Last Night at the Lobster Read online

  “Okay,” Ty says, “but Rich is baker. I gotta have my boys with me.”

  “Fredo’s on backup, how’s that?”

  “Just keep him out of the alley and we’ll be all right.”

  Ty trades his expensive leather for a spotless chef’s jacket and apron, cranks the radio on the shelf above the sink by the back door (Ludacris, thumping) and sets to work in the walk-in, choosing today’s specials from what’s marked fresh by the color-coded rotation labels. By pro cess of elimination, he announces, the vegetable’s going to be cauliflower, which means whoever’s assembling is going to have to do a hell of a job garnishing to give the plates some color.

  “White food for white people,” Ty says.

  “Break out the red peppers,” Manny says. “It’s Christmas.”

  The coffee urn is popping, and Manny stands on a chair and scoops regular into one side, decaf into the other. As he’s fitting the lids back on, Roz waltzes through on her phone, smoking, though she knows she’s not supposed to in the kitchen. She gives him a two-fingered wave with the butt and disappears into the break room.

  While there’s still an hour till they open, it hasn’t escaped Manny that the only crew to show up are the ones he’s taking to the Olive Garden with him, as if the others have stayed away to teach him a lesson. With all the problems they’ve had with staffing, he’s been able to offer lots of overtime—a bonus during the holidays—but maybe he underestimated their pride. He’s not sure he’d come in (but that’s a lie: He’d even be on time).

  A couple minutes later, as if to disprove his theory, Leron, of all people, appears, shaking snow off his skully and poking his fade back into shape with his fingers. Sometime between closing Wednesday and now he’s picked up a blood-crusted mouse under his left eye. He saunters by Manny, now working on salads at a cutting board, acknowledging him with a soft “All right,” and there’s no disguising the reek of weed clinging to his army jacket. He punches in and stays in the back hall a long time before coming out in a black do-rag and an apron and reaching for the box of latex gloves.

  “Hands,” Manny says, jabbing a knife at the sink, and Leron smiles like he almost got away with something, or maybe he thinks Manny’s kidding, to still give a shit at this point. It’s impossible to tell with Leron. From the day he started he’s acted like he doesn’t want the job, but here he is, after missing last night and not bothering to call in. Without a word, he takes over chopping lettuce for Manny. He’s way faster, yet only his arms and hands move, the rest of him stock-still, mouth closed in a flat line, eyes sleepy and unblinking. Ty said he knew a youngblood in subs like that, ended up killing his wife on liberty and they didn’t find her till they were well under way. Ty’d take him his meals in the brig. For months the guy didn’t say a word, then one night when Ty was picking up his dinner tray, the guy goes, “The beets were good.” Having been lost and irresponsible for a while in his early twenties (how Jacquie would laugh at that), Manny wants to think Leron’s troubled but good at heart. He’s seen how Leron helps Eddie when clean racks pile up on the ass end of the dishwasher, witnessed him stick a Band-Aid on Eddie’s hand when he cut himself on a broken water goblet, all with the same placid face. He imagines Leron’s different at home, or with friends—that away from the Lobster he comes to life again.

  For now Manny’s just glad he’s here. They’re forty minutes away from opening, and he’s got no line and only one server. It’s not lost on him that Leron’s in, while Warren, who he’s taking to the Olive Garden, is more than an hour late.

  In front, Eddie’s finished dusting and is sitting in a booth, rolling silverware into paper napkins, slowly filling several white buckets, one for each dining room station. Roz is spraying down her section, all elbows and scrawny arms, her Clairol-blond ponytail bobbing as she swabs the tabletops. Despite her girlish barettes, Roz is old enough to be his mother. She’s a pro, with black nurses’ shoes and calves like a mountain biker—and a lifer, the only one fully vested in Darden’s retirement plan. They don’t even make the nametag on her uniform anymore; he’s tried finding it on eBay. Manny can’t ask her to do Jacquie’s or Crystal’s or Nicolette’s booths, so he grabs a squirt bottle of Windex and starts in on them himself.

  “What,” Roz says, “you bucking for a promotion? Where’s your girlfriend anyway?”

  “Which one?”

  “Everybody laugh,” she tells the room at large, and Eddie looks up. “The boss made a funny. I’m sure she’d love it if I told her you said that.”

  “She’ll be here.”

  “I don’t see why. You owe her money or something?”

  It’s another jab, but Manny can shrug it off. He’ll take this shit from Roz because he knows their situation looks ridiculous from the outside, and she doesn’t know the whole story. What he owes Jacquie is so much more than simple loyalty. He’s failed her in greater ways, things beyond apology. What Jacquie really thinks is a mystery to him. A year ago, she signed the card with his gift “Forever.” Now they barely talk. The baby’s not the only complication, or Deena, or Jacquie’s boyfriend Rodney. All of that’s extra, or at least that’s what Manny likes to think, separating himself and Jacquie from the rest of the world. From the beginning there was something dreamlike and surreal at the heart of what they had, something unbalanced (anyone could see she was too beautiful for him), but that, like every other serious thought he’s had about them, is a guess.

  “She’ll beat Nicolette in,” he predicts.

  “You really think she’s coming.”

  “Yeah,” he says, then, “Which one?”

  “Nicky,” Roz says, because Nicolette hates that name.

  “She will if she wants her check.”

  “Now that’s lazy, when you can’t even get direct deposit.”

  “I’ll tell her that.”

  “Tell her what ever you want,” Roz says. “I’m not afraid of her.”

  And then, as if she can’t let him off the hook, she asks, “Who’s on the bar?”

  “Dom.” Dom’s a rock, and Roz has always been a little sweet on him, so that’s that. Manny finishes Jacquie’s tops and moves on to Nicolette’s. Roz watches him, shaking her head, then starts in on Crystal’s.

  “Thanks,” Manny says.

  “That’s my problem,” she says. “I’m too nice.”

  From the front doors comes a rapping on the glass—Kendra, in fuzzy white earmuffs, the wind whipping her dark hair across her face.

  “Make her go around,” Roz says, but Manny’s already made eye contact and set down his squirter. “God, you are such a pushover.”

  She says it more with resignation than disgust. Kendra is twenty and majoring in business at Central. She swims for them and wears clingy cashmere sweaters and ribbon-thin chokers, a cameo resting against her skin. The guys in the kitchen pay special attention when she zips in to grab a clean rag or more toothpicks. She can render Rich or Warren silent, and while she doesn’t invite this kind of worship, the servers can’t help but be jealous—it doesn’t matter that they make twice what she does. Manny’s not taking her to the Olive Garden, so she’s doing him a favor coming in today, and he thanks her for it.

  “I’d just be sitting around at home,” she says, brushing the snow from her shoulders, and he thinks he’ll miss her too.

  He leaves her to open the host stand and finishes Nicolette’s booths, then heads for the kitchen. Ty is scraping the grill, burning off the excess from yesterday, planing it with a straight blade. He has the blower on, the low drone burying the radio so all Manny can hear is a tinny Morse code of cymbals. Rich is in, mixing biscuits, and Fredo, skinny and hunched over, chopping cabbage beside Leron for coleslaw. Their knives clack and chatter against the Kevlar cutting boards.

  Rich is okay, he’s just a kid, a big shy white boy. He’s only been working here since the spring, and he’s quiet, so it’s hard for Manny to determine exactly what kind of loyalty he has, and what kind of loyalty Manny should have towa
rd him. Fredo isn’t as bad as Ty makes out, but he definitely has his problems: Manny still has a fading worm of a scar on his thumb from a hot baking tin Fredo set down without leaving a rag on it. If he could take more than five, Rich might make it. Not Fredo.

  The chowder’s going, and the gumbo, and the coffee. Eddie turns on the dishwasher, adding another layer of noise. The room fills with a steamy heat, and Manny feels the way he used to in the locker room before a big meet, that same buildup of energy waiting to be released. No one’s new here. He doesn’t have to tell them they’re going to be shorthanded, or what that means.

  He goes to the house phone in the narrow aisle by the coatrack and calls Warren’s cell, but just gets his voice mail. He tries B-Mac and wonders if they’re in this together, knuckleheaded revenge for him not taking both of them.

  He realizes he’s plucking at his rubber band, snapping it against his wrist, and stops.

  Nicolette nearly runs him over coming around the corner. So he’s lost that bet too.

  “It’s bad out there,” she says, flinging off her scarf. “A car spun out right in front of our bus.”

  “Don’t worry,” Manny says, “I had Roz do your setups.”

  “Unh-uh.”

  “Nah, I did them.”

  “Good,” she says with a mix of relief and satisfaction. Of all the servers, Nicolette’s been there the shortest and has made the most enemies—from the seaters to the bussers to the kitchen. She couldn’t have been surprised that he wasn’t taking her. Even before he made the announcement, she regularly threatened to quit, once spectacularly, after she chased an old lady who’d swiped her pen, catching her in the parking lot and cursing her out through her closed car window. “I don’t need this shit,” she said, and threw her nametag across the break room when Manny tried to talk her down. So while he’s sorry he has to let her go, secretly he thinks he’s granting her wish.

  They’re twenty minutes away, and Crystal’s still missing, and Dom and Jacquie. He expected turnout would be light, but this is a nightmare. He tries Warren and B-Mac again, then rolls up his sleeves and takes over for Rich, working the biscuit dough with his wrists and shrugging when Ty comes over, all pissed off.

  “Please tell me this is a joke.”

  “Don’t ask me,” Manny says. “Ask your boy Warren.”

  “I will,” Ty says, then a minute later stalks back from the phone and tells Fredo to quit dicing carrots and get on backup. They’re good on salads for now. It’s time to get the rice going, and the fries.

  Manny fills a half dozen tins and fits them in the reachin. Eddie’s just standing around, so he calls him over and makes him baker, showing him how. “You’re going to need new gloves.”

  “Right,” Eddie says. “How many should I do?”

  “Just keep ’em comin’ till I tell you to stop.” It’s a reckless order, since Eddie’s never done it and Ty’s sure to need something washed, but Manny’s in a hurry and thinks he’ll be back to spell him soon enough.

  In front, it’s so dark out that Roz has turned the house lights on low, giving the place the late-night vibe of a cocktail lounge. Dom’s still not in. Manny’s got to set up the bar, and asks Roz and Nicolette to slice lemons and limes while he lugs a couple buckets of ice from the machine. The Bombay Sapphire is almost gone, and the Dewar’s. As he’s restocking the bar back, he catches a car crossing the front windows in the mirror, the misdirection confusing, making him swivel his head to see who it is and then pretend he hasn’t, aware that Roz and Nicolette are probably watching him. It’s not Jacquie’s fast and furious Accord but Dom’s boxy gold Grand Am, so he can stop working on the bar and deal with the walk, already covered with a dusting.

  The snow’s so dry he can do it with a broom. As he sweeps, he casually peers out over the mall lot, crawling with cars, their lights on to combat the gloom and the snow, falling steadily now, straight down. He doesn’t have a coat on, and gradually the cold seizes him, stealing his breath, biting at his fingertips, yet he takes his time.

  What would it mean if Jacquie doesn’t show up? That all his memories of the two of them are untrue, and more shameful than if they’d never happened. Because now he has trouble believing them himself. The day they took off and went to Lake Compounce and rode the rides all day and made out in the Ghost Hunt like they were teenagers. The morning they sat in the waiting room at the doctor’s office, not talking. By now these scenes have been stripped of their dialogue and motion. All he can recall are still images—her black hair wet and heavy from the shower, her stockings laid over a chair, the glass of water on the floor by her bed holding the light from the window—yet instead of weakening with time, they’ve grown more powerful, liable to paralyze him if he dotes on them too long.

  Part of him—the responsible, smarter part of him that wants Deena to be limitlessly happy—hopes she doesn’t show up. What could he say to her anyway?

  Good-bye.

  Is that it? They tried that months ago.

  He used to marvel at the fact that out of the millions of people in the world they’d somehow found each other, whether it was an accident or destiny or the result of some logical, cascading chain of events. Now, looking out at the snow falling on the darkened cars, he thinks it’s an even bigger mystery, and, like the Lobster, a waste.

  At least she could have called, he thinks, but even that wouldn’t have been enough. What would?

  He trades the broom for a bag of ice melter, strewing the white pebbles like chicken feed, watching them scatter and hop. They crunch underfoot, a different slipperiness, and he thinks it would be fitting if someone fell and broke a hip and sued the company. He hasn’t had the snowblower out so far this winter, and in truth is hoping to avoid it. It’s always a battle getting that antique started (it waits under a plastic tarp in the dim corner behind the ice machine, probably low on gas). If it keeps up like this the lot will need to be plowed, and he reminds himself to call them when he goes back in. For now, though, he likes being out here alone, salting the walk along the curb, following one wing to the far end where he can watch the mall entrance like an advance scout.

  A couple times he thinks he sees her Accord turn in, but with the distance and the cloud cover, every Japanese coupe could be a Honda, every dark color maroon—until the cars come closer and resolve into disappointing Hyundais or Mazdas, cut-rate imitators. On his way back to the middle, he notices the ice melter beginning to work, a tiny circle opening like a bull’s-eye around each pellet. It’s almost time; even without looking at his watch, he can feel the seconds ticking off like a countdown.

  He’s covering the other wing, starting at the far end and coming back the other way so he can keep an eye on the light, when a car pauses at the stop sign as if it doesn’t know where to go, then keeps coming, following Dom’s tracks, and turns in. A big cheaply painted Caprice, probably an old taxi or cop car bought at auction, a real hooptie. He expects it to swing wide and take one of the prime spaces in front, but instead it keeps gliding by as if it’s going around the building. He stops salting to watch it pass, standing tall as if he’s guarding the place. There are two people in the front seat—a giant black guy driving and, beside him, a tiny brown girl with her hair pulled back and a diamond nose stud. Jacquie.

  Being a nice guy, he raises a hand to wave. For a second he believes she’s looking right at him, her eyes flashing, asking him not to, and he falters, unsure. He freezes in midgesture, and that quickly they’re past him and around the corner, past Dom’s Grand Am and Roz’s new CRV, dragging a swirling wake of snow, leaving him to contemplate the fresh imprint of their tires. He lowers his hand into the bag and keeps salting as if nothing’s happened, sure that behind the blinds everyone is watching.

  He’s seen pictures of Rodney on her dresser but never in person. He’s a cricket player, a sought-after bowler around Hartford and even down in the city. He’s been kicked out of a couple semipro leagues because of his temper, and while Manny can take care of himse
lf, it’s been a long time since he wrestled, and he concedes that Rodney could probably kick his ass, and that after all that’s happened, he probably deserves it. Having wronged him for so long, and so completely, sometimes he pities Rodney even more than he pities himself—until he remembers that Rodney still has Jacquie. From what little she’s told him, Manny knows he takes what ever under-the-table jobs he can get because he’s not legal, and worries that once Jacquie gets her degree she’ll drop him for someone educated. He’s asked her to marry him, out of desperation, she thinks. Manny can identify. As humiliated as that half wave made him feel, mostly he was just grateful she showed up. He’s okay as long as she’s near him, as pathetic as that sounds. In a strange way, he and Rodney are brothers, both of them at her mercy.

  The Caprice chugs around the other side, cutting fresh tracks, ass end sliding as it leaves the lot, fishtailing onto the road, then correcting. New York plates—probably not even registered in his name. Not that Manny’s ride is any better.

  Manny flings handfuls, making sure he’s got good coverage. It could save him from having to do it again in a couple hours, or having to fight the snowblower. Jacquie’s probably already punched in and hung her coat up (puffy, quilted baby blue, with a white fake-fur collar; when they were together, she thought it was funny to hang hers right beside his, the two pressed together like a clue, though to everyone it must have seemed they were flaunting their happiness). Now she’s getting her coffee and pushing through the door of the break room. Now she’s checking her section, asking who did her setups.

  With all the distractions, he’s forgotten Crystal, still not in, but it’s not like Warren and B-Mac in the kitchen. Roz, Jacquie and Nicolette can handle their business. Roz is always bitching about how they need bigger sections to make any real money, so here’s their chance.

  As he’s finishing the crosshatched patch between the handicapped spots, another car turns in, a boat of an Olds with a rust-specked bumper—Mr. Kashynski, Manny’s old gym teacher and coach from high school, retired now. He was ancient then, with a chapped ham of a face and a greased-down comb-over. Living twenty more years as a widower hasn’t helped. He’s a regular, with his own window booth. He’ll order the broiled tilapia and a cup of coffee and quietly read the Herald, then leave Roz a three-dollar tip. He wheels the big 98 wide and noses into the first spot.