See You at Harry's(19)

Charlie wraps Doll in his blanket and sets her on the table. Then he holds his hands out and pinches his fingers as he closes his eyes and says, “Ommmm.” This is his way of telling me that my mom is upstairs meditating.

“Where’s Sara?”

He shrugs.

I look around again at the empty room. “Who’s supposed to be watching you?”

“Mona. But I a big boy.”

“Well, where is she?”

“Potty.”

The tiny bell on the door jingles, and an enormous woman and man walk in with a skinny kid. Since no one else is around, I go over and say hello and ask if they’re here for lunch or ice cream.

The couple looks at me closely. Then the lady gets this big grin on her face. “I recognize you!” she says. She looks around the room and spots Charlie kissing Doll. “And there’s that adorable little girl! The one who says ‘See you at Hawee’s!’ ”

Oh, brother.

“Look, Justina,” she says to the skinny kid. “Remember the commercial?” She turns to me. “We saw your commercial on the TV in our camper and thought it’d be a hoot to come here. We’re kind of ice-cream connoisseurs. We travel all over and try different kinds. We just went on the tour at Ben & Jerry’s in Vermont last week. Is your ice cream better than theirs?”

I stare at her. What is it with tourists watching TV in their RVs? Aren’t they supposed to be looking out the windows and enjoying nature or something?

“Um . . .”

“Does it matter where we sit?” she asks, sort of waddling around me.

I grab three menus and follow them. They take the booth next to Charlie, but before they sit down, the woman reaches into her gigantic purse and pulls out a cell phone. “You don’t mind if I take your picture, do you? Oh! Maybe your little sister could say her line for me. My phone has video.”

Charlie hugs Doll to his chest and eyes the lady suspiciously, which he often does when strangers say he’s cute.

The lady turns to him. “Do you know your line? From the commercial?”

Charlie looks at me.

“See you at Harry’s,” I mumble at him.

“I don’t talk to stwanjahs,” he tells the lady in a baby voice. Then he dashes across the dining room and hides behind the ice-cream counter.

“Oh, my, I scared her,” the lady says, as if Charlie is some wild animal.

“It’s OK,” I say. I hand out the menus and hope she forgot about the photo. “Someone will be with you to take your order in just a minute.”

I head to the counter and grab Charlie’s hand. Together we go up to my dad’s office to find my mom. The door is closed, with my mom’s go-away sign flipped over. Nice.

Charlie presses his ear against the door. “I hear the singing bowl!” he whispers loudly.

I roll my eyes. “C’mon, then. Let’s find Sara.”

We go back downstairs and wander through the kitchen, but she’s not there, either. Patrick, the head cook, says she was just here but went somewhere with Gil, the busboy. “Try the walk-in,” he tells us.

Charlie stiffens beside me. He hates the walk-in. It’s cold and smells like rotting vegetables most of the time, so I don’t really blame him. “C’mon, I’ll protect you,” I say.

Just as I’m about to open the door, Sara pushes it open from the other side.

“Oh!” she says. “What are you doing here?”

Charlie reaches for her hand. “You cold,” he says, letting go.

“Well, yeah. It’s a refrigerator.”

Gil comes out behind her carrying a plastic bin full of sliced onions. Charlie points at his head and laughs.

“What?” he asks.

His hair is sticking straight up. Sara pats it down for him.

“We were just helping Patrick with dinner prep,” Sara says.

I look at her suspiciously. Since when does Sara ever help? “You’re supposed to be watching Charlie,” I say.

Sara picks him up, but he squirms to get down and hugs my legs. “Mona said she’d watch him for a bit.”

“Well she wasn’t,” I say.

“Oh, Fern, calm down. Everyone looks out for Charlie.”

“There are customers in the dining room waiting to order. They wanted to take our picture.”

She sighs. “All right, I’ll handle it.”

“Need help?” Gil asks her.

“No,” she says coldly. She leaves us standing there as she marches out to the dining room. Charlie runs after her.

As soon as Gil takes the cover off the onions, the smell is overpowering. I decide to escape through the back door before Sara can get me to take the ice-cream order. When I open the door, I nearly plow into my dad, who’s standing there talking to a tiny man wearing a Red Sox cap. He’s eating an ice-cream cone.

“Oh, hey, here’s my daughter Fern. One of the stars of the show,” my dad says, hugging me close to him.

The guy nods at me and licks his cone.

“So we could start with just the local stores,” my dad continues as if I’m not there. “And then we’ll move from there. We’ve got to start small. Make it hard to get. A specialty item. And maybe we could use a spot from the commercial on the label, you know? So people recognize it. Like I did with the truck. Did you see the truck out front?”