‘Help you,’ said an irritable woman’s voice. She sat in one of the booths, comfortable in a space designed for three people, a fat girl with blond hair parted on the side and pinned back with a black grosgrain bow. She wore a man’s grey sweater over a housedress printed with seahorses. In front of her was a chicken salad sandwich cut square across the middle with strips of bacon hanging out the ends, and a pot of coffee beside a souvenir mug, a magazine folded open. He could see letters spelling out “The Telegram Came While I Was Two-Timing Joe.’
‘Like to get cup of coffee, sandwich, you got any more like that,’ pointing with his thumb.
‘I s’pose we can manage it.’ She heaved to her feet and he saw the wrinkled dungaree legs under the dress, the oily work boots.
‘Are you the Big Pinetree?’
‘Close enough. Big enough. Mrs. Big Pinetree. Piney’s in the Pacific and I’m here keepin’ the bears out of the lunchroom and fixin’ cars much as I can without no parts or no tires. Want it toasted?’
‘Guess so.’
She pulled the uncovered bowl of chicken salad out of a big Servel, the door around the handle discolored with garage grease, slapped three pieces of bacon on the grill and laid three slices of white bread to toast. She pressed down on the bacon with a spatula, forcing the oil out. She opened the Servel again, grasped a head of lettuce like a bowling ball, tore off an inch of leaves and dropped them on the cutting board. She turned the bacon, turned the slices of bread, pressed them with the spatula. She got the pot of coffee from the booth and poured it in a white mug marked ‘Souvenir of Big Pinetree in the Adirondacks.’ She slid the spatula under a slice of bread, toasted dark with a narrow rim of black around the crust, slid it onto a plate, plastered it with Silvernip mayonnaise, put half the lettuce on it, whacked a scoop of chicken salad dead center, then picked up the second dice of toast, laid it in place like a mason dropping a brick in line, hit it with the mayonnaise, the rest of the lettuce and the hot bacon. When the last dice of toast was on she looked up at Loyal, holding the knife.
‘Kitty-corner or straight?’
‘Straight.’
She dipped her head in a single nod, laid the knife dead center, horizontal with the edge of the toast, raised the heel of the blade and cut it clean. She pulled a two-inch cream bottle out of the Servel and thumped it all on the counter in front of him.
‘There you go. I don’t trust guys like it cut kitty-comer. City style. Fifty-five.’ He dug out the change, then sat eating, trying not to cram and wolf. She went back to her magazine and he heard her strike a match, heard the rounded exhalation of her breath, smelled the smoke. She was big, but she wasn’t bad.
‘This is a hell of a good sandwich,’ he said. ‘Any chance of another cup of coffee?’
‘Help yourself,’ she said, rattling the pot on the booth table. He brought his mug over and she poured the coffee, steadying his mug with one hand. Her fingers touched his.
God! He hadn’t washed up since—. He started to jerk away but thought of the gas. He drank a mouthful of coffee, trying to force down the nervous tightness. He sat down on the bench across from her and cocked his head a little.
‘Hate to leave good company,’ he said, ‘but I got to be on my way.’
‘Where you headin’?’
‘Out west. Thought I’d get off the farm, get in one of the War work factories, make some money.’
‘Wish I could do that. They’re makin’ real good wages. Women, too, payin’ ’em the same as men on the production lines. Rosie the Riveter. I’m stuck right here until Piney gets back, and I don’t see five cars a day. Sure wish I could just stow away in your backseat.’
‘I can guess what Big Pine would do. I guess my head would be up on that wall next to the stuffed skunk.’ He got a whiff of a cold sourness from her like the gravelly sod under stones.
She laughed and gave him a look, but he dipped out from under it with a wink.
‘Hey, Mrs. Sweetheart Pinetree.’ He made his voice soft. ‘Chance you could sell me a little extra gas? Awful short on coupons.’
‘Well, you stopped the right place, but it’ll cost you double.’ Her voice hardened up, she seemed to turn into a kind of pot metal. He went out with her and leaned against the car while she filled the tank with gas. Out in the light he saw she wasn’t much, just another penned-up woman who didn’t know how to dig her way out, all grease and grits, but ready to give it away to anybody that came by. Her knuckles were skinned, her nails rimmed with black. She was surly now, too, feeling his intention to get going now that he had the gas.
‘That will hold you.’ She shoved the yellow cat that had come twisting around her legs away with her foot, lofting it a few inches into the air. ‘Beat it, cat.’ She meant him, of course.
She didn’t seem to know how good off she was, he thought. That she could be here, comfortable, running this place, eating big sandwiches, all the gas she could want, cheating on the gas, getting black market prices, cheating on Big Pinetree out there in the Pacific, touching his hand, she didn’t know who the hell he was, and God, poor Billy, where was she? The woman didn’t know how close she was coming.
‘How about some kind of bonus for the one that’s sellin’ you the gas.’ She bunched up her mouth.
‘Maybe we just ought to step back inside for that kind of bonus,’ he said, smiling like he was holding nails in his teeth, the oily metal taste of nails ran right to the back of his throat, and he could hardly wait to get the door slammed shut and locked.
His arms wrapped around the postcard rack for support and he fought for clear breath. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but all of a sudden it was like digging a pit on the hottest day to pull a breath into his caved lungs. His pants were wadded around his boot tops. He could see the stained underwear and he wanted to haul them up, but he couldn’t get a breath.
‘That looks cute,’ she said from across the room, watching him retch for air. She walked toward him. ‘I said that looks cute, you dirty chokin’ bastard.’ She threw a sandwich plate in his direction. It hit the postcard rack and fell into his pants. He could see it between his ankles, see the hardened grease and a red tick of bacon, a white dirty plate. How had he got into this. How had he got into this. He didn’t want her, he didn’t want anything from her but the gas.
He dragged for a breath, kicked the plate onto the floor, got his pants up and wheezed in another breath. Something the hell wrong. A heart attack or something. He stumbled against the door. His hands were full of postcards. There was wind outside, and cold air, and if he was going to die he wanted to do it outside, not in here.
‘Go ahead, get out,’ she said. ‘You’re lucky. You’re lucky I don’t get down Piney’s shotgun. If you’re smart you’ll be out of here and travelin’ in about one minute or I’m going to get down Piney’s shotgun.’ She was wading toward him. He twisted the lock and got the door open.
The parking lot was compressed by the black spruce across the road, stacked on itself as a scrap of paper folded smaller and smaller. His car waited pale against the trees, the chromed handle on the driver’s door a silvery rod that, as he grasped it, connected him with the possibilities of distances. Wheezing and hauling for breath, he swung inside the car, it started, smooth as syrup, started and he backed across the gravel, out onto the lonely road past the waves of spruce and fir, the nicked driveways leading to dark, mosquito-stitched camps in the forest.
As he pulled out onto the road something moved near the woodpile. He thought it was a falling block, but it was the yellow cat, the same color as the fresh wood. They’d had a barn cat once,