“Don’t listen to him,” Maisie interjected. “He loves to be a pest.”
Patrick kicked Maisie under the table, but he also couldn’t help but be impressed. If he sent these kids back to Connecticut with enough snappy comebacks to populate a screwball comedy, the summer would not be a waste. “Ignore her. She went to bed a sweet girl and work up a surly teenager. I’ve changed my mind. Could I actually have one of those?” He pointed to the Bloody Mary on the waiter’s tray. He back-pocketed his line about waving a tomato over the glass and having it be too much tomato juice, as he actually liked tomato juice.
“No problem. In fact, you can have this one.” And then in a hushed tone he added, “Looks like you need it.” The waiter placed the drink in front of Patrick and whisked the mimosa away.
“What is that?” Grant asked.
Patrick removed the olive and used the leafy celery stalk to muddle some horseradish at the bottom of his glass. “It’s a salad. Want one?”
“Gross.”
“That’s not a salad.”
“Sure it is. Celery. Olives. The tomatoes are a little runny.”
“Then let’s see you eat it with a fork.” Maisie crossed her arms defiantly while Grant helpfully offered his.
Patrick took a long sip of his drink and inventoried each ingredient as it slid down his throat—pepper, Tabasco, lemon juice, Worcestershire—easing into the burn. “You think this summer has been a nonstop thrill ride for me? That there haven’t been days when I had to sit on my hands so I wouldn’t grab your suitcases, stuff you in them, and put you on the next flight east? Well, guess again.”
“Then send us to live with Grandma and Grandpa!”
“I’ll send you to your room without any lupper.”
“I’m serious!”
“You don’t want to live with Grandma and Grandpa.”
“Why not?”
“Because they think Fox is news and raisins are food.” Patrick looked down at Grant, who was rearranging the sugar packets. “Do you want to live with Grandma and Grandpa?”
“Do they have a pool?”
“No. But they’re talking about getting one of those tubs for old people with a door you can walk through so you don’t slip and fall getting out.”
“Are they putting it outside?”
“No. In their bathroom.”
“Oh.” Grant was more than ready to move on. “Can I have a thinnamon roll?”
“They don’t have those here, you’re thinking of Koffi.”
“A donut, then.”
“No.”
“Can we thee the big dinosaurs?”
“We’ve seen them three times this summer.”
“I want to know if they’re okay.”
“They’re not okay, they’re extinct!” Patrick threw his arms up, exasperated. “You guys exhaust me, you know that? Can I have this. Can we do that. It’s not good for my skin.”
Maisie picked up a promotional card for a new breakfast sandwich with a braised short rib, while Grant put the finishing touches on the sugars. Patrick picked at the mesquite salt on the rim of his glass, wishing already that the sun was down so he could tick off one more day until Greg was free.
And then Maisie’s reedy voice broke the silence. “I hate you.”
Patrick froze. Maisie’s words were stark and unsettling, meek but with startling conviction; they sucked the air out of the restaurant. Patrick glanced around, wondering how others could breathe. He slid his feet back and forth under the table, trying desperately to get his footing, but the floors were a highly polished concrete and his feet comically flailed beneath him in Keatonesque fashion. Maisie’s outburst was the aftershock he’d been afraid of. He reached up and touched his head, seeing the sudden wisdom in wearing a bicycle helmet for protection. He silently counted to ten to avoid saying something he would later regret; now more than ever, he had to be the adult. “No one hates me. Except the New York Times, but they hate everyone from LA.” Back during the run of the show, they did five hundred eviscerating words on him that, to this day, still stung.
“I hate you.” Maisie repeated the charge.
“I’m not so fond of you right now, if we’re being honest.”
“I want to go home.”
“All right.” Patrick pushed his drink away from him and started to rise. As much as he wanted that Bloody Mary, there was no way he was going to enjoy it under duress.