Dinner At The Homesick Restaurant Part 12

"Well...not for any purpose purpose. I'm just out walking and I thought you might want to walk with me, stop off for doughnuts and coffee someplace."

"Now?"

"Of course."

"Isn't it raining?"

"Only a little bit."

"No, thanks," she said.

Her eyes dropped back to her newspaper. The landlady slid her locket along its chain with a miniature zipping sound.

"What's going on in the world?" Cody asked.

"What world?" said Ruth.

"The news. What does the newspaper say?"

Ruth raised her eyes, and Cody saw the page she had turned to. "Oh," he said. "The comics."

"No, my horoscope."

"Your horoscope." He looked to the landlady for help. The landlady gazed off toward a cabinet full of jelly gla.s.ses. "Well, what...um, symbol are you?" Cody asked Ruth.

"Hmm?"

"What astrological symbol?"

"Sign," she corrected him. She sighed and stood up, finally forced to recognize his presence. s.n.a.t.c.hing her paper from the table, she stalked off toward the parlor. Cody made way for her and then trailed after. Her jeans, he guessed, had been bought at a little boys' clothing store. She had no hips whatsoever. Her sweater was transparent at the elbows.

"I'm Taurus," she said over her shoulder, "but all that's rubbish, anyhow. Total garbage."

"Oh, I agree," Cody said, relieved.

She stopped in the center of the parlor and turned to him. "Look at here," she said, and she jabbed her finger at a line of newsprint. "Powerful ally will come to your rescue. Accent today on high finance." She lowered the paper. "I mean, who do they reckon they're dealing with? What kind of business am I supposed to be involved in?"

"Ridiculous," said Cody. He was hypnotized by her eyebrows. They were the color of orange sherbet, and whenever she spoke with any heat the skin around them grew pink, darker than the eyebrows themselves.

"Ignore innuendos from long-time foe," she read, running a finger down the column. "Or listen to this other one: Clandestine meeting could solve mystery Clandestine meeting could solve mystery. Almighty G.o.d!" she said, and she tossed the paper into an armchair. "You got to lead quite a life, to get anything out of your horoscope."

"Well, I don't know," Cody said. "Maybe it's truer than you realize."

"Come again?"

"Maybe it's saying you ought ought to lead such a life. Ought to be more adventurous, not just slave away in some restaurant, mope around a gloomy old boardinghouse..." to lead such a life. Ought to be more adventurous, not just slave away in some restaurant, mope around a gloomy old boardinghouse..."

"It's not so gloomy," Ruth said, lifting her chin.

"Well, but-"

"And anyhow, I won't always be here. Me and Ezra, after we marry, we're moving in above the Homesick. Then once we get us some money we plan on a house."

"But still," said Cody, "you won't have anywhere near what those horoscopes are calling for. Why, there's all the outside world! New York, for instance. Ever been to New York?"

She shook her head, watching him narrowly.

"You ought to come; it's springtime there."

"It's springtime here," she said.

"But a different kind."

"I don't see what you're getting at," she told him.

"Well, all I want to say is, Ruth: why settle down so soon, when there's so much you haven't seen yet?"

"Soon?" she said. "I'm pretty near twenty years old. Been rattling around on my own since my sixteenth birthday. Only thing I want want is to settle down, sooner the better." is to settle down, sooner the better."

"Oh," said Cody.

"Well, have a good walk."

"Oh, yes, walk..."

"Don't drown," she told him, callously.

At the door, he turned. He said, "Ruth?"

"What."

"I don't know your last name."

"Spivey," she said.

He thought it was the loveliest sound he had ever heard in his life.

The following weekend, he drove her out to see his farm. "I have seen all the farms I care to," she said, but Ezra said, "Oh, you ought to go, Ruth. It's pretty this time of year." Ezra himself had to stay behind; he was supervising the installation of a new meat locker for the restaurant. Cody had known that before he invited her.

This time he brought her jonquils. She said, "I don't know what I want with these; these; there's a whole mess in back by the walkway." there's a whole mess in back by the walkway."

Cody smiled at her.

He settled her in his Cadillac, which smelled of new leather. She looked unimpressed. Perversely, she was wearing a skirt, on the one occasion when jeans would have been more suitable. Her legs were very white, almost chalky. He had not seen short socks like hers since his schooldays, and her tattered sneakers were as small and stubby as a child's.

On the drive out, he talked about his plans for the farm. "It's where I'd like to live," he said. "Where I want to raise my family. It's a perfect place for children."

"What makes you think so?" she asked. "When I was a kid, all I cared about was getting to the city."

"Yes, but fresh air and home-grown vegetables, and the animals...Right now, the man down the road is tending my livestock, but once I move in full-time I'm going to do it all myself."

"That I'd like to see," said Ruth. "You ever slopped a hog? Shoveled out a stable?" I'd like to see," said Ruth. "You ever slopped a hog? Shoveled out a stable?"

"I can learn," he told her.

She shrugged and said no more.

When they reached the farm he showed her around the grounds, where she stared a cow down and gave a clump of hens the evil eye. Then he led her into the house. He'd bought it lock, stock, and barrel-complete with bald plush sofa and kerosene stove in the parlor, rickety kitchen table with its drawerful of rusted flatware, 1958 calendar on the wall advertising Mallardy's oystersh.e.l.l mixture for layers, extra rich in calcium. The man who'd lived here-a widower-had died upstairs in the four-poster bed. Cody had replaced the bedclothes with new ones, sheets and a quilt and down pillows, but that was his only change. "I do plan to fix things up," he told Ruth, "but I'm waiting till I marry. I know my wife might like to have a say in it."

Ruth removed a window lock easily from its crumbling wooden sash. She turned it over and peered at the underside.

"I want a wife very much," said Cody.

She put back the lock. "I hate to be the one to tell you," she said, "but smell that smell? Kind of sweetish smell? You got dry rot here."

"Ruth," he said, "do you dislike me for any reason?"

"Huh?"

"Your att.i.tude. The way you put me off. You don't think much of me, do you?" he said.

She gave him an edgy, skewed look, evasive, and moved over to the stairway. "Oh," she said, "I like you a fair amount."

"You do?"

"But I know your type," she said.

"What type?"

"There were plenty like you in my school," she said. "Oh, sure! Some in every cla.s.s, on every team-tall and real good-looking, stylish, athletic, witty. Smooth Smooth-mannered boys that everything always came easy to, that always knew the proper way of doing things, and never dated any but the cheerleader girls, or the homecoming queen, or her maids of honor at the lowest. Pa.s.sing me in the halls not even knowing who I was, nor guessing I existed. Or making fun of me sometimes, I'm almost certain-laughing at how poor I dressed and mocking my freckly face and my old red hair-"

"Laughing! When have I ever done such a thing?"

"I'm not naming you in particular," she said, "but you sure do put me in mind of a type."

"Ruth. I wouldn't mock you. I think you're perfect," he said. "You're the most beautiful woman I've ever laid eyes on."

"See there?" she asked, and she raised her chin, spun about, and marched down the stairs. She wouldn't answer anything else he said to her, all during the long drive home.

It was a campaign, was what it was-a long and arduous battle campaign, extending through April and all of May. There were moments when he despaired. He'd had too late a start, was out of the running; he'd wasted his time with those unoriginal, obvious brunettes whom he'd thought he was so clever to snare while Ezra, not even trying, had somehow divined the real jewel. Lucky Ezra! His whole life rested on luck, and Cody would probably never manage to figure out how he did it.

Often, after leaving Ruth, Cody would be muttering to himself as he strode away. He would slam a fist in his palm or kick his own car. But at the same time, he had an underlying sense of exhilaration. Yes, he would have to say that he'd never felt more alive, never more eager for each new day. Now he understood why he'd lost interest in Carol or Karen, what's-her-name, the social worker who hadn't found Ezra appealing. She'd made it too easy. What he liked was the compet.i.tion, the hope of emerging triumphant from a neck-and-neck struggle with Ezra, his oldest enemy. He even liked biding his time, holding himself in check, hiding his feelings from Ruth till the most advantageous moment. (Was patience patience Ezra's secret?) For, of course, this wasn't an open compet.i.tion. One of the contestants didn't even know he Ezra's secret?) For, of course, this wasn't an open compet.i.tion. One of the contestants didn't even know he was was a contestant. "Gosh, Cody," Ezra said, "it's been nice to have you around so much lately." And to Ruth, "Go, go; you'll enjoy it," when Cody invited her anywhere. a contestant. "Gosh, Cody," Ezra said, "it's been nice to have you around so much lately." And to Ruth, "Go, go; you'll enjoy it," when Cody invited her anywhere.

Once, baiting Ezra, Cody stole one of Ruth's brown cigarettes and smoked it in the farmhouse. (The scent of burning tar filled his bedroom. If he'd had a telephone, he would have forgotten all his strategies and called her that instant to confess he loved her.) He stubbed out the b.u.t.t in a plastic ashtray beside his bed. Then later he invited Ezra to look at his new calves, took him upstairs to discuss a leak in the roof, and led him to the nightstand where the ashtray sat. But Ezra just said, "Oh, was Ruth here?" and launched into praise for an herb garden she was planting on top of the restaurant. Cody couldn't believe that anyone would be so blind, so credulous. Also, he would have died for the privilege of having Ruth plant herbs for him. He thought of the yard out back, where he'd always envisioned his wife's kitchen garden. Rosemary! Basil! Lemon balm!

"Why didn't she come to me?" he asked Ezra. "She could always grow her herbs on my farm."

"Oh, well, the closer to home the fresher," said Ezra. "But you're kind to offer, Cody."

Oiling his rifles that night, Cody seriously considered shooting Ezra through the heart.

When he complimented Ruth, she bristled. When he brought her the gifts he'd so craftily chosen (gold chains and crystal flasks of perfume, music boxes, silk flowers, all intended to contrast with the ugly, mottled marble rolling pin that Ezra presented, clumsily wrapped, on her twentieth birthday), she generally lost them right away or left them wherever she happened to be. And when he invited her places, she only came along for the outing. He would take her arm and she'd say, "Jeepers, I'm not some old lady." She would scramble over rocks and through forests in her combat boots, and Cody would follow, bemused and dazzled, literally sick with love. He had lost eight pounds, could not eat-a myth, he'd always thought that was-and hardly slept at night. When he did sleep, he willed himself to dream of Ruth but never did; she was impishly, defiantly absent, and daytimes when they next met he thought he saw something taunting in the look she gave him.

He often found it difficult to keep their conversations going. It struck him sometimes-in the middle of the week, when he was far from Baltimore-that this whole idea was deranged. They would never be anything but strangers. What single interest, even, did they have in common? But every weekend he was staggered, all over again, by her strutting walk, her belligerent chin and endearing scowl. He was moved by her musty, little-boyish smell; he imagined how her small body could nestle into his. Oh, it was Ruth herself they had in common. He would reach out to touch the spurs of her knuckles. She would ruffle and draw back. "What are you doing?" she would ask. He didn't answer.

"I know what you're up to," his mother told him.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I see through you like a sheet of gla.s.s."

"Well? What am I up to, then?" he asked. He really did hope to hear; he had reached the stage where he'd angle and connive just to get someone to utter Ruth's name.

"You don't fool me for an instant," said his mother. "Why are you so contrary? You've got no earthly use for that girl. She's not your type in the slightest; she belongs to your brother, Ezra, and she's the only thing in this world he's ever wanted. If you were to win her away, tell me what you'd do with her! You'd drop her flat. You'd say, 'Oh, my goodness, what am I doing with this this little person?'" little person?'"

"You don't understand," said Cody.

"This may come as a shock," his mother told him, "but I understand you perfectly. With the rest of the world I might not be so smart, but with my three children, why, not the least little thing escapes me. I know everything you're after. I see everything in your heart, Cody Tull."

"Just like G.o.d," Cody said.

"Just like G.o.d," she agreed.

Ezra arranged a celebration dinner for the evening before Jenny's wedding-a Friday. But Thursday night, Jenny phoned Cody at his apartment. It was a local call; she said she wasn't ten blocks away, staying at a hotel with Sam Wiley. "We got married yesterday morning," she said, "and now we're on our honeymoon. So there won't be any dinner after all."

"Well, how did all this this come about?" Cody asked. come about?" Cody asked.

"Mother and Sam had a little disagreement."

"I see."

"Mother said...and Sam told her...and I said, 'Oh, Sam, why not let's just ...' Only I do feel bad about Ezra. I know how much trouble he's gone to."

"By now, he ought to be used to this," Cody said.

"He was going to serve a suckling pig."

Hadn't Ezra noticed (Cody wondered) that the family as a whole had never yet finished one of his dinners? That they'd fight and stamp off halfway through, or sometimes not even manage to get seated in the first place? Well, of course he must have noticed noticed, but was it clear to him as a pattern, a theme? No, perhaps he viewed each dinner as a unit in itself, unconnected to the others. Maybe he never linked them in his mind.

a.s.suming he was a total idiot.

It was true that once-to celebrate Cody's new business-they had made it all the way to dessert; so if they hadn't ordered dessert you could say they'd completed the meal. But the fact was, they did order dessert, which was left to sag on the plates when their mother accused Cody of deliberately setting up shop as far from home as possible. There was a stiff-backed little quarrel. Conversation fell apart. Cody walked out. So technically, even that meal could not be considered finished. Why did Ezra go on trying?

Why did the rest of them go on showing up, was more to the point.

In fact, they probably saw more of each other than happy families did. It was almost as if what they couldn't get right, they had to keep returning to. (So if they ever did finish a dinner, would they rise and say goodbye forever after?) Once Jenny had hung up, Cody sat on the couch and leafed through the morning's mail. Something made him feel unsettled. He wondered how Jenny could have married Sam Wiley-a scrawny little artist type, s.h.i.+fty eyed and c.o.c.ky. He wondered if Ezra would cancel his dinner altogether or merely postpone it till after the honeymoon. He pictured Ruth in the restaurant kitchen, her wrinkled little fingers patting flour on drumsticks. He scanned an ad for life insurance and wondered why no one depended on him-not even enough to require his insurance money if he should happen to die.

He ripped open an envelope marked AMAZING OFFER! AMAZING OFFER! and found three stationery samples and a glossy order blank. One sample was blue, with and found three stationery samples and a glossy order blank. One sample was blue, with LMR LMR embossed at the top. Another had a lacy embossed at the top. Another had a lacy PAULA PAULA, the P entwined with a morning-glory vine, and the third was one of those letters that form their own envelopes when folded. The flap was printed with b.u.t.terflies and Mrs. Harold Alexander III, 219 Saint Beulah Boulevard, Dallas, Texas Mrs. Harold Alexander III, 219 Saint Beulah Boulevard, Dallas, Texas. He studied that for a moment. Then he took a pen from his s.h.i.+rt pocket, and started writing in an unaccustomed, backhand slant: Dear Ruth,Just a line to say hey from all of us. How's the job going? What do you think of Baltimore? Harold says ask if you met a young man yet. He had the funniest dream last night, dreamed he saw you with someone tall, black hair and gray eyes and gray suit. I said well, I certainly hope it's a dream that comes true!We have all been fine tho Linda was out of school one day last week. A case of "math test-itis" it looked like to me, ha ha! She says to send you lots of hugs and kisses. Drop us a line real soon, hear?