Late that afternoon in Mrs. Christiansen’s rooming house, Marvyl, Iona, and Natalie were in the yellow kitchen, trying to make ambrosia, but it seemed just a greenish horror with orange, pink, and white things surfacing and submerging as they mixed. Iona went to the sideboard and got out a walnut serving tray and cheese slicer attachment that Marvyl had purchased on the Shopping Channel.
Mrs. Christiansen said, “We don’t have to go overboard on the cheeses, Iona. I’ve never had any complaints with Cracker Barrel.”
Natalie was dismayed but deferential.
Mrs. Christiansen turned. “But this is a party for you, dear. What would you like?”
“Oh, please. You should go to no trouble for me. Anything.”
With annoyance, Iona said, “Well, in that case. Cocktail wieners?”
With matching annoyance, Natalie faced her. “Melon.”
“Pigs in a blanket?”
“Oeufs farcis.”
“Oofs pickled,” Iona said.
She was getting peeved. “Artichokes. Artichauts à la grecque.”
“Yuck. What about those whatchamacallits, Grandma. With peanut butter?”
“No peanut butter,” Natalie said.
“So much for ‘Whatever you want; no trouble.’”
Mrs. Christiansen said, “You don’t have to have anything you don’t like, child. It’s your night.”
“Anguilles à la provençale,” Natalie told Iona.
“Which is?”
“Eels.”
Mrs. Christiansen was holding up at eye level a wooden spoonful of ambrosia. She turned to face Natalie with concern. “Oh my dear. Eels?”
“Why not eels?” Iona screamed. “She’s got everything else she wants!” And then she rushed out of the house to the front yard. She executed four different but equally fierce Tae Bo kicks and punches, then inhaled deeply and hurried over to the Main Street Café.
Opal was ironing behind the pink Formica counter while a trucker from Sidney nursed his coffee. Opened before the trucker was an individual-sized box of Captain Crunch cereal and he was pinging crunchies one-by-one off his water glass with his finger. Carlo was hunched at the far end of the counter and was whining over an impossibly complex origami construction.
“What the hell’s that?” the trucker from Sidney asked.
“Swan,” Carlo said.
“What’s it for?”
“Well, place-card holders, for one.” He took a moment to sit back and get a new perspective on the problem. He surreptitiously eyed a nearby Scotch tape dispenser.
Opal warned him in sing-song, “Cheat-ing.”
Iona snuck into the café through the kitchen screen door, but Opal saw her as she lifted her steam iron. “Iona!” she said. “How’s the shower coming together?”
“We’re having a great old time,” she said. With some uneasiness she added, “I just remembered a . . . thing I wanted to post.”
The trucker went on pinging cereal against his water glass as Iona tacked her note to Pierre on the bulletin board. She waited by it uncertainly for a moment. Carlo’s knees were jiggling as he folded down a wing of the origami and hopefully held it up for Iona’s appraisal.
She gave it the attention it warranted, and asked, “Anybody been in here this afternoon?”
Carlo scrunched a little as he confided, as if she ought not to have brought it up. “Opal’s in the kitchen. . . . Crawfish soup?”
Opal asked, “You looking for someone in particular, honey?”
“No. Just asking.”
The trucker said, “I’m here.”
“Yes, you are,” Opal said. “And I want to thank you for that.”
Iona left.
After a moment, Carlo sauntered over to the board, unfolded the tacked up note, and read it aloud. “Mrs. C’s, midnight. Room number three.”
“Sounds to me like a ron-day-vous,” the trucker from Sidney said.
Opal ironed. “In Marvyl’s house? Hah!”
Smirking, Carlo folded the note and tacked it up again, thinking, Welcome to my spider’s web.
The trucker faced Carlo. “Which door, you say?”
Opal told him, “Drink your coffee, buster.”
Natalie entered the café just as Iona had. She seemed distraught. Opal and Carlo looked at one another. The trucker turned in his booth.
Opal said, “We must be having a full moon tonight.” And to Natalie she said, “How’s your day been?”
“Very nice. Good. Excellent.” She hesitated.
Carlo and Opal stared at her. He folded and crimped his origami. Opal continued to iron. Carlo got the fold he wanted, put his hand flat over it, and pounded on his hand with his fist.
Natalie skittishly jumped. She asked, “This afternoon, has anybody been in?”
The trucker said, “I’m here.”
Natalie considered him, puzzled but polite. She crossed to the bulletin board and pinned on a note. All perused her. Carlo raised his eyebrows at Opal, who shook her head from side to side. Natalie spun around, as if paranoid, and they all averted their attention. She speedily exited.
Carlo wended his way to the bulletin board and hawkishly peeked at Natalie’s note.
The trucker opined, “Time was when a lady had a right to her privacy. Not no more apparently.”
Carlo read, “My room. Number four. Twelve o’clock.”
“One of them group things,” the trucker said.
Opal asked, “Would that be A.M. or P.M. do you think?”
And then handsome Dick Tupper appeared through the front door, giving everyone a pained smile.
Without enthusiasm, Opal asked, “So, Dick. What brings you here?”
“Wanted to look at the bulletin board.”
“I gotta get me one of them things,” the trucker said.
Dick pulled a handwritten note off the board and looked around as those with him in the café stared. Carlo went back to his origami. Dick asked, “That a peacock?”
“No, it’s paper,” Carlo said. “Folded many times.”
“Well. Have a nice evening, you all.” Walking out the door he stopped to peruse the area at his feet. “Cereal on the floor here.”
Opal shot the trucker a look. Sheepishly he commenced returning the Captain Crunch, one-by-one, to their little box. When he completed his clean-up, he held up the box, but when he shifted his feet, they heard a small crackle.
And then Pierre walked into the café in his tuxedo. He seemed stunned to see everyone peering at him expectantly.
“So,” the trucker from Sidney said. “You got a note?”