"I haven't seen her," I said.
He looked at me. Just for a second, maybe two. He didn't stop smiling. But I knew, the way you know when a dog has decided something about you, that he was turning it over. That he'd come in here not because he thought she'd wandered in but because he knew exactly where she'd gone and why, because he'd found the sewing basket empty. And that he was looking at me now to see what I knew.
"Huh," he said. "Okay. Well, if she does come in —"
"Order up," said Toivo, from the pass-through, very loud.
Darrell jumped. Not much. Just a little, like a man whose name has been called in a waiting room. I turned around. There was nothing in the window. Toivo was standing at the grill with his spatula, looking straight out through the pass-through at the back of Darrell Tolan's head, and there wasn't any order up, there wasn't anything at all on the line, but he said it again. "Arlene. Order up."
"Excuse me," I said to Darrell, and went to the pass-through, and Toivo leaned down to me and said, without moving his face, very low, "Ask him what he wants to eat."
"What?"
"Ask him what he wants. Don't stand there talking to him about her. Ask him what he wants to eat. Make him order. Make him sit there and eat it. Every minute he's on that stool he's not out there driving around."