“Yeah,” her son responded. Never a man of many words, Suzette thought.
“I am taking you to a very special place for a real turkey dinner. Why don’t you wear Papa’s menthol green turtleneck? It’s lovely,” she suggested. It was a long-distance call, and her son’s response seemed lost in that distance, steadily making its way down nine hundred kilometres of wire to the south.
“It was the best day of my life, when I retired,” said the man in the booth across from Suzette.
“Oui, c’est ça, la. Elmer there couldn’t take de trucking no more,” quipped the moustachioed man across from him, who was diligently scraping molecular remnants of stuffing and cranberry sauce off his plate with his fork.
“You know, my son is on the road all the time and I am always worried about him. Timmins one weekend, Sudbury the next,” added Suzette.
“You don’t have to tell me about that route! I know it like the palm of my hand.” Elmer lifted his palm to Suzette, as if he was telling her to stop. She noticed a piece of turkey on the bottom of his middle finger.
“Oh now I don’t mean to pry, but you are from the Kap too?” asked Suzette, excited to find someone from back home.
“Nope, but right next to it. Little hole in the wall called Moonbeam,” responded Elmer, glaring at his friend with the moustache, who had just poured the last drop of beer from the pitcher into his glass. “Hey, I thought you said that you just wanted a sip, bud?” Elmer added in annoyance. The man shrugged and finally pushed away his empty plate, having ascertained that there was not a speck of turkey dinner left to retrieve.
“Moonbeam!” Suzette glowed. “Oh, that’s such a cute place and very special too. A hundred years ago, it was a tiny sign of hope in the endless northern Ontario wilderness. When you finally escape from the darkness of the pine forests, you are greeted by the moon that reflects perfectly off fields of fresh snow. Railway workers thought their eyes, used to darkness, were playing tricks on them, as specks of light mysteriously danced and fell towards them from the night sky — a little like pulsating Christmas lights.”
Suzette was lost for a moment in a world forty-five years ago, when the snow made that crunchy noise under her son’s boots. Mathieu ran from the woods into the clearing, determined to catch up to Mr. Moon, relaxing placidly before him in a grand navy-blue wing chair, waiting for nobody else but him to finally hop into his lap.
“Cheap real estate.” Elmer summoned for the waitress.
“Pardon me?” Suzette felt like she had just woken up and caught a conversation mid-sentence.
Kay walked over with a pot of coffee in her hand.
“You have no idea what to do with all that time on your hands, eh?” She filled up Elmer’s cup.
“Well one thing I sure as hell knew was that I couldn’t do no more trucking. No siree! It’s bad for your prostate, all that sitting … doctor said. Prostates don’t like being squished and pressed up like that all the time, I guess.” Elmer waited for his friend with the moustache to back him up, before turning to Kay.
“Now don’t you go on blabbing about your private parts! We’re not that kind of place, I’ll have you know!” Kay turned and glanced at Suzette, who felt like she was on the outside of an aquarium, peering in.
“Are ya still waiting for someone, hon?” Kay’s left hand was firmly on her hip, as she held up a coffee carafe with the other hand. It was the quintessential crusty waitress-in-a-diner look. Yet somehow tonight she resembled a stodgier-than-most Greek goddess posing in a statue- maker’s studio.
“Oh yes, and would you have a telephone that I could use? I am waiting for my son. He was going to meet me here at seven,” she explained.
“Well, it’s half past now. You just tell him that if he doesn’t get his sweet little derrière here in a hurry, he’ll be dealing with me, okay, hon?”
Suzette didn’t realize that climbing out from one of those booths could be tantamount to a gymnastic feat. She pushed her palms into the table, rose carefully and stood there for a brief moment smiling pleasantly at Kay. It wasn’t the first time she used a meticulously timed pause and a warm facial expression to draw attention away from her limp.
“Kitchen closes at nine. Just sayin’!” Kay kept her hand firmly on her hip while Suzette made her way to the front.
***
Suzette realized she was doing that thing again with the telephone cord, so she stopped.
“And how have you been, Pam?” Suzette inquired.
“Never better.” Pam’s voice was flat. Not even enough energy and umph for it to classify as muted sarcasm.
“I am so worried about poor Mathieu, you know. He was supposed to be here at seven. The roads are terrible, just terrible,” noted Suzette.
“I wouldn’t blame the roads for this one. I mean, has he ever been on time?”
“But he knows that this is a very special dinner in a nice restaurant…” Suzette was incredulous that the delay could be down to anything other than the miserable state of Highway 17 when the autumn evening rain began freezing on the pavement.
“Yeah and he also knows where to stop for a good time along the way…” Suzette decided not to dignify that comment with a response. “Or maybe someone knocked a little good sense into him and he decided to sleep off his hangover on the side of the road,” Pam added, with incrementally rising bitterness.
“I know my son, Pam,” Suzette said quietly.
“Oh, believe you me, I know him too. Listen, Dillon’s screaming in the tub. I gotta go. I hope it works out for you tonight. Don’t let him feed you any of his bullshit.”
And Pam was gone. As usual, no good-bye. Nobody ever taught her it’s only polite to say good-bye to people, otherwise your last sentence is just left dangling. Incomplete.
Suzette leaned over the counter. As she put the phone down, she could see Kay finishing a small bowl of pudding in the kitchen while waiting for the boy to complete an order.
“I know you don’t give a damn about this. And you probably don’t even believe me. But you just watch me. I’m outta here.”
“Good.” The boy punched some numbers on the microwave.
“Oh, you’re gonna miss me. You just wait and see. Fabio’s sending me the first installment of my payout tonight at nine. Just the first of many. Once the first bit hits my account — and let me just say that it’s more than what you’ve ever come across in your piddling nineteen years on this earth combined — I’ll be storming outta here so fast your pin-shaped head will spin. Hold on tight, sugar bits!” Kay took one big lick of her spoon and tossed it two metres away into the sink. Hell, thought Suzette, she could be a basketball star if she wanted.
“So why are you so sure of everything?” The boy seemed semi-interested as the microwave gave off its customary ding.
“Do you drink water?” Kay folded her arms.
“Um, yeah. Like everyone,” the boy said, clearly thinking Kay’s question was stupid.
“Good. And so do the poor bastards in South Africa … except they’ve run out of water. Some of them are already lining up for hours on street corners with plastic containers to get some from public taps. Water’s a bigger commodity over there than gold. You can sell off your gold engagement ring to dirty Ted’s pawn shop, but you can’t do shit when your taps are bone dry.”
The boy was giving her his undivided attention, but it was impossible to tell whether he found the situation in South Africa or the reference to dirty Ted more captivating.
“The government is literally telling people to stop flushing their toilets, to take two-minute stop-start showers or stand in a pail to save their bath water and reuse it.” The boy looked disgusted as he reached for his cellphone for no apparent reason. “If it’s yellow, let it mellow. That might as well be South Africa’s national motto these days,” Kay added.
“So what’s this Fabio guy doing for you?” The boy feigned interest as he searched for a new text message.
Kay walked over to the boy and pat
ted him on the head.
“That’s the million-dollar question, kiddo. Fabio’s a genius. He perfected desalinization in South Africa, and his timing was spot on.” The boy looked at Kay with an expression as blank as a freshly wiped whiteboard.
“He sucks the salt out of the seawater, you douche! Imagine turning the goddamned Atlantic into one big open bar! I helped him out a bit with the start-up costs — you know, because of my trust in him and for a few other favours. Yeah, so now he’s giving me a handsome cut of his profits.” Kay leaned up close against the boy and whispered, “One third.”
“Yeah?” Something piqued and even sustained the boy’s interest. “But seawater … man … doesn’t that smell like rotting garbage?”
***
“French Canadian split pea soup. Thought you’d like it.” Kay placed the cup of soup and a pack of soda crackers in front of Suzette, who was genuinely stunned. “On the house, hon. Kitchen closes in a little over an hour, so why let it go to waste?”
“Oh, well thank you so much, dear — that’s such a lovely gesture!” Suzette stirred the soup with her spoon, looking for the little chunks of ham. She counted at least four and was genuinely impressed. It pays to have a meal at a real restaurant once in a while.
“So where’s that son of yours?” Kay sounded as though she was holding Suzette accountable, but in fact she had it in for Mathieu. What kind of son stands up his poor old mother like that on Thanksgiving?
“Oh, he leads a very hard life,” Suzette said, though she knew she was making excuses for him. “I know he will be here any minute now.”
“You give me a weekend with Matty boy, and I’ll whip his ass into shape, in either official language!” Kay startled Suzette as she slapped a kitchen cloth against the table, a mere five inches from her soup. “Then again, chances are I’ll be ditching this place pretty soon, so you won’t find me here. You’d have to hire a mobster to come scrape me off the beach in Varadero and drag me back to O-Town.”
Suzette only realized now that she was starving. She meticulously blew a little air on the first spoonful of soup before putting it in her mouth. She would have preferred every mouthful in peace, but she could tell that Kay was waiting for a response. And the soup was free, so she certainly deserved that much from her.
“Yes, you know I must admit that I overheard a little of what you were saying to that young man in the kitchen and, well—”
“I tell you, it’s the best decision I have ever made in my life. It cost me a pretty penny, but the returns, the returns!” Kay looked over at Elmer and Moustache; both of them seemed subdued after their second pitcher of beer, or maybe they had gotten to a point in their friendship where they had nothing left to say to each other.
“What are you thinking, love?” Kay wiped her dish cloth on Elmer’s mostly bald head. A small handful of unruly, excessively long strands of hair stood up at attention.
“Won’t be the same without her, eh?” Elmer glanced at Moustache who was masterfully rolling up a dirty napkin into what Kay thought looked like a tight, fresh joint.
“I bet I’m the only woman to touch you like that, am I right?” Kay wiped Elmer’s bald scalp again with the rag. He smiled mischievously.
“You wanna drive up with me to Moonbeam? I can take a nice girl like you to the moon and back, you better believe it.” Elmer glanced over at Suzette for a reaction, but she was still working diligently on her soup.
“Unless the man in the moon goes by the name of Fabio and has a nice fat cheque for me, I’d say you can stuff it, sweet pea.” Kay turned around and marched back to the kitchen. It offered the best vantage point of the restaurant. The little old lady was hunched over that cup of soup. It should have taken only a few minutes to eat. Elmer and Moustache were still sitting in silence, though she could swear that the back of the old man’s head looked shinier than before. And in the far end of the restaurant, Mme. Charbonneau was poking the half-eaten tarte au sucre on her plate, mostly out of boredom, while her husband went on a digging expedition in his teeth with a toothpick.
Kay found it all a bit sad, really: she had spent the last fifteen years of her life working at a restaurant that attracted mostly French Canadian pensioners from the neighbourhood, truckers passing through and only the occasional tourists from overseas who strayed too far east of Parliament Hill. Had she worked at one of those snooty places in the ByWard Market or Westboro, catering to pompous men who called themselves foodies, maybe she wouldn’t be bored to death with her lot in life. She might be inclined to smack them, but her days would be undeniably more colourful.
It was time to go. Just plain time. The Alpine Lodge was slow-acting poison to her. And truth be told, she was probably lethal to the place as well. The time had finally come to make that phone call to Fabio. It was still the early hours of the morning over in Cape Town, but a guy like him was sure to be wired day and night.
***
“Ma’am, there’s a Matthew on the phone for you…” The boy from the kitchen stood awkwardly at Suzette’s booth, with his right thumb in his belt, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He avoided most interaction with guests. He was fine in the kitchen and he’d grown accustomed to Kay, but he seemed to freeze up and had trouble swallowing whenever he had to deal with clients. But Kay was on the phone in the storage room and he knew all too well not to disturb her when she was in there.
Suzette’s eyes lit up and she even surprised herself by hopping out of the booth with near acrobatic ease. As she approached the receiver of the phone, lying on the plastic countertop, she could hear two tinny voices on the line.
“Mon pitou, where are you?” Suzette became aware of what sounded like an argument from behind the locked door of the storage room.
“Mom, look — I’m running into some problems here tonight.” Mathieu cleared his throat and there was a voice mumbling something in the background. “I had a flat tire just outside Deep River…”
Suzette felt her heart sink. The hopeful anticipation that had her fired up all day, like a diesel engine, just oozed out of her, gathering in a pool on the linoleum.
“Are you all right? Oh, this is awful — you know, the kitchen in the restaurant is closing soon! What are we going to do now? I suppose we can go next door and have a sandwich or doughnut and I have some fresh fruit in my room. But, Mathieu — Thanksgiving is ruined!”
“No worries, Mom. I’ll be there first thing in the morning, I promise. I’ll find a motel for the night and I’ll leave real early in the morning — like at six. We could go for brunch, eh?”
Of course, Suzette was happy to see her son any time, but she wasn’t sure how many Thanksgivings she had left. At eighty-five, you couldn’t take anything for granted. She stood with the receiver in her hand, somehow unmotivated to even respond. Her mind felt foggy and it took her a minute to realize that she was staring blankly at the boy in the kitchen. He was sitting on a stool, buried deep in his phone and oblivious to her. He was near the end of his shift, the restaurant was winding down for the night and Suzette hadn’t eaten dinner yet.
She wasn’t hungry, but that was nothing new. In fact, had Mathieu arrived as expected, chances are she would have sat there pushing her food from one end of the plate to another, watching her son devour whatever was placed in front of him. She wasn’t really here for the food, as such. God knows she’d had plenty of turkey, cranberry sauce from a can and mediocre pre-prepared stuffing in her life. She was here to give her son something special, to bring a degree of normalcy to that mess of a life he led, but also to get away from the home. And maybe deep down she was even trying to show Joel from the doughnut shop across the parking lot that she was more than just a fixture and that he shouldn’t take her for granted. She had places to be and people to meet.
Her thoughts were cut off abruptly when Kay appeared from the storage room. She leaned against the door, rubbed her temples and began chewing the nail on her thumb.
“Can I help you?” Kay look
ed at Suzette, not really seeing her.
“Well, it seems like my son’s car had a defect on the road and he won’t make it tonight. I’m so sorry for the trouble — I know you were expecting two at our table…”
Kay waved her hand, indicating that she wasn’t bothered.
“But I would love to try your Thanksgiving special; I have heard such good things about it! Of course, only if it’s not too late.”
“It’s fine. Go on back to your table. I’ll have it out in a couple of minutes.” Kay turned to the boy, who was still texting.
“I need you to get me one more special and then you can call it a night…” The boy glanced up at Kay and seemed to be examining her.
“What’s up?” he responded.
“I just told you what’s up! Do all you lazy, entitled, good-for-nothing millennials need to be spoon-fed? You want me to text it to you?” Kay looked like a raging lion — her red curly hair framing a rounded face, intense eyes that could cut through human flesh and nostrils expanding and inflamed with anger.
“Holy shit! Get a grip…” The boy got up from the stool and walked over to the counter. “So, what did your friend Fabio say?” Kay kept a distance as the boy used an ice cream scoop to plop a serving of stuffing onto the plate.
“When did I say we were friends? We’re business partners...” Kay was annoyed, though slightly deflated.
“Or fuck buddies, eh?” The boy chuckled as he put the finishing touch on the plate: a healthy serving of gravy over the slightly dry turkey and an unruly mound of lumpy mashed potatoes. For a split second, he was satisfied with himself; but it was a fleeting moment — a salt shaker went flying towards him, slamming into the wall a mere foot from his head.
“What the…? Oh yeah, you’re definitely losing it.”
“Is everything okay in there?” Elmer emerged from the washroom. He was walking like a penguin — belly distended, thick bifocal glasses continually sliding down his nose and those desperate strands of hair on an otherwise bald scalp still reaching for the sky.
I Have Demons Page 2