An Order of Coffee and Tears Page 19

  Later the next day, we were hard at work for the three-to-three shift. The sound of metal on glass was a constant, as men out front busily scraped the name Angela’s from the window. I felt a bittersweet tug in my heart as each of the letters disappeared forever.

  The lettering of Angela’s Diner was the first thing I noticed when I came upon what would become my home – well, that, and the smell of food. A memory bubble surfaced, and it was a good one. I saw my reflection in the glass of Angela’s Diner. Staring back at me, I saw a young girl, a cold breath leaving her mouth in a whisper. She wore just the thinnest of clothing, a backpack hanging on her shoulder. She pegged the sidewalk with the tip of her Chuck Taylors, her heel wavering with pensive curiosity, as she looked over the diner for the first time. She was skinny, and hungry, and scared. And then her eyes opened wide. She’d found the help wanted sign in the window, and made a decision. It was a decision that changed her life forever.

  “Well, you just going to stand there all day, or help out?” I heard Suzette’s voice in my ear. Smiling, I turned to find her bright eyes, grinning and ready to take on the world – provided they were ordering up some food, that is.

  When the bell above the door rang, I turned, and my breath was gone. It was my father. He’d come back to visit, but he wasn’t alone. An older woman stood in front of him. She was small and round, and held familiar eyes on me. My legs turned wobbly, but I didn’t want to run. My hands started to shake, and I felt both Suzette and Ms. Potts take a hold of my arms. My momma was here. She was here, at the diner, with my father. She was so much older. Older than ten years should have given her. A small pang of guilt pinched my heart, as I heard, “Be civil to your parents,” echo in my head. It was my momma, and I fought the tears pressing in my eyes.

  “Gonna be fine, Gabby,” Ms. Potts said. “Go on now – go on to see your Momma.”

  In that moment, the pain and hurt of ten years went someplace, and I had no idea where that was. I missed my momma, and now she was standing just a few feet in front of me. Her eyes were wet, and she took a cautious step closer, raising a hand, as though she couldn’t decide if this was real.

  “Momma?” I cried, and clutched my hands together in front of me.

  “Gabriella?” She yelled, and then pulled me into her arms. And I remembered everything about her. I remembered her voice, and her touch, and her smell. But more than anything, I remembered how I loved my momma. She pulled away just enough to look at my face, and then I heard her say,

  “Mi Gabby, amo thee tan.” I hadn’t heard those words since I was a child. It was the only time she ever called me Gabby – she said, “My Gabby, I love thee so.”

  “I love you, too, Momma.”

  Epilogue

  Soon after Angela’s Diner came to be known as Suzette’s Diner, I learned that Detective Ramiz had passed away. During a regular visit by Keep on Truckin´, he handed me the remains of his newspaper, where a photo of a younger Detective Ramiz was shown in a quarter page article. The detective was dressed in his full service uniform, and wore an expression that was decades younger than the dying face I’d come to know during his recent visits to the diner. Beneath his photo, the paper read his full name: Samuel Jonathan Ramiz. The paper also listed his accomplishments, and that he’d been survived by a wife, children, and grandchildren. That last accolade caught me off guard, and I realized that you really can’t assume anything – Detective Ramiz was a person.

  Suzette’s Diner was a hit. The eventual closing of the fast-food establishment helped. The article in the Philadelphia Magazine on Historic Restaurants was a pure windfall for her. Suzette was happier than I’d ever seen her, and she fell in love with being the owner of the diner. From time to time, Mr. Thurmon stopped in and sat at the counter, where I enjoyed his company. He’d watch Suzette and how she ran the diner. He’d say how much Suzette reminded him of his mother.

  “She runs the diner with the same passion… the same love,” he’d tell me. And he was right. Suzette found her love in owning and running the diner. She never married again, and, as far as I can remember, she never dated again. The diner became her life, and an order of coffee and tears became her own. Often times, I’d see her sitting with folks, sharing a cup of coffee, and counseling whatever was ailing them. She even closed the diner some evenings to hold closed meetings for battered women seeking help. I never attended any, but learned from dozens of grateful voices just how much Suzette had done for them. How much she’d changed their lives. I was so proud when I heard that.

  We saw Mr. Thurmon less and less over the years. I was still a waitress at Suzette’s when the news came that he died. The arthritis took his life years before any of us expected it would. We cried for him at the funeral, and, later that evening, we held a reception in the diner, where we celebrated his life. We drank and laughed, and told stories until the morning shift came in to prep for the next day.

  It wasn’t long after we lost Mr. Thurmon that a stroke took half of Clark. The entire right half of his body was paralyzed, leaving him to live out his remaining years in one of Philadelphia’s finest retirement homes. Suzette made certain that Clark received the best room, the best care, and the best television, which tuned in episodes of Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy every night.

  Ms. Potts continued working at Suzette’s well beyond her years. When she could no longer wait tables, Suzette offered her Angela’s old place at the cash register. But Ms. Potts knew when her time was, and, with tears in her eyes, and a smile on her lips, she said it was her time to go. She retired to the same home where Clark lived his final years, and where Jarod, my husband, and I brought our two little ones to visit. Grand-Mama, they called her, and she called our children her own, just as she had with me years before. Nearing the age of ninety-five, Ms. Potts went to sleep one evening, and never woke up. She was found the next morning, holding a picture of all of us, taken years before in the diner. I’d like to think she died peaceful, with only good memories of Angela’s. Her funeral was quiet and somber, and her death brought with it a kind of closure to the mystery of Angela’s Diner.

  For years, Be civil to your parents was something I continued to hear in my head; still do, in fact. And, so, I stayed civil, and began a new relationship with my parents. We talked almost every week, and made trips to and from Texas. You might even say we were normal. I never look back on the years we were apart. No need to. With the past behind me, I stay in today, since that is all we really have, anyway.

  The lilting accent of Texans passing through one afternoon caught my ear. The sound of their voices tugged a string or two in my heart. The strings tugged some more when I had to tell them we didn’t have any grits, or Texas-style red-beans and rice. Texas was home, and what I’d buried there stayed buried. But the voice of home got in my head, and in my heart. And, soon, the idea of home flourished the way ideas sometimes do. Before I realized it, I was asking Jarod if he was up for a move. He nodded with an excited smile, and we moved to the big state.

  Today, we live in a town just a few miles from my parents. It is there that I started a new chapter in my life. I made a list of my own, and put it in Clark’s old book, where I keep it on a shelf and read it from time to time. And, just like Clark said, you can always start over. So that is what we did.

  Auntie Suzette visits a few times a year and always brings a bag full of Philadelphia with her. From soft-pretzels to cheese steaks and hoagies, packed in dry-ice, of course, Jarod is usually the first to greet her, digging into the bag of goodies. On one particular visit, I drove her out to an empty intersection, where an old abandoned boxcar eatery stood perched amidst long grass and grown out shrubs caught on the corners. The winds had blown Texas dust up along one side, so that the boxcar held tones of sandy brown and faded maroon.

  Suzette winced at the sight of the boxcar, and asked why we were there. I held the keys up and jingled them in front of her. She nodded an understanding, and we went inside. There, she saw the work Jarod had already
started. The boxcar was the front, and we were adding an entire addition, much like Angela Thurmon had done to Suzette’s diner.

  The boxcar diner was small, but I didn’t mind. Gabby’s Diner was going to be the first active boxcar restaurant our town had seen in more than fifty years. Suzette cheered and clapped her hands in front of her, and the image of it reminded me of Ms. Potts. I loved that she did that. She looked at me with a terrific grin on her face, and told me to get ready for more orders of coffee and tears.

  Thank You

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  Look for some of my other novels and upcoming novels:

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