Although it was bitterly cold outside, the lunch room was steaming hot and the front window had clouded over.
“Don’t you like fish?” the girl said.
He shook his head. Out of the corner of his eye he had noticed that she was not eating her haddock. However, he had quickly looked away, in order not to be drawn into a conversation. The arrival of his steak obliged him to look up, and their eyes met. She was gazing at him with a rapt expression. It made him feel uncomfortable.
“My name is Agnes Leather,” she said in a hushed voice, as if she were sharing a delightful secret. “I’ve seen you eating in here before.”
He realized that there was no polite way of remaining silent, and so he said in an expressionless voice, “I ate here yesterday and the day before yesterday.”
“That’s right.” She nodded. “I saw you both times. At noon yesterday, and then the day before a little later than that. At night I don’t come here. I have a family. I eat home with them like everybody else in a small town.” Her smile was warm and intimate, as if she would like to include him in her good fortune.
He did not know what to say to this, and asked himself idly if she was going to eat her haddock.
“You’re wondering why I don’t touch my fish?” she said, catching his eye.
“You haven’t eaten much of it, have you?” He coughed discreetly and cut into his little steak, hoping that she would soon occupy herself with her meal.
“I almost never feel like eating,” she said. “Even though I do live in a small town.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Do you think it’s too bad?”
She fixed her luminous eyes upon him intently, as if his face held the true meaning of his words, which might only have seemed banal.
He looked at the long horselike lower half of her face, and decided that she was unsubtle and strong-minded despite her crazy eyes. It occurred to him that women were getting entirely too big and bony. “Do I think what’s too bad?” he asked her.
“That I don’t care about eating.”
“Well, yes,” he said with a certain irritation. “It’s always better to have an appetite. At least, that’s what I thought.”
She did not answer this, but looked pensive, as if she were considering seriously whether or not to agree with him. Then she shook her head from side to side, indicating that the problem was insoluble.
“You’d understand if I could give you the whole picture,” she said. “This is just a glimpse. But I can’t give you the whole picture in a lunchroom. I know it’s a good thing to eat. I know.” And as if to prove this, she fell upon her haddock and finished it off with three stabs of her fork. It was a very small portion. But the serious look in her eye remained.
“I’m sorry if I startled you,” she said gently, wetting her lips. “I try not to do that. You can blame it on my being from a small town if you want, but it has nothing to do with that. It really hasn’t. But it’s just impossible for me to explain it all to you, so I might as well say I’m from a small town as to say my name is Agnes Leather.”
She began an odd nervous motion of pulling at her wrist, and to his surprise shouted for some hotcakes with maple syrup.
At that moment a waitress opened the door leading into the street, and put down a cast-iron cat to hold it back. The wind blew through the restaurant and the diners set up a clamor.
“Orders from the boss!” the waitress screamed. “Just hold your horses. We’re clearing the air.” This airing occurred every day, and the shrieks of the customers were only in jest. As soon as the clouded glass shone clear, so that the words GREEN MOUNTAIN LUNCHEONETTE in reverse were once again visible, the waitress removed the iron cat and shut the door.