Georgette shook her head quickly, refusing.
“Did I do something to upset you?”
“Goodness!” Georgette let the sprayer fall into the sink. The sound clanked and echoed.
Roberta looked out from the swinging door to see if their customers had heard, then looked back at Georgette. “What is going on with you?” She walked over to her and spun her around by the shoulders until they were face to face. “What’s… ohmygod. Are you crying?” She pulled Georgette into her and held her. “Ohmygod, Georgie. What’s happened? Tell me.”
“It’s Hawthorne.”
Roberta pushed her back a few inches. Her face strained with her words. “Is he okay?”
Georgette rolled her eyes and pulled out of her hold then she turned back to the sink. She grabbed a smutty dish and angled a strong stream of water at it. The bits of food flew off under its power. “Oh, he’s just fine.” Her voice sounded deeper than usual and exuded a venomous tone that made Roberta’s eyes widen.
Roberta grabbed her left hand. “Where’s your ring? What happened?” She pivoted Georgette around again by the hand and led her away from the sink. “You sit here on this stool and you talk to me.”
Georgette’s body slumped over the metal work chair. She pulled out a used tissue from her pocket and wiped her nose, blowing once, wiping and stuffing it back into the pocket of her apron.
“He’s having an affair,” she didn’t want the next words to come out, they just did, no matter how embarrassing they sounded, “with Helen.”
“What the f…”
“Exactly.”
“Helen and Hawthorne?” Her voice pitched high when she said his name.
“Helen and Hawthorne.” Georgette’s body jerked as she chortled only once, hearing the humor. “Sounds cute, doesn’t it?” she asked, not really meaning it.
“How do you know for sure?” Roberta asked.
“I came home. They were in her room. She was in a robe. She had swollen lips.” She stood and pulled out the tissue again. Walking back to the sink, she wiped her nose. “You do the math.”
“Holy Hernandez.”
“I’m not in the mood for cute phrases, Rob. In fact I’d love to curse a blue streak right now.”
“Oh, Georgie. I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah. Well, me too.”
“Are you sure they were… doing it?”
“Jeez. Rob. They were doing it!”
“Did you see them… in the act.”
“Oh, good grief. No, Rob. Thank goodness. No.”
“Well then you really can’t be sure.” She paused. “Can you?”
“Oh. I’m sure. Hawthorne said, ‘Sorry you had to find out like this,’ or something to that effect. How would you interpret it?”
Roberta turned away as if she were trying to locate something in the room. Her hand went to her mouth to cover it and then came back down. She wrapped her arms around her waist and kept looking at anything but Georgette.
“Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. Don’t feel embarrassed for me, Rob. I don’t think I could handle pity right now.”
“Good lord, George. That little slut.”
14
“Where is she?” Hawthorne’s voice boomed to the girl standing at the front of the restaurant making patrons look up from their food. A glaring light, streaking in from the linty clouded sky behind him through the glass door silhouetted his big frame deleting all color from him.
When she saw him walk in, Cammy, one of the waitresses, barely looked up and without turning her body from the cash register, she pointed behind her, toward the kitchen.
As Hawthorne moved past the cashier’s station and away from the front door his clothes, his face, his hair all began to take on color, losing the grayness from outside’s silhouette. He paused at the swinging door and glanced through the porthole. Tears streaked Georgette’s face and Roberta looked like she was trying to hold herself up with her arms wrapped around her waist. Roberta was speaking but he couldn’t quite catch her words. They hadn’t yet noticed him looking through the window at them. When he pushed on the door open enough to crack it, he heard Roberta stop at the word “slut.” Then she turned around fast to see Hawthorne.
“Nice.” He pushed opened the door fully and held it there.
Both women appeared startled by his presence.
“What are you doing here?” Georgette asked and turned to the sink. Roberta turned to face Hawthorne with her back protecting Georgette.
“Well, don’t you have balls the size of Jupiter?” Roberta challenged.
“Bigger,” he said, challenging her back.
“You know, Hawthorne. This isn’t a good time …”
“This is none of your concern, Roberta. Leave. I need to talk to Georgette.”
Roberta put both of her hands behind her, feeling for Georgette. “It’s up to you, George. I’ll only leave if you want me to.” She glared while she spoke.
Georgette turned and moved to the side of Roberta. “It’s okay. I’ll be fine. If I need you I’ll scream.” She glowered at Hawthorne and wiped her hands on her apron. Then she untied it and slung it over the side of the sink. She pulled the rubber band out of her hair, smoothing it down and retying it. “I’ll just scream.” She squinted again at Hawthorne.
“You can leave, Roberta. Like she said, if she needs you she’ll scream.”
His face looked older today and Roberta felt herself smile. “I’ll be right outside the door, Georgie.”
“Mm hmm.” Georgette tipped her chin up and pointed it to the door. Roberta walked past Hawthorne as if he were infected, raising her hands so as not to touch any part of him.
Hawthorne rolled his eyes and waited to hear the whooshing of the door swinging it closed.
“You have a ton of gall walking into my diner.”
“Now, honey …”
“Please. If you say anything at all to me, please do not call me honey. You call me by my proper name. You treat me with at least some cordiality. Especially after having sex with one of my best friends.” Her voice peaked but she pulled it back and it dwindled to normal by the end of the sentence.
“Georgette. Now, listen. I have some explaining to do. That’s obvious. But. I... I… want you to know. My feelings. Georgette. My feelings. For you. Have not… have not changed. Not one iota.” He wiped at his brow then added, “There. That’s what I came here to say.” He spoke as if reading from a script.
She leaned back against the sink and placed both hands on its railing. She looked down at her feet. He couldn’t imagine what she would say next.
“Your feelings. You say. Haven’t… changed?”
“Not one iota, hon… Georgette. Not one iota.”
“You’re saying. And, please stop me if I’m getting this at all wrong. What you’re saying is that you, Hawthorne Biggs, are still in love with me.” She paused and he nodded quickly cracking a brief smile at her. So far it hadn’t gone all that bad. Then she went on. “You can still love me?”
“Yes. Dear. I do. I still love you.”
“Oh, Hawthorne.” She pushed off of the sink and put her hands together in front of her as if she were praying. “You still love me? ‘Cause I was beginning to wonder about your true feelings when I caught you with your Johnson inside Helen. You disgusting pig!”
His control slipped. His eyes burned.
“Look. It just happened. I didn’t mean it to it just did.”
“How many times will it happen again? How many times has it happened in the past?”
“Never. Never to both. I got scared, George… real scared.”
“Scared?”
“Yes.”
“Of what?!”
“Of us, of the commitment. Of forever. I guess. But, scared. Scared to death. It was like stepping into the casket with a gun to my back.”
“Good lord, Hawthorne. Did you think we might talk about that?”
“I was scared you’d be upset.”
“It see
ms you’re just scared about nearly everything, aren’t you?”
“When it comes to marriage, yes, I’m scared. Sorry if that offends George, but I’m just a man. I’m weak.” He used all the lines he had been told to use. “I’m just a man. I’m not strong like you.”
“Well, I don’t want to be married to someone who is weaker than me.”
“Baby… Georgette. How can I prove to you that I’m sorry? It was a slip.”
She put her hand on her mouth and looked up at him. She walked up to him, only a foot in front of him and stood there. Her hands fell to her sides.
“Let me look in your eyes.” She lifted up on her toes and squinted hard into his face. Her eyes flitted around his face, looking for lies. When she finished, she lowered herself back flat onto her feet and stood there silent, still staring. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to forgive him or if he really deserved forgiveness.
“What?” He prodded.
“Don’t talk. I’m thinking.” She turned back to the sink.
He rolled his head, but stopped when she turned back, resting against the sink again and looked back at him.
“You’ll have to atone.”
“I’ll atone.”
“Tell me how.”
“I’ll, I’ll … Son of a… I don’t know.” He threw his hands in the air, letting them land limply against his legs. “Why don’t you tell me?”
She hooked her hands behind her onto the sink and waited for a minute. A minute too long for him.
“What?!” he demanded.
Georgette, making him wait, rubbed a spot with her index finger under her nose but just above her lip. She turned around again to the sink and opened the cabinet below the basin, then, squatting down, pulled something from within the cabinet. It was a white plastic grocery bag with the handles knotted. She tossed it over into Hawthorne’s stomach. “Well, for starters, you can take these sheets you two used and burn them.”
15
“Hell no, Roberta. I’m too old to have this sort of trouble.” Georgette slammed her chopping knife hard into the butcher block. “He can go screw himself.” She paused. “I am so sick of Sunnydale.” Tears welled up in her eyes.
“Man, George. I know but you can’t just sell everything and split.”
“Why not?” She pulled a white crumpled paper towel from inside the wrist of her sleeve, opened it, folded it in half and wiped at her nose. “Why not?” she repeated. “I need a new perspective. A new life. I’m at this halfway point where I’m too old to start over but still young enough to want to. I’m letting the young side of me call the shots right now.” She blew into the paper and wiped it back and forth across the base of her nose. “I’m letting the young me out for a spin. Good grief, I was a widow at forty and I’m now divorced from my second marriage, before the wedding, at forty-five! That’s not what I’d call a winning streak.” She looked at the used paper towel and tossed it like a basketball into a garbage can. Roberta remained quiet while she went on her little tirade. “That’s all. I’m done.” She walked to the sink and ran the hot water, pumped some soap into her hands and washed them. “You know what I mean? I’m just done. I’m tired and need to give myself a break.” She pulled off two sheets of paper towel and dried her hands, then shoved the damp wad into her sleeve again for use on her nose later.
“I understand, Georgie. Believe me, I do, but I just don’t see how running away is going to solve your problems here.”
“Well, if I sell everything then I won’t have any more problems here.”
“What about,” she crossed her arms and stood tall, “What about me, George? What about us?”
“Roberta. You’re a grown woman. You have a husband. You don’t need me.”
“But I love you.”
“I love you too, honey, but I have to do this for myself. I just have to.” She sat with one foot up on the rung of the stool. “I just have to.”
Roberta didn’t need to stand there and beg. She needed a little space herself, so she turned away, shaking her head and pressed through the wooden swinging doors of the diner, walking out of the kitchen.
When the door swung back again, this time it brought Cammy through with it.
“Order.” She held up a ticket in her hand and slipped it in the hanging round stainless steel order rack.
“Yep.”
Cammy smiled. “I need a smoke.”
“Take five. No more. Hurry up.”
The waitress left through the back door of the diner. The sun was just about setting and the sky looked like a baby’s room with a light yellow hazy blue sky and pink cotton-candy clouds. They looked to be building heavier in the distance.
“Hey, Cammy.”
The girl caught the door before it closed. “Yeah?”
“Will you prop the door open? It’s too pretty outside.” A knot lodged between her ears like she’d swallowed a rock. Her eyes burned.
“Sure.” She squeezed the cigarette in between her lips and held the door with both hands, heaving it fully open and cranking down the industrial-grade door stopper with her toe. “How’s that work for ya?” When she spoke, the cigarette bounced with each syllable.
“Perfect. I can see perfectly now. Thanks, Cammy.”
Georgette closed her eyes when she felt a cool breeze caress the inside of the kitchen and she let out a deep sigh.
16
“So, have you talked to her yet?”
“Not since that day.”
The Sunday paper still covered the couch where Georgette had been sitting, right before Roberta stopped by. A pair of neon pink fluffy slippers with slots for each toe lay, one on top of the other, on the floor next to the sofa. She hadn’t yet changed out of her sweats nor had she brushed her teeth, combed her hair, eaten breakfast or cleaned up the sink from last night’s can of tomato soup. A half-eaten sleeve of crackers from a box of Ritz lay open on the speckled green granite counter top.
“I must look awful.” Georgette flipped the remote over to turn off the TV. The screen flickered before zapping out.
“It’s me. No worries.” Roberta looked at her watch. It was ten-twenty.
Looking into her own mug at a shallow pool of caramel-colored liquid and a few stray coffee grounds, Georgette asked Roberta, “Want some coffee?”
A tick, tick, ticking of Georgette’s clock sounded behind them. “Sure.”
Georgette pushed up off the couch turning to the sound and noticed Gangster at the door. His fur lifted from a wind that had kicked up that morning. She shuffled, clad in thick cotton socks to the U-shaped kitchen. Tying closed the sash of her cotton robe as she moved, she shuffled back, carrying the entire pot of coffee and set it down onto a bright yellow tile trivet decorated with one single rooster in its center.
“Hold on, Gangster.”
Holding her cup shoulder-high, Roberta let Georgette fill it.
The morning sunlight danced on the wall as it shone through the French door that led off to the patio. Gangster patted with both paws at the large door’s pane, wanting in.
Georgette obediently walked over, opened the door and let the cat indoors. “Wow. It’s pretty out today.”
“It’s getting hot already.”
Georgette shuffled back to where she had been sitting and fell back into the same spot. She snuggled her feet under her and grabbed her cup. “I haven’t been out yet.”
“No kidding.”
“Shut up.”
“Sorry.”
They both sipped from their cups looking at nothing in particular.
Then both spoke at the same time.
“Look, Georgette—” “Roberta, I signed with a real estate agent—”
And again, “You first—” “Oh sorry, you—”
Then once more, “No really—” “You go—”
Georgette put one hand up in the air to stop and clamped her eyes shut. Then she put a finger to her mouth so Roberta wouldn’t speak.
“Shh.” She dropped her hand and o
pened her eyes. She gave Roberta a steady stare until Georgette knew she wouldn’t speak. “Let me speak. Please.”
Roberta nodded and set her cup onto the cocktail table. “I listed the diner with ReMax.” She stopped abruptly and then gestured to her to speak. “Can I talk now?”
“Please.”
“You’re acting hastily.”
“That’s your opinion.”
“It’s not an opinion. It’s an observation. Your head isn’t on straight.”
“My head is fine.”
“Have you even talked to Helen? Asked her what the hell she was thinking? Confronted her?”
“You know, she almost pulled the same thing with your father!”
“How is that supposed to make me feel, Georgette. Huh?”
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No. You shouldn’t have, but, again, your head’s not on straight.”
“Oh man.” She set her cup down on the floor next to the couch then put her legs down. “What am I doing?”
“You’re acting crazy. It’s normal for someone who just found her fiancée messing around with somebody else. Crazy.”
“I have to get out of here.”
“Well, that’s fine. Leave. For a while. Take a week. Lord, Georgette, take two weeks, but don’t sell the farm because of some stupid pig.” She picked up her coffee again and sipped. “That’s just plain stupid.”
“Who will watch it?”
“The diner?” She looked over at Georgette who nodded. “Who do you think?”
“You’d do that for me?”
“For a week!” She sipped again. “You come back after a week. If you need more time, then you stay at home and organize your tool shed or something, paint a bathroom.” She set her cup back down. Georgette turned to her. As she listened to Roberta, Georgette watched as she locked both hands together to speak—a thing Roberta often did when she spoke officially, as the mayor. “Look. I know you’re sad. It’s awful what he did to you. Helen’s a tramp. Blah, blah, blah. But the same thing happens every day to all sorts of people. You move on.” Roberta nodded with her last statement. A single bob of the head.
Georgette smiled, then she rubbed Roberta’s arm. She leaned over to lay her head on Roberta’s shoulder. With her head there, she couldn’t help notice the smell of her skin, a hint in her of something so offsetting but familiar, a perfect blending of Bobby and Vanessa. Thinking of them both at that moment, missing them like that, sent a jolt straight to her Adam’s apple but she swallowed it down, fighting against her emotions.
Hotter than Helen (The Bobby's Diner Series) Page 5