The Fortunes of Indigo Skye (9 page)

"I didn't mind the heels," Trina says. "Roger
had a great eye."

"Yeah, which he's using on chicks in thong
bikinis in Rio," I remind. I can tell she needs some emotional rescue ASAP. She
is in that post-breakup phase of wild swings--where the ex goes from being the
saintly love of your life to the darkest wedge of evil within twenty
seconds.

Trina nibbles the bit of piecrust on her fork.
I can practically see her mind ditch Roger's halo and remember all the times he
checked out other women when he thought she didn't notice. "I guess it's a bad
sign if you like everything about someone except their personality," she
says.

63

The bells on the door jangle and I shoot my
eyes over in a flash, because it's about Vespa guy time. He'd been coming in
every day, and we still hadn't gone beyond the smiles and thank-you's and the
occasional
Have a nice days, Okay, you toos.
But it's not Vespa guy, it's
a man and a woman who must work at the salmon hatchery, judging by their
T-shirts. I'm guessing not too many people wear matching salmon life-cycle
shirts for amusement or glamour. I slide them a pair of plastic-covered menus,
get another for the man who runs the used bookstore who comes in every now and
then. It starts getting busy. Two ladies in business suits and with briefcases
sit down and we're rockin' and rollin', and I'm taking the hatchery people's
orders--one fruit plate, one French toast--and trying not to stare at the salmon
spawning over the little pile of eggs right on the guy's left pec.

I start getting worried about the Vespa guy,
but right about the time I give the bookstore man his Farm Scramble (eggs with
ham and onions--I've tried to tell Jane the name of it sucks), Nick Harrison
gestures my way and nods his chin out the window. Vespa, stage right. Maybe it's
pathetic, but none of us has lost our fascination with him. Trina sits up
straighter, though she's given up trying to get his attention. The fact that he
hasn't responded to Trina the way everyone responds to Trina only adds to his
mystery. He couldn't be moved by flesh packed into spandex, which tells you a
lot about a person. Our theories so far: he is depressed, shy, a lonely
newcomer, sexually confused, divorcing, evading the law, in over his head with
cocaine addiction. But no one has gotten up the nerve to just get to know him
and find out. As his waitress, I'd had the most natural opportunity, but I just
couldn't seem to get myself to do it. There was just something unapproachable
about him. He was a store you wouldn't go into, or if

64

you did go, he was the things you didn't dare
touch hanging on the rack, the glass case you wouldn't even lean
against.

He sits at Nero Belgio, as usual.
Caramel-colored corduroy pants and a buttery yellow shirt and a creamy suede
jacket. It's not the thin, fuzz-gathering type of corduroy either, but the lush,
velvety sort. We do our routine. He smiles, I smile. I hand him a menu and he
says, "Just coffee, please."

"Are you sure I can't talk you into anything
else? French toast? Farm Scramble?" It's the most I've ever said to him, and I'm
pissed at myself that it's Farm Scramble that comes to mind. It's slightly
embarrassing to say Farm Scramble to someone so well dressed.

"No, no thank you," he says.

I bring the man his coffee cup, pour in a
steaming stream. He smiles his gratitude.
Tink-tinks
his spoon against
the sides of the cup, stirring. He stares out the window. It's practically
infuriating how little we know about him. I can feel this little burble of
frustration percolating, a feeling I have to ditch because the French toast is
up.

I clear Joe's plate, bring the bookstore guy a
bottle of ketchup for his eggs, which is just disgusting in my opinion--an egg
crime scene--but never mind. Nick asks for a second orange juice. The Vespa guy
takes off his jacket and hangs it over the chair next to him, and he's right, it
is
hot in here. I have an eye on everyone and I'm pleased with myself,
because it's the point in waitressing that I love--it's all going. I'm handling
everything like a conductor handles an orchestra, or maybe more like a
kindergarten teacher handles a room of demanding, messy five-year-olds. They're
all right there in my hands and everyone's happy and has just been fed their
snack. Things are running as smooth as can be. I'm God's gift to
waitressing.

65

The Vespa guy sets his cup down, nearly empty,
and I'm heading over and I'm smiling and everything's cool, the pot of coffee is
in one hand, when I see something that just flips my mood. It's that fast, fast
as Luigi's wrist-flick of a bubbly pancake from dough side to brown side. It's
that coat hanging over the chair that gets me. This beautiful creamy suede coat
with a satin lining, slits for pockets. It's what's sticking up from one slit
that starts this curl of anger. A square cellophane-wrapped pack.

Cigarettes.

You see people smoking all over--kids at
school, guys standing around outside the Darigold plant, women in cars with one
arm out the window. I am always revolted and marginally pissed, annoyed with
that low-slung irritation you feel around stupidity. But this time, I am one
notch over into really mad. The Vespa guy, he's perfect. He's supposed to be
perfect. And now look how he's letting us all down.

I pour his coffee, my lips pursed with
disapproval. I am doing a Mom, where I'm trying to communicate with the vast
vocabulary of my silence everything he's done wrong. But he's not listening,
because when I tip my pot back up, he gives me only that smile, which is suspect
now. I'm thinking it is perhaps insincere.

I just stand there wanting to speak, doing this
yes-no, yes-no, yes-no thing in my head, and then, before I even realize the
debate is over, I'm at yes and I'm talking to him.

"I wouldn't be saying this if I didn't care
about your health and well-being," I say, and suddenly I'm channeling the spirit
of my mother, and she's not even dead. "But do you know there are over four
thousand toxic chemicals in cigarettes?" I gesture with my chin toward his
jacket pocket. "Carbon monoxide, for starters.

66

Cyanide, formaldehyde, ammonia ..." I count
them off on my fingers. "Should I go on?"

Well, I guess I might as well have just hooked
Vespa guy up to numerous electrodes and shocked him with twelve thousand volts
of electricity for the way he just stares at me, blinking.

"If you care about your health and the health
of others," I say.

"Well," he says. "Well."

"It's only because I'm worried about you," I
remind. "Thank you for your concern," he says. "Your concern ... ," he
repeats.

And then, oh God, something awful happens.
There's this pause, and then his eyes--they get glassy, wet. He blinks. My God,
I think he might be about to cry. He blinks some more. Shit. Shit! I've made the
Vespa guy cry.

He clears his throat.

"Are you all right?" I ask.

"Yes. Yeah. It's just..." He coughs.

Oh, man.
Shit, Indigo,
I think.
Now
you've gone and done it.
I made him feel terrible. I couldn't keep my
goddamn big mouth shut. "I'm sorry," I say. "I shouldn't have ..."

"Sorry? Don't be
sorry.
Lately ... I
don't know." He gives a laugh that isn't a laugh.

"What?"

"I don't know why I'm telling you
this."

"It's okay," I say. "This is waitress-client
privilege. Purely confidential." Except for all the Irregulars listening in, of
course.

"I go to work and everyone's 'Yes, Mr. Howards.
Of course, Mr. Howards. Can I get you anything, Mr. Howards?' And no one means a
goddamn word they say. It's unreal." He runs his fingers through his
hair.

67

"Maybe it's time for a job change," I say. "I
haven't heard a sincere expression of concern in five, six years."

"A lifestyle change, then," I say.

I'm taking too much time here, I know. The
ladies have put their credit card in the plastic folder and are shifting around
in their seats. The bookstore guy has pushed his plate away and I can feel his
eyes tugging on me to notice. In terms of my kindergarten class, I've got one
kid who's knocked over the finger paint and another who's jumping up and down
with his hands in his pockets, needing to use the bathroom. It's starting to
fall apart, but I don't care. This is Vespa guy we're talking about, and he
needs me.

"I don't know. My situation's ... complicated,"
he says. "But man, sometimes I want to just ..." He shoves his hands away from
himself as if pushing something heavy. His voice is soft.

"Whoa. You're not talking drastic measures
here--"

"No, God. Suicide? No, never.
Never.
I
mean, like quit my job. Give it all up. Become a basket weaver."

"Why not? My father did that. Well, he's not a
basket weaver. But he up and quit one day, ditched all the high pressure and
moved to Maui and now he rents surfboards."

"Wow. Sounds great."

"He loves it, I think. He's got this small
house by the beach. Surfboards, and what are the things with the sails that you
stand on? My mind just went blank."

"Windsurfers?"

"Yeah. Windsurfers. I went there once. It was
beautiful."

"I'd love that. Maui."

"I don't even think he wears shoes anymore. Of
course, you have very nice shoes," I say.

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"I have very nice everything. It's
exhausting."

"Look, I gotta take these people's money," I
say. "Sure, sure," he says.

I grab the ladies' credit card and give it to
Jane to run. She's already cleared the bookstore guy's plate, and I give him his
check and sit a Darigold worker and make change for the salmon hatchery folks.
Nick's trying like crazy to catch my eye, and so is Trina and Funny, and Jane
keeps nudging me every chance she gets and Joe even whispers
Well?
even
though it is hardly a whisper. I ignore all of them, and it takes some
doing.

The Vespa guy holds up his hand in a
Stop
motion to indicate no more coffee. When I bring him his check, he
says, "Thank you, you know. Really. I have faith again that everyone doesn't
give just to get."

And he seems to mean it. One little gesture,
you know? The
Oh, shit
from earlier is gone, and I fill up with a
fellow-man-humankind gladness. I have this sense of satisfaction. A
beach-ball-just-blown-up feeling, or a full tank of gas feeling. "Hey, just
promise you'll ditch the smokes," I say.

"Promise," he says.

The Vespa guy leaves the plastic padded folder
on the table. On his way out, he stops me, holds out his hand. "Richard
Howards," he says.

"Indigo Skye," I say.

"S-k-y?" he asks.

"With an
E,"
I answer.

"A pleasure, Indigo Skye. And thank you again."
We shake. When he leaves, I see there is something else on the table too, left
in the saucer of his coffee cup. It's the package of cigarettes. It's a brand
I've never seen before, a white package with a red square

69

in the middle,
Dunhill Special Reserve.
I hear the Vespa start up outside. I watch him ride off, and he's butterscotch,
melting into the distance.

"Well?" Trina practically shrieks.

"I couldn't hear hardly anything from over
here," Nick says.

"Something about quitting his job," Funny says.
"Becoming a basketball player."

"Basket weaver," I say. But I feel suddenly
proprietary about our talk; decide to give them crumbs and crust, not the
squishy center of the bread. "He's unhappy with his work."

"He said his life was complicated," Nick
Harrison says.

"I thought you said you couldn't hear," I
say.

"He said he could
hardly
hear anything,
is what he said." It's the bookstore guy, interjecting. We ignore
him.

"A smoker?" Jane waves the package in the air,
gives it a shake.

"He's quitting," I say. I hear the
defensiveness in my own voice. You feel responsible to someone when they've
given you something private.

"Tell me you didn't give him shit about it,
Indigo. I can't afford to lose any customers."

"She's merely doing her civic duty as she sees
fit," Joe says in his old, gruff voice. "Those are cancer sticks."

"Unhappy with his work. Why is he unhappy?"
Trina presses, but I am saved from revealing more, because just then Leroy comes
in.

He is holding up one arm, the right one, with
the dragon, breathing flames that lick up the back of his hand. In that hand is
the red and black sign from the window of the Thunderbird. "Trina, God. Someone
put a 'For Sale' sign in your car," he says.

70

***

It's May, and on my way to school after work
that day, Nine Mile Falls is all warm-weather promise. It's that perfection that
comes just before something; summer, in this case. You see all that it can be
before it becomes what it is. No lawns are brown yet, no one is cranky from
too-high heat, there are no splinters or sunburns or bee stings. The air is just
all jazzed up from school almost out, and the usual signs that the prisoners are
about to be released for summer break are appearing--the telephone lines in
front of the school are strung with old tennis shoes that had been flung there
and are now hanging by their tied-together laces; the kids walking back home
wear short sleeves and sandals and floppier, less-homework backpacks, and the
ones in cars are almost required by law to shout things out windows. Prom
invitations and graduation class years are written on windshields with soap. The
slams of locker doors sound triumphant rather than doomed.