The Long Wait for Tomorrow (13 page)

er name tag read
Savannah.
A few raven strands of hair had freed themselves from her thick ponytail, the signs of a busy evening. The only signs of a busy evening; her wide smile, set in red lips against dark skin; the willing sparkle of her eyes as she stood at the podium; the rest of her was taking it all in stride. Looking over the floor plan, doing what she could not to triple-set any of her waiters.

When she looked up, her enormous hazel-brown eyes overtook Patrick, and all previous delusions collapsed under her gaze. His new suit had managed to fool him for a while. That slick burgundy shirt, sharp black pants, black jacket that inauspiciously gave the impression of wide, well-developed shoulders; for a while there, Patrick had actually felt a strange sense of improvement.

But as he followed Savannah across the restaurant, Jenna and Kelly leading the way, Patrick began to sense the make-believe. He began to shrink in his suit. A loose shoelace came undone, whipped against his lower shin. Every table they passed was occupied by well-dressed couples, families, people who belonged. Stray splinters of conversation lodged in his ears, everyone far too comfortable. Patrons far too at ease, the hostess far too beautiful and accommodating. Their table was
far too elegant, forks far too numerous. Napkins folded into a geometric improbability. Thirty-foot-high ceilings crisscrossed with industrial vents and water pipes painted a soothing, dark copper hue. Even the babble of conversation rang with an exclusive lilt, politely hinting that perhaps Patrick would be more comfortable sitting at the children’s table.

Patrick took his seat, accepted his menu with a quiet nod.

He glanced over at Jenna as she picked up her menu.

The red dress looked perfect on her.

Maybe because she
was
made for it
, his angels muttered.
Maybe because everything looks perfect on her.

The waiter came up and introduced himself.

Timothy. Spiky blond hair, white shirt, black apron.

Kelly stepped up to bat, producing the wine list.

“It’s been a good day,” he told the waiter. “We’re looking to celebrate.”

“Good to hear, sir …” The waiter held his hands behind his back, at the ready. “Anything to drink?”

“Got a favorite bottle of red wine?”

The waiter hesitated.

“I’m not talking about something you think we can afford,” Kelly assured him. “I mean, pick your favorite bottle of red wine. Even if you’ve never tried it, just heard about it. Hell, you could lie to me and pick the most expensive one you’ve got. Life is an illusion, and I’m looking to be deceived for as long as I’m here….”

The waiter thought he’d give it a shot.

He pointed to the bottom of the list. “I’d have to recommend the Beau Vigne Cabernet 2003.”

“Then that’s what we’ll have….” Kelly slipped a hundred-dollar bill into the wine list and snapped it shut. “With our meal … Time being, we’d like your most expensive bottle of champagne … It’s all right if it’s not your favorite, we’ll take it anyway.”

“That would be the Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin Brut Yellow Label,” the waiter told them, all concern swept beneath a broad grin as he collected his bribe.

“Excellent.” Kelly smiled. “Have it at the table in two minutes and Ben Franklin gets a playmate, catch my drift?”

The waiter practically sprinted for the bar.

Patrick felt himself grow back into his suit, but only for the time being.

“So, Kelly …” Jenna picked up her menu, casual as can be. “You want to tell us what this is all about?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Kelly reached for his glass of water. Took a sip and crunched on the ice. He stared into the candle, flame reflecting off blue eyes. “There was this man I met once. Name of Bond. James Bond.”

Patrick rolled his eyes. “OK, Kelly.”

“I know, believe me,” Kelly assured them. “He was used to it. Got that same reaction his whole life. He was a detective. Used to be a detective for the LAPD. Way back when, in the nineties. When I met him, brother was long gone from that scene. This was in Louisville, Kentucky. I was working in a bakery.”

Jenna snorted in midsip, sent water and ice back into her glass. “Did you say bakery?”

Patrick heard a burst of enchanted laughter at a nearby table. It seemed everyone was having their moments that night.

“Bakery, that’s right …” Kelly smiled, still staring at the candle. Marveling almost. “I was working at a bakery.”

“In Louisville,” Patrick added. “Kentucky.”

“Home of the man himself, Mr. Muhammad Ali.” Kelly frowned. “At least, I think it was Kentucky. Can’t really remember the year … or the place, I must have been young still. I remember Bond was turning fifty, that was the occasion.”

“Detective James Bond,” Patrick added. He undid the top button of his shirt. “And you were working at a bakery.”

“Can’t imagine you working in a bakery,” Jenna said.

“Well, it’s not exactly what you’d think,” Kelly told her. Told the center of the table, reached up to run his hands through his hair, as though remembering he had any to speak of. “Don’t get me wrong. It ain’t easy. It’s a hundred-mile-per-hour job, especially if it’s one of those more-than-bakery places. The kind with a full menu, a restaurant-bakery. You’re constantly working in those places, between orders for lunch, or breakfast. You’ve got orders to take care of, special orders like cake for birthdays, anniversaries. Making brownies, cookies, muffins, all the crap that goes in those glass display cases.”

The waiter, Timothy, arrived with the champagne.

Three glasses.

He cradled the bottle in both hands, showed off the orangy yellow label for Kelly’s approval.

Kelly nodded without looking. “Truth be told, you don’t need any real experience to work in most kitchens. Not at the
level I was. Most times, it’s just someone telling you what to do anyway. So I found myself working at this bakery in Louisville, and anyway, there was Detective James Bond. Ex-detective James Bond, I can’t … quite remember what he was doing there.”

A muted pop signaled the flow of champagne.

Three glasses, poured all around.

“Would you like to hear the specials this evening?” Timothy asked.

“We are
dying
to hear the specials,” Kelly assured him.

“Excellent,” Timothy cooed, before launching into a calm, rehearsed litany. “Tonight we have a very special salad of crab apples and Roquefort tossed with baby greens, fresh cracked pepper, and a sweet-and-sour lemon vinaigrette. Our soup is a cold sweet potato, served with a three-berry garnish. And the catch tonight is tilapia—”

“Sauteed in butter and olive oil, served with fresh tomato ceviche and basil-roasted jicama
,” Kelly concluded, finishing off in perfect unison with Timothy.

Neither one of them appeared to notice what was happening until the silence that followed.

Patrick and Jenna shared a glance, then cautiously eyed Kelly, who wore the same confused look.

With his tip on the line, the waiter broke out of his amazed silence with an impressed smile. “Well, that’s some talent you’ve got there.”

“Must’ve read the specials on the chalkboard,” Kelly said with bewildered modesty.

“We don’t have a chalkboard,” Timothy informed him. He turned to Patrick and Jenna. “I’ll give you a bit of time to look over the menu. Whenever you’re ready, I’ll come on over and … see if I can guess your orders.”

Timothy left the champagne in an ice bucket nestled on a metal stand.

Patrick tried to push through any further distractions. “So what’s this detective James Bond got to do with us?”

“How about a toast first?” Kelly said, raising his glass.

“No,” Patrick insisted. “I want to hear this.”

Kelly paused, glass in midair.

Jenna did the same, put her glass down and withdrew her hand.

“Well …” Kelly put down his glass, folded his hands in his lap. “Point is, Mr. Bond and I ended up going to dinner together. Well, he treated me, truth be told. Being nice, I suppose; that was also the day I got fired, but that’s neither here nor there. I asked him the same question, what the occasion was. He told me that he was simply trying to enjoy one last night before everything changed for him. I thought this was a bit on the strange side, but he made it pretty simple. He said he’d done the same thing when his wife was about to divorce him. He’d go out to top-tier restaurants, order the best cigars. As though he knew that, pretty soon, he wouldn’t be able to enjoy anything anymore. Told me of another time, when he was on the road through the southern states. Tracking down a group of kids who had burned their school to the ground, back in ninety-nine.”

“I remember hearing about those kids,” Jenna said. “Back when I was, like, nine.”

“Me too,” Patrick said, frowning. “It happened, I don’t know, maybe a day before Columbine…. There
was
a detective named Bond involved.”

“I don’t remember all the details …,” Kelly told them. “But Bond was working against his department’s orders. After a huge mishap in New Orleans, Bond got mixed up with a con man and his girlfriend. He needed to get them down to Key West, and on the way, he did the same thing. Had a feeling it was all about to end for him. Badly, it seemed, and so he treated these strangers to a glorious meal at a high-end Italian restaurant. Went all out, charged it without a second thought, he was just that certain that it would be the last meal he’d be able to enjoy in a good long while.”

Patrick reached out and toyed with a miniature saltshaker. “That’s some story, Kelly.”

Kelly squeezed his eyes shut, squeezed the bridge of his nose. “I think that’s how it was. That’s how I think I remember it, at least.”

“And all this happened in Louisville,” Patrick concluded.

“Yes.”

“And when was this?”

“I’m not sure …” Kelly picked up his champagne glass. He stared at the bubbles, sighed. “Time’s been kind of strange for a while now.”

“A while how?” Patrick asked.

“Can we toast, please?”

“Kelly, you’ve never been to Louisville,” Patrick said. He glanced over at Jenna, who had once again been trapped in an amazed smile. “Jenna, has Kelly ever been—”

“Well, I haven’t
yet,”
Kelly said, rolling his eyes. “Not as far as you know.”

“Jenna?” Patrick prompted.

“Kelly.” Jenna raised her glass. “I’d like to make a toast, but there’s something you have to tell me first.”

Kelly obliged, raised his glass.

“Where do you think you are?” Jenna asked, holding out her bubbly. “Could you tell me that?”

“Well, shit, you could’ve just asked,” Kelly told them nonchalantly. His sunburned face seemed unconcerned, eyes sad and happy, contradictions awaiting that first sip of champagne. “The fact that you haven’t bothered to ask only made me more certain as the day went on.”

“More certain of what?” Patrick asked.

Jenna leaned close to Kelly. “Kelly, where do you think we are?”

“I’m in a mental institution.”

For a few moments, Patrick let it slide as nothing more than a metaphor. He’d always been told the world was a crazy place, after all. You’d have to be insane to be sane, there were endless examples, perhaps Kelly was simply coming out and admitting he was as concerned with his future as the rest of them were.

“I am in a mental institution,” Kelly repeated, and now there was no doubt he meant it. Bobbing his head silently, as though marveling at the notion, he added: “And I’m sound
asleep. Sound asleep, and having the best dream … the only dream I’ve had in many, many years.”

Jenna’s glass remained in her hand, wasn’t ready to toast.

Patrick didn’t even reach for his. “What do you mean by
years?”

“Guys …,” Kelly said. “I know none of you are really here. I know that this place, these people, even myself, that this isn’t here. Because this, right here, is round about twenty years ago, as far as my life is concerned. I’m closing in on forty years old, and we’re going to have this toast because I’m positive, any minute now, I’m going to wake up.”

Beat.

Patrick couldn’t remember a single point in his life when his mind had rang so empty. Nothing to say, nothing to do. Not a single dispute or contradiction available, because there was no arguing with the impossible. He simply let Kelly’s revelation go unchecked as his glass gravitated toward the center of the table of its own accord.

“Also,” Kelly added as he leaned forward, “I’m getting the tuna tartare for my starter, so maybe you all ought to try something else, and that way we can all share.”

Their champagne flutes met with an uplifting clink.

And Patrick’s brain began to thaw, just enough to set a lone angel free and whisper an equally senseless lament:
Should’ve called dibs on the tartare, loser.