Chapter
FORKS CLINK AGAINST plates, glasses rattle in the background, muffled shouts stream through the swinging kitchen door. Every time Fran’s front glass door opens, sounds of cars splashing through driving rain join the homey cacophony. Archie, Andrew, David, and Nadine hustle in moments before the rain begins again. The four flap the few drops from their collars and Archie his Tilley hat. Enticing scents greet them—bacon sizzling out of sight, tabletop jugs of maple syrup sugaring the warm air, butter releasing comforting aromas as it melts on pancakes, tomatoes wafting warmth of soups, sweet apple pie steaming its come-eat-me scents—each veteran half-close their eyes to inhale the essences of their favourite food. Shoulders drop; smiles appear.
The hostess spots them standing halfway back in the queue. She shoos the people in front of them aside, who gladly give way. “Let these men and woman through,” she instructs. “They’ve served for our freedom. The least we can do is let them through and sit them down to ease their tired legs.” The queue shuffles to the side, leaving a clear path between the four and her. “That’s it,” she approves, nodding her neatly coiffed head with its smooth French bun. “So much marching, huh?” she addresses them.
Andrew barely got a “Yes, ma’am” out before she continued.
“You are all so brave. I can’t believe you’d go over there to serve in that hellhole. Come this way. Follow me. Yes, you deserve to rest your legs. I have a nice booth for the four of you. You slide in there, young man, young lady, you slide in that one opposite. The men here can wait for you two to sit first. That’s it. Here are your menus. You have a nice lunch now. I’ll bring you coffee on the house.”
The whirlwind left, and Andrew and David stare after her while Nadine settles herself opposite Archie. What do I do with my jacket? Archie wonders. He spots the chrome pole attached to the booth with four pegs. He slides out of his seat, removes his jacket, doffs his Tilley hat, and hangs them up on one peg. He slides back in. Andrew and David follow, Andrew sitting next to Archie, David next to Nadine.
The four interlace their chilled fingers, resting them on the table-covering menus shrunk-wrapped in plastic, as they drop their heads to stare at the long list of food items. Nadine slips her hands off the table and sits back, wrapping her arms around her waist.
“Right, men, let’s eat. What are you having?” Andrew booms, sitting back as he picks up his menu. He looks over at Nadine: “Nadine, you must be hungry, too?”
David nudges her with his elbow. Nadine glances at him. He nods at her menu. She shakes her head. He glares at her, widening his eyes till the whites almost pop out, and pulling his bottom lip down until it curls over to reveal his small white even bottom teeth. She laughs, releases herself from her hug, and picks her menu up. David rearranges his face back to normal.
“Archie?” Andrew half-asks, half-commands.
Archie tears his eyes away from the opposite tableau and unclasps his hands to pick up the menu. The four disappear behind their laminated menus. They don’t move, except for Andrew, who straightens his elbows to see his menu better. “The usual?” he asks.
The other three are mum.
David reaches into his dress jacket’s inner uniform pocket and pulls out his iPhone, re-buttoning up his jacket with one hand after he lays his iPhone down on the clean table. Andrew lowers his menu and lays his smartphone on the table. Nadine and Archie echo his movements. David shakes his head at Andrew and flaps his menu up, glancing over at Nadine’s stock-still face hidden from the other two by the menu she is holding up high again. David glances over at Andrew, who nods imperceptibly.
“Alright,” Andrew says, lowering his parade volume. “We’ll choose different today. The remembrance is over; now we eat. And we’ll eat well. We feast for ourselves and for our lives, the ones we’re living for our—”
“Here you go,” their waitress says as she clatters a tray down on the table and lifts off one at a time white, thick-walled cups of coffee filled to the brim and plunks them down in front of each of them, sloshing coffee into their saucers, the hot bitterness fragrancing their table. Archie smiles to himself and steals a glimpse at Andrew’s face. Andrew’s face is wooden. Oblivious to Andrew’s disapprobation of her messiness, the waitress beams at them, picks up her tray, tucks it under her arm to pull out her paper order pad and a pencil, and chirps: “May I take your order?” She tucks a stray lock of blonde-brown hair behind her ear; the lock falls out and swings in front of her left eye again.
Archie’s lips twitch as Andrew’s back straightens into an iron rod. Andrew folds his hands over each other carefully. “We’re not ready,” Andrew informs her, his clipped tones flying over the waitress’s head. She pips: “No problem. I’ll be back in five minutes.” The waitress turns on her cushioned heel and walks over to the next table where three men sit, one crooking his finger at her. Archie watches her back as she talks to the man with the crooked finger. Her back tightens as the man leans forward, his fingers on the table edging closer and closer imperceptibly to where she’s standing. The waitress laughs too brightly and shifts her weight away from him, placing her hand on her hip closest to him, taking the tray out from under her arm and letting it swing carelessly in front of her. The customer frowns and leans back. He waves her away. The waitress nods and hurries into the kitchen, tray thrust up under her arm.
Sensing action, Nadine peeks around her menu. “Who’re you watching, Archie?” Nadine asks.
Archie jerks his head over to the swinging kitchen door. “The waitress.”
“Oh. Do you know what you’re having?”
“No.”
“What about you, Nadine?” Andrew asks her.
“I’m not sure.”
Nadine’s small tone, her unsureness, bother Archie. She’s usually the one who leads, who tells them what they want to eat. Archie blurts: “Remember my first day with your platoon?”
“I do!” Andrew booms.
Archie keeps his eyes on Nadine. “Remember that breakfast you served?”
Nadine shakes her head.
“Aw c’mon Nadine, you remember? You served me maple syrup! You poured it all over my eggs and then made me eat them. I thought my tongue was gonna shrivel up and die under sweetness onslaught. We know how to make good pie, but man you got us all beat in sweet things.” Archie shakes his head and chuckles.
Nadine smiles.
Andrew grins. “Your face, Archie! It was priceless. I thought Nadine had fed you poison.”
“It was, sir.”
“Maple syrup is not poison!” Nadine retorts, a little of her old volume back in her voice.
Archie pours it on: “It was poison. It rotted my teeth. You didn’t tell me y’all have dentures. Americans know how to keep our teeth. See!” Archie bares his teeth, revealing even white incisors, his front teeth two lines of bright fences. Nadine bares hers back, showing teeth more even and white than his. “I got you beat, Specialist.”
“Ha!” Archie says. David muffles a laugh.
Andrew drawls: “We all got the Brits beat.”
Guffaws erupt from Nadine and Archie. Menus lower to the table as Archie chokes out: “Remember that one guy? What was his name? Doesn’t matter. Remember how he was eating your syrupy eggs Nadine, and a tooth falls out. What’s this crunchy thing, he goes. And David there, David—,” Archie convulses, laughter cutting off his air supply. Nadine clutches her stomach and gasps out: “David said, ‘It’s your tooth, sir.’”
Andrew hoots, slapping the table and rearing back against the booth’s vinyl-covered cushioned back. David shakes silently, his eyes dancing, his lips curving up.
“He looked at David like he’d spoken Swahili, rolled his tongue around, spits that brown tooth out into his hand, and says, I believe you’re right.”
The four fall against the table, eyes half-shut, hands clutching stomachs, mouths wide in remembered jest. Nadine jostles her cup of coffee, spilling some of it into her saucer and onto the table. Archie sobers suddenly, grabs a bunch of napkins from the napkin dispenser at his end of the booth, and wipes the coffee up before Andrew goes all rigid on them. He knows Andrew won’t chastise Nadine, but Andrew’s thing is neatness. And today, they’re all taking care of each other.
The laughter dies down, and the menus rise back up.
Archie declares: “I’m not having eggs.”
Nadine chokes on a laugh from behind her menu. She says through her menu: “But you must have maple syrup.”
David nudges her as Archie rolls his eyes. Andrew peeks over his menu to smile at the three and says: “I know what I’m having. Have the three of you made up your minds?”
Archie decides on the tomato soup, salad, and turkey sandwich. David texts to say he’ll have the roast beef sandwich with corn soup. Nadine nods, ready. Andrew searches the restaurant for their waitress, and suddenly she’s there at the end of their booth, order pad angled up, her pencil poised over it. Andrew gestures to Nadine who says: “I’ll have the omelette with bacon and,” she pauses, grins over at Archie, and continues: “with maple syrup.” The waitress scribbles down their order, squinting at her pad through the lock of hair dangling in front of her eyes. She shakes it back as she lifts her head to take the next order. Andrew nods at Archie to go next; then he gives David and his orders. Andrew ends with: “We need creamer and sugar for our coffees.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. That gentleman over there made me forget. I’ll go get them now for you.” Their waitress slips her order pad and pencil into the pocket of her apron, hurries away, and returns with cream, milk, sugar, sweeteners, and creamers. She places the lot down on the centre of the table. “Enjoy your coffee. You need anything, you just holler. We here at Fran’s are happy to have our troops here. Thank you so much!” she ends brightly, her lock of hair dancing in tune to her voice, making the men redden.
Nadine chortles and shakes her head. She reaches for the milk and sugar as the men look anywhere but at her.
“You guys are so easy,” she teases. “A young thing thanks you, and you all go googly.”
“What’s googly?” Archie asks as he picks up his spoon to stir his coffee from hot to warm.
“Oh, you know,” Nadine replies as she pours white crystals from the glass canister with its metal lid into the black, steaming liquid. She sets down the canister and picks up the milk jug and pours a steady stream, raising the level of coffee almost to the lip, almost matching it in colour to her white cup. She sets the jug down in the centre of the table and leans her head down to sip from the cup without having to move it and risk spilling more coffee. She slurps noisily. Nadine wants it all, every drop. She lifts her head and lifts her eyes: “Googly, you know. How you guys looked at her after she thanked us and all.”
“Oh.” He grabs the handle of his cup and lifts it towards her in a toast. The other three mimic him. “Here’s to waitresses who make us men googly eyed and Nadine laugh again,” Archie says.
“Here, here,” the other three chorus, and they all slurp their coffees in unison then tuck in to their meals. Their chatter ripples out from their cozy booth, David’s contributions appearing on Andrew, Nadine, and Archie’s lock screens, their eyes automatically seeing them, their voices responding readily. Their banter mingles with the restaurant life swirling around but not touching them until “Happy birthday to you!” rings out. Customers turn as one towards the joyous sound. The waitress is carrying a cupcake with a candle driven in to its frosted top. Her hand guards its flickering flame as she walks to the lucky table.
Archie whispers, unbelieving he’d forgotten, “It’s Stephen’s birthday.”