We clicked our glasses together and drank. The champagne fizzed and perfumed the air under my nose. I took another gulp and, over the rim of my glass, caught the eye of the woman in the booth. The woman lifted her can of beer in a toasting gesture. "How old are you, Honey? If you don't mind me asking.” Her voice was as well-oiled as her face. A curl of cigarette smoke rose from the litter of ravaged dishes on the table in front of her.
“Thirty-four.”
“Oh, thirty-four,” she said, as if clarifying something I’d left unexplained. “I r‘member thirty-four.” She contemplated the pull tab on the top of her beer can, bending it back and forth until it snapped in her fingers. “Yes, I do. Thirty-four. Year I lost m’teeth.” She dropped the tab into the can.
Martin rolled his eyes at me, his way of discouraging further conversation, but he needn’t have worried. I couldn’t think of a suitable reply to her statement, and anyway, the woman seemed to have lapsed back into her reverie. She crooked the tip of her smallest finger in the opening of her beer can and idly dangled the can above her table. In our silence I could hear the tiny, wet clink of the pull tab as the woman swished it around in the near-empty can.
Mr. Harris stuck his head around the corner of the dining room door. “Barbecue comin’ right up,” he said, in the manner of a train conductor announcing the next stop. I sat up a little straighter in my chair. “Thanks, Mr. Harris.” I leaned toward Martin and gave him a hug. “And thanks for treating, Mart. I really do like this place.”
“I know you do, Hon’.” Martin hugged me in return and left his arm around my shoulders, braced on the back of my chair. “And if you want to spend your birthday with Mr. Harris, so be it.” He refilled our glasses.
Tom balanced his elbow on the table. “So, what did you mean when you said Mr. Harris has your picture?”
“Oh, he takes pictures of all his regular customers. When we first started coming here, he kept inviting us next door to his house, but we thought it was too weird. Then one time we were here on Valentine’s Day--remember, Marty? And Mr. Harris was giving all the women these little heart boxes of chocolates.”
“He was really flirting with Kay,” said Martin.
“In a sweet way. Just a little bit lecherous. And he kept insisting that we go have our picture taken. So we did. He has this old Polaroid, and he took our picture and put it up on this big bulletin board with snapshots of all his other customers. I think everyone in Pocatello has their picture up over there.”
“At least everyone who’s ever eaten here more than once,” Martin interjected.
Tom looked intrigued. “Seems an odd thing to do.”
“Well, yeah, but kinda nice, too. Sentimental.” I laughed, remembering. “He also asked me to come over some Saturday and make sauce with him. He makes a huge batch every week and keeps it in big glass jars in the back.”
“D’ya ever go?”
“No. But I probably should. His sauce is the best.”
Tom laughed. “D’you ever think that maybe ‘making sauce’ means something else?”
“Hmmm...maybe it does. Maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t go.”
“Maybe you missed out. It’s not every day a woman gets to ‘make sauce’ with the ‘Best in the West’.”
“Aren’t you clever.”
“Aren’t I.”
Martin shifted in his chair and poured himself another glass of champagne. “So, Tom, you’re Pre-Med? What’re you going to specialize in? Or do you know yet?”
Tom turned to look at him. “Ear, nose, and throat, I think. That’s something I can do no matter where I wind up--little town, big city.”
“Well, if you’ll take my advice--” Martin began.
“This your old man, Honey?” The woman in the booth suddenly leaned toward our table, her voice sliding in between Martin’s words. “Or that one?” She gestured at Tom with her beer can.
“This one,” I said, nodding at Martin. He glanced at the woman, then gave me a smile. Your old man, he mouthed silently, then, “I love you, Kay,” he said in a low voice.
I tipped my glass high, swallowing the last bit of liquid. “And why do you think that is?”
He looked at the ceiling, smiling. We’d had this exchange before. “Because you’re mine,” he replied.
My usual rejoinder was, “All yours plus shipping and handling,” a phrase I’d started saying near the beginning of our relationship as a result of some long-forgotten joke about mail order brides. But as I opened my mouth, the words, Maybe, but don't be so damned sure crossed my mind, and surprised, I shut it again. I made myself smile back at Martin. He seemed a bit puzzled by my lack of response.
I turned to find Tom watching us. His eyes moved from me to Martin and then to my chest. When his gaze came back up to my face, he didn't seem to mind being caught looking. He even winked.
The woman leaned farther out of the booth and laid her hand on Martin's arm. “Hey, Honey, how ‘bout some of that champagny?” Martin obligingly filled an extra glass and handed it to her. The woman drained it quickly. “Yep, I ‘member thirty-four,” she repeated. “Good year. Damn fine year.” She ran the fingers of her left hand across her upper lip. Martin offered her a refill, holding the bottle steady while the remaining few drops of champagne drizzled into her glass.
Mr. Harris came in with plates of ribs and potato salad cradled on his forearms. He carried a dented metal pan of cornbread in his left hand, and he dropped it in the middle of the table. “Hot!” he warned. “Little scorched on the edges, but it's fine. Just fine. You all dig in. Here, young lady.” He pulled a checked bandana from his apron pocket and unfolded it on my lap. “Don't want to spoil your pretty dress.”
“Thanks, Mr. Harris. It smells delicious.”
The old man bustled out again and returned with a handful of paper napkins and three pint jars, each bristling with a bouquet of knives, forks, and spoons. Martin selected a fork from one jar and polished it with his napkin. I trimmed the blackened border from the cornbread and cut it into triangles. Tom had already started on the ribs. He grinned and licked his sauce-laced fingers. “This is great!” he exclaimed to Mr. Harris, who still hovered around us, setting a gravy boat of extra barbecue sauce near Tom’s plate. “The best I’ve ever had.”
Mr. Harris beamed. “Best--”
“Best in the West!” we all said in unison and laughed. Mr. Harris seemed to find this particularly amusing; he hobbled back into the kitchen, chuckling and shaking his head as if at some greater joke.
