Mister Sandman by Barbara Gowdy Page B

apple pie à la mode. And then she remembered that she was next door to where they had the best apple pie she had ever tasted! Her father smiled and said, “Oh, I get it, you were pulling my leg.” With his finger he wiped away the saliva at the corner of her mouth.
    It was a Thursday morning. Phys. ed., math, chemistry—all her worst subjects were on Thursday morning. So she was in no hurry. She ordered two pieces of pie and a glass of chocolate milk, using up her whole allowance. She was just digging in when a huge man with nostrils the size of quarters sat beside her at the counter and extended a pack of Lucky Strikes. “No, thank you,” she said, “I don’t smoke,” and he said in a Southern accent, “I’m with you a hundred percent, stunts your growth.”
    She glanced at him. He winked. She looked down but couldn’t help smiling. Stunts your growth, she thought. That was a good one.
    He pocketed the cigarettes and withdrew a cigar, turning to the woman on his other side for a light. Then he turned back to Sonja and stared at her. After a few minutes he said, “You know who you look like? Elizabeth Taylor. I’ll bet folks tell you that all the time. I’ll bet folks stop you on the street for your autograph.”
    She laughed. “Every day and twice on Sundays.” She knew that she looked nothing like Elizabeth Taylor.
    “Shoot,” he said. “Elizabeth Taylor.” He sat there staring until she wondered if he thought she
was
Elizabeth Taylor. She wondered if he was a mental case. She gave him another quick glance.
    “You’re of Greek origin, aren’t you?” he said.
    She shook her head.
    “If you were, folks would say you were Aphrodite. Know who she was?”
    “No.” Looking straight at her pie.
    “Goddess of love, beauty and fertility. Daughter of Zeus.”
    At this point the waitress came over, but he waved her away, saying he didn’t need food, he was feasting his eyes. Sonja ate steadily and tried to ignore him and his cigar smoke. She tried to remember what fertility meant. She knew it was rude. Another few minutes passed and then he tapped a finger on the cover of her geography notebook and drawled. “Soncha.” He traced the letters with a ridged, yellow fingernail. “Soncha, now there’s a classy name. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Soncha.”
    “Sonja,” she couldn’t help correcting.
    “Sonja.” He nodded. “Sonja. As in I wanya, Sonja?”
    She let out an embarrassed laugh. “No,” she murmured.
    “You know what you can call me?”
    She started eating faster, shovelling in the last forkfuls.
    “Take a guess.”
    She sighed, flustered.
    “Go ahead, guess.”
    “Red?” she tried with her mouth full. He had red hair.
    “Try again.”
    She swallowed. Scanned him sidelong. “Stretch?”
    “Yours,” he said. “You can call me yours.” He set his cigar in the ashtray and wrested her hand from her glass. She had anidea that he was going to perform a magic trick, the one where a coin suddenly appears in your palm. “I bet this is as soft as beeswax,” he said. He balled up her hands between his. “Mmm, darlin’,” he said.
    She wondered what to do. She didn’t want to be rude. She didn’t want to upset him and make him snap. His hands were the size of baseball gloves, quite pale. By comparison her hand was a little clump of brown bread dough he was working. When he began to pull on her fingers, she tried to tug away, and he gave her a heavy-lidded, broken-down look.
    “I’m not allowed to date yet,” she said. It was true, although up until now it had been beside the point. She tugged at her hand again but he folded it in both of his and brought his cupped hands to his lips.
    “Well, then, how about we just be close friends,” he said.
    To get rid of him she agreed to walk with him as far as the corner. He said, “It’s a deal,” slapping the counter with both hands and coming to his feet. He was even taller than she’d thought, his black boots long and pointed,