Queen's Park

CHAPTER 20

“Don’t like that new sign,” Nanny pointed at the words over the restaurant door.

Ernie looked between the two women in the front seat. Inside an inverted horseshoe over the double glass doors of Sonny’s Family Restaurant were the words Have a cluckin’ good time at Sonny’s.

“Think they’re bein’ clever changin’ the ‘f’ to a ‘cl’. Gonna give ‘em a piece of my mind.” Nanny sat in the passenger seat of the Dodge. It was older than Ernie.

They pulled up to the curb, about half a meter from the blue and white handicapped parking sign. Beth turned, smiled at him, then mouthed the words, ‘Thank you’.

Ernie nodded and got out to open his grandmother’s door. After setting the oxygen tank on the blue painted pavement, he reached for her hand. It felt more like paper than flesh.

“Shoulda got the chicken delivered.” Nanny wheezed while she used the top of the door to pull herself out of the car.

Ernie looked over the white roof at his mother and gave her his ‘you owe me big time’ look. Wonder what Nanny’s going to be like once we’re inside? he thought.

Beth slammed her door.

“What’s the matter? I’m the one who should be slamming doors, it’s my birthday after all.” Nanny had one hand on the oxygen cart and stepped closer to the curb. “I’m sick and tired of this damned machine.”

Ernie closed the car door and gripped her elbow. Carefully avoiding his mother’s eyes, he matched his pace to Nanny’s. Waiting, baby step, waiting, he shuffled alongside until they had covered the two meters across the blue painted handicapped parking zone and stepped up over the curb.

Beth opened the red and white door then waited for the pair to pass through.

Ernie thought he’d died and gone to hell. “Lesley?”

She held red and white framed menus with Sonny’s written across the top. Along with a smile, she wore a white blouse and black skirt. “How are you?”

Ernie felt heat on his face, opened his mouth to speak and found he couldn’t.

“Table for three?” Lesley said.

Nanny wheezed.

“Please,” Beth said.

“Smoking or non?”

“Smoking,” Nanny said.

“Non,” Beth said.

“Smoking! It’s my birthday and I’ll god damn well smoke if I wanna.” She turned to Lesley. “And I wanna talk to the manager.”

By way of apology, Ernie smiled at Lesley.

“Before or after you sit down?” Lesley continued to smile.

She can’t be paid enough, whatever it is, Ernie thought.

“After.” Then, Nanny said, “Do you need to see my coupon now?”

“When I take your order.” Without looking back, Lesley matched the old woman’s pace as they passed the glassed in display of cheese cake. Then they moved down the aisle between booths where walls were painted pale green and dotted with chickens in cartoon poses. A few smoked Cuban cigars and leaned against hay bails. The table was shaped like a ‘D’ set inside the ‘U’ of a bench.

Nanny sat on the red vinyl.

Ernie memorized the gentle poetry of Lesley’s walk and wondered if she’d ever look at him after this.

Blatttt! The explosive volume of the eruption turned Nanny’s face a brilliant red.

Lesley leaned the top half of her body so it looked like she could limbo her way out of there.

Beth eased around behind Lesley, sat and slid till she was under the window.

Ernie followed and sat across from his grandmother. It can’t get any worse, he thought.

“I’ll get the manager and be back to take your order.”

Lesley winked at Ernie and left.

Nanny nodded and lifted her hand to press the oxygen tubes further into her nostrils. She lowered her hand and whispered, “It’s so embarrassing when I get the gas! I just can’t help it.”

“Nobody noticed.” Beth grabbed a menu.

“Too old,” Nanny said to Ernie.

“What?” he said.

“She’s too old for you.”

“What do you mean?” He picked up a menu wondering if it was big enough to hide behind.

“Don’t think you can hide behind that. She was your baby sitter.” Nanny lifted the tube from her ears, set it in her lap then reached into her purse and pulled out a pack of smokes.

“I saw the way you looked at her.”

Ernie pretended to study the menu.

Nanny lit, took a pull and blew smoke. It hung between them. She waved at it with her free hand.

“They say the tobacco companies put formaldehyde in cigarettes,” Ernie said from behind the menu.

“Can I help you?” A man between 24 and 25 stood at the end of their booth. He wore a white shirt, black tie, black pants and a smile.

“You the manager?” Nanny blew smoke. It split into separate clouds along the spine of Ernie’s menu.

“Yes ma’am.”

“The sign,” Nanny said.

The manager answered with a frown that said he didn’t understand what she meant.

“The sign over the front door. The one with ‘cluckin’ in it. Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doin’. Change the ‘cl’ to an ‘f’ and you got your answer. Take the sign down.” Nanny took another drag.

Ernie looked at the glowing formaldehyde.

“Right away.” The manager left.

“I’m gonna check when I leave,” Nanny said. She blew smoke into the air over their heads. “Gotta speak up for yourself in this life. After my brother died in the war, my mother kept sayin’ she let the government take him away without puttin’ up a fight, without sayin’ a word. She regretted it till the day she died. I told myself I was always gonna say what’s on my mind.”

“Are you ready to order?” Lesley held a note pad in her left hand. She smiled at Ernie. He smiled back.

Nanny dug in her purse and pulled out the two for one coupon. “Double chicken breast, fries, gravy, ice cream and coffee.”

Lesley slid the coupon to the edge of the table and picked it up. Ernie moved his menu to the left, studied the length of her fingers and the way blue fingernail polish reflected light.

“Chicken salad, please.” Beth smiled, hoping a ten dollar tip would be enough in the way of an apology for Nanny’s behaviour.

“To drink?” Lesley said.

“Tea, please,” Beth said.

“Ernie?” Lesley said.

All eyes were on him. He glanced left, straight ahead and then at Lesley. She’s got great eyelashes, he thought and said, “Cluckin’ burger, please.” Realizing his mistake, he opened his mouth, looked across the table and saw the disapproving frown lines forming around his grandmother’s lips. “Uhh, chicken burger, please.”

BLATT. This time, even Nanny appeared startled by the volume.

Lesley tried to hide her face behind the menus. “To drink?”

“Coke. Big coke.” Ernie saw people turning to stare at him. He leaned back against the bench, defeated by his grandmother’s gas.

“Okay,” Lesley said. Ernie watched her hustle down the aisle and take a hard left to disappear into the kitchen. Her laughter was snuffed out when the door closed behind her.

“Don’t tell me no one heard that one!” Nanny said.

“Nope, even the people in the parking lot heard that one,” Beth said.

Ernie looked at his mother.

“It’s so embarrassing when I get the gas.”

“Don’t worry, everybody thinks it’s me,” Ernie said.

Beth smiled at him, then. The kind of smile only a mother can muster to tell her child she’d die for him.

“You think so?” Nanny said.

“I know so.” Ernie thought about methane and oxygen and what could happen if his grandmother decided to light another cigarette. He felt the giggles grabbing him by the throat and swallowed hard to hold the laughter in.

“Oh, of course.” Nanny butted the smouldering filter tip into the ash tray. “People expect a teenager to do things like that.”

“Here you are.” Lesley arrived with a tray of drinks.

“Thanks,” Beth and Ernie said in harmony.

“No problem,” Lesley said.

“We want take out,” Nanny said and sipped her coffee.

“But.” Beth took a deep breath, and let it out slow.

“It’s my birthday and I want take out.”

Ernie took a long pull on his coke.

“Whatever,” Beth said.

“Take out?” Lesley sought confirmation.

BLATTT!

Lesley’s eyes opened wide.

Ernie saw ripples in his grandmother’s coffee. The giggles caught hold of him.

Lesley looked at him and covered her laughter with a hand.

“Listen!” Nanny slapped the table top with her cigarette pack. “I’m not feeling well and I wanna eat my,” Blatttt!

“chicken,” BLATT! BLATTATTATT! “at home!”

“No problem,” Lesley said before she left.

Ernie leaned his head back and roared with laughter.

It took him five minutes to get control of himself and another five minutes to cover the 30 meter journey back to the car. A girl of five or six in a flowered dress, blond ponytails and white shoes pointed at Ernie and asked, “Was that you?” Nanny started to chuckle. BLATT! The girl ran away saying, “He did it again, Mom!”

“I’ll get the order,” Beth said. Nanny and Ernie continued out the door.

He was holding her hand and easing her into the front seat of the car when she said, “You know I love you.” The words created a silence around them. She kept her eyes on him. “You know it.”

“I know it,” Ernie said.

“Just because I don’t say it very often doesn’t mean I don’t feel it.”

“You’ve never said it,” he said.

“Never said it before? Thought you knew it.” She took a hit of oxygen.

“But you say stuff.” He leaned an arm on the door and looked at her.

“I thought you knew. I say whatever comes into my mind. Life’s too short to hold back,” Nanny said.

“But?”

“You know I got a temper. And you know I love you. Always have. Always will.”

“I know.” Careful of her feet and the oxygen line, he closed her door and climbed in the back seat.

“You drive.”

“What?” Ernie said.

“You drive.”

He got out, circled the car to get behind the wheel. “I don’t have my license, yet.”

“What are they gonna do, arrest me?” Nanny said.

“No, but they might arrest me.”

“Over my dead body,” she said.