Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant (21 page)

Ruth removed a window lock easily from its crumbling wooden sash. She turned it over and peered at the underside.

“I want a wife very much,” said Cody.

She put back the lock. “I hate to be the one to tel you,” she said, “but smel that smel ? Kind of sweetish smel ? You got dry rot here.”

“Ruth,” he said, “do you dislike me for any reason?”

“Huh?”

“Your attitude. The way you put me off. You don’t think much of me, do you?” he said.

She gave him an edgy, skewed look, evasive, and moved over to the stairway. “Oh,” she said, “I like you a fair amount.”

“You do?”

“But I know your type,” she said.

“What type?”

“There were plenty like you in my school,” she said.

“Oh, sure! Some in every class, on every team—tal and real good-looking, stylish, athletic, witty.

Smooth-mannered boys that everything always came easy to, that always knew the proper way of doing things, and never dated any but the cheerleader girls, or the homecoming queen, or her maids of honor at the lowest.

Passing me in the hal s not even knowing who I was, nor guessing I existed. Or making fun of me sometimes, I’m almost certain—laughing at how poor I dressed and mocking my freckly face and my old red hair—his

“Laughing! When have I ever done such a thing?”

“I’m not naming you in particular,” she said, “but you sure do put me in mind of a type.”

“Ruth. I wouldn’t mock you. I think you’re perfect,” he said.

“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

“See there?” she asked, and she raised her chin, spun about, and marched down the stairs. She wouldn’t answer anything else he said to her, al during the long drive home.

It was a campaign, was what it was—a long and arduous battle campaign, extending through April and al of May.

There were moments when he despaired. He’d had too late a start, was out of the running; he’d wasted his time with those unoriginal, obvious brunettes whom he’d thought he was so clever to snare while Ezra, not even trying, had somehow divined the real jewel. Lucky Ezra! His whole life rested on luck, and Cody would probably never manage to figure out how he did it.

Often, after leaving Ruth, Cody would be muttering to himself as he strode away. He would slam a fist in his palm or kick his own car. But at the same time, he had an underlying sense of exhilaration.

Yes, he would have to say that he’d never felt more alive, never more eager for each new day. Now he understood why he’d lost interest in Carol or Karen, what’s-her-name, the social worker who hadn’t found Ezra appealing. She’d made it too easy.

What he liked was the competition, the hope of emerging triumphant from a neck-and-neck struggle with Ezra, his oldest enemy. He even liked biding his time, holding himself in check, hiding his feelings from Ruth til the most advantageous moment. (was patience Ezra’s secret?) For, of course, this wasn’t an open competition. One of the contestants didn’t even know he was a contestant. “Gosh, Cody,” Ezra said, “it’s been nice to have you around so much lately.” And to Ruth, “Go, go; you’l enjoy it,” when Cody invited her anywhere.

Once, baiting Ezra, Cody stole one of Ruth’s brown cigarettes and smoked it in the farmhouse. (the scent of burning tar fil ed his bedroom. If he’d had a telephone, he would have forgotten al his strategies and cal ed her that instant to confess he loved her.) He stubbed out the butt in a plastic ashtray beside his bed. Then later he invited Ezra to look at his new calves, took him upstairs to discuss a leak in the roof, and led him to the nightstand where the ashtray sat. But Ezra just said, “Oh, was Ruth here?” and launched into praise for an herb garden she was planting on top of the restaurant. Cody couldn’t believe that anyone would be so blind, so credulous. Also, he would have died for the privilege of having Ruth plant herbs for him. He thought of the yard out back, where he’d always envisioned his wife’s kitchen garden. Rosemary!

Basil! Lemon balm!

“Why didn’t she come to me?” he asked Ezra.

“She could always grow her herbs on my farm.”

“Oh, wel , the closer to home the fresher,” said Ezra. “But you’re kind to offer, Cody.”

Oiling his rifles that night, Cody seriously considered shooting Ezra through the heart.

When he complimented Ruth, she bristled. When he brought her the gifts he’d so craftily chosen (gold chains and crystal flasks of perfume, music boxes, silk flowers, al intended to contrast with the ugly, mottled marble rol ing pin that Ezra presented, clumsily wrapped, on her twentieth birthday), she general y lost them right away or left them wherever she happened to be. And when he invited her places, she only came along for the outing. He would take her arm and she’d say, “Jeepers, I’m not some old lady.” She would scramble over rocks and through forests in her combat boots, and Cody would fol ow, bemused and dazzled, literal y sick with love. He had lost eight pounds, could not eat— a myth, he’d always thought that was—and hardly slept at night. When he did sleep, he wil ed himself to dream of Ruth but never did; she was impishly, defiantly absent, and daytimes when they next met he thought he saw something taunting in the look she gave him.

He often found it difficult to keep their conversations going. It struck him sometimes—in the middle of the week, when he was far from Baltimore —that this whole idea was deranged. They would never be anything but strangers.

What single interest, even, did they have in common? But every weekend he was staggered, al over again, by her strutting walk, her bel igerent chin and endearing scowl. He was moved by her musty, little-boyish smel ; he imagined how her smal body could nestle into his. Oh, it was Ruth herself they had in common. He would reach out to touch the spurs of her knuckles. She would ruffle and draw back.

“What are you doing?” she would ask. He didn’t answer.

“I know what you’re up to,” his mother told him.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I see through you like a sheet of glass.”

“Wel ? What am I up to, then?” he asked. He real y did hope to hear; he had reached the stage where he’d angle and connive just to get someone to utter Ruth’s name.

“You don’t fool me for an instant,” said his mother. “Why are you so contrary? You’ve got no earthly use for that girl.

She’s not your type in the slightest; she belongs to your brother, Ezra, and she’s the only thing in this world he’s ever wanted. If you were to win her away, tel me what you’d do with her!

You’d drop her flat. You’d say, “Oh, my goodness, what am I doing with this little person?”’ his “You don’t understand,” said Cody.

“This may come as a shock,” his mother told him, “but I understand you perfectly. With the rest of the world I might not be so smart, but with my three children, why, not the least little thing escapes me. I know everything you’re after. I see everything in your heart, Cody Tul .”

“Just like God,” Cody said. “Just like God,” she agreed.

Ezra arranged a celebration dinner for the evening before Jenny’s wedding—a Friday. But Thursday night, Jenny phoned Cody at his apartment. It was a local cal ; she said she wasn’t ten blocks away, staying at a hotel with Sam Wiley.

“We got married yesterday morning,” she said, “and now we’re on our honeymoon. So there won’t be any dinner after al .”

“Wel , how did al this come about?” Cody asked.

“Mother and Sam had a little disagreement.”

“I see.”

“Mother said… and Sam told her… and I said, “Oh, Sam, why not let’s just…”

Only I do feel bad about Ezra. I know how much trouble he’s gone to.”

“By now, he ought to be used to this,” Cody said.

“He was going to serve a suckling pig.” Hadn’t Ezra noticed (cody wondered) that the family as a whole had never yet finished one of his dinners? That they’d fight and stamp off halfway through, or sometimes not even manage to get seated in the first place? Wel , of course he must have noticed, but was it clear to him as a pattern, a theme? No, perhaps he viewed each dinner as a unit in itself, unconnected to the others. Maybe he never linked them in his mind.

Assuming he was a total idiot.

It was true that once—to celebrate Cody’s new business

—they had made it al the way to dessert; so if they hadn’t ordered dessert you could say they’d completed the meal.

But the fact was, they did order dessert, which was left to sag on the plates when their mother accused Cody of deliberately setting up shop as far from home as possible.

There was a stiff-backed little quarrel.

Conversation fel apart. Cody walked out. So technical y, even that meal could not be considered finished.

Why did Ezra go on trying?

Why did the rest of them go on showing up, was more to the point.

In fact, they probably saw more of each other than happy families did. It was almost as if what they couldn’t get right, they had to keep returning to. (so if they ever did finish a dinner, would they rise and say goodbye forever after?) Once Jenny had hung up, Cody sat on the couch and leafed through the morning’s mail. Something made him feel unsettled. He wondered how Jenny could have married Sam Wiley—a scrawny little artist type, shifty eyed and cocky. He wondered if Ezra would cancel his dinner altogether or merely postpone it til after the honeymoon. He pictured Ruth in the restaurant kitchen, her wrinkled little fingers patting flour on drumsticks. He scanned an ad for life insurance and wondered why no one depended on him

—not even enough to require his insurance money if he should happen to die.

He ripped open an envelope marked AMAZING OFFER!

and found three stationery samples and a glossy order blank. One sample was blue, with LMR embossed at the top. Another had a lacy PAULA, the P entwined with a morning-glory vine, and the third was one of those letters that form their own envelopes when folded. The flap was printed with butterflies and Mrs. Harold Alexander I I, 219

Saint Beulah Boulevard, Dal as, Texas. He studied that for a moment. Then he took a pen from his shirt pocket, and started writing in an unaccustomed, backhand slant: Dear Ruth, Just a line to say hey from al of us. How’s the job going? What do you think of Baltimore?

Harold says ask if you met a young man yet.

He had the funniest dream last night, dreamed he saw you with someone tal , black hair and gray eyes and gray suit. I said wel , I certainly hope it’s a dream that comes true!

We have al been fine tho Linda was out of school one day last week. A case of “math test-itis” it looked like to me, ha ha! She says to send you lots of hugs and kisses. Drop us a line real soon, hear?

Cody felt he had just found the proper tone toward the end; he was sorry to run out of space.

He signed the letter Luv, Sue (mrs. Harold Alexander I I), and sealed, stamped, and addressed it. Then he placed it in a business envelope, and wrote a note to his old col ege roommate in Dal as, asking if he would please drop the enclosed in the nearest mailbox.

That weekend he didn’t go home, and his reward was to dream about Ruth. She was waiting for a train that he was traveling on. He saw her on the platform, peering into the windows of each passenger car as it slid by. He was so eager to reach her, to watch her expression ease when she caught sight of him, that he cal ed her name aloud and woke himself up. He heard it echoing in the dark—not her name, after al , but some meaningless sleep sound. For hours after that he tried to burrow back inside the dream, but he had lost it.

The next morning he began another letter, on the sheet headed PAULA. In a curlicued script, he wrote: Dear Ruthie, You old thing, don’t you keep in touch with your friends any more? I told Mama the other day, Mama that Ruth Spivey has forgotten al about us I believe.

Things here are not going too good. I guess you might have heard that me and Norman are separated.

I know you liked him, but you had no idea how tiresome he could be, always so slow and quiet, he got on my nerves. Ruthie stay clear of those pale blond thoughtful kind of men, they’re a real disappointment. Go for someone dark and interesting who wil take you lots of places you’ve never been. I’m serious, I know what I’m talking about.

Mama sends you greetings and asks do you want her to sew you anything. She’s real crippled now with the arthritis in her knees and can only sit in her chair, has plenty of time for sewing.

See ya, Paula

That letter he mailed from Pennsylvania, when he visited a packing-crate plant the fol owing Tuesday. And on Wednesday, from New York, he sent the blue sheet with LMR at the top.

Dear Ruth,

Had lunch with Donna the other day and she told me you were going with a real nice fel ow. Was kind of hazy on the particulars but when she said his name was Tul and he came from Baltimore I knew it must be Cody. Everybody here knows Cody, we al just love him, he real y is a good man at heart and has been misjudged for years by people who don’t understand him. Wel , Ruthie, I guess you’re smarter than I gave you credit for, I always thought you’d settle for one of those dime-a-dozen blond types but now I see I was wrong.

Pl be waiting for the details.

Love,

Laurie May

“You went too far with that last letter,” Ruth told him.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He was sitting on a kitchen stool, watching her cube meat. He’d come directly to the restaurant this Saturday—

bypassing home, bypassing the farm—hoping to find her altered somehow, mystified, perhaps tossing him a speculative glance from time to time. Instead, she seemed cross. She slammed her cleaver on the chopping board.

“Do you realize,” she asked, “that I went ahead and answered that first note? Not wanting someone to worry, I sent it back and said it wasn’t mine, there must be some mistake; went out special y and bought a stamp to mail it with. And would’ve sent the second back, too, only it didn’t have a return address.

Then the third comes; wel , you went too far.”

“I tend to do that,” Cody said regretful y.

Ruth slung the cleaver with a thunking sound. Cody was afraid the others—only Todd Duckett and Josiah, this early