Joe's Diner Read online

  But now she was officially a server and no longer confined to a cramped work area. This time, neither incident had been her fault.

  “Chantelle! Three-two and three-four!”

  She hurried back to serve the next couple of tables, telling herself that she didn’t have to care what Mark thought. In a couple of days, he would be gone and she probably would never see him again. His opinion shouldn’t have mattered. Yet it did.

  Chantelle returned to the kitchen for the coffeepot. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Uncle Joe and Mark. They appeared to be studying Brittany as she took new orders from the other large group, which was the College-and-Careers group from her church.

  Uncle Joe checked his watch. “Mark, would you mind helping in the kitchen? I think Kevin and Evelyn are going to need it.”

  “Of course.”

  “Chantelle! Three-three and three-five!”

  Chantelle hurried to deliver the orders while Mark disappeared into the kitchen. As she slid the plates onto a tray, she heard him introducing himself to Kevin and Evelyn.

  “Yes, we heard you were going to help out,” Evelyn murmured. Through the serving window, Chantelle saw Evelyn rip the corners of the bills to indicate that orders had been filled; then she slid the plates on the counter for Brittany to deliver. “Will you really be able to fix everything?”

  “I hope so. Maybe not all this weekend, but I at least should be able to get it to a point where Joe can enter what’s current.”

  Since Brittany was still busy, Chantelle delivered the orders. When she returned for the coffeepot, she couldn’t help but hear the continuing conversation from within the kitchen.

  “Wow, that’s so interesting! Your job must be fascinating!”

  Chantelle watched as Mark heaped a serving of fries and a scoop of coleslaw onto each plate while Evelyn dressed the buns for the burgers.

  “Not really,” Mark mumbled back. “Sometimes I wish I had never taken that job.”

  Chantelle gritted her teeth. She couldn’t believe he wouldn’t be grateful for a high-paying, titled management job that came with a private office. Right now, Chantelle would have taken any position offered to her, office or not. She had proven her desperation by the fact that she now worked at near-minimum wage in a job for which she wasn’t suited.

  Mark picked up two of the plates. “Chantelle!” he called out, then began to turn around. “Two-sev—” His voice lowered in volume and faded into silence. “Sorry. I didn’t know you were there. Table two-seven.” He slid the plates onto the counter, ripped the corner of the bill, and tucked it under one of the plates.

  “That’s okay,” she mumbled as she checked the plates against the order, then slipped the paper into her apron pocket. “I didn’t mean to listen in to your conversation with Evelyn.”

  “It’s okay. I know there isn’t much privacy in this busy kitchen. I shouldn’t complain about my job. Really, every job is what you make it.”

  “I guess,” she muttered, turned around, and pasted on a smile as she delivered the orders to her friends at table twenty-seven.

  If every job was what a person made it, Uncle Joe should have fired her hours ago for making the serving job a nuclear disaster.

  Even though today it hadn’t been her fault, nothing had gone much differently than her day in the kitchen. During the lunch period, someone bumped her and an entire cup of coffee spilled down her front when it toppled off the tray. Fortunately, Uncle Joe and everyone else had been more worried about burns to her skin and had not paid attention to the mess. In this case, the coffee had been cold, left by a customer who’d taken one too many refills.

  Then at suppertime, the mothers of a couple of preschoolers hadn’t been watching their children and allowed them to climb in and out of the chairs unattended instead of demanding the children stay seated. The children had run right in front of her when she was on her way to a table in the far corner of her area. Unable to see them beneath the large tray as she walked, she’d tripped on them, spilling everything she carried, then she’d landed on top of the mess. That little accident had broken three plates and two cups, in addition to sending fries flying onto three nearby tables, to say nothing of the splatted food on the carpet and her uniform.

  Good fortune was on her side. Everyone in the area had seen that it wasn’t her fault and that the situation could have been much worse. No one had been injured by flying objects, and Uncle Joe said the carpet needed a steam cleaning anyway.

  Those incidents had been enough to remove waitressing from Chantelle’s list of potential future jobs. Fearing that things would get worse before they got better, Chantelle had offered to quit as soon as Uncle Joe found someone to replace her. He refused to talk about it.

  She spent the rest of the evening in a daze, trying not to think of what disasters would await her tomorrow—Saturday—the restaurant’s busiest day.

  Three

  Mark sipped his coffee and sighed while he waited for his laptop computer to boot up. He hadn’t had time to install the accounting program last night, but that hadn’t been a bad thing. Doing something that didn’t involve his computer had been a welcome change, even though he hadn’t come all this way to work in Uncle Jack’s kitchen. As tired as he had been, it had also been good to stand while he worked instead of sitting behind a desk, his only movement being his fingers as he typed.

  Of course, all thoughts of work in any form disappeared when his parents arrived to pick him up. The last time he’d seen them had been over three years ago, his last vacation. The sniffles his mother tried her best to hide only told him that it had been far too long and that he would have to come home more often.

  Now, after a good night’s sleep, Mark was ready to face the day. His parents had loaned him their car so he could drive to the hospital later in the afternoon to see Uncle Jack. Since he wasn’t immediate family, an exception has been made to allow Mark to see his uncle for five minutes, but only because of his uncle’s insistence. Until then, he had work to do. Nice as it was to take a trip down memory lane, it was even better to be doing what he did best, which was to sort and enter all the business’s financial transactions.

  Over the next two days, Mark planned to properly input all the invoices, purchases, payroll, taxes, and other expenses, then reconcile everything against the daily sales and deposits, cash flow and bank statements, to thereby produce a workable and manageable database.

  He knew he wouldn’t be able to do everything in just one weekend. Therefore, he planned to finish it up at home, where he could also work up the monthly profit-and-loss statements for the past year. After that, he would compile statistics to predict peak periods to help his uncle and Joe better structure their staffing, which was the biggest expense.

  Two tiny raps sounded on the office door. It opened before he replied.

  Chantelle peeked her head in. “Feeling a bit more chipper this morning? Can I warm up your coffee?”

  He smiled. “Yes, thanks.”

  Chantelle entered the room. She wore a fresh, clean uniform, smartly displaying Joe’s Diner’s navy, yellow, and white logo colors, the way she should have been last night. Working in the kitchen, he wasn’t required to wear a uniform, but both Joe and Uncle Jack had always been very particular about the servers’ dress code. Inwardly, he winced at Chantelle’s pink sneakers, but he trusted that she would rectify that situation within a week.

  She poured his coffee, left a small handful of cream containers on the table, and disappeared, leaving the door open behind her.

  Mark shook his head while he waited for the program to install. He’d already seen the breakage report for the last two days, higher than usual, most of it attributable to Chantelle. As well as the expense of the dishes and wasted food, someone would have to steam-clean the carpet, a situation also attributable to Chantelle. However, he’d also seen the notes Joe had made. They had witnesses who saw two children dart in front of her and trip her. Fortunately, no one had been hurt, s
o they weren’t going to face any lawsuits for injury or trauma to the children.

  On the bright side, Chantelle had come on short notice when asked. When she wasn’t having some kind of accident, she worked hard and cheerfully, so Mark had to give her credit for that.

  Since none of the customers could see inside the office, Mark didn’t bother to get up to close the door. Just as he had last night, he found the familiar background noise of the restaurant comforting, especially compared to the sterile atmosphere of his office back in the city. Here, the customers were happy, the servers cheerful, and all the staff worked together without bickering. Every once in awhile he could hear Joe’s boisterous and welcome laugh when another regular customer entered. He also heard Chantelle talking with customers far more than anyone else who worked there.

  He didn’t put in his own order for lunch until the rush was over. Just as in years gone by, the kitchen staff would pile his plate with extra fries and a double scoop of the diner’s famous coleslaw, and he would get his food order for free because, for the weekend, he was considered staff.

  “Mark! Chantelle! Order up!” a part-timer called out from the kitchen.

  Two identical plates sat on the pickup counter when he answered the call.

  Chantelle reached out toward one of the plates, then froze with her hand in midair. She glanced back and forth between the two identical orders.

  Mark stood beside her. “Mushroom burger and fries?”

  “Yes, but I ordered mine with cheese. If we’re both having lunch at the same time, why don’t you join me in the staff room?”

  Mark had planned on eating his lunch while he worked, but Chantelle’s invitation reminded him that he promised himself he was never again going to work through his breaks. Just because he was working at his uncle’s restaurant for the weekend, and doing it as a favor, didn’t negate the fact that he was still working.

  “That sounds like a good idea.”

  They each picked up one plate, helped themselves to a drink, and walked toward the staff room in the rear of the building.

  “Who was that in the kitchen today?” Mark asked over his shoulder as they walked. “I met Evelyn last night, but short of looking up the staff schedule, I don’t know anyone here except Brittany. And you, of course.”

  “That’s Jorge. He only works every second Saturday. He has another job, so Jorge and his wife trade which Saturdays they work so one of them can stay home with their kids.”

  “That’s a rather unique arrangement.”

  Chantelle shrugged her shoulders as they entered the small staff room. She set her meal and drink on the table. “They need the money, but it’s too much for Jorge to work six days a week, every week. The same with Helena. That’s his wife’s name, by the way. So, that’s the arrangement Uncle Joe made. The only reason I know is because Uncle Joe had to check the schedule last night to see what hours he wanted me to work today, and he explained it to me. He said my start time would depend on who else was working. I got the early shift, as you can see.”

  They both peeked under the buns as soon as they sat, then traded plates without a word.

  Chantelle folded her hands on the table in front of her. “Can we pause for a word of thanks before we eat?”

  “Sure.” Mark also clasped his hands, then bowed his head. He knew she was waiting for him to speak, but he remained silent. After a few seconds, she said a short prayer over their food, including asking for a blessing over the day in general at the restaurant. She ended with an enthusiastic “amen.” Mark responded with significantly less emphasis and reached for the bottle of ketchup.

  Mark didn’t plan to talk. All he wanted was to eat quickly and return to his computer, but Chantelle didn’t seem to be in any hurry. While he squeezed a blob of ketchup onto his plate, Chantelle folded her hands in front of her and watched him while she talked. “The staffing schedule is going to be changed today because Uncle Joe didn’t have time to do it Thursday or Friday with so much happening. With your uncle off, Uncle Joe first put me in the kitchen, but he changed his mind.”

  Mark slid the bottle toward her and shuffled the overflowing burger in his hands to get a good grip on it, readying it to take his first bite. Chantelle grasped the ketchup bottle, but instead of helping herself, she pushed it aside. She leaned toward him across the table, then quickly looked from side to side as if she were about to share a profound secret.

  Mark opened his mouth, about to take his first bite. At the touch of Chantelle’s fingertips on his arm, he froze, the burger in front of him, his mouth gaping. Making eye contact over the top of the dripping burger, he couldn’t move in any way, not even to put the burger down. Just like a moth caught in the deadly pull of a flame, all he could do was stare back at her, completely transfixed.

  Her big, blue eyes widened. He’d never seen eyes so blue. At the airport, all he’d noticed was her slightly crooked nose. Now, looking at her face-to-face, he wondered why he hadn’t noticed. Not that she was drop-dead gorgeous, but she certainly wasn’t bad.

  A mane of unruly hair so blond it was almost white framed a dainty face, highlighting a cute pixie chin. A series of multicolored hair clips that probably were meant to be in a straight line, none of which matched the uniform, barely managed to keep the mass of curls under some semblance of control. It shouldn’t have surprised him. From what he’d seen and heard so far, Chantelle Dubois was as wild and out of control as her hair. Even while they were sitting still, allegedly just to eat and talk, after being on her feet all morning long, one foot tapped constantly against her chair.

  The woman radiated boundless, unchecked energy, which made him feel even more tired than he really was. If he were smart, he would excuse himself and run back to the office, but he couldn’t force himself to move. He could only lower the burger to the plate and watch her as she spoke.

  “Things weren’t working out for me in the kitchen,” she said in an exaggerated whisper, then straightened and cleared her throat. “Uncle Joe moved Evelyn into the kitchen while Jack’s gone. Now he has to rearrange the schedule a little because he doesn’t want me working with only part-timers. He said that’s because I’ve never done this before.”

  After seeing what had happened outside of the kitchen, Mark could only guess at what happened inside the kitchen to make Joe pull Chantelle out after only one day on the job. He quickly lifted the burger and took a bite. Then he grunted a response that she could have interpreted any way she pleased, sparing him from having to reply.

  Chantelle finally bit into her burger. “Are you really going to be able to fix up all that stuff Jack left?” she mumbled around the food in her mouth before she swallowed in one, noisy gulp. “When Uncle Joe saw all the diner’s paperwork for the last two years just stuffed into boxes, I thought he was going to faint.”

  Mark dabbed his mouth with the corner of his napkin, then pushed the extra napkin he’d brought across the table toward Chantelle. “I’ll get it all entered one way or another. I can’t tell yet if anything is missing. I might have to take home everything I don’t get done once I’ve sorted what goes with the current fiscal year. I know I’m not going to get everything reconciled before I leave tomorrow. It’s pretty disorganized. And that’s being nice.”

  “Does that mean you’ll be coming back next weekend?”

  Mark nearly told her that since he’d taken this weekend off, he’d have to work doubly hard next weekend and for many weeks to come. But the words wouldn’t come.

  During the cab ride to the airport yesterday, doubts had begun to assail him, making him question his decision to leave town for the weekend. It had been too late to change his mind.

  Once the plane was airborne, Mark didn’t even turn on his laptop. He was simply too tired. All he could do was close his eyes for the duration of the flight. However, between the worry and drinking so much coffee all day long, Mark found himself too wired to sleep. But it didn’t matter. In his rush to leave, he hadn’t uploaded any files to w
ork on. He hadn’t even taken a book to occupy his time during the flight. He didn’t have the energy to strike up a conversation with the man sitting next to him. All he could do was sit in his self-imposed darkness and think.

  He’d ended up thinking about work. Lately all he did, besides driving to and from work and sleeping to get enough rest to go back to work, was work. Since he’d been awarded the management position, he’d been so busy that his only break was going to church on Sunday mornings. Except, for the last year or so, he hadn’t been going every Sunday. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been to church at all, much less what the message had been.

  At first, he felt guilty. However, after awhile he found that not going to church didn’t make a difference in his life. With his ever-increasing workload, he found himself catching up on some much-needed sleep on Sunday mornings. Then, when he awoke, instead of going to the late service, he went to the office.

  Not long after being promoted to his supervisory position, the people whom he thought were his friends at work stopped inviting him to their social outings. He never saw his friends from his last year of college anymore; they were all too busy as well. Since he stopped going to church, he seldom saw that circle of friends, either. He hadn’t been out on a date for ages, nor any other social outing that did not involve a business function.

  Alone on the plane, with only his thoughts for company, Mark did something he hadn’t done for a long time. He talked to God, even though Mark felt God never listened to him. He told God he was tired of the rat race. Tired of running around in circles. Tired of living only to work for a company where no one appreciated him. The more he did, the more they expected him to do.