Joe's Diner Read online

  He didn’t receive any answers. He hadn’t expected to.

  Slowly his thoughts drifted back to where he was—sitting in the small lunchroom, across the table from Chantelle, who was sitting, watching him, waiting for him to say something.

  Mark felt his ears heat up. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. What were you saying? I got lost thinking about something else.”

  “That’s okay. Don’t worry about it. I was wondering if you were going to come to church with us tomorrow.”

  Mark gulped, wondering if she’d been able to read his mind. “Church?”

  “Yes. Normally I go to my own church, but Uncle Joe asked everyone to go to his church so we can all have lunch at their house after. Your aunt Susan is going to be there, and so are your parents. He’s also invited me to go with him on Wednesday, when they have a special Bible study night. Uncle Joe says it’s really special, almost like a mini church service. They have a worship time with music, and it’s really informal. Apparently, lots of people go there who aren’t comfortable in the more formal setting Sunday morning. I usually go to weekly Bible studies, but they’re in someone’s home. I’ve never been to a service on a weeknight, informal or not.”

  “Church service on Wednesday night?” As if he should be concerned about a midweek church service. It had been a long, long time since he’d attended any church function, Sunday or otherwise.

  All seriousness left Chantelle’s face as she started to smile, her grin growing, almost in slow motion. Her eyes sparkled, and she looked so happy she practically glowed. She took on such an angelic look, it started to make Mark nervous.

  “Uncle Joe says that due to this Wednesday night ministry, some of the people who won’t go to church on Sundays but will go on Wednesdays have made decisions to become Christians. Isn’t that wonderful?”

  Mark bowed his head and concentrated on swirling a fry into the blob of ketchup on his plate. “Yeah,” he muttered. “That’s great.”

  They sat in silence for awhile, each of them simply eating, until Chantelle finished her burger and about half her fries.

  “You know, I think I’ve done all the talking. Tell me about yourself. What it’s like to move away from where you were born and raised? Are you going out with your parents tonight? Somewhere special since you haven’t been home for awhile? Or are you just going to stay home and relax? I guess you’re going to see your uncle in the hospital later, aren’t you?”

  Mark raised his head and stared into Chantelle’s wide, expectant eyes. When he didn’t speak immediately, her eyes widened even more.

  “I don’t know which question to answer first,” he mumbled.

  “Uncle Joe says you’re an accountant and that you work in a big high-rise office tower in the middle of downtown. Why don’t you start by telling me about your job? All I’ve ever done is data entry and ordinary office jobs. What’s it like to be a manager and have your own office?”

  Evelyn had asked him about his job yesterday. For the first time in his life, he’d acted on a whim and left his job and responsibilities behind. Even though he had second thoughts once he boarded the plane, it had felt unbelievably good to get up and walk away. Whether or not it was worth it, he would decide later.

  “It’s a job. A lot of pressure, a lot of stress. I’m finally away from the office, and I want to keep it that way.”

  “Oh. . .” Chantelle’s voice trailed off, she bowed her head, and dipped one of the fries into her blob of ketchup. “Sorry,” she muttered. “I won’t mention it again.”

  If Mark hadn’t felt bad enough before, he felt even worse now. “That’s okay,” he murmured. “I didn’t realize until now it was such a sore spot. Don’t worry about it. I’m also a little tired. Taking into account the time difference, my body-clock tells me I got up at four-thirty a.m.”

  The reappearance of Chantelle’s smile told Mark she forgave him for his surly behavior.

  “That’s almost inhuman, isn’t it? Yesterday I worked the late shift, but today I was assigned the early one. I had to get up at five-thirty to be here, ready to start at six-thirty when the diner opens. Even with my other job, I never had to get up so early. I don’t know how people do it.”

  “It’s not that bad. I get up at six for work every day. That’s only a half-hour difference.”

  Chantelle gave an exaggerated shudder and squeezed her eyes shut for a second. “Maybe I’m just feeling sorry for myself because I have to go to bed at nine-thirty. That’s so early; but if I don’t get eight hours of sleep, I can be a real bear.”

  In his entire life, he couldn’t remember meeting anyone more cheerful and bubbly than Chantelle. It was almost irritating, except he couldn’t be angry with anyone so consistently happy. He couldn’t imagine Chantelle being a bear under any circumstances.

  He started to tell her that he never got more than six hours’ sleep a night, more usually five, and that he did fine, but he stopped himself. For the first time, Mark began to wonder if lack of sleep might have something to do with the dragged-out feeling he’d been living with for the past couple of years.

  At first, he got away with working the occasional evening until midnight, making the long drive home, and still getting up at six. But, as time went on, he found himself working late more and more often. Without realizing it, his ever-increasing late hours caught up with him. In addition to the lack of sleep, the stress and responsibility was taking its toll on him, both mentally and physically. The only times he got enough sleep were on the weekends. Then he didn’t have to get up as early to go to work, even though he still went, supposedly on his own time. He only wished he could do something about it. Taking the practicum students from the business college was a good first step. Although, Monday, he would face his boss’s reaction to what he’d done without first going through proper channels for authorization.

  As soon as Chantelle popped the last fry into her mouth, she stood. “That half-hour sure went fast. I have to get back to work. If I don’t get a chance to talk to you before then, I’ll see you at church tomorrow morning. Bye.”

  Before he could think of a response, Chantelle disappeared.

  Mark began to wonder if she was always so abrupt or if she knew he would try to come up with some excuse not to go. On the other hand, after his long talk with God on the plane, he wondered if he shouldn’t at least give church a try.

  Since he suspected that nothing would change for awhile once he returned home, Mark shrugged it off, telling himself that, if nothing else, going to church was good for him.

  As soon as he finished the last of his fries, Mark picked up both plates and both glasses, walked into the kitchen, and placed them in the dishwasher rack. While he was there, he peeked over the pickup counter and into the restaurant and watched Chantelle. While she wrote an order on the notepad, the tip of her tongue peeked out of the corner of her mouth. Quite frankly, he couldn’t see what on the menu could possibly require as much concentration as she took to jot down the variations of the lunchtime hamburger menu.

  He continued to stand in one spot, watching as she moved on to the second woman in the party of four and took her order with the same painstaking care. When she moved on to the first man, however, she didn’t write anything down. She stood in one spot while he talked, listening intently. Instead of writing anything down, she held her finger up in the air and glanced toward the kitchen, then started walking toward the small opening joining the kitchen with the restaurant.

  Upon her arrival, she rested her palms on the edge of the counter and leaned in. Mark had no doubt that she was also up on her tiptoes.

  “One of the customers is asking if we can put some grated cheese on the breadsticks and broil it until it’s melted and slightly golden. He said they once did it for him at Lizziano’s down the street, but his wife wanted to come here. I didn’t know what to say.”

  Jorge narrowed one eye, turned his head toward the oven, and then turned back to Chantelle. “I see no reason why no
t.”

  “Will there be an extra charge for that?”

  “I don’t know. You’d have to ask Joe.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  In a flash, she turned to the table, signaled an okay sign in the air, then hurried to the front counter, where she repeated the same request to Uncle Joe. When he shook his head, Chantelle turned once more to the table in question, clenched her fist in the air, and pulled it down in a gesture of triumph, then returned to the table, practically skipping.

  Mark couldn’t believe her theatrics.

  “I guess that meant ‘no extra charge’ then,” Jorge said, smiling.

  Mark crossed his arms over his chest. “Looks like it,” he said, not smiling.

  “I know what you’re thinking. I’ve been watching her all day. She’s like that to everybody.”

  “I don’t know if I should be surprised.”

  “I hear she’s another relative.”

  Mark didn’t know if he should have confessed that he, too, was a relative, so he simply nodded.

  “Speaking of relatives, I hear you’re Jack’s nephew, here to fix things up after that accident with the computer. No secrets around here. It’s a great place to work. Jack and Joe are great guys.”

  “I know. I used to work here when I was in college. Not much has changed. Not even the decorating, although it looks like they got all the chairs recovered.”

  “Jack likes consistency, that’s for sure. Here comes Chantelle with that order for the breadstick table. Just wait until you see her orders. She always makes sure to write out every detail in longhand. We never have any doubt about what her tables want. She even makes notes about who gets what.”

  Mark couldn’t decide if that was good or bad. When he was in the kitchen, the servers and the cooks always knew all the abbreviations and shortcuts, and he’d never seen a server write down which order belonged to which person. He suspected that no one had yet found the time to teach her the codes or what was necessary versus not necessary. He thought he might do Joe a favor and teach them to her, except he was here for more valuable work than teaching a server that N O simply meant “no onions.”

  “Excuse me. I should be back in the office. It was nice meeting you, Jorge.”

  He didn’t see Chantelle for the rest of the afternoon, although he heard her voice on a regular basis through the open doorway. He could certainly tell when she left, because not only did most of the current staff wish her a pleasant evening as she walked out the main door, some of the customers did, too.

  Mark shook his head as he tried once more to make sense of the jumble of his uncle’s disorganized paperwork. In the back of his mind, he realized that just as he’d heard some of the staff say they would miss Chantelle for the rest of the workday, he would miss her, too. Not because she actually talked to him or had anything to do with him, except for their short lunch break together. Listening to her exploits as she went about her day serving, Chantelle proved to be very entertaining. From a distance.

  He gritted his teeth as he once more came upon the shrinkage report from the day before.

  One of the reasons he found Chantelle so entertaining today stemmed from her absence of broken dishes and spilled drinks, unlike the other days since he’d arrived. Since tomorrow was Sunday, instead of seeing her at the diner, he would be seeing her at church.

  At that thought, Mark’s hands froze over the keyboard. If she behaved the same way at church that she did at work, he didn’t know if he wanted to see her out in public. However, for some reason, it was important to Joe that they all attend church together. Joe had become like a second father to him when he worked for the diner during his college days. For that reason, as well as being his favorite uncle’s best friend, he would go.

  Four

  The pastor raised his hands, tilted his head back, and closed his eyes. “Go!” he called out. “And may the peace of Christ be with you always!”

  “A-MEN!” the congregation chorused.

  Immediately, the instruments began to play. At the same time, the worship team hummed the melody of the last song in perfect four-part harmony. The lights in the seating area brightened, while the lights at the front dimmed. Most of the congregation began to file out of the sanctuary, but a few people remained kneeling at the front, tears streaming down their faces, while the elders prayed with them. The difference in the lighting created an unseen line not to cross, unless a person had a prayer to bring to the altar, giving those at the front their privacy.

  Chantelle felt on the verge of tears, herself. “Wow,” she muttered, both to clear her throat and give herself some time to get a grip. “I’ve never been to a service like this in my life. What about you?”

  Mark’s voice beside her came out strangely choked as well. “No. Never.”

  She stuffed her bulletin, all scrunched up and scribbled full of notes, into her purse. “This has given me a lot to think about. I think I have a lot of reading to do. I wonder if I can get a tape?”

  Uncle Joe and Aunt Ellen smiled at each other, then turned to face her.

  “Yes, you can,” Aunt Ellen said. “They make tapes to give away to those who were unable to attend. I’m sure they’ll give one to a guest who wants to hear Pastor’s sermon again.”

  On their way out, many people stopped to speak to Susan, asking questions and expressing their concern for Jack. Most offered to bring her food, to give her more time to spend at the hospital, which Chantelle thought was very nice.

  “Is everyone hungry?” Aunt Ellen asked as their large group finally made it to the door. “I think we all see too much of that diner, so everyone is invited over to our house for lunch. I made a big casserole yesterday. It’s been warming in the oven while we’ve been gone, just waiting for us to get home and eat.”

  Chantelle wondered exactly how large the casserole in question would be. Not only was Susan coming, but they’d also invited their daughter Marella, along with Marella’s husband and their son, Bradley. Adding Mark’s parents, Hank and Leslie, and of course Mark and herself, the total came to ten people. She also wondered how they were going to fit everyone in her aunt’s small kitchen.

  Lunch turned out to be a crowded but friendly affair. She’d never met Hank and Leslie before, but they were so warm and open that, within an hour, she felt like she’d known them for years. They talked so much, enjoying each other’s company, that in order to make Mark’s flight time, Aunt Ellen brought a box of hamburgers out of the freezer and insisted everyone stay.

  The entire time Uncle Joe barbecued, he complained, in fun, that because he saw far too many hamburgers at the diner, he didn’t want to see them at home, too. His playful protests made Chantelle suspect that she would soon feel the same way about eating restaurant meals, although she couldn’t compare the store-bought oven fries to the real fries the restaurant made in the deep fryer.

  The last hamburger had barely disappeared off the plate when Uncle Joe looked at the time. “Mark, you should collect your suitcase and we should get going. You don’t want to miss your flight.”

  Mark nodded. “The weekend sure went fast. I didn’t get as much done as I’d hoped.”

  Uncle Joe patted him on the shoulder. “That’s okay. I certainly appreciate everything you did. What I needed most was to be able to enter the day-to-day deposits and purchases, and you’ve done much more than that.”

  “If you don’t mind, I’d like to take some of it home and keep working on it. I can always e-mail the data file and courier the receipts back.” He stopped and broke out into a big grin, once again making Chantelle think it was a shame he didn’t smile more often. “Or I can make a point of coming home more often and bring everything with me then.” He paused to look at his mother. “I promise it won’t be so long next time. I’ve had a wonderful time. I didn’t realize how much I needed this. But it is time for me to go home.”

  Chantelle set her mug down on the coffee table and turned to Mark. “Do you know that you just called both
places home? That must be so strange.”

  He shrugged his shoulders, but didn’t reply.

  Chantelle wondered what his life in the big city must be like, to have such a busy and active social life that he was never home. Unlike Mark, Chantelle spent most of her time at her apartment, more so lately because, until two days ago, she didn’t have a job to go to during the daytime, which also meant that she could no longer afford to go out during the evenings.

  Susan sighed. “This weekend has been much too short. I hardly got to see you. You spent most of your time at the diner, and I spent most of my time at the hospital.”

  Mark stood as well. “I know, but it couldn’t be helped. The time went much too quickly.” He checked his wristwatch. “Speaking of time, I had better get moving. I have to pick up my suitcase from Mom and Dad’s, then stop by the diner to get that box of paperwork and my laptop on the way to the airport.”

  Uncle Joe stood next. “I don’t know how I can ever thank you enough for coming. Ellen and I would like to see you off, too. We can go to the diner for you and then meet you at the airport. That will save you a bit of time since we’re running a little late already. Hank, Leslie, I guess you’re taking Mark to the airport?”

  Hank nodded. “Yes.”

  “Susan?”

  Susan turned to Mark. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to go back to the hospital and see Jack, since I haven’t seen him yet today. Thanks for coming, Mark, and have a good flight home.”

  “I will. Thanks.”

  Uncle Joe turned to Chantelle. “What about you? You can either come to the airport with us or someone can take you home.”

  Chantelle checked her watch, now sorry she’d accepted her uncle’s offer to pick her up for church. Marella needed to take her son home to bed, not spending her time driving across town. Susan was obviously in a rush to get to the hospital to see her husband, so she didn’t want to impose there, either. “I’d like to see Mark off, too.”

  At her words, Mark’s eyebrows rose, and she thought that maybe his cheeks might have darkened a bit. She didn’t want to give him any wrong ideas, but she didn’t want him to feel insulted that the only reason she was going was because she didn’t have a ride home.