“Roberto sent better tomatoes this week,” she said, capping the pot.
“I noticed. The ones last week were sad.”
“Joey called them tragic. He wanted to write Roberto a letter.”
“A letter?”
“On Shack letterhead. I told him we don’t have Shack letterhead, and he said that was a separate problem he’d like to address.”
Bernie smiled into his crossword and shook his head. “Joey.”
“Joey,” Margo agreed.
She glanced at his left hand, still on his knee. “Bernard.”
“Margo.”
“Is it the knee?”
He filled in a crossword square without looking up. “It’s a stool.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“It’s the answer I’ve got.” He filled in another square. “Later, Margo.”
She took the coffee pot back to the kitchen.
At one-forty she was running the last orders of the rush—Anna had needed a break, so Margo had taken the grill—when she saw, through the pass, Bernie stand.
Both hands flat on the counter, pushing up through his palms, his weight shifting to the right before his legs took over. It was a motion that someone who didn’t know him might readas an old man getting off a stool. Margo, who had known him for decades, read it as his left leg not doing what it was supposed to.
He got his jacket from the hook by the door and shrugged it on. He turned toward the dining room—toward the pass, toward Margo—and then he didn’t stop. No wave at Margo. No nod at Joey. No hand on the doorframe on his way out. The crossword was still on the counter, two squares empty. Bernie never left a crossword unfinished.
Joey appeared at the pass a minute later, a binder in hand.
“I’ve logged it,” he said. “Third stool, pending. I’ll revisit Monday.”
“Okay, Joey.”
“Is that—are you okay with that?”
She looked at him. He was holding the seating book against his chest with both hands, and looked like he knew something was off but didn’t have enough data to build a theory.
“That’s fine,” she said.
Joey went back to the dining room. Margo wiped down the grill. Anna came back from her break and told Margo she had it from here, and Margo untied her apron, hung it on the hook, and washed her hands. She got her coat and stopped at the kitchen door.
“Anna?”
“Yeah?” Anna was already at the register, pulling tape with one hand and tucking her hair behind her ear with the other.
“Bernie didn’t say anything to you either about what’s going on?”
Anna looked up. “He said good morning. Went to the counter. I asked if he wanted coffee, he said yes.” She pulled the tape free and tore it. “That was it.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
Anna looked at her for a second. “You worried?”
