“Why would she be better off without you?” Lorraine asked. She handed Bill the beer she brought him.
Bill was sitting on the metal milk cases, resting after having served the waitresses and dishwashers their dinners. He was dog tired. They had done more than expected in a dinner rush that started early and ended late. Jimmy and Grandma did not get out until 11:30, and Bill, just sitting down for the first time, knew he should have been cleaning up. He still had over an hour’s work and that didn’t include the grease.
“What are you talking about?” Bill sipped the beer. He was soaked. His underwear had soaked through, his shirt too. The cool night air chilled him immediately as it blew in from the open back door.
“The other night. You said your fiancé would be better off without you.”
“Did I?” Bill stood up. “I can’t stay out here. I’m too wet and I’m getting chilled.” He led Lorraine into the kitchen. She stood by the knife sheath. He stood in front of the Garland and let the heat come out at him to warm him up.
“You don’t remember?”
“I remember everything.”
“So, answer my question.”
“It’s been on your mind all this time?”
“In a nutshell, yes.”
“Why you care?”
“Cause I care about you. I mean you’re more than just some fun sometimes. I know you care about me.”
“How you know that?”
“You could have had my job but you didn’t go after it. You didn’t pressure me to do anything sexual or anything like that. You even told Tommy to give me good shifts.”
“I should have made you do terrible things.”
“It’s never too late.” Lorraine made a face at him, a face he knew from her, one saying without any words that she might like it if he did. Then she shimmied for him to underscore her point. “If you don’t ask, you don’t get.”
“So you’re saying?”
“I’m not saying anything. I mean, I’m just saying…”
Bill moved away from the Garland, leaned over toward her and whispered in her ear.
“It’s not out of the ball park,” Lorraine said. She smiled. “Be a first for me, but I’m not getting any younger.”
Bill laughed. He told her come around on the line so they stood next to each other over the two-sided charcoal grill. There, the heat from the synthetic charcoals rose up at them.
Not counting alcohol and drugs which were a completely different sort of physical sensation, Bill loved nothing more than this. The intense heat hit him in the face and on his chest. Standing as close as he was, it even warmed his thighs by making his pants hotter than if a steaming iron was passing over them.
“Ain’t nothing feels better than this,” he said. “I love it when the heat just runs through me.”
“I can think of some things I like more.”
“Yeah, well, you know what I mean.”
“I know, sweetie. But you still didn’t answer my question. Second time now.”
“What question?”
“Why she’d be better off without you.”
“No,” Bill said. “I didn’t answer.”
He stood there absorbing the heat. She stood next to him, quiet now, not standing as close to the charcoal grills as he was. She reached for his beer and took a sip.
“What would happen if Tommy saw me drinking from your beer?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Bill said. He reached out and she handed him the bottle. “He might say something to me. Maybe not. Nothing would happen to you.”
“You and Drenovis are at it again, huh?”
“He’s a dick,” said Bill.
