“What do you see out there, Roz?” I asked.
“Oh, nothing…” she said vaguely. She looked at me then; she didn't have to blink her eyes clear or anything. “You want some more coffee?” she asked.
Bob cleared his throat, presumably reading his paper.
When I hesitated, she leaned toward the counter and whispered, “Don't worry about it. I got it,” and headed to retrieve the coffee pot.
As I looked after her, I caught the sour, disappointed glance Bob was giving me.
“What?”
“Never mind,” he muttered, and looked back down at his paper.
“That would be nothing but trouble.”
“If you say so,” he said.
“Why's it so important to you?” I asked.
“I don't know,” he said, and turned a page of his paper. “Maybe I live vicariously through you, and maybe it ain't much like living lately.”
“Vicariously? What does that mean?”
“It means get a dictionary.”
Roz appeared, then, and started to refill my coffee. While she was pouring it, the big mouth in the booth bellowed out, “Hey, how about a menu! I left my crystal ball at home.” At the sound of his voice, Roz recoiled so sharply she overfilled my cup and splashed hot coffee across the countertop. Bob narrowly saved his newspaper, and Roz grabbed a towel from under the counter, and started sopping up the mess. She was apologizing the whole time. Her eyes didn't look up at me, but were riveted on the countertop, and there was a pained, wincing, expression on her face, as though she was afraid she was about to be hit.
Then the big mouth called out, “I mean, after you finished drowning the guy, you think I can get a menu?”
I started to turn to get off my stool, but Bob reached over and laid a huge paw on my forearm.
“Don't,” he said sharply, still pretending to read the horoscopes. “I don't have enough money to bail you out.”
Which pretty much stopped me.
“I hate big mouths,” I muttered.
Bob grunted.
Roz, looking about ready to cry, fetched the guy a menu, and then disappeared into the woman's bathroom.
I glanced over at the big mouth in the booth. I was reading his menu, which lay flat on the table before him. Every now and then he absently reached up to push his pack of cigarettes deeper in his pocket, but some reason it kept working its way up.
“You sure that's the guy who's been mugging people?” I asked Bob.
“I wouldn't turn my back on him,” he commented, and then, making a paper-crackling din, he turned a few pages from the horoscopes to the obituaries. He seemed always fascinated with the obits, often going over them several times, as if examining the small print of some suspicious contract.
Roz returned from the bathroom. I could see that her eyes were red, and it looked like she touched up her make-up. She looked away from me, as she approached the counter. No sooner did she stop behind the counter in her favorite spot, from where she had a good view of what was happening outside, than the big mouth called over to her that he wanted to place his order.
She pulled her pad and pen from a pocket in her apron, and scampered off to take the order.
“Is it just me, or is that really annoying?” I asked Bob.
“Is what annoying?” He was pretty absorbed in the obits.
“The way she ran off like that-- like-- like a little puppy afraid of getting a beating for not obeying, or something.”
“No, that's just you,” Bob said, without hesitation. “The problem is you just can't admit you like her. Why don't you ask her out?”
“I can't,” I said. “She's, like, ruined.”
“Ruined? Everybody's ruined in one way or another. You're ruined, too.”
“So what? So two negatives make a positive?
“I'm not talking life-long commitment, here-- just ask her out once. See what happens. I think you would be good for her.”
“Yeah?”
“Sure-- you're an unremitting loser, but you would never hurt her. I think she would appreciate that.”
“What's "unremitting"?”
“Again, a dictionary,” Bob advised with a sigh. “Besides, haven't you ever taken a good look at her? She's pretty and--uh-- healthy. I notice things like that. I notice all the things I can't have-- healthy females, chocolate, red meat, beer…”
