The Plague of Doves - Louise Erdrich [83]
When I opened the door, Marn finally grabbed the heavy brass frame beside my hand, letting the kids go in under her arm. Marn’s skin looked parched and stiff, her cheeks were knobs of bone. She was a small woman, hair the color of twine, ears sticking through the limp strands of a braid that reached nearly to her waist. She glanced at me, eyes wide—I could see the whites nearly all the way around the intense blue iris—and she made a gasping smile that showed all her long white teeth.
Later on, I thought maybe that was the way a person looks who has just murdered her husband, because there were all sorts of rumors that she had done in Billy Peace.
Marn and her children walked in and took the last booth open, farthest from the windows. I had the ketchups in the very last booth, behind them. Their table was set for four so I took one setting off. She waved away the menu and ordered three number eights, the breakfast special with steak. Well done for all of them. Coffee, orange juice, water with ice. It had been warm the day before, but turned cold and spring-raw today. They were dressed like winter and shed their coats.
“I’ll take them,” I offered, and she handed me her children’s coats but kept hers beside her on the booth bench. “I’ve got stuff in the pockets.”
I gave crayons to the kids—a boy and girl, mouse-haired and pallid but with those dark Peace eyes. They began to color the cartoon cow and chicken figures on their place mats. They set the crayons carefully aside when the food came, bowed their heads, and folded their hands in their laps. I put the plates down before them. They stayed poised like that, just waiting. Maybe they were waiting for ketchup. I grabbed a half-consolidated bottle and put it on their table. Marn picked up her fork.
“Lilith, Judah,” she said, “pick up your forks. And just eat.”
The girl picked hers up first, watching her mother closely. Then the boy did. Marn took a mouthful of hash browns. The children watched her. They forked up hash browns and placed the food between their lips, then began to chew. All of a sudden, Marn grabbed the ketchup bottle and dumped ketchup onto their plates, first the girl’s, then the boy’s, then her own. She reached over and cut up their meat with jerky, excited, little saws of her knife. She dropped the knife with a clatter and began to shovel food into her mouth. They kids started picking up speed, and soon they were hardly stopping to breathe. When the food was gone, the toast devoured down to the crumbs and last tubs of jelly, I refilled Marn’s coffee and cleared their plates. I asked Marn if she wanted her check.
“No,” she said, her thin cheeks flushed. The children sat back in the booth, stupefied and glowing. “We’re gonna have dessert.” The children’s faces became very alert.
“Really,” she said. She scanned the room and the street outside, then got up to go to the bathroom. While she was gone, I came and gave the kids menus again. They bent over the list, their mouths forming the words.
“Banana cream pie,” said the boy finally.
“You got it,” said Marn, sitting back down at the table.
“Could I have ice cream too?” the boy asked in a small voice, then looked down at his lap.
“Chocolate sundae,” said the girl. She smiled. She had big, cute bunny teeth in front.
“With nuts?” I said.
She looked blankly at her mother and Marn nodded. I went back to the kitchen and made the desserts extra big with whipped cream on top of the ice cream and maraschino cherries stuck all over the mound.
“What the hell are you doing?” said Earl, coming up behind me.
“What’s it look like?”
“Those are way too—”
Uncle Whitey said, “Get back in your office, fathead.” Now that he was related to Earl by marriage, he enjoyed insulting him.
Earl did have a big, round, white head with pasty yellow hair that he glued to one side. He tried to run things in a military way even though he’d only lasted a week in the Marines. He hated that I brought books to work and when he saw my French book,