Lightning

Hamlet was an upscale hamburger restaurant providing good food for reasonable prices in a moderately plush ambience — crossbeam ceiling, lots of wood paneling, hugely comfortable armchairs — so the customers were usually happier than those in other places where she had waited tables.

Even if the atmosphere had been seedy and the customers surly, she would have kept the job; she needed the money. On her eighteenth birthday, four years ago, she learned that her father had established a trust fund, consisting of the assets liquidated upon his death, and that the trust could not be touched by the state to pay for her care at McIlroy Home and Caswell Hall. At that time the funds had become hers to spend, and she had applied them toward living and college expenses. Her father hadn't been rich; there was only twelve thousand dollars even after six years of accrued interest, not nearly enough for four years of rent, food, clothing, and tuition, so she depended upon her income as a waitress to make up the difference.

On Sunday evening, January 16, she was halfway through her shift at the Hamlet when the host escorted an older couple, about sixty, to one of the booths in Laura's station. They asked for two Michelobs while they studied the menu. A few minutes later, when she returned from the bar with the beers and two frosted mugs on a tray, she saw a ceramic toad on their table. She nearly dropped the tray in surprise. She looked at the man, at the woman, and they were grinning at her, but they weren't saying anything, so she said, "You've been giving me toads? But I don't even know you — do I?"

The man said, "Oh, you've gotten more of these, have you?"

"This is the fourth. You didn't bring this for me, did you? But it wasn't here a few minutes ago. Who put it on the table?"

He winked at his wife, and she said to Laura, "You've got a secret admirer, dear."

"Who?"

"Young fella was sitting at that table over there," the man said, pointing across the room to a station served by a waitress named Amy Heppleman. The table was now empty; the busboy had just finished clearing away the dirty dishes. "Soon as you left to get our beers, he comes over and asks if he can leave this here for you."

It was a Christmas toad in a Santa suit, without a beard, a sack of toys over its shoulder.

The woman said, "You don't really know who he is?"

"No. What'd he look like?"

"Tall," the man said. "Quite tall and husky. Brown hair." "Brown eyes too," his wife said. "Soft-spoken." Holding the toad, staring at it, Laura said, "There's something about this. something that makes me uneasy." \ "Uneasy?" the woman said. "But it's just a young man who's smitten with you, dear." "Is it?" she wondered. Laura found Amy Heppleman at the salad preparation counter and sought a better description of the toad-giver.

"He had a mushroom omelet, whole-wheat toast, and a Coke." Amy said, using a pair of stainless-steel tongs to fill two bowls with j salad greens. "Didn't you see him sitting there?" ' "I didn't notice him, no." "Biggish guy. Jeans. A blue-checkered shirt. His hair was cut too short, but he was kinda cute if you like the moose type. Didn't talk much. Seemed kinda shy." "Did he pay with a credit card?" "No. Cash." "Damn," Laura said.

She took the Santa toad home and put it with the other figurines. The following morning, Monday, as she left the apartment, she found yet another plain white box on the doorstep. She opened a reluctantly. It contained a clear glass toad.

When Laura returned from the UCI campus that same afternoon Julie Ishimina was sitting at the dinette table, reading the daily paper and drinking a cup of coffee. "You got another one," she said, pointing to a box on the kitchen counter. ' 'Came in the mail." Laura tore open the elaborately wrapped package. The sixth toad was actually a pair of toads — salt and pepper shakers.

She put the shakers with the other figurines on her nightstand and for a long while she sat on the edge of her bed, frowning at that growing collection.

At five o'clock that afternoon she called Thelma Ackerson in Los Angeles and told her about the toads.

Lacking a trust fund of any size, Thelma had not even considered college, but as she said, that was no tragedy because she was not interested in academics. Upon completing high school, she had gone straight from Caswell Hall to Los Angeles, intent upon breaking into show business as a stand-up comic.

Nearly every night, from about six o'clock until two in the morning, she hung around the comedy clubs — the Improv, the Comedy Store, and all their imitators — angling for a six-minute, unpaid shot on the stage, making contacts (or hoping to make them), competing with a horde of young comics for the coveted exposure.