Harvesting the Heart Read Free

pleated
skirt—which, after all this time, hadn't lost its
industrial-strength folds. "I ain't gonna fight you if you say
you're eighteen, but you sure as hell look like some prep-school
kid," he said. He turned his back and let me change behind the
stainless-steel freezer, and then he showed me how to work the cash
register and he let me practice balancing plates up and down my arms.
"I don't know why I'm doin' this," he muttered, and then my
first customer came in.
    When
I look back on it, I realize now that of course Nicholas had to have
been my first customer. That's the way Fate works. At any rate, he
was the first person in the diner that morning, arriving even before
the two regular waitresses did. He folded himself—he was that
tall—into the booth farthest from the door and opened his copy
of the Globe. It
made a nice noise, like the rustle of leaves, and it smelled of fresh
ink. He did not speak to me the entire time I was serving him his
complimentary coffee, not even when I splashed some onto the Filene's
ad splayed across page three. When I came for his order, he said,
"Lionel knows." He did not look up at me as he said this.
When I brought his plate, he nodded. When he wanted more coffee, he
just lifted his cup, holding it suspended like a peace offering until
I came over to fill it. He did not turn toward the door when the
sleigh bells on its knob announced the arrival of Marvela and Doris,
the two regular waitresses, or any of the seven people who came for
breakfast while he was there.
    When
he finished, he lined his fork and his knife neatly across the edge
of the plate, the mark of someone with manners. He folded his paper
and left it in his booth for others to read. It was then that he
looked at me for the first time. He had the palest blue eyes I had
ever seen, and maybe it was only because of the contrast with his
dark hair, but it seemed I was just looking through this man and
seeing, behind him, the sky. "Why, Lionel," he said, "there
are laws that say you shouldn't hire kids until they're out of
diapers." He smiled at me, enough to let me know I shouldn't
take it personally, and then he left.
    Maybe
it was the strain of my first half hour as a waitress; maybe it was
the lack of sleep. I had no real reason. But I felt tears burning
behind my eyes, and determined not to cry in front of Doris and
Marvela, I went to bus his table. For a tip, he'd left ten cents. Ten
lousy cents. It was not a promising beginning. I sank down onto the
cracked banquette and rubbed my temples. I would not,
I told myself, start to cry. And then I looked up and saw that Lionel
had taped my portrait of him over the cash register. I stood, which
took all my strength, and pocketed my tip. I remembered the rolling
brogue of my father's voice telling me over and over again, Life
can turn on a dime.

    A
week after the worst day of my life, I had left home. I suppose I had
known all along that I was going to leave; I was just waiting until I
finished out the school term. I don't know why I bothered, since I
wasn't doing well anyway—I'd been too sick for the past three
months to really concentrate, and then all the absences started to
affect my grades. I suppose I needed to know that I could graduate if
I wanted to. I did just that, even with two D's, in physics and in
religion. I stood up with the rest of my class at Pope Pius High
School when Father Draher asked us to, I moved my tassel from right
to left, I kissed Sister Mary Margareta and Sister Althea and told
them that yes, I was planning to attend art school.
    I
wasn't that far off the mark, since the Rhode Island School of Design
had accepted me on my grades as a junior, which of course were
recorded before my life had started falling apart. I was certain that
my father had already paid part of the tuition for the fall, and even
as I was writing him the note that told him I was leaving, I wondered
if he'd be able to get it back.
    My
father is an inventor.