Rosemary Harris: Dead Head

Babe and I answered at the same time, “What’s wrong with Dirty Business?”

Caroline laughed like a teenager. “Dirty Business-that is a good name, better than Chiaramonte’s. Done!” She snaked through a knot of recent arrivals and tried unsuccessfully to ignore the comments of a handful of truckers waiting to be seated. She smiled but sidestepped them, backing up against the Snapple fridge, as if coming too close would somehow contaminate her or rough up the nap of her tan suede jacket. It was all very faux friendly.

In the group was one long-haired, bearded guy, not bad looking if you liked that slightly grungy Johnny-Damon-when-he-was-a-Red-Sox look. He wore Oakley sunglasses, a dark green windbreaker, and a baseball cap with an ornate letter D on the crown.

He took off the glasses to get a better look at Caroline or perhaps to give her a better look at him-I couldn’t tell which. Neither Babe nor I heard the exchange, but from Caroline’s reaction something he said shook her up. She rushed out the door, and Babe shrugged as if to say, “what the hell?” Caroline must have made some excuse to her friends because without even touching her coffee she left a few dollars on the table and hurried to her car. “Johnny Damon” walked to the door and put his hand on the handle as if he was going to go after her.

“What did I tell you boys about scaring the locals?” Babe said it loudly enough to stop him in his tracks. He turned around and smiled. “Do you know what the markup is on coffee and a fat-free muffin versus the lumberjack specials and endless cups of coffee you animals are gonna suck down?” Babe might not have looked like much of a businesswoman, but she knew where every penny went and where it had come from. Anna and I could take a page from her book.

“I didn’t mean nothing, honest,” he said, walking back to the counter. “I just said she looked familiar. You look familiar, too, pretty lady,” he said. “Can I buy you a coffee?”

“That’s highly original. Are you, by any chance recently divorced? Because I don’t think I’ve heard that one since leg warmers were in style. Next time, you could try asking what her sign is. I hear that one’s making a comeback, too.”

She was busting his chops but in a gentle, flirty way, smiling and leaning over the counter. Few people left Babe’s without wanting to be either her friend or her lover. This one was a toss-up.

One of his pals chimed in. “Give him a break, Babe. It’s his first time here. JW don’t know the rules.”

What were the rules, anyway? Were they posted somewhere? Did I know them? The man looked sheepish and said nothing, rejoining his friends. His buddies laughed; then they all piled into a booth closest to the front door before the table was even bussed. One of Babe’s singing waitresses went to clean it up and take their orders.

“Not bad,” Babe whispered, advance scouting for me as usual.

I ignored her. One of my rules is not to think of someone as a potential mate or date until I’ve at least said a complete sentence to him and gotten a semi-intelligent answer.

“I’ve thrown back better. How’s the new help working out?” I asked, changing the subject. The help was three girls who had stumbled in, in tears, after a singing gig that hadn’t gone well. Of course Babe had hired them on the spot and promised to help them with their act. Now they worshipped her and copied her every move.

“That’s a very slick segue. They’re not so new anymore. But they’re doing okay, thanks for asking. They’ve got more physical presence onstage,” she said, holding the ketchup bottle like a mike and pretending to sing into it. “They’ll be at Ringwald’s in a coupla weeks. Alba’s singing lead.”

They all looked the same to me. Alba must have been the one inside-more confidence than the one with the multiple piercings. She was holding her own, sparring with a table full of burly guys; no mean feat for a ninety-pound teenager in heavy makeup and black Frankenstein shoes that looked like cinder blocks, spray painted and strapped to her heronlike legs. Her life flashed before my eyes. I saw her strutting her stuff, sucking on a ball microphone and posturing like Madonna or Mick or Avril or Amy, getting deliriously famous and then crashing and burning before she was twenty-one, rehab by twenty-two-video at eleven. Perhaps I took too dim a view of the music business.

The girl outside, with the eyebrow bolt, was more introspective. Probably the songwriter, writing a lot of angry chick, why-did-you-dump-me songs. Jeez, I was turning into a cranky broad. Was I really jealous of a couple of young girls?

“You should go,” Babe said, as if she were clairvoyant.

“Lots of guys at Ringwald’s.”

“Twenty-year-olds.”

“Nothing wrong with young stuff for whatever ails you.”

That was as aggressive as Babe got in her matchmaking efforts. A few times a week she remembered that I hadn’t had a date in a while and gave it a shot, but she never pressed.

Sometimes it seemed as if she and Lucy Cavanaugh, my friend the bridesmaid, were having a private contest to see who could hook me up first. Despite Lucy’s vehement denials, I knew there’d be a fix-up sometime over the course of the upcoming five-day wedding. That was the real reason she’d asked me to drive her. And while I wasn’t actively dreading it, I wasn’t looking forward to it either.

“I’m going to a wedding. There will be ample opportunity for me to listen to some boring guy’s whole life story before telling him I’m not interested. Besides, as you say, plenty of cute guys right here. No need for me to pay a cover charge for some watered-down drinks at some shabby joint downtown. I can just stay in this shabby joint and watch the passing parade.”

“Shabby? I’m cutting you off. Pete, no more taste testing for Paula,” she yelled.

Moments later, Eyebrow Girl pushed through the door, butt first, muttering, with two trays of cups and small plates, one of them precariously balanced on her forearm. Something on her sleeve, or maybe her studded leather cuff, snagged on the door handle and one of the trays flew out of her hands like an oversized Frisbee. The other one fell with a clatter, splashing beverages up in the air like minigeysers.

“Holy shit!” she said, laughing and only half covering her mouth, in deference to the father sitting at the counter, who gave her a disapproving look and covered his toddler’s ears as if the kid could recognize a naughty word at that tender age.

No one was hurt and just a few were splattered by the mug puddles; someone applauded. I’ve never quite understood that. Is that supposed to make the person feel better? Yes, I am a klutz and a loser, thank you for acknowledging. I feel so much better.

The bearded trucker who’d spoken to Caroline was closest to the door, and he got up to help the girl who was crab walking in a circle collecting the items she’d dropped. He said something to her, and it was the first time I’d ever seen the kid crack a smile, although she went to some pains to hide it.

Babe came around from behind the counter and picked up the cups and plates that had traveled farthest. “All right, Mr. Nice Guy, you’ve redeemed yourself for your formerly boorish behavior. Go eat your food before it gets cold. I’ll get this.”

“Don’t worry, Terry, it’s no big deal,” she whispered, bending down to help the girl. “Doesn’t really count unless you send one of them to the emergency room.” She handed the girl a soggy five-dollar bill. “Take your tip and go wash your hands.” Babe brought the mess back to the counter near where I was sitting with my coffee and waiting for my order.

“Look at this. Pete makes these phenomenal, food orgasm muffins and the Moms barely touch them. They don’t need utensils, they need scalpels.”