are…
Why, they’d pick him off like a fly! He’d never do more to defend himself than dodge and shield his head.
I think a lot about Scarlatti’s Restaurant and how nice the lettuce smel ed when I tore it into the bowl, he wrote—his only mention of homesickness, if that was what it was.
Pearl gave a jealous sniff. “As if lettuce had a smel !” Jenny was jealous too; he could have remembered, instead, how he and she used to lie on the floor in front of the Philco on Monday nights, listening to the Cities Service Band of America. What did he see in that restaurant, anyhow? Then a little knob of discomfort started nudging inside her chest.
There was something she hadn’t done, something unpleasant that she didn’t want to do…
Check on Mrs. Scarlatti. She wondered if Ezra had real y meant for her to keep her promise. He couldn’t actual y expect that of her, could he? But she supposed he could.
He was a literal-minded kind of person.
So she folded Ezra’s letter and put it in her pocket. Then she slipped her coat on and walked to St. Paul Street, to a narrow brick building set in a strip of shops and businesses.
Scarlatti’s was the neighborhood’s one formal elegant eating place. It served only supper, mostly to people from better parts of the city. At this hour —five-thirty or so—it wouldn’t even be open.
She went to the rear, where she’d been a couple of times with Ezra. She circled two garbage cans overflowing with wilted greens, and she climbed the steps and knocked on the door. Then she cupped a hand to the windowpane and peered in. Men in dirty aprons were rushing around the kitchen, which was a mass of steam and stainless steel, pot lids clattering, bowls as big as birdbaths heaped with sliced vegetables.
No wonder they hadn’t heard her. She turned the knob, but the door was locked. And before she could knock any harder, she caught sight of Mrs.
Scarlatti. She was slouched in the dining room entranceway, holding a lit cigarette—a white-faced woman in a stark black knife of a dress. Whatever she was saying, Jenny couldn’t catch it, but she heard the gravel y, careless sound of her voice. And she saw how Mrs.
Scarlatti’s black hair was swept completely to the right, like one of those extreme Vogue magazine model’s, and how she leaned her head to the right as wel so that she seemed to be burdened, cruel y misused, bearing up under an exhausting weight that had something to do with men and experience. Imagine Ezra knowing such a person!
Imagine him at ease with her, close enough to worry about her. Jenny backed away.
She understood, al at once, that her brothers had grown up and gone. Her mental pictures of them were outdated—
Ezra playing the bamboo whistle he used to have in grade school, Cody triumphantly rattling his dice over their old Monopoly board.
She thought of a faded flannel shirt that Ezra had worn so often, it was like a second skin. She thought of how he would rock back and forth with his hands in his rear pockets when he was lost for something to say, or dig a hole in the ground with his sneaker. And how when Jenny was shattered by one of their mother’s rages, he would slip downstairs to the kitchen and fix her a mug of hot milk laced with honey, sprinkled over with cinnamon. He was always so quick to catch his family’s moods, and to offer food and drink and unspoken support.
She traveled down the al ey and, instead of heading home, took Bushnel Street and then Putnam.
It was getting colder; she had to button her coat.
Three blocks down Putnam stood a building so weathered and dismal, you’d think it was an abandoned warehouse til you saw the sign: TOM ‘n” EDDIE’S BODY
SHOP. She had often come here to fetch Ezra home, but she’d only cal ed his name at the drive-in doorway; she had never been inside. Now she stepped into the gloom and looked around her. Tom and Eddie (she assumed) were talking to a man in a business suit; one of them held a
Why, they’d pick him off like a fly! He’d never do more to defend himself than dodge and shield his head.
I think a lot about Scarlatti’s Restaurant and how nice the lettuce smel ed when I tore it into the bowl, he wrote—his only mention of homesickness, if that was what it was.
Pearl gave a jealous sniff. “As if lettuce had a smel !” Jenny was jealous too; he could have remembered, instead, how he and she used to lie on the floor in front of the Philco on Monday nights, listening to the Cities Service Band of America. What did he see in that restaurant, anyhow? Then a little knob of discomfort started nudging inside her chest.
There was something she hadn’t done, something unpleasant that she didn’t want to do…
Check on Mrs. Scarlatti. She wondered if Ezra had real y meant for her to keep her promise. He couldn’t actual y expect that of her, could he? But she supposed he could.
He was a literal-minded kind of person.
So she folded Ezra’s letter and put it in her pocket. Then she slipped her coat on and walked to St. Paul Street, to a narrow brick building set in a strip of shops and businesses.
Scarlatti’s was the neighborhood’s one formal elegant eating place. It served only supper, mostly to people from better parts of the city. At this hour —five-thirty or so—it wouldn’t even be open.
She went to the rear, where she’d been a couple of times with Ezra. She circled two garbage cans overflowing with wilted greens, and she climbed the steps and knocked on the door. Then she cupped a hand to the windowpane and peered in. Men in dirty aprons were rushing around the kitchen, which was a mass of steam and stainless steel, pot lids clattering, bowls as big as birdbaths heaped with sliced vegetables.
No wonder they hadn’t heard her. She turned the knob, but the door was locked. And before she could knock any harder, she caught sight of Mrs.
Scarlatti. She was slouched in the dining room entranceway, holding a lit cigarette—a white-faced woman in a stark black knife of a dress. Whatever she was saying, Jenny couldn’t catch it, but she heard the gravel y, careless sound of her voice. And she saw how Mrs.
Scarlatti’s black hair was swept completely to the right, like one of those extreme Vogue magazine model’s, and how she leaned her head to the right as wel so that she seemed to be burdened, cruel y misused, bearing up under an exhausting weight that had something to do with men and experience. Imagine Ezra knowing such a person!
Imagine him at ease with her, close enough to worry about her. Jenny backed away.
She understood, al at once, that her brothers had grown up and gone. Her mental pictures of them were outdated—
Ezra playing the bamboo whistle he used to have in grade school, Cody triumphantly rattling his dice over their old Monopoly board.
She thought of a faded flannel shirt that Ezra had worn so often, it was like a second skin. She thought of how he would rock back and forth with his hands in his rear pockets when he was lost for something to say, or dig a hole in the ground with his sneaker. And how when Jenny was shattered by one of their mother’s rages, he would slip downstairs to the kitchen and fix her a mug of hot milk laced with honey, sprinkled over with cinnamon. He was always so quick to catch his family’s moods, and to offer food and drink and unspoken support.
She traveled down the al ey and, instead of heading home, took Bushnel Street and then Putnam.
It was getting colder; she had to button her coat.
Three blocks down Putnam stood a building so weathered and dismal, you’d think it was an abandoned warehouse til you saw the sign: TOM ‘n” EDDIE’S BODY
SHOP. She had often come here to fetch Ezra home, but she’d only cal ed his name at the drive-in doorway; she had never been inside. Now she stepped into the gloom and looked around her. Tom and Eddie (she assumed) were talking to a man in a business suit; one of them held a
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