Page 52 of Wham Line
Larry gave a little jump and cracked his head on the shark’s teeth.
By that point, my legs had started working again, and I crossed the dining room.Whatever I’d planned to say flew out the window, and instead, I asked, “What’s going on here?”
“We’re taking his picture,” Millie explained.“It’s for his TV SHOW!”
With a frown, Larry said, “I thought you said you were from the tourist bureau.”
“Mr.Lizard,” I said, “I’m sorry to interrupt, but could I talk to you?”
“Gladly—” Larry began.
My phone buzzed.I glanced at it, and Bobby’s name showed on the screen.I dismissed the call.
Larry was extricating himself from the shark cutout, ignoring Millie’s protests and Keme’s silent threats.He looked like he was about to commit suicide by prawn if someone didn’t rescue him.
I said a few words that good little fishermen don’t say out loud.
Larry’s eyebrows shot up until his bristly black hair looked like it was about to pop off his head.
“Uh—I mean—hi, Millie.Hi, Keme.Good bumping into you, or something like that.”
“Something like that?”Keme asked.
“I need to chat with Larry now, so why don’t you guys go, um, play?”
Keme cracked his neck.(It’s surprisingly terrifying if you’ve never heard an adolescent mini-Hulk do it.) Then he said, “Go play?”
But Millie took his hand and said, “Okay!Bye, Dash!Bye, Mr.Lizard!”
And they were gone.
Larry and I moved over to a two-top where a half-finished captain’s platter was growing cold.He had the slightly concussed look of someone who has recently had their first sustained interaction with Millie.The lines around his mouth and eyes seemed deeper, and the sallow cast of his skin was even more pronounced.He took a notebook out of his pocket and said, “Do you think she’d let me interview her?”
It took me a moment to process that.“Millie?”
“We’d have to pretend it’s random, of course.”He started writing.“She’s just another patron, and I happen to ask her how her food is.”
“That depends,” I said.“How much time do you have?And how sensitive are the microphones?”
He didn’t answer and kept scribbling.I wasn’t an expert at reading upside down, but he only wrote four words, and they said,Blonde girl – IT factor.
I didn’t know a lot of things about my future.But I did know that if Millie was ever on an episode ofLive with Larry Lizard, I’d TiVo the episode.Although TiVo wasn’t really a thing.I’d DVR it.I’d buy the collectible DVD.Something.The wordscircus firecame to mind.
That triggered another thought—and a possible way to get to one of the questions I wanted to ask.So, I said, “How’s the food?”
Larry glanced over at the half-finished captain’s platter.“The breading is crisp and flavorful.Not too oily.Everything tastes fresh; sometimes people cheap out because they figure that frying it will cover up the quality, but you can’t get away with that when you have a display case.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, sometimes people use fish that’s not quite as fresh, for example.”Something in my expression made him say, “When you buy fish, you want to watch for certain things: firm flesh, the right color, mild smell.If it’s fried, you can’t tell as easily.You want to know the real secret, though?The eyes.You want them to be clear and shiny.”
“Uh huh,” I said.I decided not to tell Larry my personal policy of not looking at the eyes of anything I was going to eat.“Did you learn that when you worked in a restaurant?”
“You pick up all sorts of things in this job,” he said absently as he jotted something else in the notebook.
“But you did work in a restaurant, didn’t you?”
He looked up at me, intent now, although the words remained casual.“You go somewhere like Mizzenmast, and you’resupposedto know.That’s half of what they pay me for—there’s a class of people who want to be able to say that they went to a restaurant where the chef trained in Japan, for example.”
