hair who called me "sugar" and my mother "darlin'." The cook was leaner than Jack Sprat, a poor endorsement for the food he was slapping together. Faded posters of meal platters, like the cole slaw, fries, and cheese surpriseâa Velveeta-impregnated hamburgerâplastered the walls. Country Carl's had such authentic atmosphere it seemed almost inauthentic.
My mother drank a cup of coffee while I gorged myself on a big plate of biscuits and gravy. I hadn't realized how long it had been since I'd had a genuine, mid-Missouri, cardiac-inducing breakfast.
"Disgusting, I know," I said.
"You're not eating well, are you? You look skinny."
"This won't exactly keep me skinny."
"The same thing happened to your father in Dallas. When he left Kansas he looked wonderful, but by March when I went out to join him in Texas, I swear he'd lost twenty pounds."
Alma brought the check, and I offered to pay the bill, but my mother wouldn't allow it. "So tell me about Thea," she said, calculating fifteen percent of the $6.50 total on the back of the check, an annoying and stingy habit she had.
"What's to tell? I still haven't seen her."
"But you will see her, won't you? She's moved to St. Louis to be near you, you realize."
I rolled my eyes. "St. Louis University has a very good hospital. It's cheap and close to home," I said. "I don't need the guilt trip, Mother. You know she didn't move there for me."
"But you've told me yourself that there's only one perfect person for everyone, Gordie." She slipped her pen into her purse. "Don't you still believe that?"
"I don't know."
"Of course you do. Your father was the one perfect person for me. I never had a doubt about that." She looked at me steadily. "Have you ever thought that Thea believes
you
are that one person?"
I slid out of the booth and put my jacket on. "I guess you never know," I said.
After breakfast, she dropped me off at the house, saying she needed to do a few things at the office and would be back shortly. I watched her drive off wondering why she was going to work when we had planned to spend the day together.
As it turned out, her leaving was completely in character. My mother loved nothing more than a dramatic presentation, and now I saw sitting on my bedroom desk a box marked "CharlieâNavy, 1959â1962." It was overflowing with yellowed notes and letters, correspondence I had never known existed. I couldn't help feeling like a voyeur, but it was clear that my mother had wanted to share them, to urge me in her odd way toward Thea, and to acknowledge that she thought my life was about to take off.
My parents had first met in 1958 in Columbia, where my father was finishing his degree in history. He hadn't known much about the journalism school until his final year, when he took a class in journalistic ethics that first sparked his interest in reporting. My mother, an actress and dancer at Stephens, a small liberal arts college in town, was three years younger than he.
I didn't know the particulars of their courtship. I had always considered it sacred ground, not for me to ask about, and my mother's stories dealt less with details than with the broader picture of their ideal romance. Still, I had always imagined that they met at my father's favorite bar, the Heidelberg, since closed down. The bar had been a block from the Stephens College Theater, and my mother had told me that she used to go there for cast parties after a show. I had always assumed that my father had been instantly smitten, had probably glimpsed her across the bar still playing the role of Maggie the Cat. And my mother, in turn, would have been drawn to this tall, clean-cut soon-to-be-graduate who could transform a room with a phrase. Theirs was an uncommon union, and when my father left for the Navy, my mother staying behind to finish her degree, their devotion to each other solidified all the more.
My father's telegrams and postcards were short and considered, nothing wasted, as though
My mother drank a cup of coffee while I gorged myself on a big plate of biscuits and gravy. I hadn't realized how long it had been since I'd had a genuine, mid-Missouri, cardiac-inducing breakfast.
"Disgusting, I know," I said.
"You're not eating well, are you? You look skinny."
"This won't exactly keep me skinny."
"The same thing happened to your father in Dallas. When he left Kansas he looked wonderful, but by March when I went out to join him in Texas, I swear he'd lost twenty pounds."
Alma brought the check, and I offered to pay the bill, but my mother wouldn't allow it. "So tell me about Thea," she said, calculating fifteen percent of the $6.50 total on the back of the check, an annoying and stingy habit she had.
"What's to tell? I still haven't seen her."
"But you will see her, won't you? She's moved to St. Louis to be near you, you realize."
I rolled my eyes. "St. Louis University has a very good hospital. It's cheap and close to home," I said. "I don't need the guilt trip, Mother. You know she didn't move there for me."
"But you've told me yourself that there's only one perfect person for everyone, Gordie." She slipped her pen into her purse. "Don't you still believe that?"
"I don't know."
"Of course you do. Your father was the one perfect person for me. I never had a doubt about that." She looked at me steadily. "Have you ever thought that Thea believes
you
are that one person?"
I slid out of the booth and put my jacket on. "I guess you never know," I said.
After breakfast, she dropped me off at the house, saying she needed to do a few things at the office and would be back shortly. I watched her drive off wondering why she was going to work when we had planned to spend the day together.
As it turned out, her leaving was completely in character. My mother loved nothing more than a dramatic presentation, and now I saw sitting on my bedroom desk a box marked "CharlieâNavy, 1959â1962." It was overflowing with yellowed notes and letters, correspondence I had never known existed. I couldn't help feeling like a voyeur, but it was clear that my mother had wanted to share them, to urge me in her odd way toward Thea, and to acknowledge that she thought my life was about to take off.
My parents had first met in 1958 in Columbia, where my father was finishing his degree in history. He hadn't known much about the journalism school until his final year, when he took a class in journalistic ethics that first sparked his interest in reporting. My mother, an actress and dancer at Stephens, a small liberal arts college in town, was three years younger than he.
I didn't know the particulars of their courtship. I had always considered it sacred ground, not for me to ask about, and my mother's stories dealt less with details than with the broader picture of their ideal romance. Still, I had always imagined that they met at my father's favorite bar, the Heidelberg, since closed down. The bar had been a block from the Stephens College Theater, and my mother had told me that she used to go there for cast parties after a show. I had always assumed that my father had been instantly smitten, had probably glimpsed her across the bar still playing the role of Maggie the Cat. And my mother, in turn, would have been drawn to this tall, clean-cut soon-to-be-graduate who could transform a room with a phrase. Theirs was an uncommon union, and when my father left for the Navy, my mother staying behind to finish her degree, their devotion to each other solidified all the more.
My father's telegrams and postcards were short and considered, nothing wasted, as though
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