Don’t worry, my aunt says, assuming I am impatient for Mom to return. She’ll be back soon.

Stone listens to this and it must seem strange to him that I would be so restless to see a maid, but he keeps quiet. His elbows rest on the table and he does not seem to know what to do with his hands.

Fine, I say abruptly. Maybe now we can order dessert.

Dessert? she says.

I begin signaling for the waitress. I’ll get her to bring apple pie, I say. What about you, Stone?

Don’t be ridiculous, Aunt Jessica says. You haven’t even eaten a proper meal yet.

We didn’t eat that long ago, I tell her.

She looks embarrassedly towards Stone, a gesture meant for me, to tell me to stop. You should only speak for yourself, Gabe.

It’s okay. He’s not hungry.

Stone regards me quizzically and the tendons on the backs of his fingers tense and loosen but he says nothing.

Gabe! Don’t be rude. How could you know what he wants to eat anyway?

My hand has been down, but the waitress already saw me gesture for her and she comes over now. She brings out a pad of paper. My aunt gives her an annoyed look.

The waitress asks what we want.

I’ll have the apple pie, I tell her.

Aunt Jessica tells her to cross it out and she does and then my aunt tells her to write down a hamburger for me and the waitress takes Stone’s order and goes off. My aunt studies me.

What’s gotten into you, Gabe?

I shrug, keeping my eyes focused below her chin where she has knotted her delicate scarf, green and blue, around her neck.

We keep quiet for some time. A long hard moment of clattering dishes and a roomful of crowded chatter and the families and old people talking and the booth with the teenage couple. They hold hands.

Mom must be on the pay phone or dealing with her period or something, she’s taking so long. My palms push against the table and I start to get up.

Where are you going? Aunt Jessica says.

Nowhere.

I sit. My hands fold on the tabletop but its surface feels hard against my wrist and hand bones and I turn them on their backs but they look funny to me and I put them palms down. They are pale. Finally Aunt Jessica tells me to stop fidgeting. I stop. We sit quietly for a minute and you can feel her annoyance and the awkward nervousness and Stone feels it but probably does not know what it is about, and finally my aunt turns to him and tries to make polite conversation.