Keeping The Moon(14)

snidely, like it was a slur of some kind. They were talking, heading back to the beach, when they heard it, too.

Ching-ching! It was high-pitched, one of those old-timey bells like paperboys used in the movies, and as the bike got closer it got

louder. The girls stopped talking and we all watched as Mira came into view.

She was still wearing her yellow overalls, rolled up at the cuff, and a worn pair of purple high-tops. Her hair was flowing out

behind her, long and red and wild, like some kind of living cape. And, finally, she was wearing sunglasses: black wraparound

frames, like the Terminator. All of the reflectors on her battered bike glinted as she came closer.

And she kept ringing that bell. Ching-ching! Ching-ching!

“Oh, my God,” one of the daytripper girls said, laughing. “What the hell is that?”

Mira was nearing the intersection. The girls started to move toward their car, still giggling and watching, but she didn’t notice

them. She only saw me.

“Colie!” she called, waving one hand wildly, as if there was any way I could have missed her. “Over here!”

I could feel the girls looking at me, and my face began to burn. I lifted one hand, just barely, and wished the parking lot would

open up and suck me in.

“I’m going to the market to buy some more biscuit dough!” she screamed as a big truck rumbled by. “You want anything?!”

I managed to shake my head.

“Okay!” she yelled, flashing me a thumbs-up. “I’ll see you later, then!” And with that, she started out into traffic, pedaling

slowly at first, dodging the occasional pothole, and then coasting down the hill toward the rest of town.

As Mira passed, the road began to dip and she started picking up speed, the wheel spokes blurring. People in cars were watching

her, the daytripper girls, tourists at the gas station, everyone, even me. We all stared as her hair began to stream behind her

again, a reflector on the back of the bike catching the sunlight and sparkling before she took the next curve and disappeared.

“Mayonnaise,” Morgan said, “is a lot like men.” It was nine-thirty in the morning on my first day of work, but I’d been up

since six. I kept thinking Morgan would forget me or change her mind but at nine-fifteen she pulled up in front of Mira’s steps

and beeped her horn, just as we’d planned.

The restaurant was empty except for us and the radio, tuned to an oldies station. “Twisting the Night Away” was playing, and we

were making salad dressing, both of us up to our elbows in thick, smelly mayonnaise.

“It can,” she went on, plopping another scoop into the bowl, “make everything much better, adding flavor and ease to your life.

Or, it can just be sticky and gross and make you nauseous.”

I smiled, stirring my mayonnaise while I considered this. “I hate mayonnaise.”

“You’ll probably hate men too, from time to time,” she said. “At least mayonnaise you can avoid.”

This was the way Morgan taught. Not in instructions, but pronouncements. Everything was a lesson.

“Lettuce,” she announced later, pulling a head out of the plastic bag in front of us, “should be leafy, not slimy. And no black

or brown edges. We use lettuce on everything: garnish, salads, burgers. A bad piece of lettuce can ruin your whole day.”

“Right,” I said.

“Chop it like this,” she instructed, taking a few whacks with a knife before handing it to me. “Big chops, but not too big.”

I chopped. She watched. “Good,” she said, reaching over to adjust my chops just a bit. I went on. “Very good.”

Morgan was this meticulous about everything. Preparing dressings was a ritual, every measurement carefully checked. Isabel, on the

other hand, dumped it all in at once, knocked a spoon around, and came up with the same results, dipping in a finger and licking it

to double-check.

But Morgan had her own way.

“Peel carrots away from you,” she said, demonstrating, “and cut off the ends about a quarter inch each. When feeding them into

the processor, pause about every five seconds. It gives a finer shred.”

I peeled, chopped, and stocked. I learned the perfect, symmetrical way to stack coffee cups and sugar packets, to fold rags at a

right angle against flat surfaces, clean side up. Morgan kept the counter area spick-and-span, each element in its place. When she

was nervous, she went around correcting things.

“Take-out boxes on the left, cup lids on the right,” she’d shout, slamming them around as she restored order to her universe. “

And spoons are handle side up, Isabel.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Isabel would say. When she was mad or just bored she purposely rearranged things just to see how long it took

Morgan to find them. It was like a passive-aggressive treasure hunt.

That first lunch, when Norman and I had stopped to pitch in, was a constant blur of people and noise and food. Everyone was

screaming at each other, Isabel and Morgan running past with orders, Norman flipping burgers and yelling things to Bick, the other

cook, who stayed stonily quiet and cool the entire time. I shoveled ice like my life depended on it, answered the phone and took