Baptism in Blood(46)
An older woman came through a swinging door from the back, saw Gregor sitting with his hands folded, and bustled up behind the counter. It was only then that Gregor noticed that she was wearing a white uniform just like the girl’s. On the older woman it looked natural, instead of like a costume. The older woman brushed the girl away in the direction of the cash register and said, “Sheri Lynn, for Heaven’s sake. What can you be thinking of? Have you taken this gentleman’s order?”
“Uh,” Sheri Lynn said. “Um. No.”
The look on the older woman’s face spoke volumes. Gregor wondered just how long she had had to put up with Sheri Lynn. The older woman gave him a great big smile and said, “Good morning, sir. I’m Betsey. What can I get for you this morning?”
Back on Cavanaugh Street, Bennis Hannaford was always worrying about Gregor’s cholesterol. Bennis Hannaford was not here to worry about it now.
“I’ll have two scrambled eggs,” Gregor said firmly, “and a side order of sausage and a side order of hash browns. And toast with butter. And some coffee. Oh, yes. And some orange juice.”
Betsey wasn’t writing this down on anything. “You just give me a minute,” she told him. “I’ll be right back with your coffee. Sheri Lynn, for Heaven’s sake. Donnie Mac wants to pay up.”
Donnie Mac must be the young man waiting at the cash register, the one wearing the pin that said: MY BOSS IS A JEWISH CARPENTER. Gregor thought he ought to dispense with Christian charity in this instance and count his change when he got it. A second later, Gregor noticed that he did. Sheri Lynn seemed to be swimming through molasses, physically as well as mentally. She was far too thin, and Gregor thought that might be because she couldn’t keep her mind on anything long enough to remember to eat.
There was a man on a stool four places away from Gregor toward the back of the room, sipping coffee and playing with the pens that lined the pocket of his lime green short-sleeved shirt. He swiveled in Gregor’s direction and said, “You a tourist down here? Isn’t very usual, having tourists down here in October.”
“Shh,” somebody in the back of the room said. “He’s from the city; can’t you see that? He must be another one of those reporters.”
“He’s too old to be a reporter,” somebody else said.
Betsey came out of the back room again, picked up a Pyrex pot of coffee from a hot plate behind the counter, picked up a cup and saucer from behind the counter, too, and advanced toward Gregor.
“All of you stop this now,” she said. “He isn’t a reporter. His name is Gregor Demarkian and he’s staying with David Sandler. I know. Minna Lorimer told me.”
Gregor had no idea who Minna Lorimer was, but he was instantly grateful to her. It hadn’t occurred to him that anyone might mistake him for a reporter. The woman who had called him too old had been absolutely right. Still, this whole town had to be sick to death of reporters.
Gregor held out his hand to Betsey. “Gregor Demarkian.”
“Betsey Henner.” She shook.
The man four stools down from Gregor said, “You’re staying with David Sandler? Does that mean you’re one of those atheist people, too?”
“I don’t understand how anybody can be an atheist,” a young woman in one of the booths declared. “It doesn’t make any sense. I mean, where do you people think this big old world out there came from?”
“Gregor took a long sip of his coffee. It was too hot, but he didn’t care. This was not going the way he had expected it to.
“To tell you the truth,” he said, “I’ve never thought about it. Atheism, I mean.”
“Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior?” a young man in yet another of the booths asked.
Betsey Henner blew a raspberry. “Ricky Drake, you just quit that. The man hasn’t had a chance to drink his morning coffee.”
“We’re living in the last days,” Ricky Drake said. “You never know when the Lord is going to come. You never know what the Lord is going to do. You have to be prepared.”
“Well, he can’t be prepared unless he’s had a cup of coffee,” Betsey said. “For Heaven’s sake.”
“I believe in Jesus Christ,” Sheri Lynn said suddenly. The room hushed, as if it were a major occasion when Sheri Lynn decided to say anything. “I go to the Episcopal Church. My sister’s daughter’s getting baptized there on Sunday.”
It was like somebody had given the place a collective cold bath. Everybody was silent. Everybody looked just faintly depressed, except Sheri Lynn, who looked blank. Betsey Henner sighed the sigh of the perpetually long-suffering and headed toward the back room again. Gregor hoped she was going to get his breakfast, cholesterol overload and all.