Club Sandwich (7 page)

Our bistro, epitome, with no capital letter (which seems oxymoronic to me, but what do I know, I was just a journalism major), specializes in crazy sandwiches, soups and fish with odd names, curly greens, and olive oil. It began its days in the thirties as the Towson County Restaurant, specializing in regular old sandwiches, pot roast, chicken croquettes with egg sauce, meat loaf, and rice pudding and homemade pies.

I grew up making my own sandwiches behind the counter, pulling up the stainless steel lid that protected the lunchmeats, mayo, mustard, and toppings like lettuce, tomato, and sliced onion. Ham on rye with mustard and mayo mixed, a red ripe tomato slice, and a hank of lettuce satisfied me more than any other combination. Man, I miss that. When Brian removed the long counter and the grill and work area behind it, I wanted to strangle him for vandalizing my memories. He might as well have removed my liver or my left arm.

But Towson turned around a couple of decades ago and became tony and smart, and Brian felt the need to follow suit. I actually have to give my brother credit. With L & N Seafood, Paolo’s, and other glitzy places across the street at the Towson Commons, we’d have gone under for sure. But he could have consulted with me about the name change. I work as many hours as he does. I do the books, seat customers, wait tables when necessary, and pay the bills. He could have called me from where I sat poolside at one of Lyra’s swim meets and checked to see if I liked the name. Instead, he ordered an expensive sign, knowing I’d just go along rather than spend more money on something we could agree to. He’s a sneaky twit.

But he always remembers the kids’ birthdays.

Mom’s apartment over the restaurant simplifies my life. And though we spent a fortune redecorating the business—chrome this, linen that—Mom’s two floors remain exactly as they were when she moved us in after Harry bugged out. The front room, the living room, still glows a sea-foam green, and everything sits properly in its place. Unless of course you look into her hall closet, which is messier than a presidential impeachment. Thank goodness she’s never been fond of vinyl slipcovers, because the couch, of heavy green-and-white plaid upholstery, uglies up the room enough on its own. She loves this couch, the first large-ticket item she ever bought for herself.

I kiss her cheek, head back down the outside stairs, and slip my key into the restaurant’s back door.

Already I anticipate that fresh pot of coffee, the newspaper, and an ample strip of sunlight unfurling across the page, transforming newsprint to parchment. I enjoy watching people scuttle by on their way to work, although some of them depress me. So put together and confident. Women with bouncy hair and fine leather pumps and stylish briefcases. Men sporting good haircuts and pressed clothing and those can-do attitudes I don’t think I’ve ever felt for more than thirty seconds. Others, well, they make me feel pretty good about myself. It would be mean to say why.

A sticky bun completes the scenario. Got to have a sticky bun.

I grab the copy of the monthly inspirational booklet I stash behind the register. It’s all I can manage these days. Never one to study Scripture, in all honesty, I’ve never wanted to be, which says something negative. Take your pick: lazy, unspiritual, apathetic, cold, hard, prone to procrastination. Which one I assign to myself depends upon the day. Today, as the coffee drips, I’m leaning toward the apathetic. The most menacing by far.

But the devotional encourages me. Talks about the enduring
qualities of God’s love, about how He bases His fatherly affection not on our performance but upon His heart. After what my father did to us, I need that.

The coffee’s done, praise God from whom all blessings flow. I remember the days a fresh pot awaited me on the kitchen counter, courtesy of Rusty. We always got along so well.

Mitch and I always got along so well. That thought lasts awhile.

I tried to rejoice in my husband’s accomplishments when he first went on the road. I even possessed the energy for excitement back then, or at least what it took to fool myself into some semblance of enthusiasm. But I’m worn down like a brook stone. I need a pep pill. Whatever those are. Didn’t people in the forties and fifties take them?

After the paper and the sticky bun I head to the small office in the very back of the restaurant, turn on the computer, and look over the present state of epitome’s finances. Not good. We took out a loan for the improvements, and how each month we pay for that and our staff remains a matter of prayer. These numbers foreshadow some belt-tightening. I have a feeling I’m going to have to start waiting tables soon.

Man oh man. I’ll bet Mitch’s ex-wife never worried about having to wait tables, dahling.

I reach into my briefcase, slip out the floppy disk that holds my novel, and decide to edit for a bit. Did I say I was depressed before? But the books soon call me back, and I begin the tedious process of entering all our expenses. Nothing but red ink. We can only hang on like this a couple of months more. Maybe.

Brian and a hangover stumble in at ten.

“Hi Ive.” He winces, the words probably scraping around in his head like grinding gears.

I swivel around in the old wooden office chair Grandpa used to use. “Hey Bri.” I consider screaming in his ear,
“How are you this fine morning?”
but decide to exhibit a little grace. He fits into the category of the pathetic sort, after all. Good-looking, talented, and totally unfit for relating to women in a meaningful way. Unable to learn from mistakes, if he even sees them as mistakes in the first place.

Am I like that?

Dear God, don’t answer that.

“Let’s sit in the dining room.”

I pour him a cup of coffee and place it in his hand.

“You are a gift from heaven, Ivy.”

It’s the same every morning. Sometimes it goes like this (especially when he’s late):

“You’re wonderful, old Ivy dear.”

“Save it for your washed-up tarts, Bri.”

“Hey, I can get any woman I want.”

“Yeah, as long as they’re tarts.”

After idolizing a high-school friend for the past two hours, I’m glad that conversation isn’t happening today.

He’ll hold up his hand. “Can we have this conversation later when my headache clears?”

“Sure. Or we can pretend we did. It’s always the same anyway. I posit you have an inherent disrespect for women, and you end up telling me I’m judgmental, and then I have nothing to say to that.”

He’ll shake his head and fish in the cabinet under the register for some pain reliever. I’ll say, “So was it worth it?” But of course I say that almost every morning, so since we’re skipping the verbiage today, I decide to start filling salt shakers instead.

I first saw Rusty at the restaurant back before Brian tore down my beloved long counter and pie case. He tumbled in five minutes to closing time on a Saturday night. Now you can’t help but notice Rusty. Even then, at a mere hundred and fifty pounds, he somehow took up more space than anyone in the room. While the rest of us rubber helium balloons float around the world, Mylar Rusty tumbles among us, rendering us transparent and feeling a little silly, realizing our helium will be gone well before he’s even begun to pucker.

The bell slammed against the glass door, and he apologized.

His dark auburn hair, very thick, swung around his forehead like a British actor’s hair. His caramel eyes took in the room, including me, at a single glance. We both blushed. Not that he was embarrassed or anything. He told me later the first thought he had upon seeing me: “Now, that is what I call a woman!” He said his breath caught in his throat, and he felt so lacking. That lacking pushed him forward, for Rusty liked challenges even then, if only to prove he possessed more oomph than his older brother ever gave him credit for. Ten minutes later, he and I sat alone at a table for two, talking about musicians and poets.

His fingers resting on the table, raised up slightly in time to the songs, trumpet miming. Energy buzzed about him, his eyes like sparklers—so bright it hurt to look; so lively and intriguing I couldn’t look away.

I felt strange and almost desperate sitting next to this guy, but Tom Webber had broken up with me for the eighth time three weeks before, and … well, this guy loved more than sports. He didn’t
use lingo. He said he liked my glasses. He told me my hair was the most intriguing shade of blond he’d ever seen. He told his roommate to go on home, he’d catch him later.

I accompanied him to church the next day and watched him play percussion. He became so thoroughly enveloped in the rhythm of the songs it mesmerized me. And then, when he sang a solo written by Phil Keaggy, a man I knew nothing about at the time, I felt my heart lurch forward toward him and God. That voice watered some spot in my heart that no one had ever touched. Not Mitch, not Tom. Not Pastor Kincaid. Not Chuck Swindoll. Nobody. Afterward, we took a walk by the waters of Loch Raven. I laughed at his jokes and self-deprecating stories. We sat on the banks of the reservoir, and he pulled out a Far Side book, and we laughed ourselves silly at that, too. He didn’t kiss me, but he held my hand and told me he’d never yet met a girl who laughed as much as I did.

The next morning he showed up at the restaurant before his first class at Towson State. We served breakfast back in those days. In his hand a dozen pink roses bobbed. Pink. Not the typical red. Good, an individual. We strolled together again, this time down the streets of Towson, sat on the lip of the dry fountain in the sterile square of the new courthouse, and drank coffee. And I felt comfortable and more like myself than ever before. All soft and open and maybe even a little sweet. Tom Webber made me nervous, always wondering when he’d break my heart again.

I didn’t laugh much that day with Rusty, for a different atmosphere pervaded, something silent and profound, but I smiled all the way down, especially when he told me his parents were still together, still strong and loving, twenty-five years post “I do.” I promised myself I’d never let him go.

Oh great. My father, Harry Starling, just walked by the front window.

Harry’s a schmo. No other way around it. And I guess because he deserted us with such glibness, the sight of him hones Rusty’s departure to a more exquisite point.

Mom, bearing the heavy load of hindsight, said lots of warning signals flashed, even during the dating months: the times he stood her up, the way money slipped through his fingers and she’d have to pay for their nights out. The way his eye wandered. But she loved him, she said. She loved his bright, good looks, his slim physique, the way he turned everyday life into a party. He ran with a wild crowd, sure, drag racing, clubbing, smoking like Robert Mitchum, but she was the woman to tame him, yes sir. Not to mention she was twenty-eight and couldn’t make babies by herself.

Even at ten years old I noticed the way he looked women up and down. And choosy? No, no, no! It didn’t matter the hair color or the build, whether a skirt hung from her hips or pants stretched tight, she demanded a look-see. I didn’t realize my mother noticed until I was twelve. Some fuse blew inside me then. Never Daddy’s girl in the first place—that was Brett’s position—I realized he’d never sit close to my heart. After that I found myself on “Mom’s side,” though no one ever demanded a choice from me. Even then I pitched my tent in the camps of “all” and “nothing” and never the fragile space in between.

My brother Brian takes after Harry, but he’s smart enough to pitch his tent in the singles’ camp, whereas Harry just kept sneaking into other people’s tents. I guess he can at least thank Harry for the gift of a negative role model.

At least Harry has the courtesy to appear after the lunch rush for his meal. We feel compelled to offer up a freebie—he’s our dad—but he always orders expensive items.

We perform the obligatory greeting song-and-dance, and Brian appears from the kitchen.

“Whatchya got in the back, Brian?” And before Brian can answer, reporting only salmon or tenderloin, Harry heads to the back like he still belongs and discovers the jumbo lump crabmeat in the refrigerator. “How about one of your crab cakes, son?”