The Waking

by H. M. Mann

  “Didn’t they tell you nothin’? You work six weeks straight then you get two weeks off.”

  Six weeks at twelve hours a day is a whole lot of hours in a row. He has to be kidding. But after a solid hour of scraping and salivating, maybe he’s telling the truth.

  “Emmanuel!”

  Break time? “Yes ma’am?”

  “Get over here and help me with these sandwiches.”

  I wash and dry my hands. “Yes ma’am.”

  “The rest of y’all take a break,” she says.

  So it’s just me and Rose putting chicken salad and egg salad and bologna and cheese and ham and cheese and salami and cheese on bread, and each sandwich I finish gets plastic-wrapped but not before it talks to me, saying stuff like, “You want to eat me, don’t you? I’d taste so good.”

  “Ma’am, I am starving.”

  “Good.”

  “You mad at me, ma’am?”

  She squints. “Should I be?”

  How should I know? “I know I was late. You see, I got to talking to Rufus, and I lost track of time and—”

  “I ain’t mad at you … for that.” She takes a stack of wrapped sandwiches to a counter and comes back with a bowl of some orange stuff. “Pimento spread. The little old ladies love it.”

  I start spreading the lumpy cheese with red pieces of pimento onto the bread. “What did you mean when you said ‘for that’?”

  “What did I tell you to do last night when you left here?” she asks.

  “Get some sleep, so I got some sleep.”

  She wraps another sandwich, her hands flying. “You coulda got more.”

  “Well, yeah, I guess so, but I always have trouble sleeping in a strange place at first.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’m missing something here.”

  “You slept in your own bed last night, right?” she asks.

  “Yeah.”

  “All night?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That ain’t what Penny’s been spreading around,” she says with a raise of her eyebrows.

  I slap the last of the pimento spread on a slice of bread. “Rose, we only talked out by the paddlewheel for maybe ten minutes.”

  “You bein’ straight with me?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “She told everybody in here this morning about your scars. How did she know about them if y’all didn’t—”

  “I showed them to her,” I interrupt, “to scare her away, and we were right outside by the paddlewheel the whole time.” I wrap another sandwich. “Can’t have a conversation on this boat without someone putting their nose in my business.”

  “We’re done here,” Rose says. “Take a break.”

  I rip off my apron, snatch a chicken salad sandwich, and hit up the fridge for a Coke. Rose is still standing in the same spot. “What would I want with her anyway? She doesn’t have anything to offer me.”

  “I know she got drugs. I haven’t caught her yet during an inspection, but I will. Ain’t many places to hide contraband in the dormitory.”

  I peel off the plastic wrap and take a bite. “I’m through with all that.”

  “That may be true, but heroin definitely ain’t through with you, is it?”

  I shake my head. “No. But it only talked to me a little bit this morning. I used to, well, you know, before I went to work.”

  “Me, too.” Her face looks so sad. “Just watch out for her, okay? Penny’s a bad penny, always into mischief, been trouble ever since she started here.”

  “You got nothing to worry about. I got a girl back in Pittsburgh who’s gonna have my son, and I ain’t into white girls.”

  Rose smiles. “Yeah. She gonna have your baby?”

  “Yeah. And I’m gonna name him Luke. That was my friend’s name, the one you met.”

  “Why are you here then?” Rose asks.

  “You know why. I may be clean in body, but my head isn’t there yet.”

  She rolls her eyes. “And riding down south on the American Queen’s gonna get your head right?”

  I finish my sandwich and immediately want another. “It might.”

  “Ain’t done much for me.” She whisks some breadcrumbs from the table onto a napkin. “My head still ain’t clear after twenty-two years.” She hands me another sandwich and gets herself a Coke. “I’ll tell you about it over lunch.” She points to the empty dining room, and I follow her to a table and sit.

  “Aren’t we serving lunch?”

  “Nah. Most of the passengers are going over to Huntington to shop now that the rain let up. If anyone comes in, we’ll offer ‘em some sandwiches. If they want something more, I gotta get back in there and make it.” She shrugs. “I can make a simple sandwich sound real good, let me tell you. There’s some chicken soup simmering in there if you want some.”

  “I’m good.” Though I’ll probably get some anyway.

  She taps her fingers on the table. “Ain’t told many people any of this, Emmanuel, so I hope you’ll be, um, discreet.”

  This lady just met me, and she’s about to spill her life story. “I’m quiet, remember?”

  She sips some Coke. “Yeah. Quiet.” She turns to look out the big windows, still fogged up though the sun’s trying to sneak in. “I had a quiet boy once, name of …” She swallows, and her chin starts to quiver. “No, I don’t want …” She starts to get up. “It’s not important.”

  I touch her hand. “I’ve heard that the telling is good for the soul. I know it is, Rose. I’m living proof, and once I started telling Slade my story, I couldn’t contain myself. It all just came spilling out.”

  She settles into her chair. “That’s the most I’ve heard you say, boy.”

  “Sorry.”

  She sighs. “I don’t know if I want that to happen. What if someone comes in asking me to fix something?”

  “I’ll hand ‘em a pimento sandwich.”

  She smiles. “They don’t agree with me.”

  “Me neither.”

  “And neither do the people who eat them.” She frowns. “Most days. Why I like to stay in the galley, stay away from them.”

  I laugh. “You’d rather hang out with folks like me?”

  “Of course.” She smiles, and when she does, she reminds me of Mama. Not the widest smile in the world or the brightest, but it’s there, just at the corners of her mouth. “I feel like a slave to them all over again sometimes, but it was my choice to take this job twenty-two years ago, so I guess I shouldn’t feel this way. I’m good at what I do.”

  “Yes ma’am, you are.”

  “Ain’t no one ever left the American Queen without an extra five or ten pounds of my cooking on their belts.”

  “I believe it.”

  Rose is quiet for a while, just humming to herself. “I know you want some of my homemade soup,” she says, and before I can object, she goes and gets me a hot, steaming bowl and a package of crackers.

  “Thank you.”

  She looks out the window again. “The tellin’ is good for the soul, huh?”

  I nod. “Tell me about the boy.”

  “His name …” She sighs deeply. “His name was Terrell. My only child.” She clears her throat. “I had to work late that day at the bank.” She frowns. “From bank manager in Nashville to this. Look how far I’ve come.” She sighs again. “And it was right before the holidays, and I didn’t want to work late, but we were behind as usual.” She looks at a balled-up napkin in her hands. “And I had been drinking. Most of the day, a little sip here, a gulp there. I was full of that holiday spirit.”

  Around Christmas then. That has to be so hard.

  “I had to pick up … Terrell.” She dabs at an eye with the napkin. “Made sure he had his seatbelt on, and then …” Her body shakes, and the tears stream down.

  “You don’t have to tell me anymore.”

  “I drove that way hundreds of times and never had a problem in any kind of weather, never swerved or crossed the line even once.” She
looks through her watery eyes into mine. “He was only ten years old.”

  I see an old white lady with blue hair waddling into the dining room, so I rise and cut her off before she can get to our table. “What can I get you, ma’am? I can get you some delicious pimento sandwiches and maybe some homemade chicken soup.”

  “Ooh, that sounds grand,” she says.

  “How many sandwiches will you need, ma’am?”

  “Oh, I’m traveling alone, so just one sandwich and a cup of soup.”

  I look back at Rose, and she seems to be shaking less. “Could I serve it to you somewhere, the Ladies Parlor or the Front Porch perhaps?”

  “The Front Porch is always so crowded,” she says.

  “It shouldn’t be today, ma’am. Most of the others are gone to Huntington. I’m sure there will be room.”

  “That will be fine …” She squints at my nametag. “Emmanuel. What a beautiful name.”

  She’s so cute for being at least a hundred! “And what is your name?”

  “I’m Mrs. Walker, Letitia Walker.”

  “Letitia,” I say softly. “Now that is a beautiful name.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I will have your meal up to you in five minutes. Is that all right?”

  “It certainly is, Emmanuel.” She moves off slowly then turns. “And throw a brownie in there somewhere, too. I need a treat.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “Bye.”

  I walk by Rose. “You okay?”

  “I’m a little better,” she says. “You handled old Mrs. Walker ‘Who Needs a’ Walker well.”

  I laugh. “She’s sweet.”

  “When she isn’t trying to walk up and down the stairs, she is. We try to get her to use the elevators, but she says they’re dangerous.”

  “So she’s a regular?” One of the cooks told me most of the folks on board had been passengers before, some even coming back every year for as long as she could remember.

  “Since Mrs. Walker’s husband died two years ago, she’s been on board just about every other trip.”

  Wow. “That has to be expensive.”

  “Her husband was rich.”

  I like the sound of that. “I better get her meal ready then. Are there any leftover brownies from last night?”

  “Yes, but what’s your hurry? It’ll take her half an hour to climb two sets of stairs to the Porch.”

  I sit. “Okay.” I tap her watch. “Tell me when twenty minutes is up.”

  “I told you it’d take thirty.”

  “She seems, um, spry this morning.”

  Rose laughs. “Because of you. You have a way with old ladies.” She squeezes my hand. “Don’t worry, Emmanuel, I ain’t another old lady hitting on you.”

  “You can’t be more than thirty, Rose.”

  “See? What’d I tell you? You keep that up and I’ll want you to have your way with me.” She giggles. “You know I’m kidding, right? I ain’t had a man in twenty-two years.” She shakes her head. “After Terrell … died, my husband and I split up, mainly, because I was the one to blame. We had waited for our careers to take off before we had our first child, and though I wanted to try again after the … accident … he didn’t. It was just too late to try for another. I lost two men in one day.” She looks me dead in the eye. “Would you believe that I’ll be sixty next year?”

  “No.” And I wouldn’t. There isn’t a single line on her face.

  “Hmm. You’re a pretty honest liar, Emmanuel.”

  “Thank you. I think.” I finish my Coke. “Maybe you’ll meet a rich man one of these days, you know, maybe he’ll walk in—”

  “Using a walker,” she interrupts.

  I laugh. “Yeah, using a gold-plated walker, and he’ll ask for a pimento sandwich, and you’ll look into his eyes—”

  “Eye,” she says. “He’ll only have one, and it’ll be bigger than the other one. And false teeth, too, that’ll fall out whenever he bites into a soft roll.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short, Rose.”

  She slaps my hand gently. “Listen at you listening to me. You’re probably the only one on this boat who really listens to me.”

  “I like your voice.” Because it sounds like love.

  “You don’t like it all the time, now. You were hating on me this morning.”

  True. “I can’t hate someone who’s taking my mind off things. You didn’t give me a chance to think for more than a few seconds this morning. Thank you.”

  “So you don’t mind all my yellin’?”

  I crush the crackers in the package and pour them into my soup. “You only yell because you care.”

  “No I don’t. I yell because it’s loud in that galley.”

  “And you care.”

  She taps her watch. “Because of you, I bet Mrs. Walker set a speed record today. You better get her food to her.”

  I walk away smiling.

  “What are you smilin’ for, boy?”

  “You care!” I shout.

  While I set up Mrs. Walker’s tray, Penny rolls in and opens the refrigerator, snatching a bottle of water. “Hey,” she says softly.

  I don’t respond at all.

  “Um, about last night, I just thought we’d have something in common, you know, and I—”

  I stare her into silence. “Better watch the tales you tell. They have a way of coming back on you.”

  “Yeah.” She unscrews the cap and takes a quick drink. “See ya.”

  No, you won’t. I’m trying to stay away from trouble from now on. I add a brownie to Mrs. Walker’s tray, and then I back out of the galley like the servers do, efficiently slow.

  “Let me check it,” Rose says, and I present the tray to her. “Not bad. Might throw some chips on it.”

  “She didn’t ask for chips.”

  “Always throw some chips on it. They go stale in a hurry on a river.” She takes the little vase containing a yellow rose from our table and puts it on the tray. “And get her a glass of iced tea, no lemon. And microwave her brownie. Tell her you made it fresh, and you might get a nice tip out of this. And when you get back, we’ll set you up a bank account.”

  “I’ve never had one of those.”

  I microwave the brownie and add chips and a tumbler full of iced tea to Mrs. Walker’s tray then deliver it to where she sits in the shade in a rocking chair next to a porch swing up on the Porch. I pull a small table over to her. “Are you warm enough, Mrs. Walker? You could sit out in the sunshine.”

  “I’m fine, I’m fine.”

  I place the tray on the table and see her little blue eyes light up.

  She touches the brownie. “It’s warm.”

  “I made a batch especially for you.” Which is almost true.

  She claps her hands together. “Marvelous! Everything looks marvelous!”

  But she looks so lonely. There isn’t another soul out here. “I can come back up to check on you if you like, maybe bring you another brownie?”

  “Oh, I’ve got to watch my weight.”

  I wink at her. “I can make it a small brownie.”

  She smiles. “Well … no.”

  “You enjoy your meal.” I turn to go, slowly though. There could still be a tip in all this.

  “Emmanuel,” she says, and I turn back.

  “Yes?”

  She waves a twenty-dollar-bill in the air. “For your trouble.”

  I put my fingers on the bill, but I don’t take it. “It isn’t any trouble, Mrs. Walker, and this is far too generous. It has been my pleasure to serve you.”

  “Please take it.”

  I take the bill and put it in my vest. “Thank you, Letitia.”

  She bats her eyes. An old white lady is flirting with me! “Thank you, Emmanuel. Will I see you at dinner?”

  I’ll probably be sweating it out in the galley again, but … “Of course you will, Mrs. Walker.”

  “Bye.”

  When I get back to the dining room, I don’t see Rose. I
go into the galley and find her sipping a cup of hot tea.

  “It took you long enough,” Rose says. “What’d you do, dance the Virginia reel with her?”

  “I might do just that, if you let me be her server tonight.”

  She puts her cup on a saucer. “I was afraid of that.”

  “Afraid of what?”

  She sighs. “Mrs. Walker will now expect you to serve her at each and every meal from now on.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “The other servers are gonna be angry is what’s wrong. She give you a twenty?”

  I hand it to her. “How’d you know?”

  “She tips that much at every meal. She’s an easy sixty bucks a day, the servers say. Your taking her away from them is trouble.”

  “Oh. Well, I don’t have to—”

  “Yes you do,” Rose interrupts. “You got a girl back home about to have your child. You need all the money you can get. Come on. Let’s get your money in the bank.”

  Setting up a bank account isn’t as hard as I thought it would be. Counting my little tips from last night, I deposit thirty-seven dollars into a checking account. That way I can send checks to Mary and to Auntie June as soon as I get a decent paycheck.

  As we’re walking away from the little bank in the Purser’s Lobby, I ask Rose, “When’s payday?”

  “Friday.”

  “Um, what day is it today?”

  “You don’t know?”

  I shake my head. “I’ve lost track.” I’ve been kind of busy getting my life back in order.

  “It’s Thursday.”

  “I get paid tomorrow?”

  She nods. “Just in time for the big city of Cincinnati, which is about the same size as Pittsburgh, isn’t it?”

  I know what she’s saying without saying it. “I, uh, I don’t plan on leaving the boat except to go with Rufus to a tattoo parlor, you know, to make these scars less noticeable.”

  “And I’ll keep you company.”

  “At a tattoo parlor?”

  She shrugs and laughs. “I’ve been to worse places. I may not be as bad as you, but I can be pretty bad when I want to be bad.”

  I smile. “It’s a date.”

  “Never date the boss,” she says, and she checks her watch. “Break’s over. Gotta get dinner started.”

  While we walk, I say, “I’m gonna have to borrow that watch of yours sometime.”