empathetically down with the working folk than I am?”
My mother kept her eyes on her menu. “I’m basing my claim on how uncomfortable they look when you’re so familiar with them.”
“That waiter?” My father pointed behind him. Our waiter, a very bored-looking man in his thirties wearing a button that read “Ask me about our crepes!”, had just disappeared in that direction. “He was smiling, wasn’t he? He didn’t look uncomfortable.”
“He has to smile. That’s his job. If he doesn’t smile, he might not get a tip.”
“When have I ever not tipped?” He held his raised palm halfway across the table. “I’m an excellent tipper! What are you talking about?”
She was still looking at her menu, at a glossy picture of an enormous, syrup-drenched Belgian waffle. “I know that, Dan,” she said. “We all know. We all know that you are an excellent tipper. I’m saying that waiters and waitresses smile because most people will tip them according to how friendly they are. They don’t smile because they like you, or because they think it’s funny when you use their damn names.”
Elise and I exchanged glances. My mother wasn’t normally one to say “damn.” She was still gazing at the waffle, the tips of her thumbs rosy, her grip on the menu tight. That morning at the nursing home, the nurse had walked us out to the lobby and told us that despite the evident senility, my grandmother’s vital signs were all quite strong. “She’s a tough old lady,” the nurse had said. “I have a feeling this is far from the last birthday.” I had looked up just at that moment and caught sight of my mother’s silent reaction—a deep wrinkle in her brow, a parting of her lips—her fear and fatigue apparent for just a moment before she looked down, searching through her purse.
“Okay.” My father leaned forward on the table, his face maybe six inches from the tip of my mother’s menu. “So calling someone by his name is now giving them shit? I’m going to need a new etiquette manual, then. Maybe you could write it for me, Natalie. Because there’s no way I understand the logic of that.”
“You don’t need a manual, Dan.” Her voice was monotone, pointedly unruffled. “Just think about it. Or put yourself in his shoes. Ask yourself how you would feel if you had to be nice to someone because that was your job, and then that person kept saying your name over and over as if he knew you, when really, he didn’t.” Now, finally, she looked up at him. Her cheeks were pink, her jaw clenched. “Ask yourself how you would like that.”
He stared at her for a long moment and then drew back, holding his menu up like a barricade. “Well,” he said quietly. “Maybe you ought to consider that not everyone feels the way you do.”
Elise pumped her fist. “The King of the Last Word speaks!”
My father put his menu down. “I just don’t think he looked uncomfortable!” He turned to Elise, and then to me. “Girls? Did you think the waiter looked uncomfortable?”
“I know I’m uncomfortable.” Elise smiled at her menu, then looked up at me. “Veronica looks really uncomfortable. Maybe we need to get our own booth.”
My father gave her a sideways glance. “Maybe you need to pay your own bill.”
“Maybe you should keep dreaming.”
My mother and I both sighed, the exact same way, at the exact same time. We looked up at each other and smiled. This banter between my father and Elise was normal, playful, nothing to cause any worry. In fact, it had a calming effect, at least for me, after the far more unusual bickering between my parents. I was used to Elise pushing back at him, giving him a hard time. But my mother, when she did disagree with him, usually did it softly, and with a smile.
“Thank you so much.” My father took the new bottle of steak sauce and, after the waitress walked away, gave me a look. “Easy there, Jaws. Nobody’s going to take it away from you.”
I held my napkin up to my mouth. “I’m hungry.”
“Okay. Well.” He made the hurry-up motion with his hand again. “Sing for your supper, at least. You were saying what happened. After the truck.”
“I went into the Hardee’s.”
“Right.” He cut into his steak. “And then what?”
“I went to the bathroom.”
“And then what?” His eyes seemed tender, sympathetic. The air around me seemed to go still and quiet, though I could