have some kind of super-slick pickup line?”
His father looks offended. “Annie? You think she’d fall for a line? You think she’d go for slick?”
Fitz almost says something but stops himself. This morning, Fitz was certain that his father was slick, or at the very least, slick in a past life, a guy formerly known as slick. Now he’s not so sure. On the question of his father’s slickness, he’s currently agnostic. He decides to keep his mouth shut.
“Sometimes,” his father says, “when it was slow, she’d go back into the kitchen and fix our food herself. She’d make us these grilled sandwiches that weren’t even on the menu.
“Then we’d talk,” his father says. “She’d finish her side work and pull up a chair. The place was dead. That’s how we got to know each other. The old-fashioned way. Nothing slick about it. What you guys do online, we did in person. Very old-school.”
“About what?” Fitz asks. He doesn’t want to hear about you-kids-and-your-technology. “What did you talk about?”
“Movies,” his father says. “Books. Anything and everything. The meaning of life. How much I hated law school. We talked about that a lot.”
Now Maddie the waitress comes back to their booth. “What can I get you guys?” she asks.
There’s a lot of stuff on the menu—melts and combinations, specials like walleye and bratwurst—but Fitz has zeroed in on something. He says he’ll have a deluxe burger, medium—bacon, American cheese, mayo, and sautéed onions.
“Oh yeah,” Maddie says. She nods and smiles, as if to say, of course, what else would a cool person order? It’s stupid, but Fitz is grateful for her approval.
His father closes his menu with a kind of emphatic slap. “The same,” he says.
“All right,” Maddie says, “you got it,” and off she goes.
“She was a wonder,” his father says. “Never wrote anything down either. She remembered how you liked your eggs, what kind of toast, wheat or rye, dark or light, the whole bit, what you wanted on the side. She cut tremendous pieces of pie, gave you epic scoops of ice cream. It made her happy to feed people.”
Once again, Fitz feels sort of unsettled and impressed. His father knows his mom, that’s for sure.
She is always happy as can be in the kitchen, making a big weekend breakfast, just like a short-order cook. Frying a pan of bacon and putting it aside. Then making eggs, scrambled for Fitz, over easy for his grandpa when he was alive, with onions and green peppers for Uncle Dunc. French toast for Caleb, whose mom doesn’t cook, who barely microwaves. Omelets, pancakes, hash browns, whatever you want, she puts it together, talking the whole time, working two or three burners, a total pro.
Fitz has always loved the cheerful, professional way his mom puts a plate of food in front of him, with a kind of stylish pride.
“So has it changed?” Fitz asks. “Since then?”
His father looks around. “Not much. Same menu, same booths. Really, not a bit. Just me.
“I feel like what’s-his-name,” his father says. “In A Christmas Carol. Visiting scenes of his happy youth.”
“Scrooge,” Fitz says. “Ebenezer Scrooge. That’s his name.” It sounds like an accusation. Which it is.
“Right,” his father says. He says it softly, reluctantly even. “Scrooge.” When he says it, it sounds like a confession.
Fitz knows the story. He’s seen all the different movie versions. His mom’s favorite, naturally, is the old black-and-white one, Alastair Somebody-or-Other shivering in his nightshirt. If it’s on, she’s got to watch it. Fitz likes Bill Murray. That’s his favorite Scrooge.
“Then who am I?” Fitz asks. “If you’re Scrooge? Tiny Tim?”
“Oh no,” his father says. “Not Tiny Tim. No way.”
He takes a sip of water. “You’re the ghost,” his father says. “My ghost. That’s who you are. That’s exactly who you are.”
17
Fitz and his father both have their mouths full of deluxe burger when all of a sudden there’s a man at their booth, a guy looming over them in a black suit.
“Curtis?” the man says. “Curtis Powell?”
Dude looks like serious law enforcement—white shirt, close-cropped hair, a gizmo in his ear—FBI or Homeland Security or something. In an instant, Fitz can envision a chain of shame and humiliation—handcuffs, mug shots, a holding cell, a call to his mom. So this is how it ends.
But first his father needs to finish chewing and swallow. They’ve both just taken huge juicy bites. His father raises his hand, like he’s asking for time. Fitz sees a grease spot on his tie the size of a