Queen Bee (Lowcountry Tales #12)(73)

“Holy Michelangelo, Batman! We’re not in Gotham anymore!” Momma said.

We stopped dead in our tracks and looked at her.

“Momma? Did you just make a Batman joke?” I said.

“It’s a good one,” Suzanne said.

“Thank you,” the QB said.

Charlene and I exchanged looks of surprise. It seemed that Momma’s younger personality, the light and carefree one, might have been resurrected.

We found the restaurant and were taken to our seats immediately. Suzanne ordered sake for all of us.

“Don’t let this stuff fool you,” she said. “It’s potent.”

The menu at Sushi Samba had just about everything in the world on it. A lot of it could have been written in Greek, unless you ate Japanese food frequently and knew the terminology.

Suzanne said, “Why don’t I just order for the table and everyone can help themselves to some of everything?”

We all said that sounded fine to us, as Suzanne had been coming here for ages. So she quickly began to rattle off our order to our server. She ordered edamame and Berkshire pork belly ramen to begin. Next, she ordered toro, hamachi, unagi, udama, and uni. Those were all various creatures coming to us straight from the sea. Then she ordered some traditional rolls and two kinds of tempura.

“You must be very hungry,” said our waiter.

Suzanne twisted up the side of her mouth and looked at him and said, “Yes, as a matter of fact. We are.”

The food began to arrive, platter after platter.

“It’s too pretty to eat,” Momma said.

“Oh, darling,” Suzanne said. “Take a picture with your iPhone and just dig in!”

I pulled mine out and recorded the moment for posterity. And I snapped pictures of Charlene, the QB, and Suzanne.

The warm sake was replenished over and over.

With just a little coaxing from Suzanne, Momma ate tuna sashimi and loved it.

“How come I never knew about tuna . . . what do you call this?” she said, and I laughed. Momma’s eyes were being opened to the larger world, bit by bit.

“Sashimi,” Charlene said.

“No more calls,” Suzanne said. “We just lost a virgin.”

Momma gave Suzanne the hairy eyeball. And Suzanne burst into laughter.

“I love a woman with some spunk!”

“Delicious,” she said and turned to me. “I’d like a picture of me eating this. Do you think you can manage that?”

“That sounded pretty harsh, darling,” Suzanne said. “Is everything all right?”

“It did?” Momma said. Then she turned to me and said, “I just want to remember this night and I began to panic that after dinner it would all be over. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, Momma! Smile big! Charlene, you and Suzanne get in the picture, too! One, two, three!” I clicked the button a few times.

“The night’s young, Miss QB,” Charlene said.

“And miles to go before I sleep!” Suzanne said.

“Robert Frost?” Momma said.

“Whose woods these are I think I know . . . ?”

Suzanne recited the whole poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” and Momma fell in love a little more.

“Miss QB? Here’s another fun fact. Every single day of the year sixty thousand pounds of shrimp are consumed in Las Vegas. That’s more than the rest of the country combined!” Suzanne looked from face to face, seeking a bit of acknowledgment.

“Oh, please,” Charlene said. “Suzanne wins every trivia night contest in Nevada!”

“Yes, I do!” Suzanne said. “Ask me anything.”

“Tell us the weirdest thing you’ve ever heard,” I said.

“Hmmm,” she said. “That’s a tough one. Okay, here’s something. How about in 1980, they had to suspend a bunch of hospital workers for betting on when a patient would die? And a nurse was actually arrested for murder, having killed a patient so she could win? How weird is that?”

“That’s out there,” Charlene said.

“If that’s not the work of the devil, what is?” the QB said. “Is there more sake?”

“Yes, but the larger question is,” Charlene said, refilling Momma’s cup, “do y’all want to ride the gondola down the Grand Canal indoors or outdoors?”

We finished all the sake and almost everything else, paid the bill, and made our way to the gondola passenger station.

“Thank you, Suzanne. That was absolutely fantastic!”

“Not exactly Shem Creek, is it?” I said.

“No. It’s another world,” Momma said in agreement.

Suzanne bought tickets for us, and after a few false starts and more than a few promises to save her if she fell in, we finally got the QB into the gondola, too. It was doing some serious wobbling. But then, to be honest, Suzanne was no skinny Minnie, either.

“I thought we were going to lose you there for a moment,” Suzanne said. “Come on now, sit right here next to me.”

As we drifted along the Grand Canal, Momma was strangely quiet, but smiling, and she seemed awfully happy. She was probably half in the bag, I thought.

“What are you thinking about?” I heard Suzanne ask Momma.