The art of mending: a novel by Elizabeth Berg

Author:Elizabeth Berg
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Repression (Psychology), Brothers and sisters, Mother and child, Family reunions, General, Psychological, Sagas, Fiction, Forgiveness
ISBN: 9781400061594
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2004-04-13T17:25:51.157000+00:00

GOLDIE’S WAS NOMINALLY HALF BAR, half restaurant. But you could sit at the bar and have everything on the dinner menu, and you could sit in the restaurant for drinks only. Frank, the owner, was an easygoing guy; everything was okay with him. He had a mixed menu, everything from enchiladas to tandoori chicken to pecan-crusted catfish. Normally, you have to be wary of restaurants like that because, when they don’t specialize in anything, nothing is good. But at Goldie’s, everything was delicious. Frank once explained to me that his wife, Goldie, who died suddenly at age thirty-three, “never met a cuisine she couldn’t conquer.” Dinner at their house had always been an adventure; Frank never knew what he’d be coming home to, and he liked that. He’d been a stockbroker before she died; afterward, he decided to open a restaurant in her honor. He knew nothing about the business except that people out to eat were looking for variety and a really good meal, and that was exactly what he provided. He was sixty-one now, a good-looking man with thick gray hair and a stunning physique—he worked out every day to compensate for what he drank every night. I suppose Frank is an alcoholic, but he’s an elegant and a sympathetic one. He started drinking seriously only after Goldie died; she’d been everything to him. They never had children, so Frank has fashioned a family out of his customers. He makes it his business to know—at least by name—anyone who comes in more than once.

So it was that when Maggie and I walked in, Frank, seated at the bar, called out, “Hey, Laura! How was the fair?”

“Oh, it was great.” I looked over at Maggie, and without saying anything she agreed with me. Now was not the time.

“Bar or restaurant?” Frank asked. Then, reaching into the menu bin, “Late lunch, early dinner, or just drinks?”

“Loaded nachos and margaritas in the restaurant?” I said.

“You got it.” Frank threw the menus back in the bin and led us to the back area that served as the restaurant. It was five-thirty, and we were the only ones in the place. “Sit anywhere you want,” Frank told us, “and I’ll put the order in for you.”

I sat at a corner table and folded my hands tightly together on the white tablecloth. “So.”

“Did you bring Kleenex?” Maggie asked.

“For what?”

She reached in her purse, took out a pack of tissues. “Here.”

“I’m not going to cry.”

“Okay.”

“I’m not!”

She put the Kleenex back in her purse. Then she leaned forward, smiled a small smile. “It was awfully sudden, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah. Stroke. He was in the hospital for a little stroke. And then he had a big one.”

A young waitress appeared, using both hands to balance the tray holding our drinks. “Here we go!” she said, her loud cheerfulness an attempt to compensate for her insecurity. As far as I was concerned, her tip had just gone up threefold. She very carefully set our drinks before us, the pink tip of her tongue peeking out of the corner of her mouth.

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