Steakhouse East had a stretch of slow business. The college basketball season was into the playoffs. Ohio State made it there and the playoff games brought big volume. But that was mostly it.
Lunches were strong. Businessmen from out in the area came in as always, as did some of the ones who were on the outskirts of Columbus-proper. Dinners had a decent rush, sometimes not much more than that, so they could have done without Lillian if they so chose.
Throughout March Arlene worked day and night many times. Tommy fixed it so she could go home between shifts to see her mother. Her mother, as Arlene told Bill, was doing kind of okay. She was getting ready to be treated at Cleveland Clinic where they were finalizing a new treatment plan.
Bill and Arlene had plenty of time to talk. Lots of times after the lunch when Bill was sitting in the hall smoking a cigarette, she would come out and talk to him. She would have her coat on and be ready to head out the back door for her split shift. She would tell Bill exactly what was going on with her and her mother and she would openly share her feelings.
But they had not gotten together. In fact, sometimes when there was the possibility of them getting together Bill brushed it off. Several of those times Arlene asked him why he was brushing it off. He didn’t answer.
It was not that he did not want her. It was not that she was undesirable. Mostly he stayed away from her because she was vulnerable and he did not want to capitalize on that. Not only did he not want to take advantage of her situation, but he did not want her to think it was a payback for him getting her extra shifts. He also did not want to hurt her feelings in any way since he knew their getting together could be nothing more than a few intimate experiences. Or, he knew, and she knew this as well, there was no future for them. So Bill figured it was better they just stayed platonic friends.
He had tried the same with Lorraine, but Lorraine’s circumstances were different. Lorraine was older. The age mattered in the sense that she could more clearly articulate her needs and more accurately understand the implications of having them met with Bill. So while he and Lorraine had feelings for each other in the sense that they liked each other and had fun together, they understood there was no future for them, that it was temporary, that they were like ships passing in the night.
Not that there was anything wrong with ships passing in the night. Because there wasn’t. In fact, from the start, he and Lorraine had discussed everything, had waited for Lorraine to process everything (because they had started out together by having a tiff caused by Lorraine not wanting to get the drinks Bill wanted her to get) and then make the first move, which she did openly and avidly.
Over all of this was the fact that Bill had a fiancé and he was cheating. Not even married and he was already cheating.
That was messed up. He was messed up. He knew he was messed up about this and yet sometimes he just couldn’t help himself. Then there was Robert, sweet Moman, who ran around singing “Huh glory,” and telling everyone “What’s good to you is good for you.”
On some level, all of the fooling around, every bit of it, was existential. It always came down to an “f–it.”
