Rabbit Redux by John Updike

bad and sensitive eyes his glasses are tinted lilac, focuses. His face breaks into the smile he must use at the close of a sale, a sly tuck in one corner of his lips making a dimple. He is a squarely marked-off man, Stavros, some inches shorter than Harry, some years younger, but with a natural reserve of potent gravity that gives him the presence and poise of an older person. His hairline is receding. His eyebrows go straight across. He moves deliberately, as if carrying something fragile within him; in his Madras checks and his rectangular thick hornrims and his deep squared sideburns he moves through the world with an air of having chosen it. His not having married, though he is in his thirties, adds to his quality of deliberation. Rabbit, when he sees him, always likes him more than he had intended to. He reminds him of the guys, close-set, slow, and never rattled, who were play-makers on the team. When Stavros, taking thought, moves around the obstacle of momentary indecision toward their booth, it is Harry who says, "Join us," though Janice, face downcast, has already slid over.
                Charlie speaks to Janice. "The whole caboodle. Beautiful."
                She says, "These two are being horrible."
                Rabbit says, "We can't read the menu."
                Nelson says, "Charlie, what's kalamaria? I want some."
                "No you don't. It's little like octopuses cooked in their own ink."
                "Ick," Nelson says.
                "Nelson," Janice says sharply.
                Rabbit says, "Sit yourself down, Charlie."
                "I don't want to butt in."
                "It'd be a favor. Hell."
                "Dad's being grumpy," Nelson confides.
                Janice impatiently pats the place beside her; Charlie sits down and asks her, "What does the kid like?"
                "Hamburgers," Janice moans, theatrically. She's become an actress suddenly, every gesture and intonation charged to carry across an implied distance.
                Charlie's squarish intent head is bowed above the menu.
                "Let's get him some keftedes. O.K., Nelson? Meatballs."
                "Not with tomatoey goo on them."
                "No goo, just the meat. A little mint. Mint's what's in Life Savers. O.K.?"
                "O.K."
                "You'll love 'em."
                But Rabbit feels the boy has been sold a slushy car. And he feels, with Stavros's broad shoulders next to Janice's, and the man's hands each sporting a chunky gold ring, that the table has taken a turn down a road Rabbit didn't choose. He and Nelson are in the back seat.
                Janice says to Stavros, "Charlie, why don't you order for all of us? We don't know what we're doing."
                Rabbit says, "I know what I'm doing. I'll order for myself. I want the" - he picks something off the menu at random - "the paidakia."
                "Paidakia," Stavros says. "I don't think so. It's marinated lamb, you need to order it the day before, for at least six."
                Nelson says, "Dad, the movie starts in forty minutes."
                Janice explains, "We're trying to get to see this silly space movie."
                Stavros nods as ifhe knows. There is a funny echo Rabbit's ears pick up. Things said between Janice and Stavros sound dead, duplicated. Of course they work together all day. Stavros tells them, "It's lousy."
                "Why is it lousy?" Nelson asks anxiously. There is a look his face gets, bloating his lips and slightly sucking his eyes back into their sockets, that hasn't changed since his infancy, when his bottle would go dry.
                Stavros relents. "Nellie, for you it'll be great. It's all toys. For me, it just wasn't sexy. I