is it with men?” The woman closed her menu, slapping it onto the table with enough force that it jangled the flatware.
“What are you talking about?” Edward Everett said quietly. At the next table, two elderly women paused in their own conversation and were studying the two of them.
“I’m not hideous,” she said.
“No,” Edward Everett said carefully.
“You’re thinking, ‘I hope they don’t think she’s with me.’ ”
“No,” he said.
“It’s coming off you like an odor. ‘She’s old.’ ”
“I don’t even know you,” he said. “I just came downstairs to have dinner on my last night here. You followed me.”
The woman held up her hand. “Please.”
“Just don’t—”
“Make any more scenes?”
“Yes,” he said.
She raised her right hand in a scout salute: thumb and pinky circled, her other three fingers up. “I swear.”
Hoping it was as good as the steak for which the restaurant on the other side of the lobby was famous, he ordered a sirloin, medium, and a baked potato. The woman surprised him by ordering the same, except medium-rare, and asked for an extra portion of sour cream for the potato. “And a carafe of your house red,” she said. “Wine?” she asked Edward Everett.
“Sure,” he said.
“Two glasses, then,” she said.
They sat in silence, waiting for their meals. Edward Everett stole a look at the woman, who seemed lost in her thoughts. She stared vacantly at a far corner of the room, tapping a tooth with a long fingernail that was polished a deep red. When she was younger, she was probably beautiful, he thought. Her features were surprisingly delicate; her nose was thin, as were her lips; her makeup was careful in a way that made it appear natural, but as he studied her, he could see it covered wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and creases on her forehead.
“So,” she said, startling him. “A six or a seven? At least a five.”
“What?”
“You’ve been staring at me for two minutes. You’re trying to decide whether I’m pretty enough. I know I don’t rate a nine and certainly not a ten—even when I was your age—but come on, you have to give me a five.”
Edward Everett blushed. “I wasn’t—” he stammered.
“Okay,” she said.
The waitress brought their wine and salads and the woman began shoving the tomato wedges to the edge of her plate. “What’s your name?” she asked, lifting a bite of lettuce to her mouth.
“Edward Everett,” he said.
“Well, Mr. Everett, I’m Estelle Herron. Two ‘r’s,’ not one like the bird.”
He considered telling her that “Edward Everett” was his first and middle name but for the first time in his life it struck him that it was odd he was “Edward Everett” and not “Edward” or even “Ed.” She would ask how he got the name and he would have to tell her about his mother’s affection for Edward Everett Horton, admitting that he’d been named for a Hollywood second banana few remembered anymore. He let it go: what did it matter? Once the meal was over, he’d be back upstairs in his room, away from a woman he still doubted was entirely sane.
“What brings you to Montreal?” she said, giving the city’s name a pronunciation that sounded expertly French.
“I was playing ball,” he said.
“Like that?” she said, indicating his cast with her fork, Russian dressing dripping from its tines onto the tablecloth.
“No,” he said. “I got hurt a few weeks ago and the team moved on while I was in the hospital. My season’s over.” Maybe my career, he thought.
“Left behind,” she said. “That makes two of us.” She set down her fork, picked up the carafe of wine, poured them each a glass, lifted hers, tilting its rim toward him, an offer of a toast. He picked up his glass and touched it to hers, then took a sip. He was never a wine drinker—not dinner wines, at least. Whenever he drank wine, it was what he and his friends called “alcoholic Kool-Aid”: highly sweet apple and strawberry flavors. This was bitter and he suppressed a cough, not wanting to show her he lacked sophistication.
“So, what school do you play for, Mr. Everett?”
“Not a school,” he said. “The Cardinals.”
“Really?” she said. “You wouldn’t try to fool a girl, would you?”
“No.”
“I don’t remember any Everett playing for them.”
“I’ve been with the team since July,” he said. “I got called up—I was in Springfield.” Could it really have been that long ago: the month before last?
“Not an auspicious start,” she said, and then went on almost immediately. “I’m sorry.