In the dining room, Myra was sitting behind the counter reading a gossip magazine. She’d worked here as a waitress for decades, and even though she had to be in her seventies, she refused to retire. She wore her bright red hair in a stiff, puffy helmet, and she was never without her blue eye shadow, which matched the polyester uniform she insisted on, no matter how many times I told her she could wear whatever she wanted.
The only other people in the dining room were Tommy and Chet, two of my regulars. Like Myra, they were probably in their seventies, and both were widowers who met up every single day for breakfast. Then they always lingered for two or three hours, playing backgammon and nursing cups of coffee.
I brewed a fresh pot and brought it to them with two slices of pie. As I refilled their mugs, I said, “I tweaked my cherry pie recipe. Will you try it for me and let me know what you think?”
This charade was a daily occurrence, and if they knew I was lying, they never called me on it. Both of them were too proud to accept handouts, but they struggled to make ends meet, especially toward the end of the month. They also both had a sweet tooth, so I always brought them something from our bakery case. I also made sure Javier and Cami remembered to keep it going on the weekends, now that I wasn’t here every day.
Chet smiled at me before picking up his false teeth and clicking them in place. He kept them in a coffee saucer when he wasn’t eating, because he said they were uncomfortable. “Thanks, Manny,” he said. “I don’t know why you’re always fiddling with this recipe. It’s already perfect.”
“Don’t get me wrong, it’s a damn good pie,” Tommy said. “But I wouldn’t complain if you should happen to find yourself needing an opinion on your peach pie, sometime in the near future.”
I grinned and said, “Noted,” before returning the pot to the coffee maker.
“You’re too nice,” Myra muttered, not looking up from her magazine.
“What do you mean?”
“You know. You give away hundreds of dollars’ worth of free food every month. It’s not just pie, either. You comp meals for a lot of our regulars. And then you do those huge, free buffets on the holidays. But I know you’ve barely gotten this place to turn a profit, even after your bigshot son-in-law invested in the business.”
“We’ve talked about this, Myra.” She brought it up about twice a week.
“Yeah, yeah,” she said, as she turned a page in her magazine. “You’re just gonna say what you always do, leave the money stuff to you, and don’t worry because you’ve got it under control.”
“Exactly.”
I busied myself by wiping down the counter, even though it was perfectly clean. Then I tidied up the bottles of condiments beneath the pass-through before grabbing the broom and sweeping the entire dining room. When I finished, Myra asked, “Why are you so antsy? Did you get a tip-off that the health department is coming for an inspection or something?”
“No. They always give us an excellent score anyway, so I don’t need to do anything special to impress them.” I picked up a cloth and began polishing the chrome napkin dispensers along the counter.
“Then what lit a fire under your ass?”
“A friend of mine is coming by this afternoon. He’s never seen the diner in person, so I want it to look nice.”
I’d been nervous when Tory came to my frumpy little apartment for the first time, but this was worse. The diner was a part of me. It was my home, far more than that apartment. I wanted him to like it, and to understand why I thought it was so special.
She set aside the magazine and smirked at me. “A ‘friend.’ Uh huh. Would this ‘friend’ be the reason you started taking weekends off?”
“Maybe.”
“And it’s a man. That’s interesting. Not that I’m judging, obviously. I think it’s fantastic that your midlife crisis has led to some same-sex experimentation. Most people do that when they’re a lot younger. But you, well, I guess you had no choice but to be a late bloomer, what with becoming a parent so young.”
“This isn’t a mid-life crisis, and I’m not experimenting.”
“Okay. Whatever you say, Manny.” She smirked again and picked up her magazine, and I sighed as I grabbed the Windex. There was no point in trying to explain that I’d always been bisexual.
I cleaned the fingerprints off both sides of the glass door, and while I was outside, I took a few steps back to admire the building. It had a fresh coat of royal blue paint and refurbished chrome accents around the door and windows, and I’d recently had the neon sign repaired. It looked wonderful.
Three large planter boxes lined the front of the building, which I’d filled at the start of summer with a mix of pretty blue, white, and yellow flowers. I went through them and plucked a few dead leaves and spent blooms.
Then I decided I was getting completely carried away with making the diner look its best, so I went back to the paperwork waiting for me in my office.
Because our regulars were mostly retirees, dinner service got going early every afternoon. At four p.m., our bus boy and dishwasher, a second cook, and two waitresses clocked in. I left my office and began making and serving drinks, and helping the servers bring out the food as our cooks filled the orders.
This particular dinner rush was even busier than usual, because we happened to get two large parties. So when Tory arrived a little before five, the diner was hopping. I paused with a coffee pot in each hand and kissed his cheek. “I’m so glad you’re here,” I said.
“Me, too. This place is fantastic!”
I beamed with pride and told him, “Take a seat at the counter, and I’ll bring you something to drink. What would you like?”