Free The Best of Nancy Kress by Nancy Kress Page A

fresh, sir,” I say, experimental-like, just to see what he’ll say next. And it’s the truth—the salad is left over from yesterday. But the guy answers like I asked something else.
    “What is your name?” he says, so polite I know he’s really curious and not trying to start anything. And what could he start anyway, blue and with those hands? Still, you never know.
    “Sally,” I say, “Sally Gourley.”
    “I am John,” he says, and makes that movement again with his eyes. All of a sudden it tickles me—“John!” For this blue guy! So I laugh, and right away I feel sorry, like I might have hurt his feelings or something. How could you tell?
    “Hey, I’m sorry,” I say, and he takes off his hat. He does it real slow, like taking off the hat is important and means something, but all there is underneath is a bald blue head. Nothing weird like with the hands.
    “Do not apologize,” John says. “I have another name, of course, but in my own language.”
    “What is it?” I say, bold as brass, because all of a sudden I picture myself telling all this to my sister Mary Ellen and her listening real hard.
    John makes some noises with his mouth, and I feel my own mouth open because it’s not a word he says at all, it’s a beautiful sound, like a bird call only sadder. It’s just that I wasn’t expecting it, that beautiful sound right here in Charlie’s diner. It surprised me, coming out of that bald blue head. That’s all it was: surprise.
    I don’t say anything. John looks at me and says, “It has a meaning that can be translated. It means—” but before he can say what it means Charlie comes charging out of the kitchen, Kathy right behind him. He’s still got the racing form in one hand, like he’s been studying the Trifecta, and he pushes right up against the booth and looks red and furious. Then I see the old couple scuttling out the door, their jackets clutched to their fronts, and the chocolate pie half-eaten on their plates. I see they’re going to stiff me for the check, but before I can stop them Charlie grabs my arm and squeezes so hard his nails slice into my skin.
    “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he says right to me. Not so much as a look at John, but Kathy can’t stop looking and her fist is pushed up to her mouth.
    I drag my arm away and rub it. Once I saw Charlie push his wife so hard she went down and hit her head and had to have four stitches. It was me that drove her to the emergency room.
    Charlie says, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
    “I’m serving my table. He wants a salad. Large.” I can’t remember if John said a large or a small salad, but I figure a large order would make Charlie feel better. But Charlie don’t want to feel better.
    “You get him out of here,” Charlie hisses. He still doesn’t look at John. “You hear me, Sally? You get him out. The government says I gotta serve spics and niggers but it don’t say I gotta serve him!”
    I look at John. He’s putting on his hat, ramming it onto his bald head, and half standing in the booth. He can’t get out because Charlie and me are both in the way. I expect John to look mad or upset, but except that he’s holding the muscles of his face in some different way I can’t see any change of expression. But I figure he’s got to feel something bad, and all of a sudden I’m mad at Charlie, who’s a bully and who’s got the feelings of a scumbag. I open my mouth to tell him so, plus one or two other little things I been saving up, when the door flies open and in bursts four men, and damn if they aren’t all wearing hats like Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca . As soon as the first guy sees John, his walk changes and he comes over slower but more purposeful-like, and then he’s talking to John and Charlie in a sincere voice like a TV anchorman giving out the news.
    I see the situation now belongs to him, so I go back to the catsup bottles. I’m still plenty burned though, about