FSF, September-October 2010 Read online

  She was making a coffee run through her section—just warm it up a little for me and how bout another one of those rolls and you got a straw, miss, the usual—when she swung by his table—

  "Coffee?” she said. He pushed away his sandwich—tuna on rye—half eaten. He looked up and met her gaze, his dark eyes spoked with gray.

  "Sure,” he said. And then, just as she was about to pour: “I've been watching you."

  She stood there frozen for a moment, carafe in hand, wondering if Noreen was right, and this was some kind of creepy come-on. And then she thought of Charlie, the way he used to step in when some guy forgot that he was paying just to look and got too friendly with his hands, the way he'd get right down in the guy's face.

  "Well you enjoy the show, hon,” she said. “I've been watched before."

  "That's not what I mean."

  "Thing is, mister, I don't care what you mean. I got seven tables here, I don't have time to play whatever game it is you're—"

  "Listen. The last guy you rang up,” he said, and something shifted inside her. She was still suddenly, utterly still. She could feel a vein pulsing at the corner of her eye.

  "I saw what you did."

  "I didn't do nothing."

  "Sure you did, I've been watching you."

  "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "I'm talking about the habit you got of collecting full price, but ringing up something less. You did it to me the other day, didn't you?"

  She had, too; it had seemed too easy to pass up. He was so insular, so private and apart from the rest of them, like he wasn't but halfway in the world. She stood there another moment, and then—just to fill the silence—she leaned over and refilled his cup. Her hand shook, coffee lipping the rim to puddle on the table. She straightened, ignoring it.

  "You need something else?"

  "I'm not trying to scare you. I'm—look. My name's Carl. Don't get me wrong, I'm not judging you"—He glanced at her badge—"Eleanor. Really. I'm just...warning you. You wanna be careful, that's all I'm saying.” He leaned toward her, lowering his voice. “All I'm saying is you're ripe now. They're going to come for you. I'd like to talk to you. I'd like to hel—"

  "Thanks,” she said. “You let me know if you need anything else."

  Heart hammering, Eleanor turned back toward the counter, intending to slip the carafe back atop its burner and duck into the restroom. She needed a minute to pull herself together. Her mind had slipped into some kind of vicious feedback loop: she was ripe now, they were going to come for her? What did that mean? And if he'd seen her, then who else—

  A hand shot out from a booth as she passed, closing around her elbow.

  "Coffee, miss?"

  She poured without looking—four cups, one two three four—emptying the carafe. Still the hand clutched her elbow. “Why don't you look at me?” its owner said.

  So she did, stumbling back a step as his features—those deep-set eyes, that lean hard face, the black tunic—impressed themselves upon her. She glanced wildly at the soot-grimed windows and there was the dog, too, Cuth, chained to a post on the sidewalk, unmoving, impervious to weather. And still the black tunic did not release her. He just reeled her in, utterly without effort, not so much as lifting his other hand from its place flat atop the table. She looked at his companions, four of them, black tunics all, watchful red eyes pinned to their collars, searching their faces each in its turn, not knowing what it was she hoped to find there but not finding it all the same, not finding anything at all, their faces flat and without affect, like stone, their eyes as empty as orbs of painted glass, until her gaze rounded the circuit and settled once again upon her captor.

  He smiled.

  "I saw you on the subway this morning, didn't I? You caught my eye."

  "I'm sorry, it was an acc—"

  Still clasping her elbow, he tilted his head and lifted his other hand to silence her. An inch or two, that's all. And smiling. Still smiling.

  "No need for that. Accidents happen. You caught my eye, that's all. And just now—just now I couldn't help overhearing your conversation with my"—He pursed his lips, considering—"my...colleague—though the phrase is a little grandiose for the likes of a man in a blue uniform, don't you think? Such a lowly...servant...of our regime, don't you think? I could have him in the pit in a minute, if you know what I mean. On the other side of the equation: experiencing the pain rather than dispensing it."

  "That's—” Eleanor swallowed. “I don't know what he was talking—"

  Again he silenced her with a wave. “Be that as it may. One thing you want to know—a very good thing to know—is that our organization is always looking for someone anxious to put their shoulder to the wheel. Someone willing to get their hands dirty. There are opportunities for advancement. We all end up in the pit sooner or later. It's just a question of which side of that equation you want to be on.” And now, at last, he did release her, but still she stood there, unmoving, waiting to be dismissed, like a kid called in to see the principal.

  He lifted his coffee, still steaming, and drained it in a single long swallow. He set the empty cup on the table—gently, oh so gently—and then, surveying his companions, he said: “Gentlemen."

  They stood as one.

  Eleanor drew back to let them pass, but the man from the subway—she could see the coffee stain on his tunic now—wheeled back to face her, lifting his hand. She recoiled, thinking that he was going to strike her—something broken inside her almost welcomed it—and then she saw that he had magicked a sheaf of papers out of some hidden pocket. He folded them with one hand, his fingers dexterous and swift, once, twice, and then again, a neat packet the size of a business card. Leaning toward her, he tucked it down inside her breast pocket. His fingers lingered there, skating the rim of her nipple. Her cheeks flamed with impotent rage.

  "We can take you away from this...place,” he said, the disgust audible in his voice; without another word he turned away. Outside a gray rain poured down—Eleanor could smell it, the gusty wet and the damp smolder of the pit beyond it, when the door swung jingling closed behind them.

  The airless bubble that had formed around her burst; the clatter of the diner—the clink of silver and the muted babble of conversation and Tank bellowing Order up! from the kitchen—rushed in to fill it. Eleanor looked around, mystified that no one—

  —not even Carl not even your precious loverboy—

  —had noticed anything amiss: the world was as it had been always, spilling over with things to do and never time enough to do them, the clock by the serving window propelling her willy-nilly onward, onward, into a blind, imperious future where someone somewhere faraway was always wheedling her, “Excuse me, ma'am, excuse me, but is there any chance we could get some refills?"

  She looked around at the grimy windows, the cracked vinyl benches, the stained and scarred formica tabletops, and there was nothing at all for her there, nothing but a phrase rolling through her thoughts like a stone: We can take you away from this place.

  * * * *

  Then it was late.

  Philippe headed home, the street wound up its business for the night and still the rain came down, the dining room empty but for a couple of blue uniforms at a table, male and female, lovers maybe, whispering over pie and coffee. Eleanor was restocking the soda coolers when Tank stuck his head in the service window.

  "Can I see you when you get a minute, Eleanor?” he said.

  "You go ahead,” Noreen told her, “I got this,” so Eleanor slipped back through the kitchen to the office, a cramped cell jammed with furniture: a pair of battered filing cabinets, an oversized desk, and two chairs, Tank's capacious leather throne and a rickety monster of molded yellow plastic that looked like he might have fished it out of a dumpster. Eleanor stood, shivering—Tank kept the window unit running full blast year round, as if to compensate for the constant blistering assault of the kitchen—and when she saw what he had on his desk, the temperature seemed to pl
ummet another ten degrees.

  He'd pulled the till and arranged the cash in neat stacks on the blotter in front of him. “How you doin, Eleanor,” he said, flipping methodically through a sheaf of yellow receipts, a pair of wire rim reading glasses perched at the tip of his nose. The fingers of his other hand danced over the keys of the adding machine. Eleanor stared at it as she tried to work up the spit to speak, watching in doomed fascination as the extruding tongue of white paper stroked out line after damning line of faded purple figures.

  "Fine—” she said. She said, “I'm fine."

  "That's good. I'm glad to hear that. And what about that little girl a yours, what's her name, Hannah—"

  "Anna.” Eleanor swallowed. “Her name's Anna. She's okay."

  "Is she? I know she's been sick, Noreen says—"

  "She's as well as can be expected."

  "Well, I'm sorry to hear you're having trouble. Seems like all we get is trouble sometimes.” Tank thumbed the last receipt face down on the desk, picked up a pencil, made a note. He rocked back in his chair.

  "You want to sit down, Eleanor."

  "I'm fine."

  Tank shrugged—have it the way you want it—laid his glasses on the desk, and rubbed his eyes, thumb and forefinger, sighing like he didn't want to do what it was he had to do. Then he looked up at her. Looked her square in the face.

  "You stealing from me, Eleanor?"

  "Someone say I was? Darla maybe? You know she can't stand me, Tank."

  "Wasn't Darla and you know it. I mean, don't I got eyes?"

  She said nothing.

  "Thing is, I do most of the cookin myself, specially on days when Frank doesn't come in. I know what goes through that serving window, I know what it costs, and I got a head for figures. I'm not stupid. How you think I got to where I am today.” Eleanor, looking around the ugly windowless cell of an office, had to suppress a bark of hysterical laughter. To think of such a place as a destination, rather than—rather than what? The last station on a long doomed journey to...where exactly?

  Once again, those words pinballed around inside her head:

  We can take you away from this place.

  Tank said, “You tipped out yet?"

  She swallowed. “Yeah."

  He leaned forward and drew the money toward him with his forearm, clearing a place on the desk. “Why don't you empty your apron for me, Eleanor."

  "Tank—"

  "Tank nothing. You ain't stealing, you got nothin to worry about."

  Eleanor stared at him, hating him suddenly with a white hot resentment—

  —I want Mrs. Koh—

  —that burned inside her like the sun. She stepped to the edge of the desk, and upended her apron. Coins scattered across the desk—Eleanor watched a dime roll spinning to rest on the battered oak veneer—a handful of pens and paper-wrapped straws, her order booklet, a much-creased photo of Anna, and a damning clump of folded bills. The stack of bills collapsed in an untidy heap. In the silence that followed, Tank whistled.

  "You done all right for yourself today, didn't you?"

  He reached out, pushed most of the mess back at Eleanor—he didn't even glance at the photo—and picked up the cash, tapping it sidewise against the desk, like a poker dealer edging up a deck of cards. He leaned back, licked the ball of his thumb, and began to count. Once, twice, a third time. Then set the stack of money down on the desk, where it lay between them like a bomb.

  "Getch your stuff off my desk, Eleanor,” he said, not ungently. But when she reached out for the money, he laid his big hand over it.

  "How long's this been goin on? How much you stuck me for? Three or four grand? More?"

  "I didn't—I don't—"

  "You tellin me you tipped out at two hundred fourteen dollars, when Noreen—yeah, I asked Noreen—tells me she's lucky she clears a hundred dollars a night. You tellin me that for real? Don't you bullshit a bullshitter, girl. What I asked you was, how much you stuck me for?"

  Eleanor opened her mouth to speak, but—nothing. No words came.

  "Let's call it five grand, what do you say?"

  "You gonna call the cops, Tank?” she asked, thinking of the pit, those smoldering depths spiraling down into the bowels of the earth.

  "I don't want to call anybody, Eleanor. I know about that girl a yours, I don't want nothing bad to happen to her. But I can't just let you steal from me, can I?"

  Eleanor didn't respond. She just stood there, feeling like the earth had slipped out from underneath her feet, like any moment now she might slide right off the daylit surface of the planet and into some black abyss where everything was weightless and still.

  It was Charlie all over again, kicking back at his favorite table with the new spotlight dancer, Lena, his brand-new best-girlfriend-ever, the love of his life, lithe and high breasted and barely twenty if she was even that, guzzling his lies and his liquor both and cutting out his share of her stage money every night, blind to Eleanor, blind to the future incarnate standing right there in front of her, the clock already glutting itself on the beauty that wasn't hers to keep: Charlie saying, you're a sweet girl, Elle (and had anyone else ever called her that?), but this ain't no job for a woman of your age, you know what I'm saying. Since the baby you know. Don't get me wrong now, you still look damn good, but—

  "Eleanor."

  She looked up. “What do you want, Tank?"

  He ran his tongue across his lips.

  "A man has his needs,” he said.

  "What are you tryin to say?"

  "I'm not tryin to say anything. What I'm sayin is you're a fine-looking woman. We could work this thing out between us, the two of us. I don't have to begrudge you the money, that's what I'm saying."

  It was like he'd been sitting there this whole time, listening in somehow on the run of her thoughts. It was like something had been caged up inside her, some small fierce animal, furious and impotent, gnashing at the bars of her heart. Her voice broke when she spoke. She hated the sound of it, the words hanging helpless and weak in that icy air.

  "You've been good to me, Tank. Don't do this to me now."

  "Me? I haven't done anything, Eleanor. You done this yourself."

  Then: “Look, we're all of us damned in this place, Eleanor. We every one of us gonna wind up in the pit, one way or the other. Why not have a little fun along the way?"

  "It wouldn't be fun for me, Tank. Not this way. Can't you see that?"

  Tank said nothing.

  Eleanor bit her lip, swiped in fury at her eyes, hating the tears that trembled there unspilled.

  "Please."

  Tank heaved his bulk up behind the desk. He leaned over splayed hands, thick fingers mashing aside the neat stacks of bills.

  "Don't do me like this. What I'm saying, it ain't nothing new to you, Eleanor. I know what you used to be. A leopard don't change its spots."

  He straightened, picking up the stack of cash. Then he leaned over to tuck it down inside the pocket of her apron.

  "You worked hard to steal this today, so you take it home with you, you hear. You take it home and you think things through. Think about that little girl a yours. You think about her real hard. We'll talk this over again in a day or two."

  He lowered himself into his seat, put his glasses on, turned back to his paperwork. Eleanor just stood there, silent before him, fists dangling at her sides, that animal inside her heart hammering so hard at its cage that for a moment she thought she might just keel over. Without looking up at her—it was like she wasn't there at all—Tank reached back to adjust the air conditioner, kicking the window unit into higher gear. Chill bumps erupted on her forearms, tiny hairs shivering themselves erect.

  Then Tank did look up, peering over the tops of his spectacles at her like he was surprised to see her still standing there, he thought she must have left hours ago.

  "You can go now,” he said.

  The tears came the instant the bathroom door swung closed behind her, an onslaught that drove her in
to the last stall. Eleanor thumbed the lock and put her back to the wall, drinking in the soothing chill of the cinderblock, like water drawn up from some untapped well in cool depths of earth, to slake a thirst she hadn't even known she had. She couldn't say how long she stood like that—five minutes, she supposed, maybe ten, but it felt like forever, it felt like some central line had burst inside her and the tears wouldn't ever stop. Except they did finally, wearing down in stages: sobs, then sniffles, then nothing but the hollow aftermath, her breathing labored and her makeup shot, her nose plugged with snot.

  She leaned over to tear off a length of toilet tissue. The sheaf of paper—forgotten—crinkled in her breast pocket. Eleanor blew her nose, folded the tissue, blew it again. Dumping the soggy mass in the toilet, she took a breath. Settled herself. Dug out that neat rectangle in her pocket, memory stinging her, the humiliation of it, the way he'd touched her. As she unfolded it, a little flume of paper, it must have been folded up inside, sprayed out like it had been spring-loaded and fluttered to the floor at her feet: the familiar yellow rectangle of the ticket and something else. Three bills.

  Eleanor knelt to retrieve them. Counted them out, one two three, and then again. Three one-hundred dollar bills. Enough to cover the tab ten times over. She dropped to the filthy tile, her legs abruptly boneless, folded the cash, slipped it into the pocket of her apron. She leaned her head against the tile and closed her eyes, trying to think things through.

  When she opened them, she turned her attention to the other paper, the one he'd wrapped everything up in: a heavy stock, textured and creamy, folded over three times like a letter and gummed closed, Application for Employment printed neatly on the outside.

  Eleanor laughed.

  She shook her head in disbelief. She didn't bother unsealing it, just shoved it down into the apron's pocket with everything else. Her finger brushed the scalloped edge of the photograph, her personal talisman, a snapshot of Anna two years gone, the last one she'd ever taken before their life had turned itself inside out, not so much a life at all anymore but an endless campaign, a battle waged against photographs and mirrors and panes of night-drowned glass, a war to protect her little girl from understanding what it was that was happening to her, and maybe to protect herself as well.