Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant - Anne Tyler [113]
He waved and disappeared. A moment later he heard her car take off again—but reluctantly, without its usual verve, as if she were still absorbed in her catalogue of dangers.
He knew the restaurant so well, he must have carried its image constantly within him: its clatter of pans and crash of china, smell of cut celery simmering in butter, broom-shaped bundles of herbs dangling from the rafters, gallon jars of wrinkly Greek olives, bushel baskets of parsley, steaming black kettles watched devotedly by a boy no older than Luke. Beyond the kitchen, hardly separate from it, stretched the dining room with its white-draped tables and dusty sunbeams. There were so many decorations in the dining room—gifts and mementos, accumulated over the years—that Luke was always reminded of someone’s home, one of those teeming family houses where kindergarten drawings are taped above the mantel and then forgotten. He recognized the six-foot collage of Ezra’s hearts-of-palm salad, presented by an artist who often ate here, and he saw the colored paper chain that he and his cousins had festooned around a light fixture for some long-ago Christmas dinner. (Ezra had never taken it down, though the dinner had broken off in a quarrel and the chain was now brittle and faded.) Luke knew that in one corner, out of his line of vision, sat a heavy antique bicycle that Ezra had bought in a Timonium flea market. MERCURIO’S CULINARY DELICACIES was lettered importantly across its wooden basket, which was filled with frosty glass pears and bananas contributed by a customer. Astride the bicycle stood a cardboard Marilyn Monroe with her dress blowing up—the prank of unknown persons, but no one had ever removed her and Marilyn rode on, her neck creased nearly to the breaking point, her smile growing paler season by season and her accordion-pleated skirt curling at the edges.
Hot, flushed workers darted around the kitchen, intent on their private tasks, weaving between the others like those Model T’s in silent comedies—zip!, just missing, never once colliding, their paths crisscrossing but miraculously slipping past disaster. Luke stood in the doorway unnoticed. His trip had been such a process in itself; he had almost lost sight of his purpose. What was he doing here, anyhow? But then he saw Ezra. Ezra was piling biscuits in a crude rush basket. He wore not the blue plaid shirt that Luke remembered—which was flannel, after all, unsuitable for summer—but a chambray shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He thoughtfully set each biscuit in its place, his large, blunt hands deliberate. Luke made his way across the kitchen. He was surprised by a flash of shyness. His heart was beating too fast. He arrived in front of Ezra and said, “Hi.”
Ezra looked up, still thoughtful. “Hi,” he said.
He didn’t know who this was.
Luke was stricken, at first. Then he began to feel pleased. Why, he must have changed immeasurably! He’d shot up a foot; his voice was getting croaky; he was practically a man. And there was some safety, a kind of shield, in Ezra’s flat gaze. Luke rearranged his plans. He squared his shoulders. “I’d like a job,” he said firmly.
Ezra grew still. “Luke?” he said.
“If that boy over there can tend the kettles—” Luke was saying. He stopped. “Pardon?”
“It’s Cody’s Luke. Isn’t it.”
“How’d you guess?”
“I could tell when you did your shoulders that way, just like your dad, just exactly like your dad. How funny! And something about the tone of your voice, all set to do battle … well, Luke!” He shook Luke’s hand very hard. His fingers had a sandy feel from the biscuits. “Where are your parents? Back at the house?”
“I’m here on my own.”
“On your own?” Ezra said. He was smiling genially, uncertainly, like someone hoping to understand a joke. “You mean, with nobody else?”
“I wanted to ask if I could stay with you.”
Ezra stopped smiling. “It’s Cody,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“Something’s happened to him.”
“Nothing’s happened.”
“I should have gone down; I knew I should. I shouldn’t have let him stop me. The