Read Online Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O’Nan - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Stewart O’Nan
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in the semiprivacy of the vestibule, and not just from habit. She did work for him, and he does appreciate it.
“Fuck you,” Nicolette says. “You fired me instead of Crystal—that’s what it comes down to—and do you see Crystal anywhere? No, but here I am like an idiot, so just fuck you, Manny. Thanks, ” she mocks him, her final word.
As always, he’s aware of a crowd at his back. He knows they can’t hear everything, but he also knows the glassed-in box will broadcast the tone of his reply like a drum. He wants to say he didn’t fire anyone, that he fought hard for those five spots, and that, honestly, he would have taken anyone ahead of her, even Le Ly, who could barely speak English.
“Good luck,” he says as she pushes into the storm, and gives her a stiff salute of a wave. Watching her go, he thinks it’s wrong that instead of sadness or anger, all he feels is a selfish, indifferent relief. It feels—in this case, at least—like he’s admitting defeat.
When he comes back in, Kendra asks if she can have her check, and instead of telling her she can leave too, without a word he goes to the safe and gets all the checks except his and hands them out, throws his coat on and stalks right by Roz and Jacquie—Roz calling, “Hey, don’t go away mad!”—and through the deserted dining room and past the vacant host stand, bulling through the vestibule and into the whipping, whirling snow, striding away without looking back, sliding in his useless shoes (yes, he’s going to have to deal with the snowblower), thin socks already wet, following Nicolette’s half-filled tracks across the lot toward the dark, spotlit block of the mall. Without thinking, he strips the rubber band off his wrist and fires it into the air, where it disappears among the flakes. This is what quitting must feel like, Manny thinks, this righteous exhilaration, but by then it’s evaporating and he’s tired, across the access road and slogging along in the cold. He still needs to deal with Deena’s present, a question he’s put off too long already. Helplessly he remembers pinching the tiny silver clasp of the necklace open to put it on Jacquie that first time, Jacquie bending her head forward, gathering up her hair with one hand so he could see the wispy beginnings of it, and the knob at the top of her spine, the freckle next to it a perfect circle.
A blade bangs down and a big diesel roars, the scraping so close he could swear it’s going to run him over, but no, it’s just a trick of the snow and the weird, muffled quiet. There’s nothing behind him but empty spaces, a few parked cars drifted to the hubcaps. The truck’s all the way across the road, peeping then lunging forward again, its headlights sweeping across the Lobster like it’s opening night. The plow guy has arrived.
THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME
The mall swallows him. He swings through the first bank of chromed doors, wipes his shoes on the ribbed rubber matting and swings through the second set into a tepid, empty hallway. Like the Lobster, the Willow Brook Mall isn’t new, and the overhead fluorescents are as dim as the kitchen’s, and dully reflected underfoot. Somewhere a brass ensemble pipes a dirgelike “Good King Wenceslas,” otherwise the only signs of life are two WET FLOOR pyramids like tiger’s teeth—CUIDADO: PISO MO-JADO, translated too late for his abuelita, with a featureless stick figure falling back, one leg straight out, the other bent at the knee, a hand thrown up Travolta-like, as if he’s dropping into a break-dance or sliding home. A connoisseur of mopping, Manny notices it’s a slapdash job, wet-mopped but not rinsed so the dirt is drying in a switchbacked ribbon, yet out of professional respect he detours around it.
The first sixty feet of hallway is all wall. The first stores on both sides are closed, though not because of the snow— they’re vacant: dark, carpeted boxes fenced with barred grilles, a larger, more polite form of
“Fuck you,” Nicolette says. “You fired me instead of Crystal—that’s what it comes down to—and do you see Crystal anywhere? No, but here I am like an idiot, so just fuck you, Manny. Thanks, ” she mocks him, her final word.
As always, he’s aware of a crowd at his back. He knows they can’t hear everything, but he also knows the glassed-in box will broadcast the tone of his reply like a drum. He wants to say he didn’t fire anyone, that he fought hard for those five spots, and that, honestly, he would have taken anyone ahead of her, even Le Ly, who could barely speak English.
“Good luck,” he says as she pushes into the storm, and gives her a stiff salute of a wave. Watching her go, he thinks it’s wrong that instead of sadness or anger, all he feels is a selfish, indifferent relief. It feels—in this case, at least—like he’s admitting defeat.
When he comes back in, Kendra asks if she can have her check, and instead of telling her she can leave too, without a word he goes to the safe and gets all the checks except his and hands them out, throws his coat on and stalks right by Roz and Jacquie—Roz calling, “Hey, don’t go away mad!”—and through the deserted dining room and past the vacant host stand, bulling through the vestibule and into the whipping, whirling snow, striding away without looking back, sliding in his useless shoes (yes, he’s going to have to deal with the snowblower), thin socks already wet, following Nicolette’s half-filled tracks across the lot toward the dark, spotlit block of the mall. Without thinking, he strips the rubber band off his wrist and fires it into the air, where it disappears among the flakes. This is what quitting must feel like, Manny thinks, this righteous exhilaration, but by then it’s evaporating and he’s tired, across the access road and slogging along in the cold. He still needs to deal with Deena’s present, a question he’s put off too long already. Helplessly he remembers pinching the tiny silver clasp of the necklace open to put it on Jacquie that first time, Jacquie bending her head forward, gathering up her hair with one hand so he could see the wispy beginnings of it, and the knob at the top of her spine, the freckle next to it a perfect circle.
A blade bangs down and a big diesel roars, the scraping so close he could swear it’s going to run him over, but no, it’s just a trick of the snow and the weird, muffled quiet. There’s nothing behind him but empty spaces, a few parked cars drifted to the hubcaps. The truck’s all the way across the road, peeping then lunging forward again, its headlights sweeping across the Lobster like it’s opening night. The plow guy has arrived.
THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME
The mall swallows him. He swings through the first bank of chromed doors, wipes his shoes on the ribbed rubber matting and swings through the second set into a tepid, empty hallway. Like the Lobster, the Willow Brook Mall isn’t new, and the overhead fluorescents are as dim as the kitchen’s, and dully reflected underfoot. Somewhere a brass ensemble pipes a dirgelike “Good King Wenceslas,” otherwise the only signs of life are two WET FLOOR pyramids like tiger’s teeth—CUIDADO: PISO MO-JADO, translated too late for his abuelita, with a featureless stick figure falling back, one leg straight out, the other bent at the knee, a hand thrown up Travolta-like, as if he’s dropping into a break-dance or sliding home. A connoisseur of mopping, Manny notices it’s a slapdash job, wet-mopped but not rinsed so the dirt is drying in a switchbacked ribbon, yet out of professional respect he detours around it.
The first sixty feet of hallway is all wall. The first stores on both sides are closed, though not because of the snow— they’re vacant: dark, carpeted boxes fenced with barred grilles, a larger, more polite form of
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