for something?” “I didn’t tell you? It’s a table for four people, and with four equal sides usually, like a square.” “And what’s a station?” Margo says. “Not like a radio’s?” “Good question, as really what the ‘four’ was. For it’s an unusual word for it, ‘four’ for four-table. And even ‘four-table’ is unusual for what it stands for. But a station’s the total number of tables you get to wait on, and they’re all usually close together so you can wait on one while bussing or cleaning another.” “Bussing?” Julie says. “To clear off the dirty dishes or get fresh water for it — you know, that job. But the point is you didn’t want, if you were a waiter, a single couple at your only four-table sitting there from eight-thirty till closing and only ordering a Sanka or Postum, I think it was called — a vegetable coffee made out of grain. Wait a minute, does that make sense? A grain coffee, for people who didn’t drink regular coffee or Sanka but wanted something like the taste and look of them, and also maybe sharing between them a slice of peach pie for the night, ‘two forks, please.’ That’s what they always asked for if you didn’t already have the silver on the table. I mean, I couldn’t believe those people.” “Grain coffee?” Margo says. “Like grain?” “Yuh. Like wheat, barley, rice, but barley I think it was made of — he, I remember, always had tea in a glass. They were Europeans, refugees from World War Two where they had fled Nazi Germany or even survived the war there. And where I suppose they drank tea in a glass and which was just another chore for the waiter, getting the hot water in the glass without breaking it. You first put in a spoon to conduct the heat — I don’t want to go into now explaining what that is — but you had to know that about the spoon. And then the glass, if you picked it up right away, like to put it on his table if you first didn’t put it on a saucer — well, what’s the difference? You burned your fingers either way — by first putting it on a saucer on your tray or no saucer and taking the glass off the tray and putting it on his table — but his fingers never burned. I don’t know what protection he had on them but he just picked it up and drank from it, so even his mouth and tongue should have been burned.” “What’s Nazi Germany?” Margo asks. “You mean with Hitler?” “Right. Adolf Hitler, she means, Julie. And these people were probably from Austria or Hungary or Poland and barely survived the war. And they were also Jewish, I’m sure, which I don’t know if you know but they were persecuted then over there. Persecuted: hunted down, killed because of their beliefs or just because they were born Jewish, so they probably also fled to America to escape all that, the goiter lady and her husband, which is what being a refugee is — fleeing — or just because they couldn’t ever go back to it for various reasons. For that time must’ve been something; beyond words; that old saw, a living hell.” “Hungary’s a country?” Julie says. “Hungary’s a country. Very good. How’d you know that, sweetheart, for it’s not the most known one?” “I just know.” “Though I was only saying Hungary was one of the countries they could’ve been from. Even Germany they could’ve been from, but I don’t think they drink tea in a glass there. I don’t know what they drink when it’s not wine or beer. Probably coffee. And I remember they spoke German and when their friends were there, a couple of other languages, which meant they could’ve come from any number of countries. But she had her coffee every night, that’s for sure, and very often she asked for hot water when she was down to a quarter of a cup. We couldn’t charge for the extra water, you see, and it meant she could sit with her cup in front of her awhile longer. I suppose she had the grain one — they didn’t have then the kind of decaffeinated coffee we have now, I don’t think — because of her goiter condition. Doctor might’ve said no, but who knows? But then their leaving me a single quarter tip for the night. They’d leave around eleven-thirty when it was of course late and near closing time and nobody else was coming in. And if anyone was coming in, you didn’t want them because that’d mean they’d be sitting at your table till way past closing time, when what you really wanted was just to clean up your station and go home, got it? Okay.” “A quarter’s not so little money.” “Daddy’s talking about then, dummy, then,” Margo says. “Margo, don’t talk to her that way. And right,” he says to Julie. “It was worth a dollar by today’s quarter, meaning you could buy for a quarter then what you can for a dollar today. Do I have that right? I think so. But imagine one dollar tops in tips or so for one of your four- or five-tables for an entire night, and your biggest most productive table too, meaning the one you stand to make the most money from, and you can see what I mean. You were losing money as a waiter.” “You lost the dollar?” Julie says. “Every night from those people?” “No, I mean — oh gee, why’d I go into this? What started it? Good passing-the-highway-time talk, right? Right. But what I’m saying, and this isn’t your fault if you don’t understand it, sweetie, is that they were incredibly stingy and inconsiderate, sitting at my table or any waiter’s table for that long for so small an order and tip, and the manager shouldn’t have put up with it.” “What should he do?” Margo says. “‘Have done.’ Well, his policy was let them sit where they want, customer’s always right, blah blah — you’ve heard that one before—” “What?” Julie says. “It’s a saying, an expression. Honor thy customer and so on, because he’s got the money.” “And she‘s,” Margo says. “She’s got. True. Especially there. So long as there are other empty tables at the time. And since the restaurant was generally quiet between eight and nine, when they came in — lamb chop and jelly crowd having left, soda and snack crowd not in yet — they usually got the four-table they wanted. Besides, he couldn’t give a — he didn’t care how well we did. He was paid his salary, got no cut of our tips, so he didn’t rely on them the way we did, and that guy had been there forever, Mr. Feeny or Reilly or something — I forget his name. Art. That’s right, Art. We used to call him Art the — well, whatever we used to call him. Art the something — I forget. ‘Mister,’ though, that’s what he insisted we had to say before his name. But this customer, she had the most enormous goiter I ever saw and that’s why I and the other waiters — it wasn’t nice, I know that now and wouldn’t behave that way today. In fact, I didn’t like to say it then, but you know, they all did it and it was a rotten job, running around like mad for little dough and when you were really tired, for I had college and studying all day, so to make the job better you did little bad things for laughs. But we called her — that isn’t excusing it, you understand, for nothing really makes it right — but we called her the goiter lady, and the man, ‘the goiter lady’s husband.’ But her goiter was about the size of a football. Or maybe like a Softball, the kind you hit with a bat, but bigger than my big fist,” and he makes a fist and holds it up, “and was on the right side of her neck, or the left one, but anyway was a deformity. That’s why I brought it up, to explain the word,” and Julie says “The poor old lady. It must have been sad to walk around with that big thing on her. Why didn’t she have it taken off? Couldn’t she? Would it be too big a scar?” and he says “I don’t know about cutting it out, that’s a good question, and it is