Read Online Taft by Ann Patchett - Free Book Online

working."
    It was seven o'clock on a Friday night, quiet now, but there was a band coming in that would fill the place solid enough to slice by ten P.M. I needed to know how many sober waitresses I was looking at. The customers who were there already were watching Cyndi hard, thinking maybe there would be a little show before the show. Fay kept her distance over by the bar with a weekend waitress named Arlene. Wallace left his stool by the door and went over to join them. It was too early for fights.
    "Did you know," Cyndi said, "that I used to be one of three featured dancers at the Kaanapali Maui Sheraton's grand luau? All the roast pork and mai-tais you can eat for twenty-nine ninety-five." She was still standing there, one hand on her stomach and one hand out. A couple of the regulars clapped and Cyndi nodded at them. Elvis was still singing. Blue, blue, blue, he was saying. Then as slow as it was possible, she raised up one hip. It went farther up than any of us thought it could go and then she lowered it, waited one count and raised the other. She tapped her left foot out in front of her twice, brought it back, and started with the hip again. She was barely even moving, and still there was something almost obscene about it. None of us had ever seen a person move that way before. Both arms came slowly out in front of her and her hands unfolded and waved.
    "Come on now," I said. I had to stop her. It was clear she was showing people more than she meant to, and that she'd regret it once she thought about it.
    Her hands came down as slowly as they'd gone up, and she picked up a stranger's drink from a table and took a long sip. "Bad day," she said.
    "What in the hell kind of bad day is this?"
    "Elvis's birthday," she said absently.
    "Shit, it's not his birthday. I even know when Elvis's birthday is. What's your problem?"
    "Just a regular bad day, then," she said, her voice gone to ice. She finished the drink while the man who'd ordered and paid for it sat and watched her, then she headed off for the restroom. I went and changed the tapes. Maybe it didn't all seem as strange to me as it should have. People in this town had been doing insane things in relation to Elvis Presley for a long time. What bothered me was the thought that Cyndi might not be nailed down too tight. I might not be able to count on her the way I'd wanted to.
    With things starting out the way they did, it didn't turn out to be such a friendly night. The place was busy and the band was more loud than good. Cyndi tied a knot in one side of her skirt, jacking it to the top of her thigh and then giving anybody who looked at her hell about it. I wasn't planning on mentioning it.
    With everything so busy, I don't think anybody but Fay noticed that Carl never showed. The band outstayed their welcome, breaking down into a bunch of drunken half chords they'd written themselves towards the end of the night. By the time we got the place emptied out and straightened up, it was two-thirty and Fay was looking out the window, holding her puffy jacket in both arms. Cyndi walked right past her without saying a word and went on out into the night. She'd had enough time to sober up a little bit, and it wasn't helping her mood any. I said my good-nights and told Wallace to turn the lights out while I went up to do the night deposit, a job I never liked. I didn't want anybody breaking in and killing me over money that wasn't even mine. On Fridays I was always tired and made some sort of stupid mistake and had to count everything up again. Once I'd been so dead I'd taken the whole thing home in a paper sack, change and everything, and put it in the bed with me. I couldn't sleep, thinking that somebody would find out and say I'd stolen it. God knows, if I had any interest in stealing I could have done years of it there. I zipped it all up in the blue Third National bag and went down through the kitchen to double-check the locks. I saw her standing there in the dark and nearly