Zigzagging Down a Wild Trail by Bobbie Ann Mason Page A

something to do with computers. He traveled the South, coming to Atlanta frequently on jobs that were vague in her mind, but she hit on some realistic touches about him. His mother was a Catholic and his father a Protestant; they ran a grocery in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Scott had a retarded sister in an institution. He broke his leg once playing football. Annie had met him at school, where he had a computer-science scholarship that paid for everything but his books. His grandmother paid for his books, Annie figured.
    Annie, the Spy. So far, she hadn’t noticed anything unusual. The caramel drops on the meringue dessert; the food inspectors hanging around a long time one evening, buddy-buddies with the manager; the waitress who had once worked for the Carter family when Jimmy Carter was in the statehouse—“A cold fish if you ever saw one,” she said, and shivered.
    Annie’s hostess smile was efficient and convincing. She had heard that keeping up such an act made that sort of job among the world’s most stressful, but she didn’t mind. It was like being on automatic pilot. Occasionally, a man tried to slip her a five for a good table. But that was against policy. Tonight she noticed that the ficus tree in the foyer was remarkably dusty and sticky. Its leaves gave off a gummy substance that had dripped to the floor. In the mellow, atmospheric lighting the splotches were hardly noticeable, but her senses seemed sharpened now. She felt incredibly observant. She noticed the small ways the design of the abstract beige-and-blue decor varied from that at the sister restaurant. She noticed the supply of maraschino cherries arriving in a stained box that had been taped together; the colored lights that danced in the outdoor fountain at a slightly different speed from the similar fountain lights at the Texas place; the bartender’s cold, sad eyes. He had told her he had a daughter in college, a daughter who had frilly hair like hers. He used the word “frilly.” He meant permed.
    During the pre-dinner lull, she mentioned the sticky ficus to the head waiter, Wes Simmons, a pleasant fellow who seemed to be on good terms with everyone. Wes had a silly manner of joking with the staff, but at the same time Annie detected a genuineness beneath his conventional Southern charm. He was good-looking, in a weird way.
    â€œWhy don’t they get an artificial tree?” he said, testing his shoe on a sticky spot. “This is ridiculous.”
    Theresa, a waitress with a modest, outdated punk hairstyle, said, “That tree’s got a case of scale.” She felt the leaves. “You can’t hardly see them. They’re little bitty brown bugs that make all that sticky stuff.”
    â€œWhat can I do with it?” said Wes, squinting at the underside of a leaf. “Spray it right here, with all this food?”
    â€œSet it out in the sun for two weeks,” advised Theresa. “And repotting helps.”
    â€œYou can put it on my sundeck,” said Annie.
    â€œI’ll have to do something,” Wes said. He yawned, then apologized. “I was in line since midnight last night to get Stones tickets and then found out they wouldn’t take Visa! But this nice lady in line with me offered to let me borrow the cash. Nowadays something like that is so hard to believe, and then I think: Hurray, this is still the Old South.” He lifted his shoe again and examined the sole.
    â€œOh, do you have any extra tickets?” Annie asked. She hadn’t even imagined being able to get tickets.
    â€œAll I got are spoken for. I wish I could help you out.”
    â€œI love the Stones. My sister saw them once in Lexington, but I was too young to go.”
    â€œI always say if I could just see the Rolling Stones, I could die happy,” Wes said dreamily. He moved into the dining area and straightened a stack of napkins. Casually he twirled a peach-hued napkin into a fan and thrust