All Shots by Conant Susan

Author:Conant, Susan [Conant, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 20

“Kevin, relax,” I said as he hesitated outside Mr. Bartley’s Burger Cottage, where we’d arranged to meet. “What do you think they’re going to do? Ask for Harvard ID? And not let us in if we don’t have it? It’s your kind of food. And when Jennifer gets back, you’re going to be eating bok choy and tofu again.”

“I’ve been here before,” Kevin declared.

“And you loved it.” I amended the statement. “You loved the food.”

He reluctantly nodded in agreement and held the door open for me. It was early on that same Monday evening. With Steve and Jennifer both out of town, Kevin and I were once again having dinner together. Bartley’s was my choice. I knew that Kevin would object. It’s on Mass. Ave. near the corner of Bow Street, just across from Harvard Yard, and in its own way it’s as Harvardian as University Hall, Widener Library, and the Fogg Art Museum, its own way being noisy, greasy, and crowded. What makes it Harvardian is the clientele, which consists principally, although not exclusively, of students. Alumni and alumnae show up, too, as do members of the faculty and administration eager for real food. No healthy person leaves Bartley’s hungry. That’s one reason it’s my kind of place. The other is that it helps to cure my homesickness for Moody’s Diner on Route 1 in Waldoboro, Maine, which, like Helen’s Restaurant in Machias, serves up traditional Maine fare, the defining ingredient of which is neither lobsters nor blueberries but good old dietary fat. If Maine tourist bureaus were honest about the nature of real Maine food, all of these lobster festivals and blueberry festivals would be subsumed by a single gigantic Annual Maine Grease Festival. I’d attend. It doesn’t yet exist, alas. In the meantime, there’s Bartley’s.

Bartley’s being the popular place it justifiably is, it was crowded. Even if there’d been no customers, it would’ve been hard for Kevin to make his way to the back because the tables were so close together. Since it took us a while to maneuver through the almost nonexistent aisles, Kevin had a chance to read the offerings chalked on the big blackboard and to observe the platefuls of food the servers were carrying, so by the time we were seated, with Kevin mashed in a corner, he’d quit looking uneasy. The menus presented to us by a hurried, hot-looking waiter listed all sorts of sandwiches named for celebrities and a variety of other items not on the blackboard, but Kevin ordered two burgers with American cheese, a side of french fries, a side of onion rings, and a Coke, and I asked for a mozzarella burger and a ginger ale.

Looking around and taking note of the multiracial clientele, Kevin said, “Ethnic. Sign of a good restaurant. But geez, some of these kids are wicked thin. Give ’em some time in America, and we’ll build ’em up.” He turned his attention to me. “So what’s going on?”

“A case of canine identity theft,” I said somewhat melodramatically.

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