“No.”
He scowled. “He shoulda been here. Or one of the fellows at least.”
“What fella?” Sal asked, looking up nervously at Herman.
Cam gave me a hug, the flowers went around my back. “Rita, honey. How you holdin’ up? We woulda been here before, but Herman wanted to get flowers. So stupid, flowers.” He stepped back and tossed the stiff bouquet onto the coffee table but it rolled off the edge and onto the rug.
“Camille, what are you doin’ throwin’ the flowers around?” Herman said. He bent over with a grunt and retrieved the bouquet.
“Since when you care so much about flowers?”
Herman brushed off the mums. “They’re Vito’s flowers, not yours. Don’t throw them on the ground.”
“Vito don’t even like flowers,” Cam said.
“Get outta here, look in the shop window.” Herman’s voice rose. “Vito, he’s got a plant, right there in the window. A green plant.”
“Where?”
“In the window, you seen it. Under the pig.”
“Which pig?”
“The pig, the pig-there’s only one pig.”
Cam stepped back. “Vito don’t have no plant in the window.”
“You wanna bet? He’s got a plant right there in the window.”
“What is it with you tonight? Flowers and plants. What is it with you?” Cam said, but I was coming to understand what was with them. If they were old women, they would have wept. But they were old men, so they bickered.
“Bet me, Camille,” Herman said. “I need the money. I wanna go to the Deauville this winter like my brother.” He turned to me. “Doesn’t he, Rita? Doesn’t your father keep a plant in the window?”
“I don’t remember.”
Herman stamped his orthopedic shoe. “You remember. The front window. Underneath the pig. With the tail goes like a curlicue.”
“No,” Uncle Sal said, sinking slowly into a chair. “No plant.”
“See? No plant!” Cam said.
Herman shook his head. “What’s Sal know? He don’t know.”
But I was watching my uncle, who was muttering to himself. Cam heard it, too, and we exchanged a look. “What’d you say, Sallie?” Cam asked, bending over and putting a knobby hand on Sal’s shoulder.
“No plant,” he said again.
Cam patted him. “Okay, Sal, we got it. No plant. If you say there’s no plant, there’s no plant.”
Uncle Sal didn’t seem to hear. “In the window Vito got a sign about the fresh sausage homemade daily,” he said, counting on spindly fingers. “Then he got a picture of Rita at her college graduation, then he got a little stand-up calendar from the insurance company, then he got a sign about WE ACCEPT FOOD STAMPS, then he got a donkey made out of straw with a hat on his head. The hat is straw, too.” He reached five fingers, then began knitting and reknitting his hands. “And there’s no flies in the window ‘cause Vito don’t like that, when they have flies in the windowsills. It shows it’s not a clean shop, Vito says.”
Cam sank slowly into the chair next to Sal and put his arm around him.
“Pop used to say the same thing,” Sal said. “No flies.”
I realized then that Uncle Sal would surely die if my father did, like a domino effect, starting with LeVonne. One after the other in tragic succession.
Only Herman had any heart left. “Still no resident? Who’s running this place, nuns?” He turned on his heel and locomoted to the receptionist in a wobbly beeline. The three of us watched numbly as he barked at her, then hustled back. “This place stinks,” he said, even before he reached us. “They don’t tell you nothing here. Now Hahnemann University, that’s a hospital. My nephew, Cheryl’s boy, he works there, in the OB. They shoulda brought him there.”
“It’s not the same thing,” Cam said, but Herman planted his hands on his black leather belt.
“I know that. You think I don’t know that?” Herman looked at me and clapped his rough hands together. “Now. Rita. Did you eat dinner?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You should eat something. I could get you from the cafeteria.”
“No thanks. I’m not hungry.”
“They must have a cafeteria in this dump.” Herman squinted around him as if a cafeteria would materialize. “They should have a sign. Right here, where you need it. At Hahnemann, they got signs everywhere.”
“It’s okay, I’m not hungry.”
“Everywhere you look, there’s signs. If you’re sittin’ in the waiting room and you decide you want a cup a’ coffee, you get up and go. For Essie’s gall bladder, we were in the cafeteria all the time.”
“She’s not hungry, Herm,” Cam said.
“The portions were big, too,” Herman continued. “They gave you a lot. This place is for the birds.” He took off toward the receptionist again.
Cam laughed softly. “She’s gonna kill him. Christ, I’m gonna kill him.”
I couldn’t laugh. I didn’t want to think about anybody killing anybody. I sat down on the other side of Uncle Sal and rubbed his back through his thin, short-sleeved shirt.
“Vito’s gonna be okay,” Sal said, still playing with his fingers. I watched him make a rickety church and steeple, then look inside.
“Hey, Rita, isn’t that your… boyfriend?” Cam asked.
“What?” I looked up. Standing at the reception desk was Paul, the last person I needed right now. He was shaking Herman’s hand, then Herman pointed at us. Paul turned and his eyes met mine behind his glasses. He looked upset, concerned, and guilty as hell. Good.
“Is that him?” Cam said again, standing up and hitching up his Sansabelts with a thumb. “I haven’t seen him in years. Full head of hair, still. He’s a good-lookin’ man.”
For a cheater. Paul walked toward us, wearing a striped dress shirt, a charcoal sports jacket, and loafers without socks. He’d evidently had time to change; I hoped he’d had time to move the fuck out.
“It’s Paul!” Sal said, rising to his feet unsteadily. He had only seen Paul a handful of times, but the tone of his voice told me he was grasping for all the family he had.
“Rita,” Paul said, “how are you? Dad and Mom send their love.” He grabbed me and hugged me, but I stepped out of his embrace stiffly.
“How did you know-”
“The police called the house. Your father had your name in his wallet for an emergency.”
“Hey, how you doin’!” Sal said, then practically threw himself at a somewhat startled Paul.
“Sal, it’s all right. Sal,” Cam said. He put his hand on Sal’s shoulder and gently pried him free.
“But he looks so good,” Sal said. “So good.”
Cam looped his arm around Sal’s shoulder, half in embrace, half in restraint. “That’s because he’s young, Sal. It’s easy to look good when you’re young. You can drive at night, the whole thing.”
