An Order of Coffee and Tears (4 page)

When I could, I’d walk across the diner so that I could spy a glance to the back room with the hopes of seeing what was happening. Passing by a few times, I found Ms. Potts and Mr. Thurmon exchanging words. And on one pass, Ms. Potts caught me mid-stride and shooed me away, her face scrunched with annoyance as the sound of the towel in her hand whipped at the air. Clark seemed impervious to it all. Not one time did I see him looking over his shoulder, or trying to lean in with his ear. Not a care – nothing. I suppose I was just curious enough for the two of us; that is what I told myself, anyway.

During our shift, we ran the diner, but we didn’t own Angela’s Diner. Angela Thurmon was the original owner. And from what I’ve been told, she built and breathed the diner after her husband died. It was her baby. She said she built Angela’s because she wanted to work something good and steady. She said that if there is a business to spend your days working, then you might as well pick one everyone needs. I never gave it much thought when Ms. Potts explained it, but now I realize everyone does need to eat. How many times have you walked by a restaurant only to stop and then step in for a quick bite? I know I did little more than a year ago. I just never left.

My boss is Angela’s son, Thomas Thurmon. I’ve heard Ms. Potts call him Junior. He grew up in the diner. Back then, mommas couldn’t drop their babies off at a day care, afford an all-day sitter, or hire a live-in Au Pairs. And in Angela Thurmon’s case, she was a single parent with two babies to tend to: the diner, and Junior. So, Junior spent his days playing in the diner. I imagine there could have been worse things.

All things considered, I think Junior must’ve had it pretty good growing up with his days spent in Angela’s Diner. I can picture him in my head, running around and playing under the booths, his makeshift hideaways. Or maybe snaking through the stool posts at the counter, probably imagining them as steel pillars – a gateway to some mystical land. Maybe he had a toy car, or something, and, with it, he made traveling mysteries and adventures. He could’ve used the sounds of the diner with busy trucks passing on highway overpasses, their heavy traffic sounds filling the diner and staying true to rush hour. A quick glance around the diner, and I laughed at the child-proofing that would have been called to question today.

Ms. Potts knew Angela Thurmon better than perhaps anyone. And there was never a shortage of stories. Angela had lost her husband at a young age to a horrible car accident involving a drunk taxi driver. Newspapers followed a big public outcry against the taxi company, which was one of the largest and richest in the city. Talk of scandal and cover-up ended with a handsome settlement paid to Angela and Junior. The settlement was enough that Angela never had to work again – she could have easily spent her days minding Junior and doing whatever else pleased her. Instead, she put all her money into the diner and into the land the diner was sitting on. She had straight up ownership of it all with only the monthly food bills, maintenance, employees, and utilities as the overhead – nothing else.

Ms. Potts happened to be one of her first employees. Clark followed a year or so after. Angela filled her days working to make the diner successful. No job was too big or too small. She worked the grill alongside Clark, waited tables, or cleaned the bathrooms when the need wasn’t filled quickly enough for her taste. She worked all the jobs, even repaired the roof after spring winds opened it up like a tin can under hungry fingers.

When arthritis put a limp in her step, it slowed her some, but not enough to stop her. This was her place. As she grew older, the arthritis moved from her hips and legs, to her feet and hands. Soon, the simple jobs, the basic ones, were too much. A stool at the cash register became her last station. Most days, she’d greet folks and chat up a hello and goodbye, followed by a whispery
please come again
. But her diner out-lived Mrs. Angela Thurmon. She’d grown ill, and the arthritis aged her more quickly than she should have. And then there came one afternoon. The sun was setting, and Ms. Potts said she saw a tear in Angela’s eye as she told Junior that she thought it was time for her to go home. Ms. Potts told me she often wondered if on that particular day, Angela knew it would be her last day at the diner.

She died less than a month later. Ms. Potts said that a little piece of Angela’s Diner died the day they put Mrs. Thurmon in the ground. Junior was already grown, and now a well-respected lawyer in downtown Philadelphia. He cared and supported a family of his own. He brought them to his mother’s diner from time to time, which always pleased Ms. Potts. He made sure Ms. Potts and Clark stayed on. He’d kept Angela’s Diner. He’d kept all of it.

I’d met Mr. Thurmon sometime during my first month of work. An attractive older man, he wasn’t at all anything like I pictured him. Often, I’d hear Ms. Potts and Clark make light of Junior and some of his antics growing up at Angela’s. But the man I met didn’t fit the image. I suppose this is true for most of us. The cousins and the younger siblings of friends we grow up with end up completely different. The person they become is a mere shadow of the person you remember them to be. They’re grown-up with adult lives and adult problems. That was Junior.

Mr. Thurmon’s laugh is something, too – I think we’d all admit to enjoying it. Ms. Potts said it was Angela’s laugh, as well. It’s a very contagious laugh that almost always gets us all going when we hear it. When he’d get to talking about his time as a child in the diner and the games he’d play, he would smile and laugh, and maybe even glow a little; just enough for me to get a glimpse of the little boy Ms. Potts and Clark liked to talk about.

We never knew exactly when Mr. Thurmon planned to stop in. Fridays were payday. As waitresses, we earned an hourly wage, as did Clark, so there was something. Not much, but something. Other than Friday, I think his stopping in had more to do with being in the neighborhood, or a drop in with the kids to see Ms. Potts.

On this particular visit, he didn’t come with paychecks in hand, he wasn’t looking to get a bite to eat, or to pick up the receipts and books for the week. I could smell his aftershave follow him as he walked passed me. He offered me a polite smile and a hello, and threw another smile and hello to Clark, who replied with a brief nod from behind the grill. Ms. Potts was already in the back, which is where they’ve stayed. Some of the time, he’d stand with one hand stroking his necktie, and other times he’d talk as Ms. Potts listened.

All kinds of thoughts were going through my head. The biggest was that they’d have to let me go. I’d overstayed my welcome. My time at Angela’s might be over. My newfound family would have to say goodbye. Angela’s could be busy at times. Almost crowded. But it wasn’t consistent, at least not as often as I saw the first months of working here.

Just a block away from Angela’s Diner, a fast-food restaurant was put up, nearly overnight. One day, a group of construction workers showed up, wearing green-yellow reflective vests, and white helmets. With shovels and pick-axes in hand, they broke the sidewalk into pieces, digging up the ground, and making an awful noise that rattled the diner’s front window. Within a week, it seemed, there were already lights on the inside of what they’d built, with palm-sized round bulbs twinkling a run along the pitched red roof outside. The same types of lights blinked around a bright sign that stood in front of the freshly manicured landscaping. The sign spelled out a ‘Grand Opening’ welcome, and some other nonsense I didn’t read. I’d walked past the sign, stopped, and spun around to give it a once over. My first thought was Angela’s Diner. When the doors did open, I think a bit of our business left. A big bit, or, should I say, a bite!

I’ve walked past the fast-food place every day on my way to and from the diner. Their parking lot is always full, and enough bodies are lined up to keep me from seeing through the wall-to-wall glass windows. It is a busy crowd. A fast crowd. A crowd interested in getting in and getting out. There are days when it is full of a younger group of kids. On those days, I’ve seen teens wearing blue tweed jackets and gray blazers. They’re the kids from the all-girls and all-boys school. A few of the faces, I recognized, and even remember serving a coffee or two. Once, I glimpsed Blonde and Red, sitting atop a beige plastic booth, laughing it up with some boys while dipping fries into their chocolate and vanilla shakes.

“Hi, Gabby. Ms. Potts and Clark treating you okay?” Mr. Thurmon asked. I jumped when I heard his voice, startling the fast-food thoughts away. At some point, the conversation in the back of the diner broke, and, while Ms. Potts continued working an inventory check, Mr. Thurmon had poured himself some coffee and had taken a seat at the counter.

“Yes. Yes, thank you,” I answered quickly, thinking my voice sounded nervous. I passed him the creamers and sugar, and asked, “And you?”

With half a smile, he nodded his head and then gave his mother’s diner a glance, “Same… but same is good, right?”

“Sure thing,” I answered back, this time my words sounded stronger. Sipping his coffee, Mr. Thurmon began to say something, but then hesitated. Ms. Potts joined me at the counter, and Mr. Thurmon stood and took a step toward the booths and stared. Moving to the far corner, he knelt down on one knee, looked beneath the table, and began to laugh.

“Ya know,” he started, his finger pointing under the table, “I used to fit under there. Amazing. This place used to look enormous to me.” He chuckled as he stood, and then spun a seat on one of the counter’s stools. Lifting his arms like a conductor of an orchestra, he announced, “A kingdom with shiny gates coming up from the ground, and Clark, our Knight, and Guardian of the Grill.” His eyes were wide as he described a strange land he’d made up and played in as a boy.

“Junior. It’s gonna be okay.” Ms. Potts said, her voice shaky. She stepped toward Mr. Thurmon and placed a hand on his arm. “It’s gonna be fine.”

Mr. Thurmon turned to face us, his expression lost thirty years in that moment, and briefly, I saw a little boy’s eyes, and a little boy’s smile.

“Can you fix me some of your hot cocoa… with the little marshmallows? It’s been years since I’ve had your hot cocoa,” he begged with his hands brought together.

“Sure thing. Would be my pleasure,” Ms. Potts answered, and led him back to the counter where he took to his seat.

“Thank you,” he said, his smile broad and his eyes wandering around the diner. Clark and I passed a confused look. I liked Mr. Thurmon. I didn’t like seeing him like this. In fact, it scared me. Ms. Potts’ expression told me it scared her, too. He reminded me of someone on the verge, someone who’d been given news that was just too much for them to take in one sitting.

Whatever he’d come to talk to Ms. Potts about, it couldn’t have been good news. Selfish relief settled in me as I realized that any news this big couldn’t have been about letting me go. Surely letting a waitress go due to financial reason wouldn’t spin up Mr. Thurmon’s cuckoo clock. That meant the news could be about Angela’s Diner, and that, too, wouldn’t be good for anyone.

Ms. Potts hurried a cup of hot cocoa to the counter, and plunked three mini marshmallows into the small frothy pool floating on top. Steam circled above the cup, gesturing an invitation. My stomach growled, and my mouth watered. Ms. Potts held a proud smile. I think she rather enjoyed making Junior a cup of hot cocoa. For the minute or so of work, it probably took her back the thirty years I’d seen disappear from his face.

When his cell phone rang, his smile broke, and he quickly blinked away his childhood world. By the second and third ring, I could once again see the Mr. Thurmon I knew. The little boy was gone. He answered his cell phone, and within a minute, he was talking in a lawyer tongue none of us understood. He gave us a brief wave of his hand, and then left the diner – his cup of hot cocoa and marshmallows left untouched and alone on the counter.

The bell above the door rang an empty sound, and I couldn’t wait to ask, “What was that all about?” But Ms. Potts didn’t say a word. Not at first. Clark walked around the grill to the front to join me. Before answering, Ms. Potts took Mr. Thurmon’s seat, picked up his hot cocoa, and drank down one of the mini-marshmallows.

“He’s scared,” Ms. Potts answered, her voice sounding unsteady.

“Ma’am, sc-scared of what?” Clark asked.

“My boy got himself a double today.”

Embarrassed. I asked, “A double?”

“Double-bad. Junior hit twice with news nobody likes – ain’t even six o’clock yet.”

“Wh-what wrong with Junior, m-ma’am?”

“It’s the arthritis, the bad one: the one that crippled his momma. The one that took her early,” Ms. Potts answered, sipped the cocoa, and then whispered, “Took her too early. And now he got it. Gonna be a cripple, couple years.”

From the stories Ms. Potts told, I could imagine the fear Mr. Thurmon must have been feeling. I felt bad for him, and thought it might have been why he came here today. He wanted to grab a taste of his days as a little boy, when his momma was healthy and they were happy. Ms. Potts said he got a double. What was the other news? I waited to see if Clark would ask, but he didn’t.

“And the other news?”

Ms. Potts put her cocoa down and fixed her glasses, pushing them up with the tip of a finger. She looked to me first, and then to Clark, where she left her eyes, as she answered.

“Angela’s is having some money issues. Coming in shorter than we were last year. With the news about his health, he’s considering sellin’ the restaurant.”

“Is it the fast-food place?” I asked. I heard Clark sigh and watched as he rested heavily against the wall. Ms. Potts stood up, her eyes still on Clark. She wiped at the counter. I could tell she was upset. She wiped the counter again and then stopped.