Alison Lurie - Last Resort

“That dumb waiter of yours, he forgot my order. So I complained, and he insulted me.”

“I’m very sorry that happened,” the manager said soothingly.

“That’s not true,” a woman’s voice insisted—Myra’s voice, Molly realized with dismay. Though she rather enjoyed watching public scenes, she had a horror of being involved in one. But Myra, who was perhaps somewhat tipsy herself, continued to defend Dennis. “The waiter was very polite, and that’s more than I can say for him—” With her smoking cigarette, she pointed directly at Al.

At another table, a couple of young preppies joined in on Myra’s side. “Yes, that’s right!” they cried. “He was out of line. He used a racial epithet—”

Al’s face flushed even darker, and he seemed to swell to twice normal size. “You shut your trap, you interfering old bitch!” he told Myra, making a clumsy, threatening gesture that knocked over a glass on his table. The woman next to him grabbed for it, but missed, and it smashed on the deck between the two tables, splashing Coca-Cola.

“Now look what you’ve done, you big dope!” the woman cried, pointing at Molly’s silk skirt, which had suddenly acquired an ugly brown stain.

A freezing change had come over the manager’s countenance. Complaining of a waiter is one thing; insulting a patron and causing a public disturbance very much another.

“I’m sorry, sir,” he said, but now in tones of threat rather than conciliation. “I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you and your party to leave.”

“Yeah, says who?” Al began to struggle to his feet, imperfectly restrained by the squeaks of his female companions and the growls of the other man. Maybe he’s going to hit the manager or Myra, Molly thought, becoming frightened. Or even shoot them, who knows; this is South Florida after all. Should she try to hide under the table?

But Al only stood there, large and swaying, evidently registering that now, beside the manager, he was confronted with two muscular waiters.

“Okay, okay, we’re going!” he shouted. “Glad to. Goddamn pansy place! Shitty food.” Followed by the two women, he staggered between the umbrella-crowned tables toward the exit, continuing to curse as he went. The other man, lagging behind, nervously thrust a handful of bills and what sounded like an apology at one of the waiters.

“I’m very sorry for the disturbance,” the manager told Myra and Molly. “Please try to forget it.”

“Aw, that’s all right,” Myra said, smiling. “Happens.” Her color was high, her eyes lit as if after a successful fight.

Molly’s heart was still pounding. I’m too old for this kind of thing, she thought. She took a long breath and slowly released the sea-green napkin that she had been clutching as if it would somehow save her.

“You okay?” Myra asked.

“Uh, yes,” she lied. “Well, I was a little worried. I thought that man was going to hit somebody.”

“Aw, no chance. The guy was bluffing from the start. All talk and no action.”

Yes, but that kind of talk is action, Molly thought.

“Hey, look at your dress.” Myra pointed. “You should get that dry-cleaned right away, and send the bill to the restaurant.”

“Well—”

“And if they give you any trouble, let me know.”

“Mm-hm,” Molly agreed, privately resolving not to do so. Myra had a good heart, she thought, and her defense of their waiter had been admirable. At the same time, she was someone whose public behavior could not be relied upon. Howard had always used to say that it was better not to get involved with noisy, combative people, if you could honorably avoid it, because there was a danger that they would be in your life forever. The same principle, he believed, applied to politics, and to noisy, combative countries; it was the thesis of one of his books.

Suppose that foul-mouthed, shouting, drunken man had had a gun, which was quite probable, and had shot Myra—or even Molly, by mistake. He would have become part of her life, however much more there was of it, and of her children’s lives.

You can come to my house for drinks, she thought, gazing at Myra as she sat there by the warm, glittering sea, wreathed in smoke and self-satisfaction. But I’m not going out to lunch with you again.

Among the overgrown brick ruins of an old fort by the sea, on the same warm afternoon, Jacko and his mother and his cousin Barbie were touring the Key West Orchid Society show. Jacko’s interest in the event was professional: many of his customers had orchids, and the care and augmentation of their collections was one of his jobs. Today he needed new specimens for a woman who loved cattleyas of the sort she’d worn to long-ago debutante balls, and half a dozen showy hanging plants to decorate a new upmarket restaurant.

Dorrie, Jacko’s mother, was in a daze of delight. Sheltered from the strong sun by a floppy leaf-green hat, she flitted from one exhibit to another with little cries of joy.

“Oh Perry, look! The most beautiful salmon-pink ascada! I’ve never seen one so large, it’s as if it was covered with pink butterflies. And that big brown-and-gold oncidium there under the arch, like a cloud of wasps. Or hornets. You know, once when I was a real little girl there was a swarm of hornets in the summer kitchen on the ranch. Just like that—so golden and shining. I thought they were a crowd of tiny angels. I remember the zigzag way they flew, and the sound—as if the whole room was full of country fiddlers, and everyone was dancing.”

“Yeah.” Jacko smiled down at his mother.

“And all these orchids, they’re doing this without any soil—just living and blooming. There must be something specially nourishing in the air here, don’t you think?”

“Sure, probably,” Jacko agreed, thinking that the Key West air had done something for his mother too. He hadn’t seen her so happy and animated in years—not since his father died. But maybe it wasn’t only Key West: maybe it was the suggestion he’d made last night that she should stay on another month or so, possibly longer.

A great idea: why hadn’t he thought of it years ago? That was easy: before he’d inherited Alvin’s property there was no place for Mumsie to stay. His cottage had only one room, and he couldn’t afford a hotel. Neither could his mother, who hadn’t been well off for years—and now, he’d gathered, was on the verge of becoming wholly dependent on her awful sister, Myra.

But that wouldn’t happen, because now he could take care of her. Tomorrow he would start working on the pool house, make it really comfortable. He would repaint the bathroom—lavender blue, Mumsie’s favorite color—and get a new refrigerator. She needed a better reading lamp too, and a rocking chair would be nice. Maybe they could go to some garage sales on Saturday with Janice Stone, who always had good luck there.

“Oh, Perry darling, come see these lovely vandas!” Dorrie cried; and Jacko followed her to a bank of pale purple orchids, each petal checked in darker purple.

Several feet in the rear, Barbie Mumpson trailed behind her relatives, dragging her feet and looking sullen and sweaty in the damp heat. Wet, sticky patches had formed under the arms of her yellow-and-white-checked shirtwaist dress, and her hot, swollen feet hurt in their white pumps. She’d slept badly the night before, worn out by the effort of packing and by the knowledge that in a few days she would be in Washington with Bob, unless she could get up the nerve to go down to the beach and drown herself first.

Barbie’s mother claimed that everything was going to be fine back in Washington. “You won’t have any more problems with Bob,” she’d promised. “I gave him a good talking-to. Put the fear of God into him.” The trouble was, Barbie didn’t want Bob to be nice to her because he was afraid of God, or of her mother. That wasn’t like love, she’d cried; it wasn’t even like marriage, not the way she had imagined it when Bob proposed to her.