“IS IT OKAY if I ask a question?” asked Alice.
“Sure,” I said. “Questions are encouraged.”
“Two questions, really.”
“Okay.”
“Was there a clam salad sandwich?”
Albertine, Suki, and I burst out laughing.
“No,” I said, “but there is now,” and Suki produced, from the bar refrigerator, a platter of canape-sized clam salad sandwiches. We all tried them, at least a bite, and I discovered that clam salad was as revolting a concoction as I had imagined it would be.
“Next question?” I said to Alice.
She spread her sandwich open, looked at the mix inside, and grimaced. “Is this one of those things — you know — where you say there are two kinds of people? People who like clams and people who don’t?”
“Hmm. I’m not sure that I — ”
“So the people who like clams would be the ones who like a laugh,” said Lou.
“And the ones who do not ‘kare’ for clams are the ones with no sense of humor,” said Alice.
“You’re either a Baldy or a Bob,” said Lou. “Is that it?”
“Maybe,” I said. “Why not?”
ON THE WAY UPSTAIRS, I noticed all the stains, nicks, gouges, and smudges I’d missed when I was touching up, and with every flaw I noticed, the way up the stairs became harder. Maybe the hotel was beyond patching and touching up, and maybe my life was just as shabby, stained, and leaky as this old hotel — and beyond mending.
“You missed a few spots,” said Albertine.
“It’s a job for Sisyphus,” I said, “but I’ll give it another shot tomorrow.” Then I had a thought. “Speaking of Sisyphean tasks,” I said, “are we — are we paying Grumpy Cluck?”
“What? Who?”
“Clark. ‘Call me Cluck,’ didn’t he tell you that?”
“No.”
“His granddaughter calls him Grumpy Cluck, and he’s decided that he likes it. Anyway, he’s working with the Tinkers — did you know that?”
“Oh, yeah,” she said, laughing, shrugging. “We’re not paying him. He’s paying us, just like any other guest. He’s working because — I don’t know — he says he likes it.”
I lay there for a moment trying to make sense of Grumpy Cluck, but I couldn’t. Finally, I asked, “Al? Does that make him a Bob or a Baldy?”
“I am much too tired to think about that,” she said. “I’m thinking about Manhattan.”
[to be continued]
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