John Domini - Highway Trade and Other Stories

Then she got to the point. Ernie was starting on his burger, he’d said he might as well make a day of it. But when he made some crack about the ballplayers’ uniforms she took the opportunity — with gestures, lip-action, the whole bit — to call attention to the tight red tops she and Fitzie had to wear. She added that some days she was in such a rush that she couldn’t be bothered with a bra. After that she just let him look. She enjoyed the way her breathing made the leotard shift, and she knew that in this light the smoker’s triangle round her mouth wasn’t so pronounced. Why wait? She was the fast one at the Drop By. Behind her the Japanese announcers were having a fit, strange words so short and yappy that they sounded like Nellie’s dog. And she became aware of the entire outsized room as well, bikini-beer ads up on one wall and the cigarette machine against the other, all of it falling into place around this one stretch of eye contact, altogether cool of course and yet sinking its weights through both of them, while she kept the rest of her face set in something a little mouthier than a smile. Fitzie minded her own business down by the grill. A few old lodge types had taken the tables with the best view of the TV. Looks like the game’s a lock, the old guys were saying. No way New York’s going to come back from this.

Except then the satellite hookup shorted out and the wiring caught fire. “I could just strangle that Richter,” she told Fitzie, ten or a dozen times over the next couple weeks. “Getting his brother in-law to do the wiring. He saves a few bucks, and I just may have lost my one chance to give Wade a half-decent Christmas.”

The screen went static, the sound turned to a shriek. Ernie wound up with ketchup in his eyes. The old-timers dropped from their chairs and backtracked gingerly, covering their ears, while Nellie opened the fridge and ducked behind the door. She heard the set pop, but it was a good several seconds more before she noticed the smell. By then the burning plastic overwhelmed even the fridge-stink. She came out of her crouch cupping her face. The old-timers were stumbling over each other at the door, shit noway , lemme out a here. The sunlight was painful off their wind-breakers and rain gear — though Nellie didn’t blink, she didn’t shade her eyes. The pain came out of nowhere so far as she could tell. A spasm, a pang. Something else stung her about all that flimsy look-alike gear, shiny and stitched with the names of factory teams, clubs and schools. Engine Co . #5, Elks, Sisters High . But what was she doing standing blinking at the ones who were already gone? “Help, Nellie for God’s sake help!” Fitzie was shouting. “The damn menu’s on fire!”

“He was nice about it,” she reminded Fitzie later. “At least he didn’t just duck and run with the herd.”

Much later: by now the fire was three weeks past. And Nellie didn’t like the way the other waitress nodded, tonight. It made her worry that she’d been talking too much. Granted, the man was a lost opportunity. He’d never returned. But guys like that had blown through her life before, more than once, more than a couple times. Plus this was after hours. When Nellie got this tired, she couldn’t be sure how she was coming across.

“Calling the fire department,” Fitzie said, “that was really very nice of him.” But she sipped her liquor flat-faced. “Though of course they already knew about it. I mean the guys from number five were sitting right behind him.”

Nellie tried to look like she was checking the place out. Not much to it: the busier ads had been switched off, the jukebox was dark.

“Didn’t that plastic stink, though?” Fitzie said. “Those little letters and numbers. I must’ve fitted them in that menu a thousand times, I never would have believed they’d stink so bad.”

“I could just strangle Richter. That guy was just what I needed.”

“Oh.” Nellie didn’t like the way Fitzie turned to look at her, either. “Forget him, would you? From where I sat he looked like a married man anyway. I know, I know.” Fitzie waved her cigarette. “He said he was divorced, I know. But you still can have that look, even if you’re divorced.”

Nellie waited till her whiskey was at her lips before she spoke. “Signing the papers don’t complete the deal.” She drained the rest of the shot.

“Right. Exactly. So what’re you getting all bent out of shape about, Nell? Social Security gave you that extension, didn’t they?”

“Two more weeks. Two weeks, and then they’re probably going to send someone out to the place to make sure I conform to all their piddly little regulations.”

“Can’t Wade help?”

“Fitzie. Wade isn’t even fourteen yet. This whole goddamn — this whole réévaluation bullshit only came up in the first place because he’s just started high school.” She got off her stool and went for the Johnny Walker. “No, what I need’s a goddamn professor. Somebody over at the university, he would have been perfect for them. He would have written them something on the fucking letterhead.”

Fitzie laughed. Nellie felt the payoff herself, familiar by now, a rush in her chest and a bite in her grin.

“Only thing better than a professor would be if I got myself a man in the state legislature.” She was twisting the pourer out of the scotch, working against the bind at the leotard’s armpits. “I mean, that’s what politics is all about , right? Just start messing round with some lightweight up in fucking Salem. Rig the whole damn game in my favor.”

The pourer came free and she drank from the bottle. Fitzie slapped a hand to her mouth, she loved it.

“Nellie Nails,” she said.

Nellie understood what the other waitress got out of the deal. Fitzie’s Jack was one of the few married men she’d known that long who’d never made a play for her. Nellie to them was the local exotica. She kept them feeling hip, a little bad themselves. Oh, Jack might try and tease Nellie. He might recite her two rules for handling men. One, if you’re sleeping with a guy never lie to him, and two, be sure to let him know from the start exactly what sort of a project he is. But when Jack had finished reciting his grin would be soft, impressed. Whoa Nellie , he’d say. It’s like you’ve got different muscles from the rest of us. She’d only shrug. Her main thing was simple after all: just, never let a guy feel like he’s settled in. If a guy’s a rehab case, tell him he’s a rehab case, and he’ll stay a case till he’s re-habbed enough to walk away on his own. If he’s a little boy who needs to do some growing up, tell him so even if he happens to be sitting with the gang from high school. That way — though this part of the system, she wasn’t so clear on — before the men moved on they always left her with something practical.

She wasn’t so clear on just why. But it had gone on since Wade had first been accurately diagnosed. The first going-away present had been drugs, speed fresh from the lab. Of course the boy had expected Nellie to use it herself, eating your own was the party line. But she’d already sworn off the hard stuff by then and she’d needed the money more. Since that time, she’d received parting gifts of everything from carpentry around the trailer to free service at the Bug Works. She’d even picked up the occasional sale appliance. It was as if the guys couldn’t wave goodbye till their fingers were bruised from splitting wood or stained with axle grease. Everything from rails on either side of the toilet to a cable hookup for the trailer. Why on earth—? Not that Nellie was complaining, no way Jose. But the strictness of the give-and-take had caused her aggravation. Lately especially, it had led to rough stuff. Not that anyone had actually laid a hand on her, nobody had done that since before Wade was born. But there’d been trouble nonetheless, strange and private trouble, the kind of thing she didn’t care to let a drinking companion hear about.