When Rainie got back to the table with the chili, the men were talking about her. "She got the last line, and it was a beaut, and so she's first," said Tom. "That's the law."
"It may be the law," said Douglas, "but Ida Johnson isn't going to want to feed the baby."
"Maybe I do and maybe I don't," said Rainie.
Douglas closed his eyes.
"Dougie's just sore because he could never think of a line to top Ida's," said Raymond.
"Retarded parrots could think of better lines than yours, Raymond," said the mechanic.
"Retarded parrot embryos," said another man.
"What baby do you feed, and what do you feed it?" asked Rainie.
"It's a game," said Tom. "We kind of made it up. Dougie and I."
"All of us," said Douglas.
"Dougie and me first, and then everybody together. It's called `Feed the Baby of Love Many Beans or Perish in the Flames of Hell.'"
"Greg had the idea in the first place," said Douglas.
"Yeah, well, Greg moved to California and so we spit upon his memory," said Tom.
At once everybody made a show of spitting -- all to their left, all at once. But instead of actually spitting, they all said, in perfect unison, "Ptui."
"Come on, Ida," said Tom. "It's at Douglas's house. The game's all about karma and reincarnation and trying to progress from primordial slime to newt to emu to human until finally you get to be supreme god."
"Or not," said the mechanic.
"In which case your karma decides your eternal fate."
"In Heaven with the Baby of Love!"
"Or in Hell with the Baby of Sorrows!"
"I don't think so," said Rainie. She was noticing how Douglas didn't seem too eager to have her come. "I mean, if Douglas's wife leaves town whenever you play, then it must be one of those male- bonding things and I've never been good at male bonding."
"Oh, great," said Tom, "now she thinks we're gay."
"Not at all," said Rainie. "If I thought you were gay I'd be there with bells on. The refreshments are always great at gay parties. It's you pick-up basketball-game types who think beer and limp pretzels are a righteous spread."
Raymond rose to his feet. "Behold our nuncheon feast, your majesty," he said. "Do we look like the beer and pretzels type?"
"No, you actually look like the boys who always made disgusting messes out of the table scraps on their school-lunch trays."
"That's it!" cried Tom. "She understands us! And she put a brilliant last line on the song. Tonight at seven, Idie Baby, I'll pick you up."
From the look on Douglas's face, Rainie knew that she should say no. But she could feel the loneliness of these past few weeks in this town -- and, truth to tell, of the months, the years, before -- like a sharp pain within her. Being on the fringes of this group of glad friends made her feel like ... what? Like her best days living on the street. That's what it was. She had found the street after all. Grown up a little, most of them wearing suits, but here in this godforsaken town she had found some people who had the street in their souls, and she couldn't bear to say no. Not unless Douglas made her say it.
And he didn't make her say it. On the contrary. She looked him in the eye and he half smiled and gave her a little shrug. Suit yourself, that's what he was saying. So she did.
"OK, so I'll be there," she said.
"But you should be aware," said Tom, "we probably aren't as fun as your gay friends' parties."
"Naw," she said, "they stopped being fun in the eighties, when they started spending all their time talking about who had AIDS and who didn't."
"What a downer," said Raymond.
"Bad karma!" said the mechanic.
"No problem," said Tom. "That just means she'll end up in Hell a lot."
"Do I need to bring anything?" asked Rainie.
"Junk food," said Tom. "Nothing healthy."
"That's Tom's rule," said Douglas. "You can bring anything you want. I'll be putting out a vegetable dip."
"Yeah, right," said Raymond. "Mr. Health."
"Mr. Quiche," said another man.
"Tell her what we dip in your vegetable dip, Dougie."
"Frankfurters show up a lot," said Douglas. "And Tootsie Rolls. Once Tommy stuck his nose into the dip, and then the Health Department came and closed us down."
"Ida!" Minnie's voice was sharp.
"I'm about to get fired," said Rainie.
"Minnie can't fire you," said Tom. "Nothing bad can ever happen to Those Who Feed the Baby!"
But the expression on Minnie's face spoke eloquently about the bad things that could happen to her waitress Ida Johnson. As soon as Rainie got behind the counter with her, she whispered in Minnie's ear, "I can't help it that it's at Douglas's house. Count the chaperones and give me credit for a little judgment."
Minnie sniffed, but she stopped looking like she was about to put a skewer through Rainie's heart.
The Boys' Table lasted a whole hour, and then Douglas looked at his watch and said, "Ding."
"The one-o'clock bell," cried Tom.
Raymond whistled between his teeth.
"The one-o'clock whistle!"