Dishing It Out

“Hello, sweetheart,” Mrs. Peters smiled and Marie had to bite her tongue from laughing. The diminutive white-haired woman consistently had orange lipstick all over her teeth. “You were lovely this morning on the television.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Peters,” Marie said, but waited for the other half of her compliment. The sharp half.

“But you look tired.” And there it is. “You need to get more rest.”

“I couldn’t agree with you more.”

“You need to find a nice man to help you do all this work.”

“Aww…” Marie wrinkled her nose and resisted screaming Men are ruining my life! at the eighty-year-old woman. “Men just get in my way.”

“Well, if I remember it right, sometimes that’s not such a bad thing.” Mrs. Peters winked, and Marie hoped she still wanted to have a man get in her way in that way, when she was eighty.

No, it isn’t a bad thing, Marie thought as she wrapped up the clam chowder and whole-grain rolls. She slipped a few small chocolate-chip cookies in the bag because Marie knew Mrs. Peters liked them and frankly, Marie liked Mrs. Peters.

Men had a purpose that Marie loved. She loved their bodies and their mouths and the things they could do with their hands. She loved monogamous sex in casual relationships, but these days she barely had time to brush her teeth much less find a guy she was attracted to, date a few times, sleep with, and explain why nothing serious would ever come of it.

I like you guys, she would say, but I just don’t trust you. Not with my life or my heart.

Case in point, Simon and Van. Two men thinking they had her best interests in mind.

She spent the next few hours replaying the scene in Simon’s office, but editing in wittier and sharper things to say to Van. The game was ultimately frustrating, but so very satisfying right now.

“Hey, Marie,” Marie shook off the scene in her head where she punched Van in the nose and turned to Pete. “You ah…mind if I take off now?” he asked. He glanced down at his watch. “I’ve been here since six.”

“Oh my God, Pete.” She looked at her own watch. It was quarter past six in the evening. Twelve hours. “Go, go. I can’t believe you stayed so long.”

“Yeah, well, we’re busy.” He shrugged, his green Rage Against the Machine T-shirt wrinkled on his thin shoulders. “See you on Thursday.”

“Good night, Pete. Thanks so much.” Pete grabbed his beat-up backpack from the cabinet under the cash register and shuffled out the door.

Marie followed him and flipped the sign on the door from Open to Closed. She fought the strong urge she had to fall down on the floor for a little nap. Just a short one, right there on the floor until Van’s blues bands woke her up.

“All right, Marie!” Jodi came into the dining room from the kitchen carrying the large rolls of plastic wrap and pushing the full mop bucket across the hardwood floors with her foot. “Let’s clean up and get out of here. I got a date.”

“Oh?” Marie pushed away from the door, feeling a happy lift in her low mood. Her sex life, once something of a legend, had been reduced to the stories Jodi told her while they mopped the floor.

Sad, Marie, that’s just sad.

“Somebody new?” Marie asked, reaching to help Jodi carry the plastic wrap.

“No.” Jodi pushed her funky black glasses up higher on her nose. “I’ve known him for a while, but this is our first date date.” Jodi shrugged, trying to play it cool but she looked far too happy. Actually she was glowing. Marie recognized the glow of the young and foolish.

Be careful, she wanted to say. Please be careful with your heart, Jodi. She was young, about the age Marie was when she met Ian in France. About the age Marie last felt that kind of glow.

“Oh,” Marie teased, “a date date.”

“You remember those?” Jodi asked over her shoulder, obviously taking shots at Marie’s nonexistent dating life.

“You’re hilarious. Get mopping.”

“I don’t understand, Marie.” Jodi started putting the wrought-iron chairs up on tiled café tables and as she lifted the chairs her shirt rode up her body revealing the pretty flowered vine tattoo she had curling around her back. And the dim lighting made her pink hair glow.

How can people say I’m not hip? Marie thought. Look at my staff.

“Every guy in here falls in love with you,” Jodi continued.

“Who?” Marie asked.

“Those two hot cops that come in for lunch on Thursdays. Why don’t you go on a date with one of them?”

“Because they’re gay.”

“No. Really?” Jodi asked, a little crestfallen.

“Words to live by Jodi—when it seems too good to be true, it usually is.”

“But what about…?”

“I’m too tired to date.” Marie closed the subject and yawned so big her jaw nearly cracked. It was mostly the truth. The rest of it had to do with Ian and she didn’t want to think about it.

Marie reached under the cash register and turned up the stereo both to stop Jodi from asking more questions and to stop herself from dwelling on the past.

Soon Jodi was singing along with the old Annie Lennox songs and Marie started covering her salads, deciding what would have to be made fresh in the morning and which had another day left in them. While she covered up her green-apple-and-poppy-seed coleslaw, Marie had one of those moments she had been having more and more frequently.

She looked around at her dimly lit place, decorated with all of her favorite light colors, at the shelves filled with bottles of her salad dressings and chutneys; the antique espresso maker that cost her a small fortune but lent a one-of-a-kind air to the small room, and the tiled tabletops with the mismatched wrought-iron chairs. All of it was hers. And part of her, a little tiny part with a loud voice, wished it weren’t.

We’ve talked about this, Marie, her adult voice piped up. You want to end up like your mother? The answer to that of course was a resounding no!

Her mother, Belinda, moved Marie and Marie’s older sister, Anna, every few months when they were kids, leaving behind bad jobs and worse men only to find new ones in different towns. It was a trend Marie had started following until she found herself heartbroken and penniless in France.

She had run from that broken heart right into the restaurant business.

She was a good boss and a good chef. But, to own so much, to be responsible for so much was new for her. For twenty-seven years she wasn’t responsible for anything. Not a pet, not a plant, not her love life, not her career. And when she took this on a year ago, she really had no idea what she was in for. She kept telling herself it would get better, she was sure it would. She would hire another baker. More staff. And the pressure would be off. But then the dishwasher broke and Ariel ran off with the cash.

And, of course there was Van.

The CD was on shuffle and Annie Lennox faded away, replaced by the quieter Ella Fitzgerald.

“So you really don’t think you’re going to do the show anymore?” Jodi asked, dumping the dustpan out in the trash.

Marie sighed. Do the show, don’t do the show. She was going crazy thinking about it. She wanted to, of course she did. A weekly show. It was a dream come true. But Van MacAllister was really much more of a nightmare.

“I don’t know,” she said honestly. She flicked the lights off in the salad case and part of the room went a little darker.

“That guy’s got a lot of nerve, huh?” Jodi asked. She wrenched the handle on the mop bucket, squeezing out water, and she started to mop the hardwood floors. “Talk about piggybacking someone’s success.”

“You’re telling me,” Marie murmured.