You too.”

He doesn’t watch her go, but cuts through the break room, the box from Zales in his pocket, hidden from Roz, who’s doing the crossword and picking at a piece of Key lime pie.

“Whadja get?” she asks without looking up.

“It’s a surprise,” he says, and he’s through the swinging door into the kitchen.

He goes to the coatrack to check on Ty’s jacket. If his suspicions are correct, it’ll be fine. Then he’ll have to decide if it’s worth telling anyone. He thinks it should be enough, holding Fredo’s check and then not giving him a reference.

He grips the shoulder of Ty’s coat and angles the hanger out. He can see a slice of powder blue through the back, slashed the exact same way.

Son of a bitch. After all he did for him.

Jacquie’s is fine, and Roz’s, Leron’s army surplus. It’s just his and Ty’s, and while the evidence is obvious, Manny still wants to believe his was a mistake.

He finds Ty smoking by the open back door with Jacquie, his top two buttons undone. Snow floats in and melts on the tile floor. Officially they’re supposed to be outside, but today it’s close enough.

“How was the mall?” Jacquie asks.

“Still open.”

“Lot of people there?”

“Some. It’s really not that bad out.”

He lights up and leans against the counter with them, tapping his ashes in the big sink, the wind reaching through the door, chilling him. “You guys eat?” he asks, but all he’s doing is stalling. He wants to keep the jackets a secret from Jacquie (not just his, but both), as if they’re an admission of failure.

“So Kendra’s gone,” he says. “Where’s Rich and Leron?”

“Watching UConn,” Ty says, and tips his head toward the bar.

“Women or men?”

“What’s the difference?” Jacquie says, because she doesn’t care.

“Men, against Syracuse.”

They don’t talk about tomorrow, or the Olive Garden, tacitly agreeing that these topics are too heavy for a lazy cigarette break. Basketball is easier, and busting on Kendra for bugging out early, and then remembering Suzanne, who was just crazy and evil. They laugh with the pride of survivors, the hardcore, and Manny’s glad.

Finally Jacquie flicks her filter out the door and walks the length of the kitchen to the break room. Manny watches her go, her tight dark hair shining under the lights. It’s still a mystery, how she moves under her uniform—maybe even more of one now, or maybe it’s just his own confusion, having been so close. The break room door swings closed and she’s gone.

“I’ve got to show you something,” he tells Ty.

First he shows him his own jacket. Ty tilts his out and shakes his head as if he should have known—“Fuckin’ little bitch”—then shoves it in again and bounces out of the narrow hallway, heading straight for the back door, fast, as if he’s going after Fredo. Manny follows, drawn on by his sheer speed.

Outside it’s nighttime, the pale light above the dumpster glaring down, throwing shadows across the snow. The plow guy has done a half-assed job back here, clearing only the front row and a single exit lane around the corner. Manny’s Regal and Ty’s Supra are nearly drifted in. Several fading sets of footprints cross the untouched expanse: all of them to the dumpster but one, and these Ty follows, keeping to the side as if saving them for evidence. They dead-end between the two cars.

“You better be fucking kidding me,” Ty says, angling for the gap.

Manny’s thinking Fredo’s keyed them. From behind, with the shadows, it’s impossible to tell. The snow is still perfectly caked, describing the Regal’s boxy trunk and the Supra’s sloped fastback. The roofs are intact, and the hoods. Ty suddenly stops in front of him, fixed on something, and Manny has to peek over his shoulder.

In each crusted windshield gapes a dark hole the size of a fist. From Manny’s sticks a handle with a turned wooden grip he half recognizes.

“What the fuck is this?” Ty says, and pulls out the macelike, silver head of the potato masher.

“He was on potatoes.”

Ty holds the masher straight up like a hammer. “He is fucking dead.”

The hole is ragged, the glass bashed and wrinkled all round it, as if Fredo had to beat on it till he broke through. Manny doesn’t understand why anyone would hate him, yet he has the feeling that, partially at least, he’s to blame for this. The dash is drifted with snow and sharp blue cubes. Ty’s is the same, but on the passenger side, easier to drive. Manny doesn’t say he’s lucky.

“We should call the cops.”

“Why?” Ty says. “They’re not going to do anything.”

“For insurance.”

“It doesn’t matter—it’s glass. We should just go kick Fredo’s ass. You’ve got a number for him, right?”

“We should cover these with something.”

“You got a number for him?”

“I’m not sure if it’s still good.”

“Gimme it and we’ll find out. Fuckin’ Frito, man. I don’t know why you ever hired him.”

After what’s happened, Manny can’t defend him. “I don’t either.”

Once the initial shock wears off, they unlock their doors and clean up the glass and snow. Manny has experience at this. When his grandmother was alive, her car was stolen three times, right out of their driveway—just kids, joyriding—and he became an expert at making windows out of garbage bags and cardboard. A windshield’s different, but he’s got to get home sometime tonight. He knows there’s a roll of duct tape and a box cutter in a plastic breadbasket in the storage closet, and like that he’s off for the back door, grateful to be absorbed in solving the problem.

Dom catches him in the kitchen and tags after him into the stockroom. It’s past four thirty. “So what’s the story with dinner?”

“We’re serving it.”

Dom stops and lets him walk on.

Manny can feel him lurking and turns. Dom stands there, framed by the shelves, staring at Manny like he’s insane. “You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to. I think it’s going to be pretty slow tonight.”

“I think you’re right.”

“It’s your call. Whenever you want to leave, just let me know.”

“I think I want to leave now, if that’s okay.”

“That’s fine,” Manny says, and advances on him. “Thanks for coming in. I know you didn’t have to.”

“No problem,” Dom says. “If it wasn’t for the weather . . .”

“I understand,” Manny says, and grips his hand. “Have Roz and Jacquie tip you out.”

“They already did.”

“All right,” Manny says, “take it easy,” and while this good-bye feels cleaner than Kendra’s, as he opens the closet and searches the mothball-smelling shelves for the breadbasket, he wonders why Dom bothered to ask. If Manny said he had to stay, would he have just said fuck you and quit? And why does that matter to him?

The duct tape is right where it should be but the box cutter’s missing, and he has to detour around the break room and sneak behind Rich and Leron watching the game to steal Kendra’s scissors from the host stand. One garbage bag is all he needs. He has it in hand, crossing the open floor of the kitchen, when Roz emerges from the walk-in. He sees her too late, swerving away from the threat out of reflex.

“Whatcha doin’?” she asks, poking a fork at all the gear. She has a second wedge of pie—her idea of lunch.

He keeps walking, hoping to get away. “Window broke.”

“Where?” she asks, puzzled, because there are none in the kitchen.

“My car.”

“What, did a tree fall on it?”

By now he’s at the end of the line, turning for the back door. He waves. “It’s all right, I got it.”

He’s halfway across the lot when he hears her call from the loading dock: “What happened?”

“See what fuckin’ Frito did?” Ty hollers, arms wide.

After that, everyone has to see. They gather around like a crowd at an accident, Roz and Jacquie in their coats while Rich and Leron tough it out in shirtsleeves, swearing and smirking—half in sympathy, Manny thinks, and half in admiration of Fredo’s balls. Manny doesn’t have enough hands, and there’s nowhere dry to set anything, so Roz and Jacquie take charge of the duct tape. Rich levels a flashlight at the glass while Leron hands Ty a square cut from a Dewar’s carton. As Manny fits the bandage over the hole in the Supra’s windshield, he realizes there’s no one watching the Lobster, and panics for an instant, imagining a thief digging in the cash drawer, or, more likely, an older couple waiting by the host stand. And then, looking around at everyone pitching in, he thinks that’s okay. This is better, all of them here together.

It gives him some momentum to work with when they file back in, stamping their feet and hanging their coats in the back hall, taking a minute to gape at the matching leather jackets. They gather in a loose circle by the coffee station. Break’s been over for twenty minutes, so they have to know what’s coming.

“Okay,” he says, gauging their faces. With the radio and the dishwasher off, he feels like he’s onstage. “We’re going to set up for dinner like usual, we’re just going to go light. Roz and Jacquie, let’s sit orange and pink. We can add on yellow if we have to.” They nod as if this makes sense. “Ty, Rich, Leron, pretend we’re prepping for a regular weekday lunch. We should already be solid on sides, right?”

“Yes, chef,” Ty says.

“Come on, man,” Manny says, almost whining, because he needs him to be serious.

“We’re good.”

“Okay,” Manny says, with a little more volume, and claps once, sending them off—all but Ty, who stands there like Manny’s forgotten something.

“Still waiting on those digits.”

“You can try it,” Manny shrugs, and pulls it up on his cell. Ty reads the screen and punches the number in, then retreats to the loading dock, the only place they get reception. Manny sees he has one voice mail, from Deena, an hour ago. He ducks into the stockroom to listen to it, partly so he won’t hear Ty.

“Hey,” Deena says, and pauses. “Just wanted to see what’s up. I guess you’re working. It’s snowing really bad here. They’re telling people not to drive.” He’s leaning against a shelf, head bent, when he registers a change of light to his left, a dark shape in the doorway—Jacquie sneaking in for some sugar packets. He waves with his free hand, but she’s already turned away. “—bad accident on 95, but it should be okay by tomorrow. Gimme a call and let me know what time you’re going to be here. I want to get a tree. And be careful going home. Okay, later.”

When he comes out, Ty’s banging a saucepan down on the stovetop.

“Any luck?”

“Fuck no. You got an address for him?”

“No,” Manny says.

“Call the cops then, I don’t care.”

So Manny does, sticking his head out the back door, giving their information. The dispatcher sounds unimpressed, as if he’s wasting her time.

“With the weather situation there’s nothing we can do about it right now. Will somebody be there tomorrow?”

“I’ll be here,” Manny says, then pockets the phone.

A kitchen is about pacing, everyone meshing at the same speed. The hardest thing is starting from zero. As always, Manny tries to lead by example. He gets the radio going and stands shoulder to shoulder with Leron, skeweringgarlic shrimp, when really he should be snowblowing the front walk. Any other day, he’d savor this lull, the kitchen a warm cocoon against the bad weather, and he thinks it’s a shame to let everything else ruin it.

The marinade is slippery, and a shrimp squirts out of Manny’s gloved hand and lands on the clean brushed steel, leaving a spicy smear. He pitches it in the garbage and wipes the table with a rag. Leron just keeps working, nimbly picking and poking, piling his finished spears in their shared chafing dish. Manny gets back into rhythm again, trying to match him, and does for a while, pressing, eventually falling behind. Leron shows no sign of noticing, though he must. Manny glances over at the mouse under his eye, the top of his cheek pinched and swollen, and for the tenth time today wonders what he’s doing here. He’s tempted to give him Warren’s spot at the Olive Garden, except there’s no way he’d make it there, coming in late or stoned or both (and Manny’s not being a hypocrite: There’s a right time and a wrong time to be stoned). In fact, he looks stoned now, eyes red-rimmed, a capillary meandering out of one corner like an oxbowed creek. Probably got high while Manny was at the mall, probably not alone either. Still, he feels the urge to reward him—Rich too—but how?

Standing there thinking, he’s fallen even further behind, and it’s past five, officially dinner. He watches Leron, shaking his head at his speed.

“Too fast for me,” he says, pinching off his gloves. “I’m going to go fight that snowblower.”

“All right,” Leron says.

“Need help?” Ty needles from the grill, because he knows the battles they’ve had.

“ ’F I do I’ll let you know.”

“I’ll send out a search party.”

“Better send CSI, ’cause I’ll kill the thing if it doesn’t run.” It’s only partly a show. He’s exaggerating his job to make theirs seem easier, but he really does hate the damn thing, the way he hates his own helplessness. It’s like everything today.