Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant (13 page)

“Oh, well … not long,” Jenny said. She felt shy about telling her news. “Maybe I ought to change clothes. I’m not as dressed up as the rest of you.”

“No, no, you’re fine,” Ezra told her. He was rubbing his hands together, the way he always did when he was pleased. “Oh, it’s working out so well!” he said. “A real family dinner! It’s just like fate.”

Cody took Jenny’s suitcase inside the house. Meanwhile, her mother fussed: smoothing Jenny’s hair, clucking at her bare legs. “No stockings! On a public conveyance.” Cody came back and opened the door of a shiny blue car at the curb. He
helped Pearl in, cupping her elbow. “What do you think of my car?” he said to Jenny.

“It’s very nice. Did you buy it new?”

“How else? A Pontiac. Smell that new-car smell,” he said. He walked around to the driver’s seat. Jenny and Ezra settled in the rear; Ezra’s knobby wrists dangled between his knees.

“Of course, it’s not yet paid for,” Cody said, pulling into traffic, “but it will be very soon.”

“Cody Tull!” his mother said. “You didn’t go in debt for this.”

“Why not? I’m getting rich, I tell you. Five years from now I can walk into an auto dealer, any dealer—Cadillac—and slap cold cash on the counter and say, ‘I’ll take three. Or on second thought, make that four.’ ”

“But not now,” said Pearl. “Not yet. You know how I feel about buying on time.”

“Time is what I deal with,” Cody said. He laughed, and shot through an amber light. “What could be more fitting? Ten years more, you’ll be riding in a limousine.”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“And Ezra can go to Princeton, if he likes. And I can buy Jenny a clinic all her own. I can pay for her to specialize in every field, one by one.”

Now was the moment for Jenny to mention Harley, but she watched the scenery and said nothing.

At Scarlatti’s, they were shown to a table in the corner, at the end of the long, brocade-draped dining room. It was early evening, not yet dark. The restaurant was almost empty. Jenny wondered where Mrs. Scarlatti was. She started to ask about her, but Ezra was too busy overseeing their meal. He had ordered ahead, evidently, and now wanted it known that four would be eating instead of three. “We have my sister with us too. It’s going to be a real family dinner.” The waiter, who seemed fond of Ezra, nodded and went to the kitchen.

Ezra sat back and smiled at the others. Pearl was polishing a fork with her napkin. Cody was still talking about money. “I
plan to buy a place in Baltimore County,” he said, “in the not-too-distant future. There’s no particular reason that I should be based in New York. I always did want land, that rolling Maryland farmland. I might raise horses.”

“Horses! Oh, Cody, really, that’s just not our style,” Pearl said. “What would you want with horses?”

“Mother,” Cody said, “anything’s our style. Don’t you see? There’s no limit. Mother, do you know who called for my services last week? The Tanner Corporation.”

Pearl set her fork down. Jenny tried to remember where she had heard that name before. It rang just the dimmest bell; it was like some lowly household object that you never look at, and only notice when you return after years of absence. “Tanner?” she asked Cody. “What’s that?”

“It’s where our father worked.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Where he still may, for all I know. But, Jenny, you should have seen it. Such a nickel-and-dime operation … I mean, not small, good Lord, with that mess of branch offices overlapping and conflicting, but so … tacky. Really so easily encompassed. And I was thinking: imagine, just like that, I have them in my power. The Tanner Corporation! The great, almighty Tanner Corporation. That afternoon, I went out and ordered my Pontiac.”

“There was never,” Pearl said, “the slightest thing tacky about the Tanner Corporation.”

Their appetizers arrived on chilled plates, along with a slender, pale green bottle of wine. The waiter poured a sip for Ezra, who tasted it as if it were important. “Good,” he said. (It was strange to see him in a position of command.) “Cody? Try this wine.”

“Never,” said Pearl, “was there anything nickel-and-dime, in the smallest, tiniest way, ever in this world, about the Tanner Corporation.”

“Oh, Mother, face it,” Cody told her. “It’s a trash heap. I’m going to strip it to the bones.”

You would think he was speaking of something alive—an
animal, some creature that would suffer. Pearl must have thought so, too. She said, “Cody, why must you act toward me in this manner?”

“I’m not acting in any manner.”

“Have I ever wronged you, knowingly? Ever done you harm?”

“Please,” Ezra said. “Mother? Cody? It’s a family dinner! Jenny? Let’s have a toast.”

Jenny hastily raised her glass. “A toast,” she said.

“Mother? A toast.”

Pearl’s eyes went reluctantly to Ezra’s face. “Oh,” she said, after a pause. “Thank you, dear, but wine in all this heat would settle on my stomach like a rock.”

“It’s a toast to
me
, Mother. To my future. A toast,” said Ezra, “to the new full partner of Scarlatti’s Restaurant.”

“Partner? Who would that be?”

“Me, Mother.”

Then the double doors to the kitchen opened and in came Mrs. Scarlatti, glamorous as ever, striding on rangy, loose-strung legs and tossing back her asymmetrical hairdo. She must have been waiting for her cue—eavesdropping, in fact. “So!” she said, setting a hand on Ezra’s shoulder. “What do you think of my boy here?”

“I don’t understand,” said Pearl.

“Well, you know he’s been my right hand for so long, ever since my son died, really
better
than my son, if the truth be told; poor Billy never cared all that much for the restaurant business …”

Ezra was rising, as if something momentous were about to happen. While Mrs. Scarlatti went on speaking in her rasping, used-up voice—telling his own mother what an angel Ezra was, a sweetie, so gifted, such a respect for food, for decent food served decently, such a “divine” (she said) instinct for seasonings—he pulled his leather billfold from his pocket. He peered into it, looked anxious for a moment, and then said, “Ah!” and held up a ragged dollar bill. “Mrs. Scarlatti,” he said, “with this dollar I hereby purchase a partnership in Scarlatti’s Restaurant.”

“It’s yours, dear heart,” said Mrs. Scarlatti, taking the money.

“What’s going on here?” Pearl asked.

“We signed the papers in my lawyer’s office yesterday afternoon,” Mrs. Scarlatti said. “Well, it makes good sense, doesn’t it? Who would I leave this damn place to when I kick off—my chihuahua? Ezra knows it inside out by now. Ezra, pour me a glass of wine.”

“But I thought you were going to college,” Pearl told Ezra.

“I was?”

“I thought you were planning to be a teacher! Maybe a professor. I don’t understand what’s happened. Oh, I know it’s none of my affair. I’ve never been the type to meddle. Only let me tell you this: it’s going to look very, very peculiar to people who don’t have all the facts. Accepting such a gift! And from a woman, to boot! It’s a favor; partnerships don’t cost a dollar; you’ll be beholden all your life. Ezra, we Tulls depend on ourselves, only on each other. We don’t look to the rest of the world for any help whatsoever. How could you lend yourself to this?”

“Mother, I like making meals for people,” Ezra said.

“He’s a marvel,” said Mrs. Scarlatti.

“But the obligation!”

Cody said, “Let him be, Mother.”

She swung on him so quickly, it was more like pouncing. “I know you’re enjoying this,” she said.

“It’s his life.”

“What do you care about his life? You only want to see us break up, dissolve in the outside world.”

“Please,” said Ezra.

But Pearl rose and marched toward the door. “You haven’t eaten!” Ezra cried. She didn’t stop. In her straight-backed posture, Jenny saw the first signs of her mother’s old age—her stringy tendons and breakable bones. “Oh, dear,” Ezra said, “I wanted this to be such a good meal.” He tore off after Pearl. Scattered diners raised their heads, thought a moment, and went back to eating.

That left Cody, Jenny, and Mrs. Scarlatti. Mrs. Scarlatti didn’t
seem particularly distressed. “Mothers,” she said mildly. She tucked the dollar bill inside her black linen bosom.

Cody said, “Well? Does that wrap it up? Because I should have been in Delaware an hour ago. Can I give you a lift, Jenny?”

“I guess I’ll walk,” Jenny said.

The last she saw of Mrs. Scarlatti, she was standing there all alone, surveying the untouched appetizers with an amused expression on her face.

After Cody had driven off, Jenny walked slowly toward home. She didn’t see Pearl or Ezra anywhere ahead of her. It was twilight—a sticky evening, smelling of hot tires. As she floated past shops in her sundress, she began to feel like someone’s romantic vision of a young girl. She tried out a daydream of Harley Baines, but it didn’t work. What did Jenny know about marriage? Why would she even want to get married? She was only a child; she would always be a child. Her wedding plans seemed makeshift and contrived—a charade. She felt foolish. She tried to remember Harley’s kiss but it had vanished altogether, and Harley himself was no more real to her than a little paper man in a mail-order catalogue.

In the candy store, two children argued while their mother pressed a hand to her forehead. Next came the pharmacy and then the fortune-teller’s—a smudged plate glass window with M
RS
. E
MMA PARKINS—READINGS AND ADVICE
arched in curly gold letters that were flaking around the edges. Handmade signs sat propped on the sill like afterthoughts:
STRICTEST CONFIDENCE
and
NO PAYMENT IF NOT FULLY SATISFIED
. In the light from a dusty globe lamp, Mrs. Parkins herself paced the room—a fat, drab old woman with a cardboard fan on a Popsicle stick.

Jenny reached the corner, paused, and then turned. She went back to the fortune-teller’s door. Should she knock, or just walk on in? She tried the handle. The door swung open and a little bell above it tinkled. Mrs. Parkins lowered her fan and said, “Do tell! A customer.”

Jenny hugged her purse to her chest.

“Keeping warm?” Mrs. Parkins asked her.

“Yes,” said Jenny. She thought she smelled cough syrup, the bitter, dark, cherry-flavored kind.

“Why don’t you have a seat,” Mrs. Parkins said.

There were two armchairs, puffy, facing each other across the little round table that held the lamp. Jenny sat in the chair nearest the door. Mrs. Parkins plucked her dress from the backs of her thighs and settled down with a groan, still gripping her fan. “Radio says the weather ought to break tomorrow,” she said, “but I don’t know if I can last that long. Seems like every year, the heat just hits me harder.”

Yet her hand, when she reached for Jenny’s, was cool and dry, with tough little pads at the fingertips. She fanned herself while she studied Jenny’s palm. It made her work look commonplace. “Long life, good career line …” she murmured, as if riffling through a file. Jenny relaxed.

“I suppose there’s something special you want to know about,” Mrs. Parkins said.

“Oh, well …”

“No sense beating around the bush.”

Jenny said, “Should I get … well … married?”

“Married,” said Mrs. Parkins.

“I mean, I could. I have this chance. I’ve been asked.”

Mrs. Parkins went on scrutinizing Jenny’s hand. Then she beckoned for the other one, which she barely glanced at. Then she sat back and fanned herself some more, gazing at the ceiling.

“Married,” she said finally. “Well, I tell you. You could, or you could not. If you don’t, you
will
get other offers. Surely. But here is my advice: you go ahead and do it.”

“What, get married?”

“If you don’t, see,” Mrs. Parkins said, “you’ll run into a lot of heartbreak. Lot of trouble in your romantic life. From various different people. What I mean to say,” she said, “if you don’t go on and get married, you’ll be destroyed by love.”

“Oh,” Jenny said.

“That’ll be two dollars, please.”

Searching through her purse, Jenny had an interesting thought.
By Ezra’s rate of exchange, she could have bought a couple of restaurants for the same amount of money.

She married Harley late in August, in the little Baptist church that the Tulls had attended off and on. Cody gave Jenny away and Ezra was the usher. The guests he ushered in were: Pearl, Mr. and Mrs. Baines, and an aunt on Harley’s mother’s side. Jenny wore a white eyelet dress and sandals. Harley wore a black suit, white button-down shirt, and snub-nosed, dull black shoes. Jenny looked down at those shoes all during the ceremony. They reminded her of licorice jellybeans.

Pearl did not shed a tear, because, she said, she was so glad things had worked out this way, even though certain people might have informed her sooner. It was a relief to see your daughter handed over safely, she said—a burden off. Mrs. Baines cried steadily, but that was the kind of woman she was. She told Jenny after the wedding that it certainly didn’t mean she had anything against the marriage.

Then Harley and Jenny took a train to Paulham University, where they’d rented a small apartment. They had no furniture yet and spent their wedding night on the floor. Jenny was worried about Harley’s inexperience. She was certain he’d always been above such things as sex; he wouldn’t know what to do, and neither would she, and they would end up failing at something the rest of the world managed without a thought. But actually, Harley knew very well what to do. She suspected he’d researched it. She had an image of Harley at a library desk, comparing the theories of experts, industriously making notes in the proper outline form.

“On old Olympus’s torrid top,” Jenny told the scenery rushing past her window, “a Finn and German picked some hops.”

This was supposed to remind her of the cranial nerves: olfactory,
optic, oculomotor … She frowned and checked her textbook. It was 1958—the start of the first weekend in May, but not a weekend she could spare. She was paying a visit to Baltimore when she should have been holed up in Paulham, studying. She had telephoned her mother long-distance. “Could you ask Ezra to meet my train?”