“How about a piece of pie?” Brooklyn asked. She stood on her side of the counter having just dropped off a glass of bourbon and a bottle of beer complements the Bebe.
Bill was just about finished cleaning. Everyone was gone except for Esserine who was completely done, her station closed up, the sliding stainless steel cover already down and in place. She was sitting on Bea’s stool in the corner by the pies reading her paperback romance. The dishwashers were all outside in the parking lot waiting for the downtown van.
Bill drank down the bourbon as if it were soda pop. He’d been drinking and smoking pot since a little past nine, for the evening that is. He and Henry Lee had been drinking and smoking all day long, and Mary had joined them in the afternoon when it was just about close to going-home time for her.
“Well?” Brooklyn asked when Bill didn’t answer immediately.
Bill didn’t say anything. He used the back side of the blade of one of the chef’s knives to open the beer, took a long pull on it before he returned the knife to the knife sheath.
“Want me to beg?” Brooklyn shifted one foot to the other as she stood there, tilted her head slightly to one side.
Bill just looked at her. The thought that came to him was that she was trying to look cute and the next thought was that she was cute, she was definitely cute and she didn’t have to try at it at all.
“Give her a piece of pie,” Esserine called out from the corner. “You know you gonna. And she’s only one here so ain’t no one gonna see and then come to ask.”
“What kind you want?” Bill asked.
“Blueberry,” Brooklyn said.
“I’ll get it for her,” Esserine said.
Bill watched Esserine carefully place her bookmark between the pages of her book, watched her get up and fetch the piece of blueberry pie, plate it and hand it to Brooklyn who’d gone over to her.
“Don’t you never beg for nothing,” he heard Esserine tell Brooklyn. He saw Esserine give Brooklyn a stern look as she said it.
“Yes ma’am,” Brooklyn said. Bill thought she looked as if she were going to curtsy, but she simply took the pie and started for the hallway where she could eat it without Tommy seeing.
“You can sit there,” Esserine said. She pointed to the stool. “I’m going home. And if Tommy sees and says anything, you tell me tomorrow and I’ll tell him I gave it to you.”
“Thank you,” Brooklyn said as she perched herself on the stool.
Business had been slow. Victoria and Lorraine were early girls and long gone. Lily had eaten her dinner at ten and not having any tables when she was finished eating, she’d arranged with Brooklyn to go home. All alone on the floor, Brooklyn’d come into the kitchen every chance she had just to bust Bill’s chops.
They’d had no interplay worth talking about for several days after Bill had fed both her and Lily Supers. Business had been okay, not good, not bad, no great shakes. It just didn’t come up or get put out from either her part or Bill’s.
“You almost done?” she asked Bill after awhile.
Bill had been finishing up and was done cleaning. All he had left was to put away the leftover food and then he was heading home.
“Just have to put away the things in the back,” he said.
“And then?”
“Then I’m changing clothes and going home.”
“You mad at me?”
“Why? Should I be?”
“No. Not that I know of. Just you haven’t paid me any mind and so I was wondering.”
“It’s all good,” Bill said.
“Wanna…,” Brooklyn started, but she stopped herself and held her tongue.
Bill didn’t say anything. He went around back to start putting the food into the walk-in box.
Another day, not that many more here in this place.
Pick up a copy of all my works here: By Peter Weiss
