Gloria arrived at Earl’s apartment right on time. When he opened the door and saw how she was fixed up, he was speechless. Gloria wore a purple dress, golden earrings dangling from her earlobes.
When she saw him, she glowed. “Oh! You’re so handsome.”

He fidgeted. “Thank you.”

There was an awkward silence until Jenny jumped in to the rescue. “Now, you kids have a good time.”

She patted Earl on the shoulder, murmuring into his ear, “Remember—just act like a normal person.”

He didn’t respond. He just watched College and Gloria exchange good-byes, and then College waved as she took off. He and Gloria were out in the hall before it occurred to him to mumble, “You look very nice.”

“Thank you, Blue Eyes.” She tentatively reached for the handles of the wheelchair but stopped herself. “What’s the protocol here? Do I offer to push the chair, or would that be an insult?”

“Either way is fine.” Earl shrugged. “If you’re in a hurry and you want to get somewhere fast, you can push. If you don’t mind us taking our time, I can wheel it myself and you can just walk alongside.”

“A walk would be nice.” She smiled at him.

He felt something again in his chest. He hoped he wasn’t having a heart attack.

Making their way along the hall, Gloria attempted to make small talk. She asked whether he had any kids or grandkids; he did not. She asked if he had plans after Candlewick closed down; he did not. She asked how he spent his time; he didn’t want to admit he spent it all watching game shows and pro wrestling, so he said he read a lot.

“I’m not much of a conversationalist,” he grumbled. “I don’t know how to talk to people.”

“You’re doing fine.” She squeezed his shoulder and gave him a reassuring smile.

Earl felt a blush work up his face. “I guess.”

“I heard how you talked to Mr. Nelson today,” Gloria said. “That took a lot of courage—he is such an imposing man.”

“For all the good it did me.” Earl felt the strain in his weary hands but kept wheeling. “You seem to get along with people. How do you do it?”

“I guess you just relax and talk to them.” She added, “Talk to them like—people.”

Exactly what College had said. Earl didn’t reply. Headed for the cafeteria, he almost remembered the way.

“Pardon me for saying,” Gloria said sweetly, “but I would think a professional bus driver would be better about directions.”

“Well, if we would take a regular circuit around the block a few times, I might be able to figure it out. But these past few days, I’ve had a lot of geographical information thrown at me in a random order.”

They didn’t say much else until they reached the cafeteria.

Over fruit salad, Gloria asked, “So, you drove a bus a lot of years, huh?”

“Ayup.” Earl sipped his iced tea. “Almost twenty-six years.”

“Wow, that’s a long time. My late husband, Dwight, bless his soul, worked on cars. He died doing what he loved—he was under his favorite Chevy, changing the oil.”

“He worked on them? My hat’s off to him. I can drive ’em, but I could never figure out how they worked.”

“When did your wife Barbara pass away?”

“Twenty-two years ago this spring.”

“Was she still with you when—um—” Gloria glanced at Earl’s wheelchair.

“When I was shot by hoodlums and forced into retirement?”

Earl sipped his tea. “Yeah. She helped me through it.”

Gloria put down her fork and looked at Earl seriously. “What happened?”

Earl paused and took another swig of tea. “I got distracted.”

“Why, what happened to make you distracted?”

Earl set the glass down. He stared at the table. “You know, I’m still not comfortable talking about it.”

“I didn’t mean to pry.”

“That’s all right.” Earl caught himself staring into Gloria’s eyes and tried to focus on his real reason for being there. He forced his eyes to wander, take in the people, the place.

She went back to her fruit salad. “So, what do you do now?”

“Oh, the usual.” Earl’s attention was on the lady behind the counter, her hair in a net, her hands in gloves. “I read. Watch television.”

“Actually, I meant for exercise. You don’t go outside much at all, do you?”

“Hmm? Oh. Never saw the need.” The cafeteria lady was transferring plates of lasagna from her cart to under the heat lamp in the glass case. Earl turned and found Gloria staring at him. He tried a weak smile. “I was just—”

“Do you need me to introduce you? She’s married, but she may have a sister.”

“Oh. Um. That’s okay.” Earl began fiddling with his lasagna. Then he leaned across the table. “Listen, do you think she could poison a guy?”

Gloria looked up, alarmed. “Is there something wrong with your food?”

“No, I just—”

“You’re not having an allergic reaction, are you?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Because a food allergy is serious.”

Earl held out his hands. “No, no, no.” Gloria was still alarmed; Earl took a deep breath. “I was just asking whether you thought she could poison someone.”

“Well, she puts the food out. Did she say something to you?”

“No, everything’s fine. Just fine.”

“Because if she said something—”

“No. No.”

Gloria did not seem completely convinced but went back to her fruit salad.

Earl looked back at the counter. He watched the customers line up, get their trays, pick their entrees off the hot bar, and slide their trays down to the next station. The system was too random for a food handler to target a specific person. It was either poison the whole room or nobody. “Did George Kent have any food allergies?”

Gloria stopped, a forkful of cantaloupe in midair. “How would I know?”

“You work in the office. I thought maybe you would’ve heard something.”

“Why does it matter?”

“If Kent had special dietary needs, he may have had his food prepared separately. Then if someone wanted to poison—”

Gloria slammed down her fork. “I’m going to talk to her.”

“No, no, don’t—”

But Gloria was already gone. He watched her confront the other woman. As they glanced in his direction, he shrank in his chair and turned away.

At the next table, two men had stopped eating and were staring at him. Earl mocked a friendly greeting. “How ya doin’?”

One of the men, wearing a fishing hat, asked, “Did you say the cafeteria poisoned somebody?”

“No! I was just talking about George Kent.” When the two men shared a nervous look, Earl decided to move his chair a little closer. “Say, did you fellas know him?”

“I guess.” The man with the fishing hat studied his bowl of stew.

The second man looked bored. “It’s a shame anytime someone goes just like that.”

Earl pressed his luck. “I understand some folks weren’t so broken up.”

“You’re telling me!” The man started to laugh, but the other man kicked him under the table. The second man caught himself. “But still, it’s always best to think well of the dead.”

“So, did you know Kent as a friend—or, shall we say, as a business associate?”

The man narrowed his eyes. “What’s it to you?”

“Listen, I’m not trying to get into your business, but there seems to be a real—”

“Hey Charley, do we gotta sit and listen to this guy?”

The man with the fishing hat looked up and jabbed his spoon at Earl. “Where do you get off asking a lot of personal questions?”

“They weren’t personal; I just wanted—”

“Maybe it’s best you move on with your business.”

“But I’m just having my dinner.” Earl turned back to his own table, where he noticed Gloria had returned. “Everything go okay?”

She was unhappy. “We should probably go.”

***

Out in the hall Earl asked, “What’s the matter? What happened with—”

“Apparently some people don’t appreciate being accused of certain things.”

“Oh.”

Gloria touched her hair. “At least, that’s what she said. I have a feeling I’m going to hear about this at the office.”

He grumbled, “I can’t believe those guys back there.”

“What happened? It looked like some sort of argument.”

“I was just asking about Kent and they overreacted.”

Gloria regarded him. “Why are you so obsessed?”

Earl stopped wheeling his chair. He couldn’t quite look Gloria in the eye. “It’s complicated.”

“You must have been traumatized to see him collapse like that.”

“You could say that.” He slowly started pushing his chair forward again. They made their way down the hall. “It’s just a blessing no one else got sicker than they did.”

“What do you mean by that? I thought Kent had a stroke or a heart attack.”

“A half dozen people got sick at that party.”

“Really.”

“Think about it,” she said. “These folks have a diet of oatmeal and prunes day in and day out; they’re not accustomed to alcohol and spicy food. I guess we were just blessed George was the only one who died. Mark had to get dialysis.”

“Mark?”

“Mark Conroy. Our host.”

Earl nodded. “Tell me about him.”

“About Mark?” Gloria paused. “What do you want to know?”

“I don’t know. What is he like? What does he do? Would he have hired a hit man to bump off Kent?”

Gloria was aghast. “A hit man?”

“Sorry, just making conversation.” Earl tried to laugh it off. “I told you I was bad at it.”

“Well, if you want to know about Mark—he's a huge collector of stamps. He’s got maybe a thousand of them, which he’s always pulling out and showing us. I’m surprised he didn’t bring the books out at the party. But I guess he was preoccupied with staying by the front door.”

They were nearing Earl’s apartment. Earl was starting to recognize the hallway. “Was the chili really that spicy?”

“That’s one reason I had the milk. It neutralizes spicy foods. Of course, since someone died, Ray may be done making chili for a while.”