Lila held John’s head in her hands as their foreheads pressed together. As Pru watched, the door reached the full extension of its swing, making a heartbeat-like sound, and started to swing shut. John looked up and, in the narrowing gap, their eyes met. The noise of the café fell away.
It was a fantastically timed moment. She could almost hear the sound of the door pushing the air as it moved. Like Elliott the crime novelist’s prison-door sound: Clink clunk. A woman’s chest opens up and her heart falls out. Clink clunk. Coming this summer, to a floor near you. Pru felt the wind leave her body in a rush.
“Hello?” the girl in front of her was saying. “Six twenty-five?” Clearly, it was her third or fourth repetition.
“Okay,” Pru said, digging in her shoulder bag for her wallet. She still couldn’t breathe. There was no little circular window in the swinging door to the kitchen, like such doors usually had, so she couldn’t see them anymore. She pushed a ten at the girl and left without the change.
She stepped outside into a gorgeous spring night. Everyone was out, enjoying the weather. Her feet turned and took her in the direction of Malcolm X Park.
She tossed the arugula sandwich into the first trash can she came to, and although she wasn’t wearing the right shoes for it, she began jogging. As she hit the park, she broke into a full run, and sprinted across the entire length of the grassy field to the stone wall where the park begins to slope down dramatically in a series of stone steps. She stood against the wall, panting. She’d come here with John, once, after they’d been dumped by their respective exes. That day had been a nine on the loneliness scale for both of them. When do you think it’ll end? he’d said. And here she was, again. Without any kind of a scale that could register what she was feeling now.
She stood in front of the statue of Saint Joan of Arc for a while, hoping to gather courage from her. Joan was on horseback, and the statue’s arm that would have been thrust in front of her was missing. Pru stood there, looking at the statue; then she sat down on a bench to cry. Except . . . nothing happened. She tried again to conjure up the image of John and his wife. Then she tried to imagine seeing them together at McKay and Bill’s wedding, dancing, Lila’s fabulous hair spilling out everywhere, while Pru stood against the wall, her own hair pulled tightly back in its unforgiving knot. Still, nothing, no tears, not even a sniffle. What was wrong with her? She was certainly miserable, sad, lonely. Brokenhearted. For longer than she ever had been in her life, and not getting used to it, either, like everybody kept promising. The tears simply wouldn’t come. Had she lost her ability to cry? Well, maybe that wasn’t so bad. She was sick to death of it, anyway. She stood up and walked home. She didn’t cross to the other side of Columbia, but walked straight by the Korner. She’d thrown out her sandwich and still needed to eat. The souvlaki place was closed, but the Cluck-U was all lit up, outside and in. She hesitated for a second, looking at the garish bantam rooster, then pushed open the front door.
The inside was lit by strange yellow lighting, and an Indian man stood behind the counter, eager to take her order. She walked up to him, staring at the menu above his head. She could hear the sounds of bubbling oil coming from the kitchen. The only other person there was a woman in a bright turquoise sari with a baby on her lap. The baby’s ears were pierced, and she wore a frilly headband. They both had incredibly sweet, open faces, and smiled at Pru as she placed her order.
While she was waiting for her “Clucker on a Bun,” the woman with the baby and the man behind the counter began talking quietly.The man came around and picked up the baby and held her up in the air. His wife and child, Pru realized. The woman said something to him in a low tone. The man looked at Pru, shyly. They had probably put every cent they owned into the Cluck-U. To Pru, the establishment had been nothing more than an embarrassment, an affront to her satisfaction and well-being. The eyesore of her otherwise clean, upscale-tending street. To this couple, though, the Cluck-U was their entire future, the happiness and security of their child. It was her college tuition, the down payment for her house. They probably didn’t even realize that its name was a crude pun. Maybe they thought of it as a happy name, childlike, funny. Maybe, in the country they were from, cigar-chomping roosters were considered sacred.
When her sandwich was ready the man put it in a paper bag. He folded the top of the bag over neatly and handed it to her, saying, “You are owner of the peach?” Pru nodded and smiled. There were some slips of paper on the counter and the man motioned for her to take them—coupons, she saw, for a free Coke with the purchase of a “Cheese Mutha Clucker.” They looked as if he’d made them on a computer. She pictured him cutting each coupon out by hand.
“For the store,” he said, then again, “For the peach.” Then she understood. He wanted her to give out his coupons at her store. “Yes,” she said, nodding and smiling, and she took the grease-splattered coupons. “Yes, yes, of course.” The man’s wife beamed at her, from behind the baby.
She felt sorry that she had wanted to throw rocks at the sign. Once a week, she promised herself, she would come and buy something, even if she ended up tossing it in the
