So I went back and got my pad out of my apron and I said, "You hungry, Darrell? Since you're here?"
He looked at me. Then he laughed, a short surprised laugh, and put his cap down on the counter. "You know what," he said, "I am. I sure am. You know what I'd like?" He grinned at me, a boy's grin, open. "A short stack. With the boysenberry syrup, if you still got it. For old times' sake." And then, softer, looking right at me, "And maybe some whipped cream on top. If it's not too much trouble."
I wrote it down. Short stack. Boysenberry. I didn't write the whipped cream. My hand wouldn't.
I put the ticket up. Toivo took it and looked at it and set it on the rail and made the pancakes, three of them, the size of saucers, golden, with the edges just barely lacy. He made them exactly as perfect as the ones he'd made Edna that morning, none of the small mean things a cook can do to a man he doesn't like. He set the plate in the window without a word and went back to the grill. I went to the walk-in and got the jar of boysenberry, the good jar, and poured it in the little steel pitcher, and I stood there a second with the can of Reddi-wip in my other hand.
I couldn't do it. I put the can back in the walk-in. I carried the plate and the pitcher out and set them in front of him.
He looked at the pancakes. He looked at me. "No whipped cream?"
"We're out," I said.
He held my eyes for a second. Then he smiled, and picked up his fork. "That's okay," he said. "I'm too old for it now anyway."