The English Teacher

TEN

APRIL WASN’T SURE WHAT AT FIRST CAUGHT HER EYE. USUALLY SHE WAITED for the customers to see her, need her attention, and she liked to toy with them, dragging her eyes slowly up off her magazine to their eager faces. But these two she was watching even before they came through her door. The driver got out first, scanned the street, then opened the back. He leaned in all the way and April expected him to bring out some sort of jacket or bag, but instead it was an old woman, stooped and shoeless. They stopped outside the door, admiring the ribbons. April was in charge of tying fresh bows, twenty-five of them, every morning and replacing the ripped, faded, or stained ones. She hoped Billy Hughes, who’d never eaten here as far as she could remember, had seen a picture of her work. Could they get mail over there? Probably not.

The old lady raised her hand and ran it down every ribbon like a child. April almost called out to her to stop but then wondered if the woman was retarded and let her finish. They finally pushed through, the young fellow struggling a bit to keep the woman upright and the door open. She’d been all wrong about their ages. The driver was a mere boy, and April didn’t know a state in the union that let fourteen-year-olds drive. And then the old lady: she wasn’t much over forty, a good deal younger than April. She could tell by the hair. Nothing stiff or brittle about it. It was young hair, even if the face was a bit trashed.

“Y’all two?”

The boy seemed confused by the question. April held up two menus and pointed to a booth. He nodded, and followed on behind her.

She heard him whisper at her back, “Is it all right that she has no shoes?”

There was something special about this boy. The way he tipped his head up to her when he ordered, the way he maintained eye contact even though it seemed to pain him.

“I’m losing my marbles,” April muttered as she threaded the order up into the rod on the other side of the window.

“You just figuring that out now?” Dave said, snapping up the ticket, then groaning about the onion rings.

April went back to her perch at the register. She could see the boy’s profile from there. He was talking but the woman wasn’t talking back. She was bent over her cup of coffee, her hair everywhere, the barrette in back useless. She was a sight. When he gave up, his eyes drifted around the restaurant, though his mind seemed caught somewhere else entirely.

Dave grunted, and she spiked their ticket and brought them their food.

“Thank you so much,” he said for both of them.

She looked at the photo of Sgt. Billy Hughes on the wall. He’d always seemed so innocent. All these weeks she’d been staring at his face and she’d never noticed the hint of arrogance in his eyes, the mischief in his mouth. April bent her head and prayed for God to forgive her those last thoughts and deliver all the hostages home where they belonged. She raised her head and there was the boy standing on the other side of the counter, wanting to know about the restrooms. She pointed and he signaled to the woman and they went down the hallway together. April cleared their dishes. His plate was clean, but she’d barely taken a bite. As she moved to the kitchen, she heard a commotion down where they’d gone. She peeked into the dark hallway. The woman was clutching the boy with both hands. “Please don’t make me,” she whispered. “I’ll be right out here,” he said, calm and steady. “Let’s not go through this again.” “I can’t. I can’t.” She had slipped to the ground. The boy finally gave in and the two disappeared into the ladies’ room.

“Where y’all headed?” she said when he reappeared at her counter with the bill and a twenty, trying to maintain the incurious tone she usually had with out-of-towners.

“Uh.” The boy looked at her desperately. He was the kind of kid who seemed incapable of a lie.

“You’re just heading out,” she said dramatically, sweeping her arm westward. She shrugged up her shoulders, turned down her lips, and said, “Maybe all the way to California.”

The boy laughed. “Maybe,” he said, and then with the first animation she’d heard in his voice, “Maybe!”

He took the change with another smile, shoved two dollars into the tip jar, and called out, “C’mon, Ma.”

It was rude to not even call out good-bye, but she felt like she’d been punched in the chest, hearing Ma, knowing now this was that sweet boy’s mother. Why hadn’t she guessed they were related? Because there are just some women who you know have never raised a child. It’s in their eyes. April herself was one of them. That woman, she’d have sworn, was another.

Just before they stepped off the curb, the boy tried to take his mother’s arm. But she jerked away fast, as if his touch would burn. She lay down in the back, disappearing from April’s view. With the engine running, his hands on the wheel, the boy sat stockstill, his face set and his mouth so pale it seemed to disappear.

April wiped her tears quick away. Dave would make such fun if he saw.