The Lesson (13 page)

“You’re too nice to me,” said Burk.

Gina flushed with pleasure. She loved waiting on Burk. She grabbed a menu from the slot at the end of the counter. She had read it to him a few times before. The other waitresses were glad to leave this time-consuming task to Gina, preferring to serve more customers to earn more tips, but Gina relished an opportunity to help Burk. When it came to her favorite customer, she didn’t care whether he left a big tip or any tip at all. He was always so grateful for her assistance with the menu, that after she had served him, she was left with a good feeling far more valuable than a few dollars tucked under a salt shaker. It didn’t hurt, either, that he was the best looking man who had ever walked into Big Bick’s. A Ken doll, but with brains. No sin in looking. Hey, gorgeous men were God’s handiwork, were they not?

“Patty melt with fries. That’s served on rye, of course. Fish sandwich with small side salad. The fish filet is breaded, but only lightly. French dip with your choice of …”

She continued to read the long list of burgers, sandwiches, hot entrees, salads, and soups. She realized she was neglecting other customers, but after all, Burk was blind. Surely the other customers could see what she was doing for him and why, and they could wait. She would work extra fast to get their refills and checks as soon as she finished reading the menu to Burk. That’s what she usually did. The other customers never seemed to mind. Gina was vaguely aware, however, that today her other lunch orders were stacking up rather quickly under the heat lamp. From across the restaurant she could see Pilar and another waitress busily taking orders in their sections; they weren’t free to help with Gina’s backlog. Another waitress had not shown up today, not even called in with an excuse, so as usual there were too many customers and too few waitresses.

Gina resolved to read a little faster. As she rattled through the soup of the day and the varieties of fresh fruit pies available in the pastry case, from behind her at the
kitchen pass-through she heard George bang on the order-ready bell a second time. Ding! She glanced toward the kitchen. George leaned over the pass-through and, when he saw her look in his direction, he scowled and banged angrily on the counter bell three more times. Ding! Ding! Ding! She shook her head at him and glared right back with a look that said, “Ding, ding, yourself!”
That man drives me crazy.
She was nearly done. George could wait another minute. Besides, underneath his thick shock of greasy hair, George was a hothead. She wouldn’t be pushed, not today. And she was reading as fast as she could.

“Caesar salad with croutons. House salad with your choice of dressing. Chef’s salad with crisp-fried bacon bits and egg—

“Aw, come on,” said the burly customer, “you just want to hear that pretty’s girl sexy voice. Why don’t you order so the rest of us can get some service?”

Gina stopped reading and looked at the burly man sitting two seats away from Burk. A grungy,
sweat-yellowed T-shirt stuck out of his shirt collar and a blob of brown gravy dribbled stupidly on his chin. While she was reading the menu to Burk, the burly man kept looking up at her from his hot beef sandwich and mashed potatoes, clearly disgusted. Now the burly man glared at Burk.

Burk looked stunned. Gina didn’t know what to say or if she should say anything at all. Didn’t the man realize that Burk was blind? Should she draw attention to his handicap by saying something? Would Burk want her to interfere? Dealing graciously with rude customers was always the hardest thing she was asked to do at the restaurant, even harder than dealing with the lechers. The owners didn’t allow waitresses to return rudeness for rudeness, no matter how tempted they were to deliver insults alongside the scrambled eggs and bacon. But they were given lots of leeway with pinchers, gropers, and fanny patters. If the burly man had put his hand where it didn’t belong, she would have known immediately what to do. But at that moment she couldn’t think of the right thing to say.

“Actually, sir, I’ve never seen Gina,” Burk finally replied. His voice was calm and his words evenly delivered as he turned his head in the direction of the rude customer’s voice. “Being blind, I am limited to wrapping my imagination around that sexy voice. Using that as a judge, I’ve always imagined that she is very pretty. Tell me, is she?”

The burly man, fork still in hand, turned and looked at Burk, seeing for the first time the blankness in eyes that saw nothing. Then the burly man looked at Gina. “She’s a looker,” he said, but now his tone was noticeably subdued.

Gina burned with embarrassment. What a relief that Burk couldn’t see the disturbance in her face. The burly man put his head down and minded his own business after that, saying nothing more while he finished his lunch, which didn’t take long. He paid his bill and left.

Gina took Burk’s order, the Caesar salad, dressing on the side. When his salad was ready she picked it up and brought it to him. As she set it in front of him, instead of thanking her as usual, with his hand he felt around the surface of the counter awkwardly until he found hers. Gina thought he looked unusually thoughtful, but that thought was quickly eclipsed by her realization that his hand was touching hers.

“Gina, you’re always so nice to me when I come in here.”

Her heart began to beat wildly as he wrapped his large hand over her small one. His touch was sensual, strong and warm; it thrilled her. The moment was a little awkward but she didn’t pull her hand back. That would have offended him, and she would never offend Burk. The seats near him were vacant, thankfully. She would have been mortified to be receiving such attention from one customer while another watched. If the next counter seat had been occupied she would have put a stop to it
immediately. But she knew that Burk, even without sight, sensed the temporary gift of privacy. She could tell, also, that he wanted to say something. His hand lingered on hers as he turned his head to face her.

“You’re not like the other girls. You’re different. I’d like to get to know you better. And I’d like to thank you for helping me with the menu like you do. Could I take you to dinner sometime? Maybe this weekend?”

Gina stood there, silent and staring into those sightless eyes, her heart pierced by a familiar pain. For a moment more she allowed her hand to be enveloped by his, then thinking better of it, she gently pulled it away. He was so sweet, so well bred, so
distinguished.
She liked everything about him. Had he not been so old, she would have dated him in a minute. He was educated and suave, sophisticated and gentlemanly. She daydreamed from time to time ... but the fact remained: he was old enough to be her father. She was so very sorry, and so very, very sad. Pain upon pain. When would it end? She chose her words carefully.

“Burk,” she took a deep breath here so that her voice wouldn’t waver and give away her discomposure, “I’m here to serve you. It’s my job. I’m happy to read the menu to you, and I very much enjoy your company when you come in. But I would read the menu to anyone in need.” She paused to let that sink in. “So I think it would be best if I just keep reading the menu to you when you come in. I’d like to do that, okay?”

He nodded silently in understanding and pulled his hand away from hers. With a heavy heart she wrote up his bill, told him the amount, and placed it in the usual place so he could find it. After that she made a point of busying herself with other customers so he wouldn’t have a chance to speak to her before he left, which he did shortly. Sadly she watched him use his cane, tapping and sweeping, to find his way toward the door. She hoped he would not be reluctant to return just because she had turned him down. Her counter shift would be just plain hard work without the thrill of seeing Burk walk through the door.

After her shift ended she visited the bookstore in Benson to buy her daily chocolate bar and licorice, crossed The Alameda to devour her candy while reading her political science text in Orradre—an utterly enthralling analysis of the differences between democracy, fascism, and communism—then walked to Toso Pavilion to swim laps.

The women’s locker room was shaped like a shoe box. Swimmers entered the narrow end of the box from the basketball court. At the opposite narrow end was the entrance to the pool. Between the narrow ends were rows of high, institutional style lockers, positioned perpendicularly so that swimmers could not see from one narrow end to the other. This afternoon, just like every afternoon, the women’s locker room was unnervingly quiet, because serious swimmers performed their aquatic exercises long before lunch. The afternoons were for amateurs.

So like every day, before changing into her swimsuit and showering before entering the pool, Gina performed a sweep of the entire locker room to ferret out any muggers or rapists. First she checked the showers to the left, pulling aside each curtain. Everything looked okay there. Then she walked the long side of the shoe box on the right, looking down each row of lockers. Once she had swept the entire locker room and was certain she was alone, she changed rapidly into her swimsuit, locked up her belongings, showered, grabbed her towel, and walked out to the chilly pool.

While she glided through her backstroke she stared at the ceiling, which of course is impossible not to do when you swim on your back. The “ceiling” was constructed of sixty thousand square feet of fabric, an inflated bubble that the university had installed as an inexpensive roof over Toso Pavilion. Today she didn’t contemplate, as she usually did, how she would escape if the tons of Teflon-coated Fiberglas were to suddenly collapse onto the surface of the pool. This tragic possibility ordinarily nagged at the back of her mind every time she swam underneath the hulking gray tent-roof, which was held up by nothing more than eleven enormous fans, a giant fabric bubble that could be popped, so to speak, with the pull of an electric plug. If the fans should suddenly stop turning, she could only wonder how long it would take for the bubble to collapse, drowning all the hapless swimmers in the pool under a silent avalanche of canvas. This picture wasn’t terrifying enough to keep her out of the water, owing to its remoteness. It did, however, improve her speed.

Today she didn’t care if she succumbed to death-by-canvas; her mind was occupied with dreamy thoughts of Burk, interrupted only by thoughts of the phone in her living room. Besides, a quick death by drowning was more civilized and promised a more tear-evoking epitaph than being propositioned by truck drivers, dated by guys who heard voices, followed home by geeky sailors who wore double-weave polyester pants, and pursued by middle-age blind men. No, being entombed in tons of canvas was the easier way to die. Or at least it made more sense, and you could be certain your parents wouldn’t nag you about it.

Clearly her heart was not in her swim today, but being the diligent type she forced herself to finish forty laps. When she was done she dried off and went home to face another lonely weekend.

As she entered her little apartment, she was struck by the silence. Then it occurred to her that her entire weekend would be like this, and in a moment, that single, piercing thought caused the flood gates to open, and, falling onto her bed, she began to wail.

“Lord! Why don’t you send me somebody NORMAL?” she cried, angry. “I want to get married! I’m tired of being alone! I miss Michael. When will you bring me somebody to replace him? I’m lonely, Lord, so lonely! And I’m getting old! Send me someone very special, Lord, someone to love. Someone to love me.” She managed to blubber out a few lines about height, at least six feet tall, and ideally, someone with similar sentiments about the most important things in life. Might as well be specific. She thought of asking for someone fabulously wealthy with lots of education, but that seemed greedy. It didn’t seem wise to ruin her chances of getting her prayer answered by offending the Giver.

Gina sat up on the bed, legs tucked underneath her, her head resting against the wall a long time while she calmed down, wiping her eyes, blowing her nose repeatedly, and staring into the silent room. She was thinking that the logical thing to do was to call Bonnie so that they could do something together over the weekend to fill up the long hours, but the girls had already agreed to get together so there was no use calling again.

Suddenly the living room phone rang, rudely crashing her little pity party. She braced herself. She knew who it was. After the usual greetings, Kevin wanted to know what she was doing.

“Planning my weekend.” Her nose was still stuffy from crying so hard, which gave her voice a distinct nasal quality.

“Are you okay? You don’t sound good.”

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t sound fine. You sound stuffed up.”

“I’m not stuffed up. I’m
fine.”
She grabbed a tissue and blew her nose, loudly.

“I hope you find time in your weekend for me.”

Gina took a silent breath.
Get it over with! Quit stalling! Stalling doesn’t help.

“Kevin, I’ve been meaning to talk to you. I think it would be a good idea if—hiccup!—excuse me.”

“Excused.”

“I think it would be better if we quit seeing each other.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. I think that’s a terrible idea. You should have consulted me before coming to this conclusion on your own. What’s the problem?”

“There is no—hiccup!—problem. I’m sorry, Kevin. I think I’ve developed a bad case of hiccups.”

“Nothing to apologize for. Hiccups are good for you. And coming from you, they’re cute.”