Unfortunately, God neglected to prepare men for his good work. Men had behaved very badly because of my friend’s beauty, and, the world being unfair, Barbara Jean had often paid the price.
Barbara Jean and Lester came into the All-You-Can-Eat and brought along a gust of hot air that quickly overwhelmed the feeble air conditioner that hummed and sputtered above the doorway. People sitting near the door looked at Lester like they wanted to take a good whack at him with the walking stick he was using to hold the door open for his wife, who was several steps behind him on account of her impractical choices in wardrobe and footwear.
Barbara Jean came limping to the table issuing apologies. “I am so sorry we’re late. Morning service went long today,” she said as she sat down, unzipped her boots under the table, and sighed with relief.
Clarice interrupted her, saying, “Let’s eat.” Then she stood from her chair and marched toward the steam tables.
The men followed Clarice to the food while I waited for Barbara Jean to squeeze herself back into her boots. When she was done, we walked to the buffet line. Along the way, Barbara Jean leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Richmond back at it again?”
“That’s my guess,” I said.
We took plates from the carousel at the near end of the four steam tables—one for main courses, two for side dishes, and the fourth for desserts. Then each of us did what we did every week. Skinny James piled his plate with some of everything. Richmond hid food that was off-limits to him because of his diabetes beneath layers of green beans and roasted carrots. Lester ate the old folks’ selections, easy-to-chew dishes enhanced with added fiber. Clarice hadn’t allowed herself a piece of anything fried since she was twenty-eight, and that day was no exception. She ate minuscule portions of low-fat items. Out of consideration for Clarice, Barbara Jean, who could eat anything and never gain a pound, ate only low-fat foods so it wouldn’t seem like she was rubbing the difference in their metabolisms in Clarice’s face. I, as always, divided my plate equally between main courses and desserts. Vegetables take up too much space on a small plate.
When we got to the end of the line, the men headed back to our table. The three of us women stopped to say hello to Little Earl and Erma Mae, who had come in from the kitchen and were sitting side by side on stools at the far end of the last steam table.
I said, “Hey, Little Earl. Hey, Erma Mae.”
They answered together, “Hey, Supremes.”
I inquired about their health, their children, and Erma Mae’s elderly mother. I asked Little Earl for the latest on his sister Lydia and her husband, who ran a diner in Chicago that was almost identical to the All-You-Can-Eat. After being assured that all of those people were fine, I got around to the question I really wanted an answer to.
I asked, “How’s your daddy doing, Little Earl?” trying to sound casual about it.
“Oh, he’s great. Eighty-eight next month and gonna outlive us all, I ’spect. He should be comin’ by sometime soon. Here lately he’ll sometimes sleep in, but he won’t miss an entire day’s work, that’s for certain.”
“ ’Specially not on a Sunday,” Erma Mae added, nodding her head toward Minnie’s empty fortune-telling table. She said that for Clarice’s benefit since the two of them were kindred spirits on the subject of Minnie.
At that moment the front door opened with a loud scrape. Little Earl looked toward the door with an expression of boyish expectation, like he really believed that just speaking of his father would conjure him up. But Big Earl didn’t step into the restaurant. Instead, Minnie McIntyre stood in the threshold, holding the door open and letting a hot, moist draft into the room that made the nearby patrons groan in discomfort and give her the evil eye.
Minnie’s costume of the day was a deep purple robe decorated with the same astrological signs that adorned her corner table. She wore gold Arabian-style slippers with curled-up toes, a necklace made of twelve large chunks of colored glass, each representing a birthstone, and a white turban with a silver bell jutting out from its top. The bell, she claimed, was for Charlemagne the Magnificent to ring whenever he had a message for her. He was very consistent. Charlemagne rang every time Minnie lowered her head to count a client’s money.