Coasters. Gerald Duff

over his shoulder toward Charlie McPhee who was pouring the last of the mixture from the blender into his and Hazel’s glasses.

      “That was the very same philosophy of this grouper,” he said and turned back to widen his first cut. “It’s probably tattooed somewhere on him if you look close enough.”

      Later around the table in the dining room, Charlie McPhee pointed out to Waylon how Hazel Boles used her knife and fork and explained that it was the English way to eat.

      “See how she does?” he said. “Fork in her left hand, upside down, and knife in her right to push stuff onto the fork. Eat some of those peas and then a bite of grouper for him, Hazel.”

      “Charlie, dear,” Hazel said after finishing the bite in her mouth, “eating one’s dinner is not supposed to be a demonstration.”

      “I know, I know. I just think it’s real skillful the way you handle that fork upside down and backwards. I’ve tried, and I know it’s not a picnic. Not everybody can do it.”

      “She’s right, Dad,” Waylon said. “Knowing somebody’s watching you do something’s real stressful. I’ll just keep looking at my own plate, but I’ll sneak a peek at Hazel when she’s not noticing.”

      “You are the soul of courtesy, Waylon,” Hazel said and tapped the back of his hand with the tips of her fingers. The way the touch felt reminded Waylon of something, but he couldn’t figure out just what. A turkey feather, maybe, or the soft part of a cat’s paw?

      “You’ve been here since the end of the war, Dad tells me,” Waylon said and took another bite of broiled grouper.

      “I’m not that aged now, Mister McPhee,” she said, cocking her head and giving Charlie an arch look. “I came to the States in 1950, well after the war was over.”

      “Ever go back?” Waylon said.

      “Not for donkey’s years. Only one sister left alive there now. All my connections are here, and I’ve become quite the Texan.”

      “I can testify to that,” Charlie said proudly. “You ought to see the western way Hazel’s decorated the living room of her house, Son.”

      “Just a cacti motif, really,” Hazel said. “More Sante Fe style than western, actually. Earth tones, pottery, the odd Navajo blanket.”

      “Sounds nice,” Waylon said, noticing that Hazel was using her knife and fork now like everybody else would in the Lone Star State, slicing at her grouper and putting it seriously away, her mouth as much in need of a napkin as his father’s was.

      “Tell Waylon,” Charlie said and paused to take a drink of the white wine he had opened for himself and Hazel, Waylon having stayed with beer for the meal, “why you been feeling so cheered up for the last couple of days.”

      “During dinner?” Hazel said. “I’m sure it can wait.”

      “No, no, tell him,” Charlie said. “It won’t bother Waylon a bit.”

      Oh, no, Waylon told himself, here it is the first time I’ve met Charlie’s lady friend, and I’ve already let Terry and Beth down in my role as house spy. The old man’s popped the question to her before I got a single chance to report developments to headquarters. They’ll say I let it happen.

      “It’s a long story,” Hazel said to Waylon, looking down at her plate to butter a roll, “and I won’t subject you to all of it. Let’s just say it’s come to a satisfactory ending.”

      “Oh,” Waylon said. “Good.”

      “It’s her daughter,” Charlie announced. “Her daughter’s boyfriend, actually. Go ahead and tell him, Hazel.”

      “He’s been quite a burden, has Dwayne,” Hazel began. “In trouble with the authorities constantly. Abusive to Louise. Unemployed as a way of life. An alcoholic and a drug abuser. The catalogue of his shortcomings goes on and on.”

      “Sounds like he’s from Port Neches,” Waylon said.

      “Pardon?” Hazel said. “No, Dwayne’s from Vidor.”

      “He’s not from anywhere now,” Charlie McPhee chortled. “He’s dead.”

      “Dead?” Waylon said, pausing with his fork halfway to his mouth. “Did your daughter shoot him?”

      “No, no, hardly,” Hazel said. “Louise is such a shy girl. Always too agreeable for her own good by half. And she’s very small, slight even.” Hazel gave Waylon an appraising look over the bite of grouper perched on her fork. “About your size, I should judge. Or only a bit under your height.”

      “I bet she’s strong, though,” Waylon said. “Wiry.”

      “Yes,” Hazel said, drawing the word out for a space and then popping the bite of grouper into her mouth. “I suppose.”

      “What killed old Dwayne, then?” Waylon asked. “Car wreck? That gets a lot of Vidor natives.”

      “You’re right the first time, Son, about the method,” Charlie said. “They shot him stone-dead in Beaumont night before last.”

      “Who?”

      “The man with the shotgun in the Premier Parts warehouse Dwayne was breaking into there just off of Railroad Avenue.”

      “A shotgun,” Waylon said, reaching for his glass of beer. “A bad way to go, even for a man from Vidor named Dwayne.”

      “You’ve seen these signs, haven’t you, Waylon?” Charlie said, “up in windows of places, saying something like ‘This store guarded by shotgun three nights a week. You guess which ones.’ Well, old Dwayne, he guessed wrong.”

      “He would always work on his cars,” Hazel said. “He would spend his last cent on something shiny to attach to the motor, even when the car was in perfectly good running order.”

      “Car nut,” Charlie pronounced. “You know the type. Had to have everything new that comes out for his engine. Everything chromed.”

      “You mean he was stealing a part for his car when they shotgunned him?’

      “No, dear,” Hazel said, touching Waylon’s hand again in that way which reminded him of something powerful disguising itself as weak: a big man with a limp handshake? a thin cable with a steel wire inside? “Dwayne was breaking into that store to take away auto parts for resale,” Hazel went on. “I’m quite certain of that. That was his livelihood.”

      “So your daughter’s troubles with her boyfriend are over, then,” Waylon said. “A happy ending, like you said.”

      “One that’s final, at least,” Hazel said. “Oh, dear, I’m eating so much of this wonderful fresh fish.”

      “Is Louise happy about it, too?” Waylon asked. “Must’ve been a shock to her about old Dwayne.”

      “She’ll get over it,” Charlie said. “Life goes on after somebody dies. If you’re alive, you got to go on living. That’s the way to look at it. Life is a river. It keeps on flowing.”

      “Yeah, I guess so,” Waylon said. “Right up to the point where they put the shotgun to you.”

      “You ought to’ve heard how Hazel acted when she read about Dwayne in the Port Arthur Enterprise yesterday morning,” Charlie said fondly, smiling across the table toward the woman loading up a fork with peas and stove-top stuffing. “She just hollered, didn’t you, Sugar? I thought she had hit the lottery jackpot.”

      “I was surprised and delighted,” Hazel said, transporting the forkload toward her mouth. “I’ll grant you that.”

      “There’s a last piece of that grouper filet left,” Waylon said and pushed back his chair to head for the kitchen. “You have to eat fish while it’s hot to get it at its best, Mrs. Boles.”

      “Do