Nobody's Fool

taken to calling him by his brother’s name.
    â€œHow about a little service?” Sully called, rapping the back of the booth with his pepper shaker.
    The door to the kitchen swung open and Ruth appeared. She did not look to be in a holiday mood. It took her a minute to locate Sully at the far end of the room. “I don’t know what good it does to send a man to college who can’t even read,” she said, in reference to the THIS SECTION CLOSED sign in the center of the floor.
    In fact, Sully had not noticed it. He’d just found a spot where nobody would notice him from the street and feel compelled to keep him company. “Sorry,” he said. “I just wanted to get as far from the jukebox as I could. Besides,” he added when Ruth came over, “I don’t go to college any more.”
    â€œSo I heard,” Ruth said. “Wirf was in looking for you earlier.” She was making rather a point of just standing there over him instead of slipping into the booth like she would have done if they were still friends. Eventually, Sully knew, they would quarrel over his going back to work, but not now. That was one of the things Sully’d always liked about Ruth. She knew when not to say what she was thinking. What he didn’t like about her washer ability to make clear what she was thinking without saying anything. Right now, for instance, she was thinking his going back to work was not smart, which it probably wasn’t. You’ll be sorry, she was thinking, which he probably would.
    â€œYou smell good, anyway,” Ruth said, finally sliding into the booth.
    â€œSo do you,” Sully said, grinning at her. “I’ve always liked the smell of pizza.”
    Ruth just sat there, nodding and smiling at him, that rather knowing, unpleasant smile she had, the one that never boded well. Still, she looked good to Sully, and he found himself hoping they’d quarrel sooner rather than later, get it over with quickly, because he had missed her company.
    â€œYouth,” she told him now, “is what you like the smell of.”
    This was a strange remark, even by Ruth’s standards, and Sully found himself squinting at it, trying to get a handle. True, Ruth
was
twelve years younger than Sully, but he had a pretty good idea from her tone of voice that Ruth was not referring to herself.
    â€œSo,” she continued after a moment’s awkward silence. “How was work?”
    â€œHard.”
    â€œIt got hard today, did it?” Ruth’s knowing smile had become a malicious grin now. She was enjoying herself, watching him squirm and squint at her.
    â€œIs there any way I can get in on this conversation?” Sully asked. “The one you’re having without me?”
    â€œHey,” Ruth said. “I just wondered how your day went. I thought maybe you struck up an old acquaintance. I take that back. A young acquaintance.”
    Now it all fell into place. Someone had seen Toby Roebuck give him a lift downtown and reported it to Ruth, who, just before he’d quit working for Carl in August and enrolled at the college, had accused him of having a crush on Carl’s wife. It had been true, of course, but that hadn’t made the accusation any less surprising, and Sully had wondered, as he sometimes did, if Ruth might be gifted with ESP. He’d even accused her of prescience once or twice, though Ruth had replied that nobody needed any extra senses to figure Sully out.
    â€œDo you realize,” Sully said, “that you and I have been together so long the town gossips treat us like we’re married. They used to talk about you and me to Zack. Now they report my activities to you. Just out of curiosity, what were you told?”
    â€œIt’s a kinky relationship, apparently,” she went on. “Involving mud wrestling by way of foreplay.”
    Sully smiled at her. “I’m too goddamned tired even for foreplay, Ruth.”
    â€œI’m glad,” Ruth said seriously. “I don’t think I’d take it very well if you threw me over for a cheerleader. You want something to eat?”
    â€œLinguine,” Vince’s voice sang out from the kitchen. Vince’s hearing was legend. He’d been known to come out of the steamy kitchen, stalk across the floor of his raucous restaurant, elbowing among his clientele of screaming teens, and break up a fight before the first punch was thrown,