holiday. The windows were draped with cotton cobwebs. A garland of crepe-paper skulls surrounded the cash register. Each table was decorated with a centerpiece of tiny orange pumpkins, gold-and-green striped gourds, and a small wicker basket filled with candy corn. It wasn’t the prettiest display Clarice had ever seen, but it did at least cover up that awful restaurant logo on the tablecloth.
No matter how she felt about the new logo, it was clear that this affront to her sensibilities wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. The kids from the university had discovered Little Earl’s T-shirts with the big red lips, pink tongue, and suggestive fruits on them. Now a constant stream of young people came into the All-You-Can-Eat to giggle and buy the risqué restaurant merchandise. Little Earl was making a small fortune.
The Supremes, Richmond, and James were all in their usual places by the front window. For Barbara Jean’s sake, they had tried shuffling things around after Lester died—moving the men to the opposite end one week, shifting James to the center and Richmond to Lester’s seat the next. But it was no use. The more they tried to avoid seeing it, the stronger they felt Lester’s absence. Barbara Jean finally called a halt to the musical chairs, saying that she preferred to keep things the way they had always been.
Everyone was tired that week. Richmond yawned every few minutes—which was no surprise to Clarice since he’d been out all night again. Barbara Jean hadn’t been fully awake since Lester died. She pretended that she was okay, but her mind wandered constantly and Clarice always had the feeling when she talked to her that Barbara Jean was only half there. James had been sleepy since childhood. And Odette actually fell asleep at the table that afternoon.
Clarice was exhausted from having spent most of the night playing the piano. She had begun to rely on music to get her through those nights when Richmond did his disappearing act. Instead of sitting up stewing over where her husband was, she had taken to playing the piano until she was too worn out to think. The previous night Clarice had begun playing Beethoven sonatas at midnight, and the next thing she knew she was underscoring Richmond’s arrival home at six in the morning with an angry fugue. Now her fingers ached and she could hardly lift her arms.
She poked Odette on her shoulder with her fork and said, “Wake up. You’re starting to snore.”
Odette said, “I wasn’t sleeping. And I certainly wasn’t snoring. I never snore.” James heard her say that and let out a snort. “I heard every word you said. You were talking about how you surprised yourself yesterday with how much Beethoven you could still play from memory. See, I was listening.”
“I finished telling that story ten minutes ago, Odette. Since then I’ve just been watching you sleep. Are you feeling okay?”
Odette sidestepped Clarice’s question. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Work is really taking it out of me. The children get unrulier every year. And the parents, well, they’re just impossible. It seems like all the kids are on some sort of restricted diet that their parents have to come in and explain to me. And you’d better believe they make sure I know they’ll sue me and the school district, too, if their little darlings ever get near a peanut or a grain of refined sugar. It’s like they were bred in a lab somewhere, all of them allergic to this and intolerant of that. And try keeping those kids from trading candy loaded with chocolate and nuts this close to Halloween. It’s enough to drive you crazy.”
Barbara Jean said, “The kids haven’t changed, Odette, you have. You’re getting old.”
“Thank you both. It’s such a joy to come have Sunday supper and find out I’m a decrepit old woman who snores. Why I continue to hang out with you witches I will never understand.”
Clarice laughed and said, “You hang out with us because we’re the only ones not too scared of you to tell you that you snore and that you’re old. But don’t feel bad about it. We’re all in the same boat.”
At the other end of the table Richmond said, “Now that is a nice car.”
Everyone turned and saw the car Richmond was admiring. It was a steel-gray Lexus, polished to perfection, with windows tinted so dark you couldn’t see who was behind the wheel.
No one spoke, each person at the table feeling the absence of Lester