"Are you just traveling through?" the cook asked them.
"How come you changed your name, Cookie?" Dot asked him.
"Tony was easier to say than Dominic," he answered them, "and it still sounds Italian."
"You look awful, Cookie--you're as white as flour!" May told him.
"I don't get a lot of sunshine in the kitchen," the cook said.
"You look like you been hidin' under a rock," Dot said to him.
"How come you and Danny are so spooked to see us?" May asked him.
"They were always superior to us," Dot reminded her friend. "Even as a kid, you were a superior little snot," she said to Danny.
"Where are you living nowadays?" the cook asked them. He was hoping they lived close by--somewhere in Vermont, or in New York State--but he could tell by their accents, and by just looking at them, that they were still living in Coos County.
"Milan," May answered. "We see your pal Ketchum, from time to time."
"Not that Ketchum would say hello to us, or nothin'," Dot said. "You was all so superior--the three of you and the Injun!"
"Well ..." the cook began; his voice trailed away. "I have a lot to do, in the kitchen."
"First you was gonna put honey in the dough, and the next minute you wasn't. Then you changed your mind about it again, I guess," May said to him.
"That's right," the cook said.
"I'm havin' a look in the kitchen," Dot suddenly said. "I don't believe a fuckin' word these two are tellin' us. I'm gonna see for myself if Jane's still with him!" Neither Danny nor his dad did anything to stop her. May just waited with them while Dot went into the kitchen.
"There's the two waitresses, both of 'em cryin', and a young cook, and what looks like a busboy, and some kid doin' the dishes--no Injun," Dot announced, when she came back.
"Boy, do you look like you're puttin' your pecker somewhere you shouldn't, Cookie!" May told him. "You, too," she said to Danny. "You got a wife and kids, or anythin'?"
"No wife, no children," Danny told them--again, too quickly.
"Bullshit," Dot said. "I don't believe a fuckin' word!"
"And I suppose you're not bangin' anybody, either?" May asked the cook. He didn't answer her; he just kept looking at his son, Daniel. Their minds were racing far ahead of this moment in Avellino. How soon could they leave? Where would they go this time? How long before these bad old broads crossed paths with Carl, and what would they tell the cowboy when they ran into him? (Carl lived in Berlin; Ketchum lived in Errol. Milan was between them.)
"If you ask me, Cookie's humpin' our waitress--that older one," Dot said to May. "She's the one doin' most of the cryin'."
The cook just turned and walked back into the kitchen. "Tell them their dinners are on me, Daniel--free pizzas, free desserts," he said as he was leaving.
"You don't need to tell us--we heard him," May said to Danny.
"You coulda just been nice to us--glad to see us, or somethin'!" Dot called after the cook, but he was gone. "You don't hafta buy us supper, Cookie!" Dot hollered into the kitchen, but she didn't go after him.
May was putting money on Danny's table--too much money for their dinners, but Danny wouldn't try to stop her. "And we didn't even eat our pie and cobbler!" she said to the writer. May pointed to his notebook on the table. "What are you, the friggin' bookkeeper or somethin'? You keepin' the accounts, huh?"
"That's right," he told her.
"Fuck you and your dad," Dot told him.
"Cookie was always holier-than-thou, and you were always a holier-than-thou kid!" May said to him.
"Sorry," Danny said. He just wanted them to leave so that he could concentrate on all that he and his dad had to do, and how much or little time they had to do it--beginning with telling Ketchum.
Meanwhile, there was an unserved party of eight and another table with three astonished-looking couples. Everyone had been paying close attention to the confrontation, but it was over now. Dot and May were leaving. The women both gave Danny the finger as they went out the door. For a bewildering moment--it was almost as if the sawmill workers' wives weren't real, or they had never found their way to Avellino--the old ladies didn't appear to know which way to turn on Main Street. Then they must have remembered that they'd parked downhill, past the Latchis Theatre.