Page 17 of If Looks Could Kill
“Thought you knew me,” he said, “when you saw me a moment ago.” He seemed mighty pleased with his own cleverness.
“I was just being polite.”
“I thank you, then.”
“There’s coffee here for a hundred people,” I told him. “You won’t lose out to any rush.”
“Mebbe there’ll be a rush,” he said, “for the friendly company.”
All right. I had his measure. He was just one of those flirtatious types. Always bantering, nothing real behind it. For some young males, I’ve observed, this is just their way of interacting with the world. I could read the story. The hair, the blue eyes. He’d been a pretty child, spoiled by his mother and getting his way his whole life, and then he immigrated here, cutting a wide swath with his accent, and now he believed all American females were putty in his Gaelic hands.
He’d lost the infernal toothpick. Without it, I found myself noticing his mouth. Expressive. Interesting teeth. The kind of mouth you just want towatch as it talks with and reacts to the world. It was easy to forget to pay attention to what it was saying. Or what you were doing.
“How about that coffee, then?” Mike said.
Right. A coffee. I busied myself with the spigot on the urn while he rocked back on his heels and regarded me with the expression of someone holding back a joke, with difficulty.
I poured the coffee. “Don’t you want to hear the preaching?”
He took the cup from my hands. “Hearing it just fine.” (Foine, may God help me.)
What did he want? Why didn’t he go sit?
A new thought occurred to me. “Did you know this was a Salvation Army meeting?” I asked. “Or did you just happen to hear the music?”
“I appreciate your faith in my intelligence,” he said. “The brass band dressed in blue was a clue. Specially the women, dressed like you and your friend—Pearl, wasn’t she?”
There it was. The way his Irish “r” curled around “Pearl” almost made me wish he’d keep talking about her.
“Well, welcome, then,” I said, “whether you meant to come or not.”
“Miss Tabitha,” he said, with mock severity (Tabither), “I only go where I mean to.”
He remembered my name, along with hers. A future politician, no doubt. Would probably end up running Tammany Hall someday.
“I saw you last night,” he said after a sip of coffee. “P’rhaps you didn’t recognize me.”
No point denying it. “I did.”
“I see,” he said. “Then there must’ve been some other reason why you didn’t say hello.” His eyes twinkled. “You and Miss Pearl were having quite the donnybrook, weren’t you?”
“Quite the what?”
“Going at it hammer and tongs.”
He would have to mention that, wouldn’t he? “She’s seated in the front row,” I told him, “hanging on Officer Laurier’s every word.”
He turned and looked. “So she is.” He turned back. “You’re not, though.”
I shrugged. “I’ve heard his story before.”
He grinned. “Front row’s full anyway,” he said. “But not the back. You could come and sit with me.”
Now he was the one being polite. But why not sit with him? I was only doing the work of salvation. Even a bartender who came to see Pearl’s curls might find his soul saved by accident.
I sat next to Mike for the rest of the sermon. A visiting husband-and-wife pair of Negro officers, the Sergeants Louis and Mary Woodroe of Philadelphia, told their story of conversion in song to accompaniment from Sergeant Mary on the guitar. Something about “saved my soul… put Jesus in control.” I can’t do justice to it, but it was catchy. They were immensely popular in the Army and had a regular touring circuit of chapters throughout the Northeast. I couldn’t help noticing that Mike enjoyed them particularly.
Captain Paddy got up after the Woodroes and talked about forgiveness and brotherly love until I was almost ready to lay down my quarrel with Pearl and try to be nicer.
