Vic didn’t seem to notice her looking at him from the corner of her eye and Torri found herself wishing she could sketch him. With those classical features, he would be a wonderful subject for her art—that was if she was ever again allowed to do any art other than coloring in coloring books, she thought sourly.
Group Therapy ended without answering any of her questions. The new patient had never said anything other than his name. He was quiet and introspective the entire hour and only got up when everyone else did.
This gave Torri a chance to see how extremely tall and broad he really was.
Wow—he’s bigger than O’Toole! she thought, staring at the new patient’s immense height. He has to be seven feet tall if he’s an inch! And really well built—like a professional basketball player crossed with a pro wrestler or something.
The boring, beige, one-size-fits all scrubs were tight across his muscular chest and the trousers were a little too short, as though they hadn’t been able to find any quite big enough to fit him.
Vic never said a word, he simply followed everyone else and stood in line in the cafeteria for supper. Torri saw him watching what the other patients did and copying them wordlessly.
When Emile grabbed a green plastic tray and a spork wrapped in a napkin and took it to the food line, Vic did as well. When Emile pushed his tray under the steam table window and got a serving of greasy taco meat, two stale corn tortillas, diced tomatoes, shredded lettuce, cheddar cheese, and a serving of cherry Jell-O, so did Vic. He also picked up a chocolate milk when Emile did and followed the other man out of the food line and went to sit at the same table with him and Gloria.
Torri’s stomach did a little flip-flop when she saw that the new patient was sitting at her regular table. She had the absurd thought that she ought to check her hair and make-up and then laughed at herself.
Look where you are, Torri—he’s not going to care what your hair looks like! Besides, he hardly talks at all. It’s like he’s locked in his own little world.
She went through the line herself, getting all the same things for dinner—(they had a vegetarian option but it was buckwheat noodles in clumpy alfredo sauce, so she stuck with the tacos)—and then hesitated, wondering where to sit.
Really, there were no better options than her regular table. And why should she stop sitting there, just because the new guy had decided to join Emile? Lifting her chin, Torri went and had a seat right across from him.
Of course, the minute she got to the table, Emile had his hand out. He hadn’t made Vic shake hands but then, Torri noticed that he seemed to want to shake hands with women more than men.
After completing the handshake ritual, she sat down and began to assemble her tacos. As she used the flimsy spork to shovel the taco meat into the shells, she got a feeling someone was watching her. Looking up, she saw that the new patient’s vivid blue eyes were trained on her tray and the motions she was making.
“Um, hi,” she said tentatively. “Are you okay?”
The new patient looked up slowly and nodded at her. His mouth worked and after a moment he managed to produce a word.
“Greetings.” He had a deep, warm voice and he smiled slightly in a friendly way as he spoke.
“Greetings,” Torri said, smiling back. She knew it was silly to feel happy about talking to someone new, but everything was so dull and so exactly the same every day of the week at St. Elizabeth’s—it was nice to see a new face.
Vic spoke again.
“How…” He gestured at her plate. “How to make?” he finally got out.
“Oh, have you never had tacos before?” Torri asked him, surprised. “Well, you take the meat and the cheese and put them on the taco—those are the first two layers. Then you do the tomatoes and lettuce.” She demonstrated as she talked, loading everything efficiently into the taco shell.
Vic tried to copy her, but he was making a mess of it. Probably not used to eating everything with a spork, Torri speculated. Still, though, he managed to get most all of the taco toppings into his shell—even if the result was fairly messy.
“Now to eat it?” he asked
“Well, actually there’s something else that’s supposed to go on it.”
There was a plastic squeeze bottle of mild salsa—nothing hotter was allowed—on the table. Unfortunately, Gloria was hoarding it. She shot Torri a nasty look as she tucked the plastic bottle under one armpit.
Frowning, Torri looked around. Then she spotted the empty table across the room. Most of the time, it was bare of any kind of condiments. This time, however, someone had left a bottle of the mild salsa and shakers of salt and pepper in the middle of the table.
Torri started to go get the other bottle of salsa, but she knew if she did that Gloria would start kicking up a fuss and shouting that she had “stolen” it—which would make dinner extremely unpleasant. She had a sudden thought—why shouldn’t she just move? If she could get Vic to come with her, nobody would stop her from sitting at the empty table because she wouldn’t be sitting alone.
“Come on,” she said to the new patient. “I mean, if you want to,” she added as she picked up her tray.
He frowned.
“Where…are we going?” he asked at last, finally getting the words out.
“There’s something else you need on tacos but we have to go to another table to get it,” Torri explained. “Do you want to come?”
Silently, he nodded. Taking his tray, he got up and followed her to the empty table.
Torri set her tray down on the table with a feeling of triumph. For months she had been eying this table, wishing she could sit here. Now she could and nobody could stop her because she wasn’t dining alone!
To her slight discomfort, Vic took the chair directly beside hers, on her right-hand side. It was a little bit close for comfort, especially considering how big he was, but he didn’t seem to be trying to crowd her or get into her space. He was just watching her anxiously, as though to see what she was going to do next.
“Now to eat?” he asked again.
“Not yet. Here.” Torri grabbed the plastic squeeze bottle of salsa and squirted some onto one of her tacos. Then she passed the bottle to Vic. “Now you,” she said, gesturing to his rather messy taco.
Doubtfully, he took the bottle and sniffed it. Torri saw his broad shoulders shrug in a “why not?” gesture and then he squirted some on top of his lettuce.
“Good job,” she encouraged him. “Do you, uh, know how to eat them?”
Vic shook his head.
“You…show?” he asked hesitantly.
“Uh…” Torri frowned.
Where was he from that he didn’t know how to eat a taco? But they were getting along so well and she wanted to keep it up—maybe they could be regular mealtime companions and she wouldn’t ever have to sit with Emile and Gloria again!
“We eat?” Vic asked anxiously. “You show?”
“Um, right. Okay, well it’s like this—you have to kind of hold it sideways and tilt your head…”
Lifting her taco, she showed him and then made a motion to him with one hand. Now you try.
Nodding, Vic lifted the taco to his mouth just as she had. He took a bite and then an expression of surprise spread over his face as he chewed.