“Dad,” Paul said.

“You see,” I told her, “my son just got a job here, and he was telling me that—”

“Dad,” Paul said.

Finally I turned around. The woman from behind the register was standing there, glowering at me.

“What you saying?” she asked. I noticed that, hanging from her right arm, was a baseball bat.

“What’s wrong, Ma?” asked the twin who’d put the toppings on my burger.

I tried to remain calm, nonconfrontational. “I had heard, I understand that your freezer went out. For several hours.” Tried not to make it sound like an accusation, more like a statement of fact.

“What you know about my freezer?”

“It’s just that, if the meat had been thawed for some time, there’s a risk that it could be contaminated. And I understand there’s already been one man who’d eaten here at lunch—”

She raised the bat. “Where you hear this?” She turned those black eyes on Paul. “You tell him this?”

Paul’s voice squeaked. “This is my dad.”

Eyes back to me. “You get out.” She brought up the bat, ready to swing, just as her two daughters started coming around the counter.

“I’ll have to call the health department,” I said, trying to stand my ground but knowing I was a moment away from bolting.

“Go ahead and fucking call them,” said the twin. “See what happens, Mr. Big Asshole.”

There wasn’t anyone in the restaurant who couldn’t hear what was going on. No one was eating. People were getting up, leaving their unfinished burgers on their trays, not bothering to dump them into the trash.

Ma’s eyes bored into mine. “You go or I smash your fucking head in.” And then, to Paul, “You, you fired.”

He peeled off his hat, untied his apron, and tossed them over the back of a swivel chair. We both backed our way out and said nothing to each other until we were safely in the car and driving down the street. Blood was pounding in my ears.

“Way to go, Dad,” Paul said. “You just lost me my first job.”

Eldon wasn’t like the others. The others, well, they were like her father. Pigs, basically. Always with the jokes. Tit jokes. Ass jokes. Any kind of sex joke. You’re a stripper, people can say whatever they want to you. Even if you’re not a whore, you’re a whore. Grabbing your butt when they walked by, pressing themselves up against you at the bar, all hard under their jeans, even when you’re back in your regular clothes. What did she expect, exactly? The place was run by a bunch of biker types. You wanted a bunch of gentlemen? Go work someplace else, lady.

Eldon, he was one of them, but he wasn’t one of them. Didn’t even have an actual motorcycle. Had this old Toyota, the guys made jokes about him. He always treated Miranda, eighteen now, like a lady. Thought her name was Candace, though. He was the only one called her that. Everyone else called her Candy. Let’s have a lick of Candy, they said. I’d love to eat Candy, they said.