Read Online Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O’Nan - Free Book Online

they don’t really think about it. Maybe Eddie, who seems happy to have a place to come every day, or Kendra, who doesn’t always, but Manny can’t imagine Rich or Leron wasting much thought on what’s just a job. Maybe Manny didn’t think enough of it either, all the years he took for granted that the Lobster would be here. In that way, he thinks, he’s just like Eddie. And now it’s too late.
    Like they did on the way in, the party bunches up under the marlin, the snow outside an obstacle. One by one they retrieve their jackets from the coatrack (one woman, strangely, carries an umbrella) and button up before braving the storm, then leave in waves, leaning on one another for balance, and again Manny wonders what it would be like to work there—or anywhere else, really, since it’s obvious he can’t waste his whole life working for Darden Restaurants, Incorporated.
    When the last of them are gone, he notices an ornament on the floor by the live tank, an ancient pink-and-cream-striped bulb cracked in pieces like a bird’s egg, the largest showing its shiny silver insides. It’s something that might have come from his abuelita’s tree. Someone must have brushed against it and not heard it hit the carpet. The irony bothers Manny: something so delicate that had survived so many Christmases; one more day and it would have made it. Or maybe what bugs him is how sentimental he’s getting, seeing his own fate in every little thing, as if he’s helpless. He grabs the push sweeper from beside the host stand and rolls it back and forth until all the shards are gone, then deposits them in the kitchen garbage, knocking the head against the rim to empty it.
    “Easy there, chief,” Ty says. “You break it you bought it.” He’s perched on a stool at the end of the grill, leafing through the Courant while Rich works the ass end of the dishwasher in rubber gloves, pulling burning plates off the racks and stacking them in rollaways.
    “You guys all done with lunch?”
    Ty holds both arms wide to show off the spotless counter.
    “What’s our dinner special?”
    “Whatever’s left.”
    “Make it lobster tails,” Manny says, hoping they can get rid of some. “What’s for lunch?”
    “Whatever you make,” Ty says, but Manny’s not going for the joke. “Whatever people want. I’ve got some snow-crab legs—if we’re not saving them for dinner.”
    “I’ve got to go to the mall, but make sure everyone gets something.” Meaning Roz, who’ll drink coffee instead of eat. Even at 50 percent off, the food’s not a bargain. Sometimes a manager’s got to exercise his discretion. “And tell everyone it’s free today.”
    “Nice,” Rich says, giving him a gloved thumbs-up.
    “Sure you want to leave me in charge?” Ty asks.
    “Who else is there?”
    “I’ll be in charge,” Eddie says. “I’ll give everybody a raise.”
    “Okay, Guapo,” Manny surrenders, “you’re in charge.”
    Out front the grandmothers are taking their time, asking Nicolette for refills on coffee, oblivious of the fact that they’re the only customers. Or maybe they’re afraid to go outside; the snow’s drifting against the concrete legs of the benches, the wind sending snakes skirling off across the lot. Dom is predicting two feet for this stretch of 84, more in the western hills.
    “I think we’re basically screwed,” he says, “if we weren’t already.”
    “If people can’t drive,” Manny reasons, “they’ve got to stop somewhere.”
    “Not if they never leave home in the first place.”
    Manny points to the windows. “It’s not even three o’clock.”
    “So how long do you wait before you call dinner?”
    “What, you got a date or something?” Manny says, then, arbitrarily, “Four thirty.”
    Kendra’s restless, and Nicolette’s frustrated with the grandmothers, now trying to pay their checks with expired two-fer coupons. With no one else in the place, Manny can hear her laying down the law from across the