The Rusty Old Minivan

Chapter 36

His fingers were still shaking as he handed the waitress the menu cards back. He hadn't said a word apart from a low hum in acceptance when Frank had suggested they order the same thing. Louis suspected he'd jumped on it before the waitress even had a chance to ask because he knew Louis wouldn't be able to speak. Not coherently, anyway.

The waitress went away and Frank and Louis sat in tense silence for a bit. Louis couldn't even bring himself to care. Couldn't even manage to look up, let alone forge any kind of small-talk.

Frank broke the ice, warily; "you sure you're all right, Louis?"

"Yeah, I'm - fine, fine, thanks," Louis answered robotically, and before Frank could give him the sceptical reply his expression was threatening, added, "you? You all right?"

Frank blinked. "Uhm - eh, yeah. Yeah, I'm good." He smiled, folding his napkin together and then unfolded it again, "I'm good," he repeated, just to keep the silence at bay.

"Good." Louis' foot, which was bopping up and down beyond his own control, accidentally kicked at Frank's. "Oh - sorry."

"S'all right," Frank said, with such soothing calmness in his voice that Louis felt a bit like a troubled kid at the school counsellor's office. "Didn't know if you noticed, but there was a bloke before, calling out for you. You didn't know him?"

Louis looked up, just to gauge Frank's expression. Just to see if he was really that clueless. He wasn't. He was just being nice.

Louis felt pathetic. Shaky and fragile and so small he might as well be invisible. He wished he were, so Frank wouldn't look at him like that, like he was something to be gently probed at, opened up on careful fingers before fixing.

"I knew him," Louis said, because he couldn't handle the pitying smile he'd get if he'd have told a blatant lie, "didn't want to talk to him."

"I could see that," Frank said, folding his napkin up again, straightening the crinkles and fixing the corners in meticulously, only to unravel the whole thing once again, "was he - I hope you don't mind me asking - an ex-boyfriend of sorts?"

Of sorts. Louis snorted. Out loud, unintentionally.

Frank chuckled. "Of sorts, then." He paused briefly, then, regrettably, continued on; "he looked quite upset; your ex-something of sorts."

"I didn't notice."

Frank ignored the lie, asking; "I take it that things didn't end very well between the two of you?"

Louis forced himself to look up again, slightly irritated. "You're very nosy tonight, Frank."

He laughed. "Just making conversation."

"I don't-"

The waitress arrived with their drinks. Both quieted down as she served them white wine and a few minutes of complimentary banter. She escaped when Frank began to look right on the verge of chatting the life and soul out of her, tapping her watch as a sort of excuse.

Frank turned back to Louis. He looked as though he were about to resume their previous conversation, so Louis jumped to his own rescue, blurting; "so, how come you picked me?"

"Picked you?" he echoed, frowning slightly, "- oh, you mean, for the take-over. Of the shop. Oh, yes, well - well, I believe we already had this conversation, but - well, you're just the right kind of bloke, I suppose. Remind me of my son, only he didn't much fancy the idea of owning a Fish'n'Chips shop, too unambitious, he said. He works as a phone-salesman now, doesn't strike me as very ambitious either, but, well... too each their own, I suppose."