An Officer and His Gentleman by Ryan Field Page A

started to get busy after eleven that morning, which was typical for a Saturday. Betty Shack stopped in for her usual banana and told Chance her family was coming up from West Orange for a visit on Sunday; and that she'd be back for some nice lean pastrami, Swiss cheese and a loaf of rye on Sunday morning. When she noticed the special for the day was buffalo chicken spread, she pressed her hand to her throat and said, "Oh my, I'll take one of those, too, dearie. My grandson loves the buffalo chicken wings and it might be gone by tomorrow." Stanley Weissman, the owner of the only gas station in town, stopped in for his usual black coffee and tuna hoagie—he pronounced it tuner hoagie —and he walked by the large wooden bowl with the black-and-white striped cloth and saw a sign that read "Buffalo Chicken Spread," he took two. "We're having people over tonight and this looks like a good appetizer. My wife will love this, I'm telling you." he said.
When Dan returned at around one in the afternoon with empty squirrel traps and orange spray paint on the tips of his fingers and saw that there were only three small containers of buffalo chicken spread left, he blinked a couple of times and shook his head. And then, when an unfamiliar face—probably a weekender—reached past his shoulder and picked up two containers without even looking at the price, he smiled so wide you could see the pink plastic gums on his dentures. He looked over at Chance, who was slicing American cheese for Jane Baldwin from the library, and said, "Hey, you , they like-a this buffalo chicken thing here. We might make this every day from now on."
Chance just smiled and continued waiting on his customer. He knew he wouldn't make it again for at least another two weeks, probably a month. That was what was wrong with the old man, as far as he was concerned. He didn't understand food, the love of food, or how people bought food. They wanted the buffalo chicken spread mainly because it had been a special, something different from the humdrum boiled ham and provolone cheese they normally bought. This was exotic compared to their typical onion dip and cream cheese spread and jarred salsa; it was a way to experiment safely with something new and not have to make too much of an investment, either emotionally or financially.
When Mrs. Dolan, the widow from the Bronx, came in for a pound of potato salad around three that afternoon, Dan was near the deli counter organizing bags of pasta and Chance was wiping the counter down for the next batch of customers. Customers tended to come in groups for some reason, and then you'd have fifteen or twenty minutes of nothing. Mrs. Dolan looked at Chance and smiled, and it came rushing back that she'd been the woman walking with her grandchildren he'd seen the previous night at the Island. She asked for her potato salad and then turned toward Dan and said, "Did Chance tell you he saw me last night? My grandchildren dragged me all over The Island until my feet felt like they were going to fall off." She slumped forward and hunched her shoulders in an overly dramatic gesture. When she smiled, there was a slight overbite.
Chance froze for a moment. He didn't want Dan to find out about Brody being with them at The Island. But Mrs. Dolan was one of those talk-too-much types. Why couldn't she just buy her potato salad and leave?
"Ah, you poor thing," Dan said. He liked Mrs. Dolan, a widow, and tended to flirt a little with her so people would get the impression he was straight. But behind her back, he always shook his head and laughed at her. "Why on earth would a woman alone eat two pounds of potato salad every week?" he would ask Chance rhetorically, throwing his hands in the air. "No wonder she had such a fat ass, and that camel toe between her legs." Mrs. Dolan tended to wear tight stretch pants made of polyester and nylon and she pulled them up too high.
But now, Mrs. Dolan turned to Chance and asked, "And who was that good-looking