“Are you okay?” she’d asked.
“It’s my birthday,” he said, and started to cry harder.
“What are you, twenty-five? That’s not that old!”
He’d made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “I’m not crying because I’m getting older,” he said, his voice dropping. “I’m crying because those people? The ones I seated at table seven? They’re my mom and dad.”
It was Reese who’d told her the rest of the story: how Mrs. Halliwell had come home from work unexpectedly to find fifteen-year-old Ryan wearing one of her dresses. How she and her husband had given him an ultimatum, to renounce his perversions, attend a special summer camp for boys with his particular problem, or leave their home.
“So he left?”
“He did. Couch-surfed and stayed with friends until he finished high school, and then moved out here. His parents still don’t speak to him. I guess he’s been excommunicated from whatever church they attend, and he’s got two older brothers who act like he’s dead. But they come for dinner, every year, on Ryan’s birthday. They won’t speak to him, but they leave five hundred dollars on the table when they go.”
“God, that’s awful.” Diana couldn’t imagine how it would feel if her own parents had behaved that way toward her.
“It’s a sad old world,” Reese agreed.
The next morning, Diana got to Provincetown an hour early. She bought Ryan a birthday card at Adams Pharmacy, which had creaky wooden floors and smelled like camphor and menthol cigarettes, and, after carefully perusing the offerings of several different boutiques, a pair of cashmere socks. “They’re like hugs for your feet,” she told him.
“Oh, thank you, baby,” he’d said, and hugged her tight. After that, Ryan was her champion. The night she’d dropped a tray of glasses and the whole restaurant had applauded, he’d hurried to her side. “Show’s over,” he announced, with his hands on his hips, and he’d helped her sweep up the mess. He’d slip her grease-spotted paper bags full of day-old malasadas and croissants from the Portuguese Bakery, where his roommate worked, and seat the best tippers in her section.
As the weeks went by, Diana acquired a few regulars. A drag queen who performed under the name Heavy Flo （real name: Phil Amoroso） would make it a point to sit in her section and greet her with “How is my beautiful girl?” Dora Fitzsimmons, a taciturn woman with frizzy gray hair who ran a sailing camp in the West End, would come in every Tuesday at five o’clock precisely and order a burger, well-done, served with a pile of curly fries. Curly fries weren’t on the Abbey’s menu. “But they served them when this place was still D’Amico’s,” Reese explained. That had been almost twenty years previously, but the chef kept a bag of fries in the freezer, and would throw two handfuls into the deep fryer for Dora. Dora never said anything to Diana, other than “please” and “thank you,” once she’d given her order. She’d greet the bartenders, and give Reese a nod, then read the Provincetown Banner while she ate her dinner. She’d leave without a word of farewell, but there would always be a ten-dollar bill under her water glass.
Almost everyone was nice. But when the staff gathered at the bar at the end of the night to divvy up the tips, when shots were poured and plans were made to go to the Crown & Anchor for Jonathan’s singalong, or to meet at the Boatslip for drinks, Diana would say good night and return to her cottage, to read for an hour or two, then fall asleep.
On a sunny Monday morning in October, she drove down to the dog shelter in Dennis. “I’m just looking,” she told the woman behind the desk, who gave a knowing nod. “Take y’ time,” she said. Diana walked along the row of cages, looking into pair after pair of beseeching eyes. There were dogs that jumped, dogs that licked, dogs that whined as they nudged at her hand with their wet noses. At the very end of the corridor, she found a scrawny, shivering dog with a patchy white coat who just huddled in the corner of her pen and looked at Diana, too scared to even approach.
Diana crouched down with a bit of Pupperoni in her hand, and extended the treat through the bars. She waited, patiently, as the dog regarded her. “It’s okay,” Diana said. “I won’t hurt you.” Finally, she set the treat on the floor and the dog, trembling all over, made her way to the front of the cage. She took the treat in her mouth and held it there, looking up at Diana.