His moist jowls, lucent and young as the tuck where a baby’s buttock and thigh join, quiver a little, preparing to meet the order he’s given. A tall glass skims the waitress’s breasts. He holds on, spoon poised to see if the syrup’ll trickle right past the mound of chopped nuts to the ice- white luscious vanilla sheltering under its blanket of cream. The yellow skin weakens and melts. He devotes himself, purses his lips to wrinkling-point, digs down with the long spoon past jelly and fruit to the depths, with the cool inching of an expert. Beside him there’s a landscape in drained pink and blue suggesting the sea with an audacious cartoon economy. They’ve even put in one white triangle to make the horizon. A sail. Large creamy girls mark the banana splits with curls and squiggles, pour sauce on peach melbas, thumb in real strawberries.
