Nanny lit, took a pull and blew smoke. It hung between them. She waved at it with her free hand.
“They say the tobacco companies put formaldehyde in cigarettes,” Ernie said from behind the menu.
“Can I help you?” A man between 24 and 25 stood at the end of their booth. He wore a white shirt, black tie, black pants and a smile.
“You the manager?” Nanny blew smoke. It split into separate clouds along the spine of Ernie’s menu.
“Yes ma’am.”
“The sign,” Nanny said.
The manager answered with a frown that said he didn’t understand what she meant.
“The sign over the front door. The one with ‘cluckin’ in it. Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doin’. Change the ‘cl’ to an ‘f’ and you got your answer. Take the sign down.” Nanny took another drag.
Ernie looked at the glowing formaldehyde.
“Right away.” The manager left.
“I’m gonna check when I leave,” Nanny said. She blew smoke into the air over their heads. “Gotta speak up for yourself in this life. After my brother died in the war, my mother kept sayin’ she let the government take him away without puttin’ up a fight, without sayin’ a word. She regretted it till the day she died. I told myself I was always gonna say what’s on my mind.”
“Are you ready to order?” Lesley held a note pad in her left hand. She smiled at Ernie. He smiled back.
Nanny dug in her purse and pulled out the two for one coupon. “Double chicken breast, fries, gravy, ice cream and coffee.”
Lesley slid the coupon to the edge of the table and picked it up. Ernie moved his menu to the left, studied the length of her fingers and the way blue fingernail polish reflected light.
“Chicken salad, please.” Beth smiled, hoping a ten dollar tip would be enough in the way of an apology for Nanny’s behaviour.
“To drink?” Lesley said.
“Tea, please,” Beth said.
“Ernie?” Lesley said.
All eyes were on him. He glanced left, straight ahead and then at Lesley. She’s got great eyelashes, he thought and said, “Cluckin’ burger, please.” Realizing his mistake, he opened his mouth, looked across the table and saw the disapproving frown lines forming around his grandmother’s lips. “Uhh, chicken burger, please.”
BLATT. This time, even Nanny appeared startled by the volume.
Lesley tried to hide her face behind the menus. “To drink?”
“Coke. Big coke.” Ernie saw people turning to stare at him. He leaned back against the bench, defeated by his grandmother’s gas.
“Okay,” Lesley said. Ernie watched her hustle down the aisle and take a hard left to disappear into the kitchen. Her laughter was snuffed out when the door closed behind her.
“Don’t tell me no one heard that one!” Nanny said.
“Nope, even the people in the parking lot heard that one,” Beth said.
Ernie looked at his mother.
“It’s so embarrassing when I get the gas.”
“Don’t worry, everybody thinks it’s me,” Ernie said.
Beth smiled at him, then. The kind of smile only a mother can muster to tell her child she’d die for him.
“You think so?” Nanny said.
“I know so.” Ernie thought about methane and oxygen and what could happen if his grandmother decided to light another cigarette. He felt the giggles grabbing him by the throat and swallowed hard to hold the laughter in.
“Oh, of course.” Nanny butted the smouldering filter tip into the ash tray. “People expect a teenager to do things like that.”
“Here you are.” Lesley arrived with a tray of drinks.
“Thanks,” Beth and Ernie said in harmony.
“No problem,” Lesley said.
“We want take out,” Nanny said and sipped her coffee.
“But.” Beth took a deep breath, and let it out slow.
“It’s my birthday and I want take out.”
Ernie took a long pull on his coke.
“Whatever,” Beth said.
“Take out?” Lesley sought confirmation.
BLATTT!
Lesley’s eyes opened wide.
Ernie saw ripples in his grandmother’s coffee. The giggles caught hold of him.
Lesley looked at him and covered her laughter with a hand.
“Listen!” Nanny slapped the table top with her cigarette pack. “I’m not feeling well and I wanna eat my,” Blatttt!
“chicken,” BLATT! BLATTATTATT! “at home!”
“No problem,” Lesley said before she left.
Ernie leaned his head back and roared with laughter.
It took him five minutes to get control of himself and another five minutes to cover the 30 meter journey back to the car. A girl of five or six in a flowered dress, blond ponytails and white shoes pointed at Ernie and asked, “Was that you?” Nanny started to chuckle. BLATT! The girl ran away saying, “He did it again, Mom!”
“I’ll get the order,” Beth said. Nanny and Ernie continued out the door.
He was holding her hand and easing her into the front seat of the car when she said, “You know I love you.” The words created a silence around them. She kept her eyes on him. “You know it.”
“I know it,” Ernie said.
“Just because I don’t say it very often doesn’t mean I don’t feel it.”
“You’ve never said it,” he said.
“Never said it before? Thought you knew it.” She took a hit of oxygen.
“But you say stuff.” He leaned an arm on the door and looked at her.
“I thought you knew. I say whatever comes into my mind. Life’s too short to hold back,” Nanny said.
“But?”
“You know I got a temper. And you know I love you. Always have. Always will.”
“I know.” Careful of her feet and the oxygen line, he closed her door and climbed in the back seat.
“You drive.”
“What?” Ernie said.
“You drive.”
He got out, circled the car to get behind the wheel. “I don’t have my license, yet.”
“What are they gonna do, arrest me?” Nanny said.
“No, but they might arrest me.”
“Over my dead body,” she said.
Friday, August 4
CHAPTER 21
Marv blinked. The grey upholstery on the back of the front seat was tinted pink. His stomach growled. Grimacing at the stiff pain in his back, he rolled up his blue wind breaker to serve as a pillow.
He tried to stretch his legs but his feet pushed against the passenger door. Marvin lifted himself onto an elbow, eased both feet to the floor and sat up. They were still parked in between a pair of brand new Lincolns. Dew glistened on all vehicles within his field of vision.
He felt the sun’s hand at the back of his neck. “Les?” Marv’s mouth was dry and he wished he could brush his teeth.
“Les?” He leaned forward to shake the shoulder of his older brother. Les slapped his hand away. “We smell better in the morning. You notice that? Think the cops’ll find us here?”
“We’re just another Ford in the lot,” Les said.
“What do we do now?”
“Get a cup of coffee and some breakfast, dummy.”
“How much you got?” Marv said.
Les reached under the driver’s seat and fished out a 35 mm film container he used to store twoonies. He poured the coins into his left palm and counted. “Fifteen.”
“Bucks?” Marv’s belly felt emptier.
“Twoonies. Thirty bucks.”
“Tim Horton’s?”
“Sure. Last night, I spotted one just down the road.” Les sat up.
“Then what?”
“We need another car. Cops’ll be looking for this one.” Les picked sleep from the corners of his eyes.
“Where we gonna get one?”
“Strip mall or one of those health clubs. Wait till someone ducks inside and leaves the car running.”
Marv felt better when they had a plan. “Then we’ll pay the old man a visit?”
“And it won’t be kidnapping,” Lester said.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll explain after we have a coffee.”
