The Off Season by Amy Hoffman

Author:Amy Hoffman
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780299314682
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press

Roger Gets Over It

After Janelle’s parking lot protest, it seemed to fall to me especially often to work the Saturday morning opening shift. “Nah, you just think so,” insisted the manager when I objected. “You must take your turn like all the other girls. And look at me—I gotta be here all the time.”

“But that’s impossible!”

“Yeah, but you think I am, right?” She laughed. “My secret weapon.”

Diligent and efficient, she did give the impression of omnipresence.

I’m a morning person, but not 5:00 in the morning, and the shift was misery, especially since I had to wake before dawn, usually after a night when Miss Ruby had had the TV tuned to the white noise and gray snow channel. She still kept to her irregular hours, despite Tony’s attempts to nudge her into a normal human schedule of sleeping and waking. One early morning, when I emerged from the shower, she was bustling around the kitchen, frying me an egg.

“Thanks, Miss Ruby,” I said, struggling with the egg. It was really very thoughtful of her.

She beamed. “No problem! I was up, so I thought I’d do something useful.”

She must have been a fry cook at some point, because the egg wasn’t bad, but all I felt capable of at that hour was coffee, black. Something with no nutrients.

And afterward, walking home, I was hungry and tired, and my feet ached from hours of standing. I had a headache, and I needed a nap. Passing the Green Teddy, I didn’t feel up for a scene, played for the amusement of the patio regulars, with Roger, who came rushing out of the shop. I had been ambling along until then, but hoping he hadn’t noticed me, I kept my eyes focused straight ahead and picked up my pace. Apparently, though, he had been watching for me. “Nora! Nora!” he called. “Wait up!”

“No!” I called back.

“I’m not going to yell at you!” he yelled.

I stopped. “Yell at me?” I said as he caught up. “Why on earth would you yell at me, since all I’ve been trying to do all along is help?”

“Not all along,” he said. “You have to admit, I warned you.”

“I have to admit? Come on, Roger, you of all people. You know how these things happen. It was supposed to be a minor flirtation, a fling.”

“Une aventure amoreuse.”

“Oui! Pas une affair de coeur. Mais, pourquoi nous parlons français?”

“Je ne sais pas,” said Roger. “Your accent’s terrible, by the way; I can barely understand you. I guess because it’s easier than apologizing in English.”

“I didn’t deserve to be cut off, Roger. We were friends.”

“Don’t rub it in, my dear. It doesn’t become you.”

I let him take my arm. “What brought this on?”

“Don’t know.” He shrugged, and we walked in silence for a while. “Okay, I miss you. And I’m kind of worried about Janelle. Her moods—well, you know, you helped out with those cops the other day. She’s so angry all the time—and she’s normally so even tempered and basically happy. Which is so rare, and it’s always been one of the things I love about her.

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