About Schmidt - Louis Begley [19]
Cheered by these thoughts, Schmidt brushed his teeth, put money and a credit card in the pocket of his trousers, and set out for O’Henry’s. At times like this, he knew he moved like a puma. He removed his dripping oilskin at the door, held it aloft in his right hand, concealing his face as he passed the restaurant bar. Then, at once, he began a smooth, unbearably long reach for the coat rack, making it last until he had crossed the stage, away from danger, to the far end of the room. There Carrie, rising on her toes, relieved him of his burden. Schmidt wished it were a heavy Venetian cloak, reeking of wet wool, the corner of which he could lift until there was only a slit left, through which his eyes could fix and hold hers. She led him to a table. The view of the Weird Sisters and of the small cloud of smoke that hovered above them was unobstructed. But the continuing serenity of their repast reassured Schmidt: they hadn’t penetrated his camouflage.
By the time she had served him the chopped steak, which was his main course, the crowd at the bar was thicker and very noisy, but a sleepy, negligent, late-evening calm had possessed the dining area. The two Oriental busboys were setting up with paper tablecloths and paper napkins for the next day’s lunch. Carrie lingered at Schmidt’s table, her hand on the back of the empty chair. He observed her attentively, as had become his custom each time she served him: skin almost green in that light, black hair with tiny curls that she wore in a long, tight pigtail, large dark eyes, under them circles that deepened with fatigue, and someday, if her features retained their absolute purity, would perfect her resemblance to Picasso’s Woman Ironing. She is younger than Charlotte, he thought, not more than twenty, and yet so very tired. She was some sort of Hispanic. Or it could be Negro blood. Her voice told Schmidt nothing of her origin: raucous as though she had worn it out wailing, it was also completely flat, neither educated nor vulgar. Waitresses at O’Henry’s wore black pants under their long, white aprons. He wondered about her legs.
You’ve had a long day, he told her.
Yeah. She tossed her head as though to rouse herself from sleep. Big crowd at lunch for such a lousy day, and a big crowd at dinner.
Her neck also was admirable, like the neck of a tired swan.
Is there someplace you can rest between the two meals?
He imagined her asleep in the seat of her car, that long neck thrown back, mouth open, droplets of sweat on her upper lip.
If I don’t have to shop, sometimes I go home. I live in Sag Harbor.
There were houses in Sag Harbor with peeling motorboats on trailers parked to the side, where electrified Santa Clauses went up early and kept on blinking until the spring. He supposed one could rent a room in some of them. But perhaps she was someone’s daughter, or lived in such a house with a peanut-butter-skinned husband who delivered bottled gas? Or did he work with his hands and service garden irrigation systems? No, in that case she would live in Hampton Bays. That was a place he passed on the highway, where he imagined blue-collar locals necessarily had their dwellings. He never had stopped there.
That’s very convenient—and pretty!
I like it. My girlfriend helped me find an apartment.
So she was single and did not live with her parents. Would Charlotte have said, My girlfriend? Possibly; come to think of it, he had heard young women lawyers in his office say about their vacation, I am going to walk in Bhutan with my girlfriend. So the usage had to be widespread.
Well, I used to live in New York. Now I live here.
I know that. She laughed. You are popular in Bridgehampton. I guess everybody knows about you.
I see.
That was,