“Tha’s right. You listen t’ me. Paul Buster out at the water tower had one of them tumors. He cut it off hisself, with his car key. Go out an’ see him. He’ll tell you. Yeah, lotta people get them tumors, all the ladies, most ’specially.”

“What ladies? Why do ladies get them?” Frances’ worry grew, and she perspired.

The cook stared out the cafe’s front window. He seemed to enjoy his cigarette, and the fact that Frances waited for his answer.

He said, “Folks get tumors when they take care a’ other folk too much.”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“Well, now, they’s two reasons, actually. Lissen here: th’ first reason is, when folks git so involved with their aunties, daddies, spouses, an’ takin’ care a’ all their ol’ grannies besides, not t’ mention all th’ babies an’ what-not, it gits t’ be too much, an’ these folks get overloaded. B’cause, well, d’pendent relatives, see, they give off a kind a’ germ.”

“That can’t be!” Frances was scarlet.

“Now, now; folks know this to be true. That germ makes folks have tumors! Now, the second reason folks get tumors is this: from soup.”

“Soup! You don’t serve soup here, do you?” she cried.

“Well, as a matter of fac’, Missy, we do.”

“Oh, no!” Frances turned away, hand pressed to her heart. “Yes, I’ve eaten soup here many times over the years. But how do you know all this? You’re no scientist—you’re a cook,” she asserted.

The cook flicked away his cigarette and turned to the stove. “ ’S’right. An’ don’ you ever ignore what a cook has t’ say.” He scowled darkly. “Now, did you see our waitress Corky run outta here?”

“She was crying.”

“Yep. She got all riled up ’cause we run outta th’ fruit juice she loves so. See, she’s all sens’tive-like, ’cause she got tumors, an’ takes care a’ whole messa folks at home, ’course, includin’ her ol’ Granny, an’ a baby whose teeth grew in real gray an’ pointy. An’ then there’s all th’ custormers she serves right here all day, as many as we git. All these people, they gave her th’ germ, you kin be sure.”

“So Corky has—a scar, like me?”

“Now, how would I know that, Frances?”

“But you just said—”

The cook breathed fiercely. “All right, sure, sure, she got a scar—she’s chock-full a’ scars, dammit, jus’ like lots a’ th’ ladies, ’cept they’s not scars we’re talkin’ ’bout, Frances, they’s tumors.”

“You’re lying!”

“Suit yerself. Irregardless, you don’ want t’ be sittin’ all alone in this world when them tumors inside you come bustin’ out! See, I once had a friend, an’ he was blind. An’ he tol’ me, ‘It’s th’ mos’ terrible thing in the world to be alone.’ An’ he knew this t’ be a true fac’ better’n you ’r me, b’cause he was blind.”

“What are you talking about, Mal? There are no blind in Munson,” she said.