Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant - Anne Tyler [43]
“There was never,” Pearl said, “the slightest thing tacky about the Tanner Corporation.”
Their appetizers arrived on chilled plates, along with a slender, pale green bottle of wine. The waiter poured a sip for Ezra, who tasted it as if it were important. “Good,” he said. (It was strange to see him in a position of command.) “Cody? Try this wine.”
“Never,” said Pearl, “was there anything nickel-and-dime, in the smallest, tiniest way, ever in this world, about the Tanner Corporation.”
“Oh, Mother, face it,” Cody told her. “It’s a trash heap. I’m going to strip it to the bones.”
You would think he was speaking of something alive—an animal, some creature that would suffer. Pearl must have thought so, too. She said, “Cody, why must you act toward me in this manner?”
“I’m not acting in any manner.”
“Have I ever wronged you, knowingly? Ever done you harm?”
“Please,” Ezra said. “Mother? Cody? It’s a family dinner! Jenny? Let’s have a toast.”
Jenny hastily raised her glass. “A toast,” she said.
“Mother? A toast.”
Pearl’s eyes went reluctantly to Ezra’s face. “Oh,” she said, after a pause. “Thank you, dear, but wine in all this heat would settle on my stomach like a rock.”
“It’s a toast to me, Mother. To my future. A toast,” said Ezra, “to the new full partner of Scarlatti’s Restaurant.”
“Partner? Who would that be?”
“Me, Mother.”
Then the double doors to the kitchen opened and in came Mrs. Scarlatti, glamorous as ever, striding on rangy, loose-strung legs and tossing back her asymmetrical hairdo. She must have been waiting for her cue—eavesdropping, in fact. “So!” she said, setting a hand on Ezra’s shoulder. “What do you think of my boy here?”
“I don’t understand,” said Pearl.
“Well, you know he’s been my right hand for so long, ever since my son died, really better than my son, if the truth be told; poor Billy never cared all that much for the restaurant business …”
Ezra was rising, as if something momentous were about to happen. While Mrs. Scarlatti went on speaking in her rasping, used-up voice—telling his own mother what an angel Ezra was, a sweetie, so gifted, such a respect for food, for decent food served decently, such a “divine” (she said) instinct for seasonings—he pulled his leather billfold from his pocket. He peered into it, looked anxious for a moment, and then said, “Ah!” and held up a ragged dollar bill. “Mrs. Scarlatti,” he said, “with this dollar I hereby purchase a partnership in Scarlatti’s Restaurant.”
“It’s yours, dear heart,” said Mrs. Scarlatti, taking the money.
“What’s going on here?” Pearl asked.
“We signed the papers in my lawyer’s office yesterday afternoon,” Mrs. Scarlatti said. “Well, it makes good sense, doesn’t it? Who would I leave this damn place to when I kick off—my chihuahua? Ezra knows it inside out by now. Ezra, pour me a glass of wine.”
“But I thought you were going to college,” Pearl told Ezra.
“I was?”
“I thought you were planning to be a teacher! Maybe a professor. I don’t understand what’s happened. Oh, I know it’s none of my affair. I’ve never been the type to meddle. Only let me tell you this: it’s going to look very, very peculiar to people who don’t have all the facts. Accepting such a gift! And from a woman, to boot! It’s a favor; partnerships don’t cost a dollar; you’ll be beholden all your life. Ezra, we Tulls depend on ourselves, only on each other. We don’t look to the rest of the world for any help whatsoever. How could you lend yourself to this?”
“Mother, I like making meals for people,” Ezra said.
“He’s a marvel,” said Mrs. Scarlatti.
“But the obligation!”
Cody said, “Let him be, Mother.”
She swung on him so quickly, it was more like pouncing. “I know you’re enjoying this,” she said.
“It’s his life.”
“What do you care about his life? You only want to see us break up, dissolve in the outside world.”
“Please,” said Ezra.
But Pearl rose and marched toward the door.