Lonely Diner
Josie was catching up on her tabs from breakfast. It had been slow again. The Bristol Stomp by the Dovells was playing on the jukebox. She shifted from one foot to the other while she worked, but she wasn't dancing. Her feet were hurting already.
Lately, customers just weren’t eating at the Lonely Diner as much as they used to. The town’s population had dipped ever since the fracking operation shut down. It was supposed to be temporary. But the people who had moved in when it opened, bringing much needed fresh energy to the town, got tired of waiting. After months of empty promises, they started leaving, often in the middle of the night, bills unpaid.
When the newcomers first came to town, Josie had made a small bundle in tips, even bought herself a new car, a five-year-old FIAT 500, stick shift. “It’s almost paid off, thank God,” she said to herself as she entered her credit card tips into the system. She was worried because she needed her job. Who would hire a 71-year-old woman, perpetually down on her luck, if the diner closed?
Except for the computer, the diner looked the same as it did when it opened in 1966. Over the road truckers, many of them regulars, had kept the Lonely Diner afloat before the fracking thing happened. But now, even the truckers weren’t coming in the way they used to. Josie knew why. Two miles down the road, Keystone One-Niner, a bigtime truck stop company in the Northeast, opened a location.
As Mitch, her favorite customer, pointed out one morning, “Why make two stops, Josie? Coffee here is damn good and nobody makes eggs like Prentice does, but still, if I gotta stop for gas too, it ain’t worth it to make two stops.”
Just as she finished her last ticket, she heard the bell ring. A rare mid-morning customer? She turned and saw a petite and pretty young woman carrying a baby, perhaps two years old. “Morning, what can I get you?”
“Nothing, thank you. My name’s Jamie. I’m just looking for work. Are you hiring servers?”
Josie looked closely at the girl. The stress lines on her face belied her youth. “Have a seat at the counter, Jamie. I’ll give you a cup of coffee.” She poured the coffee, fetched a powdered sugar donut and put it on a plate. She cut the donut into pieces and placed it next to the coffee.
“I can’t pay for this,” Jamie said, her eyes down.
“It’s on me. Ever done any waitressing before?”
“No.”
“Didn’t think so. Bringing your baby to an interview isn’t too smart. Right away it looks like child care will be a problem, understand?”
Jamie nodded. “Sorry, but I really need a job, something temporary. A year maybe until I can go back to school.”
Josie stifled a snort. “Temporary, huh? That’s what I said when I started working here. That was forty-eight years ago.” She picked up a piece of donut and handed it to the little boy. He put it in his mouth immediately. Turning back to Jamie, she said, “Anyway, we ain’t hiring. Truth is, we’ll probably be out of business in six months, maybe less.”
Pools started forming in Jamie’s eyes. She looked at her son and said, “His daddy ran out on us. We’re living in a friend’s attic.”
Josie shook her head. “Wait here a minute, hon.” She walked through the door to the kitchen. Prentice, the owner and short order cook looked up and waited. “Flop two, hash and toast,” Josie said.
“And?” He’d seen that look on Josie’s face too many times.
“Oh, yeah, I just hired another waitress, okay?”
He put the tip of his tongue to his heavy mustache. “Not again, Josie. I can’t afford it. And you’re paying for these eggs.”
“She’s young and she’s pretty, Prentice. She’ll bring new customers into this dump. Trust me.”
Josie peeked through the kitchen door and saw Jamie was about to leave. “Don’t run away, girl. You’re hired,” she rasped. “And breakfast is almost ready.” Jamie sat down and smiled for the first time.
Prentice rang the little bell signaling that Josie’s order was up. She walked back into the kitchen to face him. There was a time when she and Prentice were more than co-workers. “If she don’t bring in more business, Josie, she stays and you go. I mean it this time.”
“You’ll be doing me a favor. My feet are killing me.” She picked up the plates and went out to serve her new co-worker.