said nothing, rejoining his friends. His buddies laughed; then they all piled into a booth closest to the front door before the table was even bussed. One of Babe’s singing waitresses went to clean it up and take their orders.
“Not bad,” Babe whispered, advance scouting for me as usual.
I ignored her. One of my rules is not to think of someone as a potential mate or date until I’ve at least said a complete sentence to him and gotten a semi-intelligent answer.
“I’ve thrown back better. How’s the new help working out?” I asked, changing the subject. The help was three girls who had stumbled in, in tears, after a singing gig that hadn’t gone well. Of course Babe had hired them on the spot and promised to help them with their act. Now they worshipped her and copied her every move.
“That’s a very slick segue. They’re not so new anymore. But they’re doing okay, thanks for asking. They’ve got more physical presence onstage,” she said, holding the ketchup bottle like a mike and pretending to sing into it. “They’ll be at Ringwald’s in a coupla weeks. Alba’s singing lead.”
They all looked the same to me. Alba must have been the one inside-more confidence than the one with the multiple piercings. She was holding her own, sparring with a table full of burly guys; no mean feat for a ninety- pound teenager in heavy makeup and black Frankenstein shoes that looked like cinder blocks, spray painted and strapped to her heronlike legs. Her life flashed before my eyes. I saw her strutting her stuff, sucking on a ball microphone and posturing like Madonna or Mick or Avril or Amy, getting deliriously famous and then crashing and burning before she was twenty-one, rehab by twenty-two-video at eleven. Perhaps I took too dim a view of the music business.
The girl outside, with the eyebrow bolt, was more introspective. Probably the songwriter, writing a lot of angry chick, why-did-you-dump-me songs. Jeez, I was turning into a cranky broad. Was I really jealous of a couple of young girls?
“You should go,” Babe said, as if she were clairvoyant.
“Lots of guys at Ringwald’s.”
“Twenty-year-olds.”
“Nothing wrong with young stuff for whatever ails you.”
That was as aggressive as Babe got in her matchmaking efforts. A few times a week she remembered that I hadn’t had a date in a while and gave it a shot, but she never pressed.
Sometimes it seemed as if she and Lucy Cavanaugh, my friend the bridesmaid, were having a private contest to see who could hook me up first. Despite Lucy’s vehement denials, I knew there’d be a fix-up sometime over the course of the upcoming five-day wedding. That was the real reason she’d asked me to drive her. And while I wasn’t actively dreading it, I wasn’t looking forward to it either.
“I’m going to a wedding. There will be ample opportunity for me to listen to some boring guy’s whole life story before telling him I’m not interested. Besides, as you say, plenty of cute guys right here. No need for me to pay a cover charge for some watered-down drinks at some shabby joint downtown. I can just stay in this shabby joint and watch the passing parade.”
“Shabby? I’m cutting you off. Pete, no more taste testing for Paula,” she yelled.
Moments later, Eyebrow Girl pushed through the door, butt first, muttering, with two trays of cups and small plates, one of them precariously balanced on her forearm. Something on her sleeve, or maybe her studded leather cuff, snagged on the door handle and one of the trays flew out of her hands like an oversized Frisbee. The other one fell with a clatter, splashing beverages up in the air like minigeysers.
“Holy shit!” she said, laughing and only half covering her mouth, in deference to the father sitting at the counter, who gave her a disapproving look and covered his toddler’s ears as if the kid could recognize a naughty word at that tender age.
No one was hurt and just a few were splattered by the mug puddles; someone applauded. I’ve never quite understood that. Is that supposed to make the person feel better? Yes, I am a klutz and a loser, thank you for acknowledging. I feel so much better.
The bearded trucker who’d spoken to Caroline was closest to the door, and he got up to help the girl who was crab walking in a circle collecting the items she’d dropped. He said something to her, and it was the first time I’d ever seen the kid crack a smile, although she went to some pains to hide it.
Babe came around from behind the counter and picked up the cups and plates that had traveled farthest. “All right, Mr. Nice Guy, you’ve redeemed yourself for your formerly boorish behavior. Go eat your food before it gets cold. I’ll get this.”
“Don’t worry, Terry, it’s no big deal,” she whispered, bending down to help the girl. “Doesn’t really count unless you send one of them to the emergency room.” She handed the girl a soggy five-dollar bill. “Take your tip and go wash your hands.” Babe brought the mess back to the counter near where I was sitting with my coffee and waiting for my order.
“Look at this. Pete makes these phenomenal, food orgasm muffins and the Moms barely touch them. They don’t need utensils, they need scalpels.”
The cranberries had been picked off and a thin layer of crust was almost surgically shaved off the tops. I remembered that calorie reduction tip well.
“You used to be like that,” she said. “A damn picky eater. Before you got some sense.”
Sense. To Babe that meant ordering the waffles. Or the cake or the sundae or whatever it was you really wanted. Whether it was food, men, or adventures, Babe did not believe in living a life of denial.
“These women,” she said, motioning to the group outside. “I still don’t get some of them.” She cleared off the tray and put the cups and dishes in a rubber basin underneath the counter.
“So what is it the queen of the cul-de-sacs wants you to do now? Plant marigolds in the shape of clinking martini glasses?” Babe was referring to my first fall in Springfield when Caroline had asked for tulips planted in the shape of giant crossed tennis rackets. Which worked out well until, inevitably, they flopped over and resembled nothing more than an enormous handlebar mustache.
“That’s very creative,” I said. “I may offer that next year. I could do martini glasses. Champagne flutes should go over well during bridal season.” I was semiserious.
“You remember last spring when Caroline was calling me three times a day,” I said, “and practically stalking me here at the diner?” Babe nodded.
“She’s got some notion to buy Guido Chiaramonte’s old nursery. And she’s written a business plan, which I have foolishly agreed to take a look at. She’d have a garden gift shop and I’d offer design services. We’d collaborate on special projects.”
“Sounds good. What’s wrong with that?”
“They want two million dollars for the property, and it probably needs another five hundred thousand just to open the doors. She wants to front the money and put it all in my name.”
That raised an eyebrow. She looked around as if to appraise her own lot with its charming waterfront view. What was her lakeside property worth? One million? More? “Okay. Unusual but, I repeat, what’s wrong with that?”
I couldn’t put my finger on it, but in my gut there was something about Caroline’s plan that didn’t sit right with me. It was too good to be true, like those Nigerian e-mail scams-just send me the postage, my friend, and we will split a fortune. My knee-jerk reaction was to say no. But that was generally my knee-jerk reaction to things-not unlike the overcautious lawyer who says, “We could have a problem there…” There is no problem, but there could be one.
That was also the reason I owned a ten-year-old car, a fifteen-year-old television, and a four-year-old cell phone that the company’s Web site refers to as a “legendary” model. It took me awhile to say yes to new things.
“C’mon, what’s the downside?” Babe said. “I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, but she’s loaded and you’ve got two, maybe three nickels to rub together.”
And where does that expression come from? Why would anyone want to rub two nickels together? Are they supposed to make babies if you rub them together? From anyone else, I would have been offended, but Babe was close to the truth. I was fantasizing about an island trip, but I was treading water financially. It happened every year at this time. I sucked it up, ate big breakfasts-the least expensive and most filling meal of the day and frequently free, if Pete had gotten a new cookbook or watched a new cooking program. I had soup for dinner and generally lost my three or four donut pounds by the time garden season rolled around. Not the end of the world, lots of mammals put on a layer of fat and hibernated for the winter.
