The Weird Sisters - Eleanor Brown [68]
Mrs. O was not amused. “What can we do for you?”
“We’re okay. You know Rose is living at home for a while, and Bean’s back, too. So there’s lots of hands.”
“All of you together again. Your parents must be thrilled. Your father misses you and Bianca terribly, you know. Always talking about what you’re up to. Can’t stop him, really.”
“Ugh. How embarrassing. On behalf of myself and my sisters, I apologize.”
“That’s what it’s like when you have children. Wait until one of you has grandchildren. Then he really won’t be able to stop crowing.”
“Bite your tongue,” Cordy said, flushing.
“He says you’ve been traveling a great deal. How lovely to get to see the world.”
The world? She’d hardly seen the world. “Yes.”
“I’ll admit I’m surprised that you’re back. I always thought we’d see you end up in the theater. You were always so lovely in the plays.”
“Me?” Cordy laughed. “No. I don’t think I had it in me.”
“Well, you certainly had me fooled. I thought I’d be getting autographed Playbills from New York all the time by now. Do you remember Kalah Justin? She was around your year, wasn’t she?”
“Sure.”
“Well, she’s had a few plays produced in New York. Maybe you should call her, dear.”
The thought of calling Kalah Justin, who had smoked French cigarettes and worn sunglasses indoors for every class Cordy had with her, was about the least appealing thing she could imagine. Cordy elected to change the subject. “What can I get for you?”
Mrs. O looked a little surprised by Cordy’s sudden businesslike attitude. “Oh, yes. Well. It’s lovely to have you working here. I’ll have to come in and see you all the time now. I’d like a chicken salad sandwich, please, and a cup of the soup.” Cordy rang up all the women’s lunches and then began to work, setting the meals on trays, which Ian capped off with drinks and delivered to the tables. She heard the hen clucks of the women as they ate their lunches, and busied herself cleaning underneath the coffee machines. On breaks, she wandered back into the remnants of the kitchen that had been here when the space had, even beyond our memories, been a restaurant. Now it was a labyrinth of boxes—cups and napkins and straws and the interminably squeaky foam clamshells she had been wrestling with all morning. She walked around the rows meditatively, dragging her fingers along the dusty surfaces.
So this is what she had come to. The quiet silence of Barnwell again. An unscratchable itch surfaced inside her, like a phantom limb. When would she get to leave? Where could she go next? And then a gentle tug on the string of her mental balloon. She couldn’t go anywhere, not anymore. There had been a before, and now there would be an after.
Nearly two hours later, Cordy felt like she had cleaned every possible surface when Dan came in. He and Ian exchanged one of those highchinned nods of greeting only men of a certain age seem to be able to master, and Ian shucked his apron, disappearing into the back.
“Cordeeeeeelia,” he greeted her. “How’s it going?”
“I’m ready to chew my leg off from boredom, but other than that, it’s good.”
Dan barked a short laugh. “Enjoy it now, baby. It never gets this quiet during the school year. In case you’ve forgotten. It’s nonstop busy.”
“Like woah,” Cordy agreed, straight-faced.
Dan laughed. Cordy, as always, had pegged her target perfectly. “Mock if you must, but he makes a great cup of coffee. I’m going to be so bummed when he graduates. So what’s Ian kept you busy with?”
“Ringing. Making sandwiches. I think I’ve cleaned everything like seven times.”
“You can bring a book with you, you know. You do still read, don’t you?”
“Have you met my father?”
“On occasion. But I’ve also met Bean. I don’t think she cracked a book the whole year I lived on her floor.”
“Ah, this is Bean’s clever conceit. She graduated magna, did you know that? But she never let anyone see her study. Ruins the party girl image.”
“She had me fooled.”
Dan had opened the cash register and was stacking the bills all going in the same direction.
“That