James Hynes - Kings of Infinite Space

On the other hand, he couldn’t exactly take Callie to some south Lamar all-you-can-eat buffet. So with these parameters in mind, he had decided at last on the café at Burnham Market, Lamar’s gourmet grocery store, which was owned by the B. B. Burnham Corporation, the parent company of Billy Bob’s, the largest grocery chain in Texas. The Market was a showpiece of industrial chic, with bare concrete floors and exposed girders and burnished steel coolers. The place was as notable for what it didn’t stock as for what it did: stacks of pricey cola manufactured by anarcho-syndicalists in Colorado, but not a single can of Coke. Tortilla chips hand dipped at a peasant cooperative in Ixtlán del Rio, but not one bag of Doritos. Eighty varieties of imported mustard in tiny, high-priced bottles, but not a single goddamn jar of French’s. The place was even a tourist destination of sorts: When Paul had still lived with her, Kymberly proudly took all their out-of-town visitors to the Market to show them the racks of imported bottled water, the vast bins of bulk pasta, the cheeses scrupulously divided by region. Now Paul couldn’t even afford to shop at a regular Billy Bob’s, and he bought his store-brand cans of chili and no-brand macaroni and cheese at an aging supermarket simply called Food.

But tonight was a special occasion, and Paul thought Callie would be impressed. The Burnham Market Café was attached to a grocery store, yes, but a really nice grocery store. And even though you ordered your food yourself at the counter at the café (which kept the prices down, thank God), the dining room was appropriately dim on a Saturday night, with a pleasant, festive echo to the diners’ conversation. As they came in, Callie peered warily up at the tables on the mezzanine level, as if worried about sniper fire.

“You’ll like it,” Paul said. “The food’s very good here.”

“Well, if it ain’t, we can always run next door and pick up a frozen pizza.”

“You want to go someplace else?”

“No, I’m sorry. This is great.”

Paul ordered the grilled chicken breast, and Callie ordered pot roast. Paul took the little beeping coaster from the cashier and led Callie upstairs to one of the tables overlooking the main dining room. He fetched both their drinks and returned to find Callie leaning on the table, clutching both her elbows. She frowned over the railing, down at the happy yuppie diners below, the cream of groovy Lamar. The light was dimmer up here, and the brighter light from below sharpened Callie’s cheekbones. Her freckles vanished, and her skin took on an almost porcelain sheen. Paul slid her iced tea across the table. “Are you sure you don’t want to go someplace else?” he asked.

“I’m sorry.” Callie pressed her fingertips against her glass of tea. “It’s just that my ex used to love this place.”

“Your ex what?” said Paul. “Boyfriend? Husband?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Dun’t matter . “Ex sorta covers it.” She picked up the tea and swirled it. “He’d say, ‘A place like this? This is why we moved to Lamar, baby.’ And I’d say, ‘It’s a grocery store , hon. We got grocery stores back in Tulsa.’ And he’d say, ‘Not like this one.’ ” She lifted the glass and took a tiny sip. “ ’Course, he was right. And I do love the pot roast.”

“Tulsa, huh?” Paul took a sip of his own tea. He wished he could reach across the table and ease her shoulders back, make her relax a little. She had buttoned her shirt almost to the top.

“Well.” She shrugged “That’s where I met him. Mr. X. I grew up way out in the panhandle.” She watched Paul narrowly across the table. “In Beaver, Oklahoma.”

Paul merely blinked, and Callie said, “Don’t say it. I heard ’em all already. I’ve heard every joke there is.” He started to laugh, and she pursed her lips. “You don’t know what it’s like going to Beaver High School in Beaver, Oklahoma, situated on the Beaver River at the heart of Beaver County.”

“And the football team was—”

“The Fighting Beavers.” Callie covered her eyes.

“I’m not saying a word.” Paul laughed. “I wouldn’t dare.”

“I ain’t even told you about the giant beaver at the center of town.”

Paul squeezed his lips together to keep from laughing.

“Big statue of a beaver,” Callie said, “holding a cow chip.”

“A cow chip?”

“Don’t ask.” Callie shook her head. “Let’s just say I got the hell out of there quick as I could.”

“Okay,” said Paul. “So you went to Tulsa to go to school?”

Callie laughed, a kind of a bark, and leaned back in her chair, still clutching her elbows. “Hell, I didn’t even graduate from Beaver High.” She glanced down at the diners below. “I followed some college boy to Tulsa. ’Course, he was going to Oral Roberts University, so I didn’t exactly, you know, fit in.” She leveled her gaze at Paul. “So you’re going out with a high-school dropout, ex-truck-stop waitress from Tulsa.”

Paul lifted his glass to her. “A fighting Beaver.”

Callie’s eyes blazed. “And don’t you forget it.”

The electric coaster began to buzz and blink, and Paul excused himself to pick up their order. When he returned with the tray, Callie had already fetched silverware and napkins and set the table. “Waitressing,” she said. “It’s in the blood.”

Paul set her plate of pot roast and mashed potatoes before her, and Callie smiled for the first time that evening. “Girl’s gotta eat,” she said.

“So,” Paul said, “this Oral Roberts student. You followed him to Lamar?”

“Hell no. That didn’t last a month once we got to Tulsa. He got himself a fiancée, some beauty queen from Ponca City.” She dabbed at her lips with her napkin. “Are we playing twenty questions?”

“I’d have to consult the first date regulations,” Paul said, “but that’s what you do, isn’t it?”

“Okay.” Callie made Paul wait while she finished another mouthful. “I met me a, quote, singer/songwriter, unquote, in Tulsa, and I followed him to Lamar.”

“That’s Mr. X?” He took a bite of chicken.

Callie nodded. “Now how’d you get here, hotshot?”

“I followed a TV journalist from Iowa,” he said, nearly choking on the word “journalist.”

“Is she on TV? I mean, here?”

“Yes,” grumbled Paul.

“Really? Which one? Would I recognize her?”

Now it was Paul’s turn to divert his gaze over the railing. “Kymberly Mathis. K-Now 48.”

“Oh, my God, I know her!” Callie’s eyes widened. “She’s the one who can’t pronounce ‘meteorologist.’ ”

Paul laughed. “Welcome to my nightmare.”

“And in’t she married to one? That little fella, what’s his name—”

“The Weather Gnome.”

“The what? ”

Paul drew a breath. “The meteorologist who cuckolded me.”

“I’m sorry?” Callie leaned across the table. “What did he do?”

“He made me a cuckold,” said Paul, “a man whose partner cheats on him.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I just didn’t know the word.”

“It’s okay,” Paul said. “I know it all too well.”

“Can a woman be. . cuckolded?”

“Technically, no.”

“ ’Cause if they can, then that’s what Mr. X done to me. More than once, the son of a bitch.”

Paul gave Callie a long look and said, “He’s an idiot.”

Callie blushed and pushed her potatoes around her plate. “Aw, you’re sweet.” Then she looked sharply at Paul. “He’s a real good singer, though. You should hear him sometime.”

Paul smiled. “If you say so.”

Callie poked at her pot roast. She glanced at Paul and started to laugh, and she covered her mouth. “Meteo-roll-ologist.” She feigned an anchorwoman hair toss. “Meteor-ol-ographer.” Paul laughed.