Read All We Had for Free Online

and made sure the waitress could see me.
    A man peered out the service window as the waitress pointed us out to him. He nodded his head, and, fishing her keys out of her apron, the waitress headed for the door.
    â€œOh, thank Christ,” my mother said when the door opened. “We’ve been driving for hours .”
    â€œDon’t sweat it, honey,” the waitress said, holding the door open for us. “Just follow me.”
    Up close the waitress was taller than she’d first seemed. Her large hands swung back and forth by her side like a monkey’s. Her shoulders were broad and her voice was deep. Her hair was uniformly blonde, stiff, and shoulder length with a perfect flip curl. She swayed her hips exaggeratedly, the way you would when you were only pretending to have them. And her feet were huge. You should have seen her red mules—they were like boats.
    We slid into a booth by the window and I looked up at her. Her eyes were framed by enormous fake lashes that curled up at the corners like a cat’s. And she also had a mustache—not the kind you’d bleach to hide. Hers was a deliberate and grand handlebar with the tips waxed up into an elaborate set of curls.
    â€œWe normally close at eleven.” She slid a couple of menus across the table. “But lucky for you the boss is a real mensch.”
    â€œOh my God, are you Jewish?” I asked excitedly, recognizing the Yiddish. I loved the Jewish people. They were the only sympathetic characters in the Bible and Yiddish was my favorite language. Fark akt and farklemt , I mean, who couldn’t love those words? Just saying them was fun. “ Farkakt ! ” “ Farklemt ! ” “ Farkakt ! ” “ Farklemt ! ” If I could, I’d make Marco Polo a ­Yiddish game.
    The waitress gasped. She drew her big hand delicately to her chest and stooped in toward us. “Is it that obvious?” she whispered, and without waiting for an answer, she swished off.
    When the waitress was out of earshot, my mother leaned across the table and widened her eyes. “Oh my God, that’s a man,” she whispered.
    â€œI know,” I whispered back. It was obvious.
    â€œI don’t think she’s had the surgery, though, do you?”
    My mother loved watching surgeries on TV. She’d settle for gastric bypasses, but sex-change operations were her favorite.
    She started riffling through her purse. I knew before she found it that she was looking for her lipstick. My mother was excited, and there was just something about the act of moving the stick of color across her lips that soothed her.
    â€œI have way too much crap in this bag,” she complained.
    â€œDon’t you just hate that?” the waitress said.
    Neither one of us had noticed, but she’d returned and was filling up our water glasses. When she was done, she put the pitcher down.
    â€œBy the way,” she said, turning toward my mother, “I love the cool way you do your makeup.” She cocked her head and held her hands up like a picture frame. “It really works.”
    For the first time since the fitful application of her makeup, I realized my mother’s face was a total mess. Misshapen ovals of rouge floated unevenly on her cheeks and her mascara was all over the place. She’d missed the outline of her lips with her lipstick, so it seemed as if she had two sets instead of one. She looked like a bad Picasso painting, and in my opinion, even his good ones sucked.
    The waitress stood waiting for my mother to respond. Thetwo of them looked as if they’d just come off the same vaudeville act. My mother sat speechless. She still wasn’t sure what to make of her.
    â€œGoodness,” the waitress finally said, clutching her chest. “Where are my manners?” She wiped her big hand on her apron and extended it toward us. “Allow me to introduce myself.” Daintily and limply, she shook my hand