“What’s the matter?” Megan wanted to know. “Don’t you like that cheeseburger?”
“I was thinking,” I said. I picked it up and took a bite. It was okay, but I wished I’d remembered to ask them for some of their horseradish sauce. (Do horseradishes migrate?) They keep it for the roast beef, but I like it on burgers. Or at least I did until I realized what it looked like.
And I thought then that if I were just alone with Larry I’d brace him with it. He wasn’t exactly a bad guy, and even then I knew enough to know that only one man out of a hundred, married or not, would turn down a woman who looked like Elaine.
“What about?”
“Wondering how the Fair’s going to go tomorrow, I guess. Besides, somebody was going to meet me, and I’ve been looking around for him.”
“Kris? Mike?”
I shook my head. “It wasn’t definite. I just thought he might show up here.” Another bite of burger and a sip of Coke. Thinking, like I said.
And then Megan and Les were saying good-bye, they were going over to Les’s, and didn’t I want to come?
I said no, I had some things to do in town.
When they had gone, Larry offered me his fries. I don’t think he’d touched them, but I shook my head.
“You’re pissed off at me, aren’t you, Holly? I don’t blame you.”
That surprised me enough to make me look around at him. “You knew I knew?”
“Elaine said she thought you did.”
“I guess I’m not a very good actress. Yeah, I know.”
He wouldn’t look at me. “So who’s hurting, Holly? Maybe I can send a medic.”
“I am,” I said. “Molly, too, I think.”
It took a while, but he finally nodded. “Yeah. Molly. Molly for sure. How do you think Barney feels?”
“I guess I don’t know Barney.”
“Her first husband. They’d been married eight months when I met her. Let’s talk about you. You love your mother, right?”
I shook my head.
“I love her, Holly. Do you believe that? It’s true. I’ve been looking for three or four years now for a woman who wasn’t too good for me, that I could love, and I found her. I thought Molly was the one once, but I was wrong. Elaine’s as selfish as I am.”
“So naturally—” I wanted a sip of Coke but my hand was shaking so bad I had to put it down.
“Yes,” Larry said.
“Most people don’t think it’s so terribly attractive.” I was having trouble talking now, but I managed, “I don’t myself.”
“I wanted to go to college,” Larry said. “Didn’t Sis ever tell you?”
I shook my head. I guess he saw it out of the corner of his eye.
“Dad had just bought the store. He and Mom had borrowed every dime they could, mortgaged everything they owned to swing it. I was going to work nights, take a few classes. No more than I could handle. We figured it would take eight or nine years.”
“What the hell has this got to do with my mother?”
“It has to do with me,” he said.
I would have gotten up and walked out then, if I could have, but the way we were sitting I’d have had to crawl over him.
“Then there was this politician, who was going to get me into West Point. I fell in love with that—fell in love with the whole deal, and it never happened. He couldn’t swing it, he said, but I think he really gave it to somebody who could do him more good. Someday I’m going to look that somebody up and see what he did with my big chance.”
“So you joined anyhow.”
Larry nodded. “I thought maybe I could get into OCS. You know about the guy who wasted a village? It was in the news.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I remember.”
“Well, I never did that.” He stood up. I wasn’t expecting it, and I wanted to say wait a minute, when just a minute before I’d been ready to leave myself.
“I think I’m sober enough to go home, Holly. Sober enough to drive. Don’t you? Want a lift?”
I shook my head.
Larry bent over the table, whispering. “I never did that, but I would have. I got a lot of guys to fight for me, when I knew damn good and well down where I live that we weren’t going to win because nobody but us wanted us to win. Some were pretty good soldiers, and quite a few of them died.”
“Okay,” I said. “Okay.”
“I did it for me,” Larry told me, “and I’d do it again. So when your mom came across, it was like I was the only
