I was nearly past the table, headed for a corner booth, when I overheard words that instantly ended my desire to sit somewhere quiet.
“I seem to get stabbed more than most people,†the woman said. “Not sure why that is.â€
The woman’s tablemates seemed completely unruffled by her statement. There was no awkward laughter. No raised eyebrows. They continued to eat as though she said she bumps her shin on the coffee table a few times each week.
Had I been seated there, I’d have peppered her with questions, one after another. What sort of stabbing implements were used? Where were the locations of her wounds? And, most importantly, what does she consider to be a more standard number of times for the average person to get stabbed, as opposed to her admittedly higher count?
I spotted an empty table catty-cornered from where the often-ventilated woman was seated, quickly pulled out a chair and sat down.
Unfortunately, a server was fast to approach. I tried waving her off, but she came anyway, wanting to know if someone was joining me and what I wanted to drink and if I needed more napkins. By the time she finally left, the juicy conversation I had been so desperate to hear more of had moved on to something else, and a disappointing something else it was: They were now discussing the limited number of color options for baseball socks.
I seldom dine out alone these days, although I used to enjoy it. When I was more actively writing fiction and wanted my character’s conversations to sound authentic, I would take my laptop to restaurants, find a crowded section, then listen in on conversations and type parts of what I heard. It was a great way to capture the rhythms of how real people talk to each other, the details they include and what they leave out, and the interruptions that occur.
Not once in all those prior times of listening in had someone cast such a juicy line my direction as this.
And now it was gone and there was no way to rewind.
Leaning in for more information
Still, my curiosity was so piqued that I continued watching the table. There was little about the woman that seemed to make her unusually shankable. She was dressed casually, with a sensible haircut and practical shoes, and while her fingernails were longer than what someone who, say, lives in a crusty old warehouse and refinishes furniture might deem a sensible length, it didn’t send me twitching toward my butter knife wishing I’d ordered steak.
Although I was uncertain what a frequently perforated person would look like, it didn’t seem to be this. I guessed she might have worked at the nearby DMV, which could account for the piercings, but there was a pleasantness to her that suggested she wasn’t someone who would enjoy saying “Sorry. You’ll have to come back.â€
I supposed there could be jobs where a person could get accidentally aerated, like a knife-thrower’s assistant or a quality tester for inflatable costumes, but I rejected each occupation as being too unlikely for Beckley, West Virginia.
I glanced away from her to watch those at her table. They were voracious eaters. A few rungs above eager. Had she perhaps attempted to sample something from one of their plates, I could’ve seen a fork wielded with bloody intent.
But a detective, I’m not. I was simply going to have to accept that I would never know more.
And then, as they were preparing to leave, one of her tablemates went to lay down a tip and More-Than-Most held up her hand in a gesture for stop.
“You don’t tip at buffets,†she told them in such an authoritarian voice I nearly believed it myself.
“Ha!†laughed one of her companions. “You don’t tip anywhere.â€
It was then that I knew. Although I’m really just taking a stab at it.
