Last Night In Twisted River

“Is there a problem, boss?” the sous chef asked.

“It was the honey in the pizza, wasn’t it?” Celeste was saying. “The honey gave it away, I guess.”

“Dot and May. It’s finished, sweetheart,” Tony Angel said to Celeste; she started to cry.

“Mom?” Loretta said.

“You don’t know me,” the cook told them all. “You won’t ever know where I go from here.” He took off his apron and let it fall on the floor. “You’re in charge, Greg,” he said to the sous chef.

“They don’t know your last name, not unless Danny tells them,” Celeste managed to say; Loretta was holding her while she sobbed.

The cook walked out into the dining room. Danny was standing between him and the two tough broads. “They don’t know the Angel name, Pop,” his son whispered to him.

“Well, that’s something to be thankful for,” his dad said.

“I wouldn’t call that a little limp-would you, May?” Dot asked her old friend.

“Hello, ladies,” the cook said to them, but he didn’t come any closer.

“The limp’s gotten worse, if you ask me,” May replied to Dot.

“Are you just traveling through?” the cook asked them.

“How come you changed your name, Cookie?” Dot asked him.

“Tony was easier to say than Dominic,” he answered them, “and it still sounds Italian.”

“You look awful, Cookie-you’re as white as flour!” May told him.

“I don’t get a lot of sunshine in the kitchen,” the cook said.

“You look like you been hidin’ under a rock,” Dot said to him.

“How come you and Danny are so spooked to see us?” May asked him.

“They were always superior to us,” Dot reminded her friend. “Even as a kid, you were a superior little snot,” she said to Danny.

“Where are you living nowadays?” the cook asked them. He was hoping they lived close by-somewhere in Vermont, or in New York State-but he could tell by their accents, and by just looking at them, that they were still living in Coos County.

“ Milan,” May answered. “We see your pal Ketchum, from time to time.”

“Not that Ketchum would say hello to us, or nothin’,” Dot said. “You was all so superior-the three of you and the Injun!”

“Well…” the cook began; his voice trailed away. “I have a lot to do, in the kitchen.”

“First you was gonna put honey in the dough, and the next minute you wasn’t. Then you changed your mind about it again, I guess,” May said to him.

“That’s right,” the cook said.

“I’m havin’ a look in the kitchen,” Dot suddenly said. “I don’t believe a fuckin’ word these two are tellin’ us. I’m gonna see for myself if Jane’s still with him!” Neither Danny nor his dad did anything to stop her. May just waited with them while Dot went into the kitchen.

“There’s the two waitresses, both of ’em cryin’, and a young cook, and what looks like a busboy, and some kid doin’ the dishes-no Injun,” Dot announced, when she came back.

“Boy, do you look like you’re puttin’ your pecker somewhere you shouldn’t, Cookie!” May told him. “You, too,” she said to Danny. “You got a wife and kids, or anythin’?”

“No wife, no children,” Danny told them-again, too quickly.

“Bullshit,” Dot said. “I don’t believe a fuckin’ word!”

“And I suppose you’re not bangin’ anybody, either?” May asked the cook. He didn’t answer her; he just kept looking at his son, Daniel. Their minds were racing far ahead of this moment in Avellino. How soon could they leave? Where would they go this time? How long before these bad old broads crossed paths with Carl, and what would they tell the cowboy when they ran into him? (Carl lived in Berlin; Ketchum lived in Errol. Milan was between them.)

“If you ask me, Cookie’s humpin’ our waitress-that older one,” Dot said to May. “She’s the one doin’ most of the cryin’.”

The cook just turned and walked back into the kitchen. “Tell them their dinners are on me, Daniel-free pizzas, free desserts,” he said as he was leaving.

“You don’t need to tell us-we heard him,” May said to Danny.

“You coulda just been nice to us-glad to see us, or somethin’!” Dot called after the cook, but he was gone. “You don’t hafta buy us supper, Cookie!” Dot hollered into the kitchen, but she didn’t go after him.

May was putting money on Danny’s table-too much money for their dinners, but Danny wouldn’t try to stop her. “And we didn’t even eat our pie and cobbler!” she said to the writer. May pointed to his notebook on the table. “What are you, the friggin’ bookkeeper or somethin’? You keepin’ the accounts, huh?”

“That’s right,” he told her.

“Fuck you and your dad,” Dot told him.

“Cookie was always holier-than-thou, and you were always a holier-than-thou kid!” May said to him.

“Sorry,” Danny said. He just wanted them to leave so that he could concentrate on all that he and his dad had to do, and how much or little time they had to do it-beginning with telling Ketchum.

Meanwhile, there was an unserved party of eight and another table with three astonished-looking couples. Everyone had been paying close attention to the confrontation, but it was over now. Dot and May were leaving. The women both gave Danny the finger as they went out the door. For a bewildering moment-it was almost as if the sawmill workers’ wives weren’t real, or they had never found their way to Avellino -the old ladies didn’t appear to know which way to turn on Main Street. Then they must have remembered that they’d parked downhill, past the Latchis Theatre.

When the bad old broads were gone, Danny spoke to the restaurant’s uneasy, unattended patrons. “Someone will be right with you,” he told them, not knowing if this was even remotely true; he knew it wouldn’t be true if both Loretta and Celeste were still in tears.

Back in the kitchen, it was worse than Danny had expected. Even the kid doing dishes and the busboy were crying. Celeste had slumped to the floor, where Loretta was kneeling beside her. “Stop shouting at me!” the cook yelled into the telephone. “I should never have called you-then I wouldn’t have to listen to you!” (His father must have called Ketchum, Danny realized.)

“Tell me what to say, Greg, and I’ll say it,” Danny said to the sous chef. “You’ve got a table of eight and a table of six out there. What do I tell them?”

Greg was weeping into the rosemary and red-wine reduction. “Your dad said Avellino is finished,” Greg told him. “He said this is his last night. He’s putting the place up for sale, but we can run the restaurant ourselves until it sells-if we can manage, somehow.”

“Greg, just how the fuck do we manage?” Celeste cried out.

“I didn’t say we could,” Greg blubbered.

“Get rid of the Red Sox, for starters,” Danny said, changing the radio station. “If you’re going to be hysterical, you ought to play some music back here-everyone in the restaurant can hear you.”

“Yes, I know you were always of the opinion that Vermont was too fucking close to New Hampshire, Ketchum!” the cook was shouting into the phone. “Why don’t you tell me something useful?”

“Tell me what to say to the customers, Greg,” Danny said to the blubbering sous chef.

“Tell them they better keep their orders simple,” Greg told him.

“Tell them to go home, for Christ’s sake!” Loretta said.

“No, goddamn it-tell them to stay!” the sous chef said angrily. “We can manage.”

“Don’t be an asshole, Greg,” Celeste told him; she was still sobbing.

Danny went back into the dining room, where the party of eight was already arguing with one another-about whether to stay or leave, no doubt. The three couples at the table for six seemed more resigned to their fate, or at least more willing to wait. “Listen,” Danny said to them all, “there’s a crisis in the kitchen-I’m not kidding. I would