Joe's Diner Read online

  As he held Chantelle as snugly as she held him, her warmth seeped into him, revitalizing him.

  He couldn’t remember anyone ever calling him sweet before, if anyone ever had. The only other person in the universe who might have said such a thing would have been his mother, so long ago he didn’t want to think about it.

  Mark remembered his mother’s hugs when he was a child. Chantelle’s arms around him felt nothing like his mother’s. Yet at the same time, Chantelle’s hug wasn’t the same as the last time he’d had a girlfriend and they’d embraced each other before they kissed. He was positive Chantelle had no intention of kissing him.

  Normally, he wouldn’t have considered himself a huggy-type person, but he didn’t want to let go. It felt too good. He wanted to believe that Chantelle’s spontaneous response meant everything that it implied—that not only did she think he had made the right decision, but that she would support him in what he needed to do to make his current situation work.

  Mark couldn’t help himself. Even though he knew he was too tired to think properly and that he shouldn’t trust his own judgment, he lowered his head and nuzzled his face into her hair. The fragrance of some kind of apple-scented shampoo filled his senses—sweet, yet tangy at the same time, just like Chantelle.

  Before he thought about the ramifications of what he was doing, he buried his face farther and gently kissed the top of her head.

  Suddenly, she stiffened in his arms. He wasn’t ready to let the moment end, but he wouldn’t hold her against her will.

  Chantelle backed up a few steps, blinked a few times, and looked up at him from a safe distance. “So what are you going to do?”

  Mark swiped his hair back and rammed his hands into his pockets. “It looks like I just got myself a new job in the kitchen at Joe’s Diner.”

  ❧

  Mark lowered himself into the passenger seat of Chantelle’s low-slung economy import car and fastened the seatbelt. “You’re five minutes late.”

  “I’m not late. I said I’d be here ‘about’ six. I think five minutes after six still qualifies as ‘about’. Did you sleep well?”

  He smiled as Chantelle shifted into first gear and the car started moving. “Strangely, yes, I did.” He’d fallen asleep with a smile on his face, feeling at peace with himself for the first time since he had been awarded his management position at S&B Accounting. From that day forward, he’d never been able to keep up with the ever-increasing expectations heaped on his shoulders, no matter how hard he tried. For awhile, at least, he wouldn’t have to deal with the unending pressure, although now he would face expectations of another kind. These new expectations, however, he could deal with because he no longer felt completely alone. Even though he hadn’t slept that many hours, the sleep he did get refreshed him like never before. “And you? Did you sleep well?”

  “No, I didn’t. Are you really not going home on Tuesday night? You’re really staying?”

  “Yes, I’m staying.”

  She remained facing forward as she pulled into the traffic on the main road. “I don’t understand why you’re doing this. You’re a CPA. You’ve got a fancy college education and a great management job in a high-rise office tower downtown in a real city. Why are you jeopardizing that to be a temporary helper in a little family-owned and -operated restaurant out here in the middle of nowhere?”

  “Actually, I’m beyond a CPA; I’ve got my MBA. And I’m not jeopardizing anything. Employed or not, I still have my certificate. . .although I think I’ll have to get someone to take it off the wall and mail it to me.” He pulled his electronic organizer out of his pocket and jotted himself a reminder.

  “But it was such a good job. How can you just give it up like that? Can’t you phone your boss and tell him you were just kidding or having a bad day or something like that?”

  Mark’s smile faded. “I don’t mind playing the game; but if I’m going to play the game, I want to know the rules. I just found out that I don’t like the rules.”

  A charged silence hung in the air, but Mark waited for her response.

  “This is so hard for me to accept. You’re just throwing that good, well-paying, high-prestige job away. I’ve been looking for a job for months. I’m so desperate that I’ll take anything. I think Uncle Joe felt sorry for me, and that’s the only reason he gave me this job. I’m really not suited to waitressing.”

  Not wanting to spoil the moment, Mark didn’t confirm her statement. “What did you do at your last job? Do you mind my asking why you’re no longer still there?”

  “It was just a simple data-entry office job. I got phased out with increasing technology and better programs. What I’d really like to do is work as a bank teller. But there’s another job that’s being phased out. The more bank machines we see, the fewer tellers they need.”

  “That’s the cost of progress, I guess. Why don’t you go back to school and upgrade your education?”

  “Unfortunately, that takes money I don’t have. For now, I’m just grateful to have this job and make it from day to day.”

  Mark never had to worry about money. While attending college, he’d only worked part-time to cover a few personal expenses. His parents had paid for his tuition and his room and board, as long as he paid for his books. They’d even given him a rather beat-up car, but it had four wheels and got him where he needed to go. The only time he’d been without a job was when he finished his last year at the university to get his master’s degree, which he’d been able to do because he had enough money saved after living at home.

  Again, Mark pulled out his organizer. He made himself a note to do something special for his parents to thank them for making it so easy for him to get ahead in life—if he could count spending the last four years of his life slaving for Sean as “getting ahead.” But that situation had been of his own making and not his parents’ fault.

  He put the entry into the memory and tucked the unit back into his pocket.

  “Hopefully they’ll call from the airport and tell me that the box of the diner’s records and my suitcase have been found and are ready for pickup at the baggage claim office sometime this afternoon. I’ll buy a few more things until I can get someone to go into my apartment and pack enough for me to get by for a few months and ship it out to me. Do you know where I should go to lease a car? Or maybe I should pay someone to drive my car here for me. I wonder if I could find someone who needs an apartment to sublet for a few months. I’m not going to give up my apartment, but it seems wasteful and not very safe to leave it vacant for so long. At least I’ve got my computer with me.” Once again, he pulled out his organizer and made himself a few notes.

  They pulled into the parking lot, and both exited the car at the same time.

  Chantelle closed her door, but remained standing with her fingertips pressed onto the car window. “You really intend to stay for five months, don’t you?”

  Mark stood beside the car and also pushed the door closed. The scrape of metal on metal groaned while the door was in motion. When it came to a stop, the alignment between the door and the car body was out by half an inch, and the interior light remained shining.

  Chantelle grinned sheepishly over the car roof. “It’s an old car. You have to slam it.”

  If he wasn’t mistaken, Chantelle’s car was the same kind he’d owned when he was in college, even the same year, which didn’t say much for Chantelle’s car. Still, for its age, it wasn’t in bad condition, unless someone had to use the passenger door. Yesterday he wondered why Joe had been so insistent about picking Chantelle up for church. He now began to wonder if Joe knew something about Chantelle’s car that he didn’t.

  Mark reopened the door, but he didn’t close it. Over the past few minutes, the sky had lightened. The sun had not yet broken the horizon, but the sky had come aglow with the pending sunrise. The fresh air and clear sky hinted at a beautiful day to come.

  He had wanted to be out of the house and to the diner early so he could talk to C
hantelle before they both got buried in the business of the day. Because of the subject matter, he didn’t feel it best to detract from her concentration while driving through the early morning rush-hour traffic. Now, the beauty of the morning sunrise somehow made the parking lot the perfect place to say what needed to be said.

  Mark lowered his laptop case and leaned it against the rear tire. He then shuffled closer to the car, rested his elbows on the roof, and clasped his hands together. “I’ve been thinking about what Joe said at the hospital. Now that I’m staying, that changes things.”

  Chantelle also stepped closer to the car. Leaning forward, she curled her fingers over the roof and raised herself up on her tiptoes. Her chin barely touched the edge of the roof of her car. “What do you mean?”

  Leaving both elbows planted on the roof, Mark lifted one arm and rested his chin on top of his fist. “Joe asked you to take over for him, which means looking after the servers and doing the hosting and taking in the receipts. He asked me to run the kitchen and do Uncle Jack’s other duties while I’m here, because that’s something you can’t do. Now that I’m staying, with both of us looking after things, I would think they’ll be in no rush to come back before they’re ready, which is a good thing. So I think we should talk about working together.”

  Chantelle backed up so she no longer touched the car, putting more distance between them. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Working together? You and me? Us? For how long?”

  Mark quickly slammed the car door closed, picked up his laptop, and jogged around the car to talk to her without anything between them.

  “For as long as it takes. We don’t want either Joe or Uncle Jack endangering their health by coming back too soon.” He held his free hand toward her, inviting her to shake on it and seal the deal in a gentleman’s agreement. “What do you think? Partners?”

  She stared down at his hand like it was made of toxic waste. “I don’t know what to say. This is all so sudden. A couple of days ago, I was just waitressing, and now Uncle Joe has given me the responsibility to run the place.”

  A lump formed in Mark’s stomach. He hadn’t expected her to jump for joy at his proposal, but he had expected her reaction to be a little more positive. He wondered if maybe she now regretted what passed between them last night, although he hadn’t quite yet figured out exactly what had happened or why. All he did know was when Chantelle hugged him, his whole world shifted.

  For the first time in a very long time, even though it had only been a few minutes, he had someone he could lean on when he was down. For the last few years, he’d become less and less satisfied with the way his life was going, yet he couldn’t do anything to change it. Lately, he felt even God had deserted him. He felt lost, with nowhere to turn. Now, stepping in to help keep the diner afloat in Joe and Uncle Jack’s absence could be the one thing to give him some direction again.

  “You can’t possibly be more caught off guard than I am with everything that’s happened in the last few days. I’m not even sure I have a job to go back to. Either way, I want to be as much help as I can be. I’m sure Joe and Uncle Jack would want it that way.”

  She looked up at him, straight into his eyes.

  Mark’s breath caught. Chantelle’s eyes were like a gateway to her soul. Uncertainty shimmered in the blue depths. He could see the questions flickering through her mind, wondering if she were doing the right thing, even down to questioning her ability. Yet, at the same time, he could see her resolve, that she had accepted this responsibility. Even though she wasn’t sure what she was doing, she would do it to the best of her ability or go down trying.

  Running a restaurant would be a daunting task. Fortunately, despite everything he saw in her eyes, he did not see fear of what lay ahead. That, at least, was comforting. He had enough doubts of his own without adding fear to the mixture of uncertainty and inexperience. He would like to think they could form a good partnership, but in reality, he had limited experience in the restaurant industry, and she had even less.

  The bottom line was that she needed him. Likewise, in a strange way, he felt he needed her; but he couldn’t figure out why. She had no experience as a business entrepreneur. He’d never met anyone so accident-prone. Her constant cheerfulness and boisterous personality sometimes made him want to hit his head against the wall.

  Once again, the unbidden thought that desperate times called for desperate measures ran through his head, making him feel like he was sinking deeper and deeper into a realm beyond his control. With both Uncle Jack and Joe unable to work, the situation at the restaurant had become critical. He didn’t have the experience to run the diner, nor did Chantelle. The scary thing was that, together, he and Chantelle were Uncle Jack and Joe’s only hope of keeping the diner running until their return. At least he had some experience in the kitchen. He could only hope she proved to be a fast learner and adapted quickly.

  For now, though, he would take each day one step at a time—one hour at a time if he had to.

  Mark cleared his throat. “I’m not asking you to marry me. I’m only asking that we work together as partners until Joe and Uncle Jack are ready to come back. You don’t want to see the business fall apart after all the years and hard work they put into it, do you?”

  Chantelle stiffened, not breaking eye contact. Her face lost any hint of uncertainty or hesitation as she slid her hand in his and held on, catching him off guard with the firmness of her grip.

  Mark closed his hand around hers. While his fingers wrapped almost around her whole hand, her tiny fingers barely curved around the width of his palm. His hand completely enveloped hers, like holding the hand of a child. Yet in that childlike hand, he felt strength and, most important, determination.

  “Okay,” she said with one firm up-and-down motion of their hands. “Partners.”

  Mark stared down at their hands. His feeble return of her handshake was nothing short of pitiful. “Partners,” he muttered.

  She pulled her hand out of his. Immediately he felt the coolness of the morning air on his palm, almost making him shiver with the loss of the warm contact.

  Chantelle turned toward the diner. Not knowing what else to do while he tried to organize his addled brain, Mark rammed his hand into his pocket and turned as well.

  “There it is,” she sighed. “Joe’s Diner.”

  Mark studied the small building. The restaurant hadn’t changed much over the years—probably the last time any major renovations had been done was fifteen years ago, when Mark was in middle school. The end building of a small neighborhood community mall, Joe’s Diner was wider than the other businesses in the structure, its construction being a big square added onto the side of a rectangle that comprised the rest of the small strip mall. Large windows covered the three visible, unattached sides of the diner, allowing passers-by to see the fifties-style curtains hung all around, but no further inside, which offered the patrons privacy as they ate.

  The main door was flush with the walls, but an archway had been added to the front of the building, creating a short tunnel-like entranceway, giving the otherwise plain building a unique shape. Above the curve of the arch, an oversized neon sign blazed the words Joe’s Diner in brilliant yellow and navy blue.

  Above the roof, the sky continued to brighten from yellow to pale pink to hues of purples and blues until the brilliance of the sun finally appeared.

  Chantelle stepped away from him. “Here goes nuthin’. In we go.”

  Mark walked behind Chantelle as she jogged to the entrance and unlocked the door. While she ran to shut off the alarm, the beep beep beep of the warning signal counted down the thirty seconds allowed to disarm the system.

  “When you go to the airport, can you make me a key on your way back?” he called out as soon as the beeping stopped.

  She returned to him, coming to a stop directly in front of him, and thrust the keys into his hand. “It’s your suitcase. You can go to the airport. And while you’re out, you can also go to the whol
esaler and pick up a few things we need. Uncle Joe says that Jack always makes a trip to the wholesaler on Monday to stock up on the things they have in low supply after the weekend. They place the big order Wednesday, and it’s delivered Thursday.”

  Mark stared at her. If she already knew something of the operation, maybe, just maybe, things wouldn’t be so bad after all. If he could keep her away from anything breakable, they might actually have a chance.

  Her biggest problem would be difficulty in being taken seriously as a manager, both by customers and staff. He’d dealt with a lot of people in management positions over the past four years, many of them women. Chantelle didn’t fit into anything close to the mold. For one thing, she was too. . .cute.

  The woman barely topped five feet. Mark wondered if she weighed much over a hundred pounds. What she lacked in size, though, she more than made up for with hair. The first time he saw her was at the end of a hectic day. Her hair had been flattened in a most unflattering way by being confined in a bandanna for the previous twelve hours. Saturday she’d worn it barely held together with more clips than he’d ever seen a woman use at one time. Sunday, for church, a fluffy ponytail holder held a wad of her hair straight up from the center of her head, then flopping over to one side. Until now, he hadn’t seen it in its full, unencumbered glory.

  Today, with her hair wild and free, he could almost compare Chantelle and her mass of curls to a dandelion, ready and waiting for someone to make a wish. Regardless of how she wore her hair, her full cheeks gave her a more youthful appearance than her years. He knew she was close to his own age; but if she weren’t careful with her clothing and makeup, she could easily have been mistaken for twenty-two.

  He hoped that today she had those same hair clips in her purse and intended to install them as soon as she had time. Learning more about her each time they met, he suspected her lack of attention to controlling her hair had more to do with an inability to organize herself properly in the morning than with her hair being that unmanageable.