At twelve forty, the front door of the diner opened. Russ walked out. He crossed Main Street in his apron. He walked up the sidewalk, past the end of the line, past Mr. Hendricks on his folding chair, past me. He walked straight up to the window of the trailer. Every head in the lot turned.
Mallory slid the window open. She had a boat of tacos in each hand. “Hi, Uncle Russ,” she said. “What can I get you?”
Russ stood there with his big square hands at his sides. Up close I could see how tired he looked. His face had gone gray under the stubble.
“Mallory,” he said. “I need to talk to you.”
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“I’m working, Uncle Russ.”
“Five minutes.”
“There’s a line.” She said it so gently. “There are about forty people waiting, and I’d feel bad. Would you like to join it?”
I have never in my life been so proud of anyone. Russ’s eyes went to the line. Forty faces looked back at him. Eunice from the auxiliary. A school bus driver.
The man from the farm bureau who ate breakfast at his counter every Thursday. None of them said anything. The quiet was answer enough.
“Jean,” Russ said. He turned. He had seen me at the second window. “Can we step over here?” We stepped to the side of the trailer, in the shade of the shop wall, where Marvin could see us and Mallory could hear.
I kept my hands in my apron pockets.
“This got out of hand,” Russ said, low.
“What did?”
“The permit.” He wiped his mouth. “I’ll tell the board to put it on hold. Bring the trailer to the lot behind my place. We’ll work something out.
Twenty percent, off the top, for the electric and the foot traffic. That’s more than fair. Folks eat at the diner on the way out and everybody wins.”
“Twenty percent.”
“It’s a good deal, Jean.” I looked at him for a long moment. I thought about the thermos on the counter, and eleven people listening, and a kid with a hot plate.
“Russ,” I said, “the permit you had them pass says public street or right of way. This is Haldane Implement. It’s Clyde Haldane’s lot, and you can ask him what he thinks.”
His mouth worked. “The village could amend it.” “I imagine it could.” “I could make that happen.” “I imagine you could.” I took my hands out of my pockets.
“Russ, I’m going to answer this once, and I’m going to be nice about it. Mallory is not coming to your place. She is not paying you twenty percent.
She would like to feed these people, and she’d like a Friday every week at a lot that belongs to a man with the sense to share it. If you want tacos, there is a line.”
He stood very still. “You’d do this to me,” he said. “Over a trailer.” “Russ, I haven’t done anything to you. I haven’t said one word about you to one person. You’re the one who walked across the street.”
He looked past me at Marvin.
My husband had come to stand at the corner of the trailer. He was not smiling. He was not angry either.
He just stood there with his thumbs in his belt loops and looked at his brother the way you look at a man you love who has driven the truck into the ditch.