“Oh, perhaps not that hard,” she said. “I’m glad to know you, Miss uh—”
“Georgetta Smith,” I said, squashing my vowels. “Or George, if it’s easier. That’s what my boyfriend in high school used to call me, so I’m used to it. What’s your first name, honey, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Well—just plain Helen. My . . . special friends, even back in high school, never seemed to go in for nicknames.” Miss Madison smiled down at her fingernails, contriving somehow to suggest a throng of dark-browed, intense admirers who went in for things like Proust or Zen. “Are you in college somewhere, dear?”
I widened my eyes and giggled, “Oh, not me!”—an answer she so obviously expected that it would have been a shame to disappoint her—and added that it was hard enough to get through Senior English. Then I was sure I’d overdone things and waited for Helen to tell me to come off it.
I just didn’t know Helen. She gave me a forebearing little smile as her eyes flicked from my shoe bows to my hairdo, plainly lowering my status and elevating her own with every flick, and I could see her deciding that she was going to be Completely Democratic about me. “I think you’re wise to be so sensible about it,” she told me—“it” doubtless referring to my sharply limited mentality—and tried to exchange a Speaking Glance with the boy at the other end of the counter, who unfortunately was still buried in his book.
It was already obvious to me that Miss Madison was the sort I instinctively want to kick. I gave her my expressionless expression instead, accompanied by an accidental but quite effective snap of my gum, and said, “Want me to wash those cups?”
“Yes, dear, do that,” she said, abandoning the cups with pleasure. “It’s time I got things organized for the noon rush. Let me see now . . .” She strolled toward the refrigerator, which was about midway along our narrow alley behind the counter, calling to the boy at the far end, “You want some more coffee, Sherry, before I get busy?”
He looked up briefly and said, “No, thanks.” Then, having caught sight of me in the background, he looked again.
“You positive?” Helen urged, swinging winsomely on the refrigerator door. “How about some lunch? Be glad to fix you a sandwich before our mob of colleagues arrives.”
However, the boy had apparently recovered from the slight shock my coiffure and Christmas coloring had given him, and he seemed impervious, or maybe just inured, to Helen. He merely said, “No, I’m leaving in a minute,” and went back to his book. Helen turned off the magnetism and got tomatoes out of the refrigerator.
“Now I’d better explain some things, dear. You see, we make all the sandwiches here on this big breadboard. And the pickles and relish and so on are in these little containers. I’m telling you now because I really won’t have time to answer a lot of questions later. In about thirty minutes half the college will be in here. Oh, horrors, here comes the first batch already,” she added happily, as the door opened to admit three large youths, indistinguishable from the ones I’d seen yesterday in the corner booth, except that one of these was very good-looking. “Tell you what, dear,” Helen said. “Why don’t you slice the tomatoes and just finish washing those dishes when you have time. It’s a little tricky to take people’s orders until you’re used to it.” She wasted an irresistible smile on the boys, who weren’t looking at her, and handed me her paring knife. “These are rather particular friends of mine, anyhow. Vince is in two of my classes—my hardest ones.”
“What are those?” I asked obediently.
“French and trig. Trigonometry,” she explained carefully, so I wouldn’t be out of my depth.
“My,” I said. Then, because I simply couldn’t resist it, I added, “Let’s see, is trigonometry kind of math or something, or is it like science? I never can remember.”
The bookworm at the end of the counter slowly raised his head.
Helen smiled at me tenderly and said, “It’s a branch of mathematics, dear.” I managed not to trip her as she went past me to the three boys, wreathed in jaunty little smiles and twinkles. “Well! Aren’t you the early birds today!”
“Hi, Helen,” one of the boys said good-naturedly. “Ham on rye and a chocolate shake, please. Hi, Sherry.”
The bookworm removed his gaze from me, said, “Hi, Charlie,” then nodded to the other two and went back to his book.
“Sherry’s just leaving—when he gets through another hundred pages,” Helen said fondly. “He thinks this place is the Libe. Relish on your hamburger, Tom? Vince, you want the Main Hall Special as usual, I suppose.”
“No, cheeseburger and milk,” mumbled the good-looking boy in a discouraging sort of voice that didn’t discourage her at all. She laughed musically, shot him a mischievous glance, told him he just liked to keep her guessing, and would have tapped him with her fan if she’d had one. “Say, did you catch the French assignment?” she added, leaning cozily on the counter beside him. “I had to leave for the A.A.C.O. meeting, and—”
“Subjunctive of irregular verbs,” Vince said.
“Subjunctive! Mon bête noire,” sighed Helen, giving me a clear idea of how good her French was. “Honestly, I think I have a block on subjunctive. Like somebody was saying in that O.M.A. meeting the other day—there were a lot of N.R.G.G.O. members there, and this psych major stood up and said—”
She’d lost her audience; the bookworm had apparently developed automatic earplugs over the months and was peacefully reading; Charlie and Tom had started discussing tennis rackets. She had Vince trapped, though. He stuffed his hands in his pockets, glanced longingly at his notebook, on which Helen’s elbow rested, then past her at me, and I decided to come to the rescue.
“This enough tomatoes, honey?” I asked, remembering to call them tomaytoes. “I better start frying hamburgers, hadn’t I?”
“Oh, no, dear, I’ll do it.” Helen returned to the dreary workaday world with a bravely stifled sigh—and a glance toward Mr. Bruce that caused her to start moving pretty fast. “You set places for these nice men, would you? Knife and spoon on the right side, and fork on the left.”
I blinked and said, “Gee, at home we always just put ’em all together, in a bunch.” I should have refrained; it made the boy at the end of the counter raise his head again. But Helen wouldn’t have doubted me if I’d said we always just stuck them in the water glass or tied string around them and suspended them from the ceiling. She merely smiled democratically and said to be careful not to touch the tines of the forks with my fingers.
“Oh, before you get the silverware, dear, you might just scoop the ice cream for Vince’s milk shake,” she added, daintily shaking hamburger patties onto the grill and removing the wax paper with her little finger crooked. “And then you might make Charlie’s ham-on-rye, and then—” She went on down quite a little list of things I might just do before I did anything else, adding, “I certainly hope there won’t be much of a crowd today, with me so busy.”
“Where’s Brünnhilde?” I asked absently as I peered around for the ice-cream scoop. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the boy at the end of the counter look up again—he seemed to be losing interest in his book—and it made me realize uncomfortably that Georgetta probably shouldn’t know a Wagnerian heroine from Mickey Mouse.
Obviously, Helen didn’t; she said, “Hilda? You must mean Rose. She’ll be late today, she had a dentist appointment. Just when I need her worst!” To ease the strain, she told me something else to do.
For several minutes I was extremely active, while Helen shifted her weight to the other hip and turned a hamburger. Two new customers sat down near the three boys as I was starting that way with a handful of silverware, and she added that I might just take those ladies’ orders while I was there. I succumbed once more to temptation and asked her nervously if she didn’t think it would be too tricky for me. She gave me a fairly sharp glance, but said only, “You have to learn sometime, dear, and I
do have my hands full right now.”
There were simply no thin spots in Helen’s skin of complacency, and if there was a limit to what she’d swallow, I couldn’t find it. I decided I’d better quit trying to; I was attracting a bit too much notice from the bookworm. As I laid the places for the three boys, I reverted to my gum chewing and poker face, responding to Charlie’s amiable comments on the weather with bland stares and monosyllables. Then I turned casually to face the bookworm, hoping the latest sample of my conversation had switched his attention back to his book. It hadn’t. He’d even closed the book and was sitting with his chin propped on his hand and his eyes fixed on me. The chin was long and spade-shaped, the eyes long, grayish-green and mild under quizzical eyebrows, and the expression one of baffled enjoyment.
I suddenly wished he’d leave—he made me nervous. “Ready for your check?” I hinted.
“No indeed. I’ll have some more coffee, please.” He lowered his voice to add, “I don’t want to miss any of the performance.”
I retained my poker face, but with such an effort that I could feel my features congealing into what was probably the most simpleminded expression I’d yet achieved. “Performance?” I repeated.
“Your act. It’s very good,” he assured me. “I don’t think a soul but me has caught on yet. But what’s it all about?”
I said, “Sorry, I don’t follow you. I have to take an order,” and fled without bothering to get his coffee. Nobody else had heard the exchange, I was sure, but it had rather taken my breath, and there was no knowing what he might come out with next, or in how loud a voice. Cursing Helen—and myself for not letting her alone—I paused in front of the two women to scribble “2 hambgr, no mstrd,” in a handwriting that looked like Arabic, then went on, as far down the counter as I could go.
Now, get busy thinking of something to do to convince this Sherry person you’re nobody but Georgetta, I told myself sternly. And after that, mind your fences. And hold your tongue.
The trouble was, I was already frightfully busy being a waitress; Helen’s noon rush was upon us by this time, and there was nearly as much strenuous dashing about to do as she’d predicted. I couldn’t do a thing about Sherry except try, unsuccessfully, to forget him. Every time I glanced in his direction, I found him watching me, sometimes with a puzzled squint that made me hope he’d decided he was all wrong, but more often just watching, the way you’d watch TV. I wondered if by some ill luck we’d actually met before, for instance in Mary’s Creek, and he’d remembered me—but I knew we hadn’t, because I’d have remembered him. Not that he was remarkable-looking. His hair was medium dark, that rough kind of wiry hair that tries to curl even around the ears where it’s clipped closest, and his complexion was medium fair, and his nose straight and his cheeks thin, and his mouth just a mouth, with a rather gentle, inquiring curve to it. Still, you’d remember his face, if only for that dreamy, quizzical expression.
The dreaminess was obviously pretty deceptive. Never mind, don’t get rattled, I told myself. Just ignore him, and he’ll go away.
About twelve-thirty, long after I’d extended my dashes into the kitchen to fetch Mr. Ansley’s hot lunches, Rose arrived and instantly began to be worth three of Helen and me put together. Even so, my feet were developing a throb and my shoulder a sore spot from banging through the kitchen door with loaded trays, and now and then I wondered where those lulls were, during which we menials were supposed to eat. Still my faithful observer sat on, forming a spot of meditative silence in the bedlam of clattering forks and crockery the café had turned into. I couldn’t ignore him any more than you can ignore a mosquito in the bedroom.
By the time the noon rush thinned out a bit, he was making me so nervous that I had to show him I was ignoring him—always an unwise move. I went down his way to clear some dishes, noticed with spurious surprise that they were his, and told him I thought he’d left ages ago.
He didn’t even pretend to believe it, merely smiled benevolently and narrowed his eyes at my hair—as if he wished he could pull it to see if a wig came off—and remarked that I’d get used to him in time. “I hang around here a lot. Too much, I guess, but it’s a good place to study.”
“To study? In this noise?”
“Oh, I don’t mind a nice homogenous din like this. Drowns out the one usually going on in my head,” he said cheerfully. “Very rackety place, my head, it’s always full of scraps of music and little voices reminding me to get my hair cut, and questions about this thing and that—for example the new waitress.”
I gave him an opaque stare as I chewed my gum, and remarked that he was quite a kidder. “Like all that about the act.” I laughed tolerantly, told him that was pretty good, that was, and started to turn away with his dishes.
No use. He said, “Oh, I wasn’t kidding. In fact, I’m a pretty serious fellow, Miss—Miss Greensleeves. What is your name, by the way?”
“Georgetta Einszweiler Smith. Just call me George.”
“George? I certainly will not.”
“You got something against my name?” I asked truculently.
“Not a thing, but it just won’t do. That’s my name—George.”
“Why, I thought it was Sherry.”
“It’s George Maynard Sherrill,” he said patiently.
A small thunderclap resounded in my mind. I didn’t know I was staring at him until I realized he was staring at me.
“What’s the matter?” he demanded.
The first scholarship must go to George Maynard Sherrill, my memory was repeating for the third or fourth time, as if its record were stuck. “Hm? Nothing,” I told him, setting down his dishes. “I just remembered I forgot your check.”
“Check, my eye. You recognized my name. The one nobody ever calls me,” he said wonderingly.
With great dignity I said, “It merely sounded kinda familiar for a minute.”
I tore off his check, slapped it down on the counter, and walked swiftly away, but not before I’d seen from his expression that I was going to have to think of a better explanation than that. He really was curious about me now.
I went back to work, feeling quite dazed at the speed with which I’d managed to complicate Georgetta’s life in the space of one lunch hour. But it was hopeless to try to sort things out until this day was over and the pressure off. Some of it went off a few minutes later when George Sherrill paid and drifted out of the café, to my intense relief. Soon after that the worst of the crowd had gone, and so had Helen, who got off at one-thirty. She’d be back at five, Rose warned me, but the respite was wonderful anyway. I got on fine with Rose, who told me all about her dental problems and said I looked real cute in my pinafore, and that I was more help than Helen already, and that if she (Helen) didn’t watch it, I’d be stealing all her college boyfriends—to which I replied sincerely that I didn’t believe I wanted them.
After we’d had some lunch ourselves—finally—she concentrated on teaching me how to make milk shakes and sodas and things, and I attempted to concentrate on observing Mr. Bruce, and we both concentrated on staying off our feet as much as possible. I drew a blank with Mr. Bruce, because between two-thirty and five he simply went home and stayed there. By the time he was back, Helen had arrived, too, and so had the time to set the tables with those matching cloths, and light the little colored hurricane lamps, and memorize the kinds of pie we were offering for dinner, and begin to serve the first customers—and soon I was too busy again to think about sitting down.
George Sherrill drifted back in at six-fifteen, with a couple of other students. I tensed up at first glimpse of him, because I was so fagged by now that I didn’t see how I could take him on, too—but the three of them went to one of the back booths Helen was serving, ordered dinner, and minded their own business. So I minded mine, which was certainly all I had strength enough for at that point. Sherry and Company had just left when seven o’clock finally
came. Thankfully, I headed for the kitchen, shed my pinafore, and got my handbag from my locker.
Three minutes later, when I limped out onto the sidewalk, my Nemesis straightened up from a waiting posture by the door. His friends had vanished.
“Ah, there you are, Miss Greensleeves,” he said, and came welcomingly toward me.
7
Well, I cut him dead and walked on, but of course it didn’t work. He merely took a couple of long, lazy strides to catch up and fell into step beside me. He was taller than I’d thought.
“Where you going?” he asked cheerfully.
“Home,” I snapped. “My feet hurt and I’m tired.”
“Can I just walk along? I want to talk to you a minute.”
Since there was very little I could do about it, I gave my grudging permission, along with a chilly look out of the corner of my eye.
He gave me one of his slow, benevolent smiles in return, asked me where I lived, and raised his eyebrows when I told him. “At Mrs. Jackson’s? You took that back room that’s been vacant? Why, that’s nice—we’re next-door neighbors. I live just beyond there, at Mrs. Moore’s.” I muttered that I was just born lucky, and he grinned. “Oh, come on, don’t be mad at me. I’ll quit prying into your secrets if that’s the way you want it.”
“I don’t even know why you think I’ve got a secret.”
“The ambiguities, Greensleeves. You’re just full of ambiguities and even contradictions.”
“Lot of big words,” I muttered crossly.
“Plus a few anachronisms,” Sherry added. When he looked directly at you, narrowing his eyes like that, they seemed lighter—less green than gray. They also seemed less dreamy and much more penetrating. “That Greensleeves nickname suits you much better than ‘George.’ You know the song?”
I hesitated, remembering my Wagner-Brünnhilde blunder. “That’s a folk song or something, isn’t it? I might’ve heard it on TV.”