Victoria felt a little annoyed that their lunch conversation had got off to such a bad start. She felt like she had a special delicacy to offer Rose, but all the negativity was souring it.
“Well, I guess I got lucky today.” She tried to start again. “I got a ride right away with—”
A bustle of wrinkled cotton invaded their space.
“More coffee,” announced Pearl, already spilling it into their cups, not waiting for an answer.
“What can I git’cha to eat?” Her guarded brown eyes slid toward Rose.
“I’ll have the tossed salad with a turkey sandwich.”
“It ain’t tossed, it’s jus’ salad . . . dressing?”
“Italian, please.”
“Ain’t got none.”
“French?”
Pearl shook her head defiantly.
“Ranch?”
“Nope.”
“Well . . . what do you have?” Rose countered, raising her eyebrows and rolling her eyes surreptitiously at Victoria.
“Thousan’ islands.”
“That’s all?”
“Yep. You want it or not?” Pearl was known to have the patience of a gnat.
“Okay, sure. That would be lovely,” Rose smiled.
“You?” Pearl dropped her head in Victoria’s direction. Victoria had no idea what she wanted, hadn’t even seen the menu, but Pearl’s tapping pencil gave the feeling expediency was crucial.
“Same. I’ll just have the same, if that’s okay,” she blurted, although she disliked turkey sandwiches.
“Okay with me. I don’t give a damn what’cha eat,” Pearl grumbled as she walked back to the kitchen.
Victoria blotted up the coffee that had spilled over the edge of her cup and filled her saucer. Messiness annoyed her. She rearranged the cutlery into a precise row: bottoms even, a finger’s-width space separating the knife and spoon. She felt heavy hands pressing her shoulders down toward the seat, and she let her head fall with a silent sigh, too weary to sit tall. Rose had no idea of the effort it took for her to try and retain some dignity in this town with Bobby’s actions constantly driving her down. Sometimes she wished she could just open up and let the truth of it all fall free. Release all the lies and half-truths and closeted secrets that had slowly woven themselves into the fabric of her life. But there were some things not talked about even in a small town. And Hinckly was a small town in every conceivable way.
“I got a ride with someone interesting today.”
“Oh. Who’s that? Someone get lost?” They both laughed, but she could see she had Rose’s attention.
“Elliot Spencer.” To her alarm his name came out singsong, an infatuated schoolgirl grin skipping across her face. She blushed, dropping her eyes to avoid Rose’s curious and somewhat startled stare.
“Oh my. Tell me more.”
“Nothing to tell, Rose. He gave me a ride, that’s all.”
“Must have been quite the ride.” Rose fluttered her lashes teasingly.
“Rose. It was nothing like that. It was just a ride.”
“Hmm. Bet once Bobby dear knows who’s giving you rides to town he’ll find time to fix your car, hey?”
“Rose—”
“Maybe you should just let him know if he doesn’t take care of you maybe someone else will.”
“Bobby doesn’t do well with stuff like that, Rose. You know that. Just leave it alone, okay? Elliot was just nice to talk to, that’s all.”
“Oh, I know. I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t harp on it all the time, but it worries me, you being stranded like that. So, what’ll happen when he does find out who gave you a ride into town?”
Victoria’s eyes flashed Rose’s mouth shut. Their eyes locked.
“He’ll be mad.”
“How mad?”
“Rose, look. Bobby’s got his things, I know that. But he works hard, he comes home most nights . . . I’m not unhappy.” The words came out thin, tinny as she searched for more to bolster them up.
“You’re not unhappy?” Rose looked at Victoria. Victoria looked out the window. A spider, black and agile, labored in the corner creating a meticulous invisible web.
“But can you say that you’re happy? Honestly? Can you, Vic?”
“Rose, what the hell’s the difference? It’s the same bloody thing!”
“No it’s not, Vic. It’s not at all the same.”
“Okay, then. All right! I’m happy, okay? I’m fine. See?” Victoria gave Rose a comical, fake smile and Rose smiled back quietly.
Dishes clattered onto the table between them, and Victoria was glad for the distraction even though the racket jolted her nerves like an unpleasant encounter with the electric fence.
“What this gunk is supposed to be is anyone’s guess,” Rose said, and Victoria looked up to see her push her salad aside—it was drowned under a mutated concoction of unrecognizable brown dressing. Victoria followed suit, took a bite of her sandwich and chewed it dryly. Lunch at Pearl’s could sometimes be a bit of an ordeal, but Hinckly only offered two other options and in comparison Pearl’s was the boast of the town.
“Okay, so you’re happy.”
“Well, of course there’s room for improvement,” Victoria conceded. “But really things aren’t so bad. Just different maybe than what I’d thought.”
Pearl appeared beside them, splashed more coffee at their cups.
“What’s the mad’der wit’ yer salad? It’s what ya ordered,” she accused.
Victoria looked at Rose. Pearl was cantankerous at the best of times and having someone reject her food was definitely not the best of times. Ice set across her sour face, shiny pebble eyes fixed straight ahead, her receding chin quivered slightly in its effort to contain a mouthful of words. She drew her stooped 5’ 2” up full and put a hand on each hip, scrawny elbows sticking outward like weapons. Given a helmet and gun, she would have looked ready to march into war. Victoria ducked her head and shuffled her napkins. One thing about Pearl’s place you could count on: no matter how slow the service, how mixed up the order, or how lousy the food, the customer was always wrong.
But not Rose. For a time, Pearl and Rose had almost become close, but eventually and perhaps inevitably, a misunderstanding had come between them. Now, they lived in a troubled truce, Pearl being her disagreeable self while Rose slowly wound her way through the maze of insecurities and pride.
“It’s a lovely salad, Pearl. But we’d ordered Thousand Islands dressing and I’m not sure that’s what we got.” Rose crooned the words, watching Pearl’s belligerent face.
“Is so.”
“Well, you must have a different brand than I do then because this definitely doesn’t look like any Thousand Islands I’ve ever seen. Is it a new brand, Pearl?”
“Naw, not really. I just added some other stuff to it ‘cause there wasn’t much left.”
“Kind of created your own dressing then, hey?”
“Yeah. Sometimes ya git little bits left over in the bottles. I just mixed the ones you ordered though . . . mostly. There ain’t no sense throwing it out. Ya gotta be careful in the res’rant business. You wouldn’t know ‘bout that, but ya do. Least ways if’fin’ ya want to be successful. Everyone does it. Ya don’t know it. . . but they does.” Pearl struggled to hang on to her anger, but she withered as she talked, Rose not interrupting just letting her talk herself empty.
“Well, that was very kind of you to make that dressing up for us Pearl, but we’d prefer just Thousand Islands all by itself.”
“But I only got one bottle left.”
“Well, good. It shouldn’t be a problem then should it?”
“But . . . it ain’t opened yet. I gotta keep my costs down, ya know. Ya don’t know nothin’ ‘bout runnin’ a res’rant. I gotta keep my costs down.” Pearl’s eyes were running a little wild as she felt herself being pushed beyond her will.
“Pearl,” Rose said, her voice rising as she began to lose patience. “We’d like our salads the way we ordered, please.”
“But, I’d have to make new ones!” Pearl’s eyes stretched wide, her mouth gaping in protest.
“That’s right. Listen, Pearl, you remember what we talked about, right? You remember what you told me?”
Pearl’s head gave an imperceptible nod, a flickering of fear shadowing her eyes.
“Well, okay then. We don’t want to get back into all that now, do we?”
Pearl shook her head, her gray face slumping as she scooped the salads up and shuffled off toward the kitchen. Halfway there something caught her eye, and Victoria noticed her mood seemed to brighten considerably. Following her gaze out the window Victoria could see a flashy Buick depositing a rather disoriented-looking couple out onto the sidewalk. Both were impeccably dressed. The man wore a crisp navy sports jacket, a glowing white shirt and gray slacks. His wife was a study in black. Calf-length black skirt and chin-height black turtleneck set off by a somber pair of black pumps. The only ingredient saving her from complete dowdiness was an expensive-looking pearl necklace, which entwined itself around her elongated, erect neck. These she played with anxiously while perusing the outside of the hotel, rubbing the pearls like an impromptu rosary. Pearl stood stock-still as she watched them edge closer to the café, her eyes slit in careful concentration.
“Can I help ya?” she called out cheerfully as soon as they had scraped open the door and took a couple of tentative steps inside.
“Uh,” the woman uttered then stopped, apparently tongue-tied by such a ludicrous suggestion. Her quick, pinched eyes made an indiscreet, unfavorable judgment against the room and its occupants.
“I’m not sure,” droned her husband. He spoke as if something sticky had lodged itself in the roof of his mouth.
“You folks from around here?” Pearl asked as she slithered around behind them to discourage any thoughts of leaving.
“Ow! No,” the woman retorted brusquely. “We’re not from anywhere around here. We’re from Montreal. And before that, London, England.”
“Hmm. Well, that explains the funny way yous speak,” Pearl replied. “Spose you come up for the funeral today, then?” she said with a slight indication toward the woman’s black attire.
Victoria smiled over at Rose as a few of the regulars cast smirks and glances around the café, everyone knowing there was no funeral in Hinckly that day.
“Uh, no,” the man said, hesitatingly taking a step backward as Pearl inched toward him. “We’re not here for the funeral. We’re not here at all, actually. We were just passing through on our way up to Alaska and thought we might stop for something to eat.”
“Well, you’s lickety-split right in time,” Pearl said, smiling grittily. She shuffled a few steps closer to him and again he stepped backward, Pearl slowly but surely edging him toward a booth with all the skill of a well-seasoned herd dog. “Ain’t it jus' a stroke of luck? I was jus' gittin' this here table all set up with this here house salad.” She waved her hands forcibly toward him, and he sat down abruptly to avoid being pummeled by a salad bowl.
Moving quickly, Pearl positioned herself in front of his booth, sealing off his escape. Seeing her husband ensnared, the woman had little choice but to follow suit. Which she did, all the while slicing daggers at him as she attempted to seat herself in the booth without actually coming into contact with it.
“Ow. No, thank you,” she said, recoiling slightly as Pearl plunked a wilted salad down in front of her. She peered disdainfully down her pinched nose as if the bowl contained boiled rat entrails.
“Not optiminal. It’s house salad. Everyone gits one.”
With a pronounced, indignant sniff, the woman glared. First at Pearl, and then, finding that unproductive, at her poor entrapped husband, who responded by fiddling with the top button of his shirt.
“Uh. Oh. Perhaps you mean, it’s on the house?” he interceded gently.
“Mean 'nuttin of the sort,” Pearl shot back. “So, yous from jolly ole England, is ya? Me own roots comes from over there. Descended from one of the Kings, I am.”
She paused and was promptly rewarded by an unbelieving eye-roll from the wife.
“What? Yous don’t believe I is a direct descendant of a King?”
“Well!” the woman huffed, shooting her husband a vicious look.
“Uh. A King from where, may I ask?” the husband responded carefully.
“He were an English King. Me maw’s paw’s great-great-grand-auntie were married to him.”
“Married to a King?” the woman spurted dubiously.
“Yep.”
“Which King?”
“Henry.”
“One of your ancestors was married to King Henry?”
“Naw. Not King Henry. Henry King. Henry George King, to be exact,” Pearl guffawed, exploding into a wild hyena laugh, snorting at intervals to catch her breath.
Appalled, the wife drew her shiny coiffed head out of range of the errant bits of spit escaping Pearl’s mouth. Suddenly becoming aware of a trickle of laughter around them, the husband realized too late that they had been the hapless victims of a well-worn local joke. Not sure if he should be outraged or relieved, he settled on the latter when he realized Pearl still blocked the exit to his seat. His wife, thin nerves frayed, fingered her pearl necklace frantically, as if praying for protection.
“Nice beads,” Pearl said as she started to walk away. “I’ll git ya some coffee while yous decide what yous want to eat.”