Everyone was making sacrifices for me, I realized. When would I be able to reciprocate?
"That was really nice of him," I said. "I hope I can live up to his expectations, especially now." She knew what I meant.
"You don't have to run from table to table and to the kitchen, Alice. Your limp won't make a shade of difference, so don't beat yourself up about it. Besides, as Tyler is fond of saying, we are not a fastfood restaurant. Anyone who has those expectations should explore the quickest way out."
I laughed and then listened to her explanation of some of the new items on the menu. She then told me about the new band they had hired for the weekends during the last college year--The Medicine Men--and how popular it had become. Besides the traditional rock fare, they were good at playing Cajun music called Zydeco, "which is so unique to our area. And we've got the only live band who can do it. It's been quite a hit. We've booked them to start again in September when everything gears up."
The more she talked about the cafe, the more excited and hopeful I became about my new life here.
"I never asked you before, Aunt. Zipporah, but does anyone here yet know anything about the things that happened in Sandburg? I mean, with my mother?"
"Of course not. How would they? Why would they? It was so long ago. It's not exactly front-page news even back there. I certainly don't talk about any of it, and neither does Tyler, and neither," she said, making the point firmly, "will you."
I smiled. No, I thought. I didn't need any coaxing about it. Neither would I.
There was barely time for hellos and how are your when we reached the restaurant. It was already jammed with customers, nearly every table full. Two waitresses, whom I had never met, were scurrying around to take orders. There were three busboys, one of whom was assigned the role of expediter. He brought the finished platters to the tables. All five were currently students at the state college, taking summer session courses. Their work schedules were constructed around their classes. All needed the money.
Mrs. Mallen, a woman in her fifties who was a sort of all-around employee, sometimes cashier, sometimes counter-girl and sometimes waitress, was there as well. She had been with Tyler and my aunt Zipporah for as long as I could remember. She lived in town in an apartment building only a block or so away, so she was often trusted with opening and closing the cafe as well. Childless and widowed for a little more than five years, she had adopted Tyler and Aunt Zipporah as her immediate family--or they had adopted her. I was never quite sure.
With curly charcoal gray hair, light brown eyes, and a plump what I called Mrs. Santa Claus face, stout at five feet four, she presented a jolly, pleasant figure who loved to mother the college student customers, telling them they smoked or ate or drank too much, advising them to wear warmer clothing in the winter, criticizing their bootless feet or poor eating habits, but doing it all in so friendly and caring a manner that no one objected and some even followed her suggestions.
Although she and I always got along, I could feel her standing back a few extra feet, never sure how to approach me, how close to get, how intimate or interfering. Perhaps my aunt had warned her away, I thought, or maybe I just gave off those airs. After all, I lived in a place in which no one but my grandparents could be trusted. The one comment I recalled Mrs. Mallen making about me was, "Sometimes she looks like someone who has lived in a war zone."
Little did she know how right she was.
Aunt Zipporah grabbed two aprons, tossing one at me. Mrs. Mallen was at the cash register, and Uncle Tyler was working feverishly in the kitchen with his two kitchen helpers, a pair of brothers from the Philippines, Tony and Marco Aruego. Tony was twenty-five and Marco was twenty-two, but both looked like teenagers to me. They, too, performed a multitude of tasks at the cafe: dishwashers, janitors, at times short-order cooks and occasionally busboys when needed.
I had always found an atmosphere of
comradery at the cafe. Uncle Tyler never treated anyone as lowly employees. The respect he gave them was mutual, and I couldn't imagine anyone who worked there doing anything to hurt the cafe or him, least of all stealing from him in any way.
"What?" I asked when I caught the apron.
"Grab a pad and help Missy Williams," she told me and nodded at the slimmer, more dainty looking of the two waitresses. She did seem a bit overwhelmed and confused, I thought.
"But I'm not that familiar with the menu yet."
"Get familiar," Aunt Zipporah said. "Quickly."
Quickly? It was like being tossed into the water and told to learn to swim. I had never been a waitress before: I'd only bussed tables and helped at the counter.
"But--"
"Go on," she said, gesturing at the tables and customers.
She laughed. Uncle Tyler smiled at me and waved, but kept working. I grabbed a pad and went to the tables where the customers were holding the menus but obviously had not yet ordered. Before long, I was too busy to even wonder if anyone had noticed my inexperience and my pronounced limp. All these people really cared about was getting their food.
"See?" Aunt Zipporah said as I rushed back and forth with the other two, delivering the orders and helping our expediter serve the finished platters. "You're too busy here to have time to feel sorry for yourself."
She was right, of course. This early rush hour dinner left little time for anything but the work, and I did learn the menu rather quickly on the spot. Only a couple of customers even noticed how fresh on the job I was, or at least, that was what I thought. Missy appreciated my coming to her rescue and helped me along, too. The other waitress, a tall, strong-looking, short-haired blond girl with a take-no-prisoners expression on her face, barely paid me any attention and didn't introduce herself to me until a small lull in the action. Her name was Cassie Bernard, and she was a junior at the college.
"She's good," Aunt Zipporah whispered. "If people were patient, she could handle this entire cafe."
Missy's flighty, helpless look was a great contrast to Cassie's efficient and confident demeanor. I wondered whom I would look more like to the customers. During the dinner rush, I noticed that although Missy wasn't as good a waitress, the customers took more to her, however, maybe because they felt sorry for her or maybe because she was open enough for them to tease. The cynic in me wondered if some of it wasn't just an act on her part to win their sympathy and get away with some inefficiency.
Whatever it was, whatever anyone's real story here was, I realized there was enough human drama and activity to draw me away from thinking too much about myself, my grandparents and the world of tragedy I had just left. I felt like a little fish that had been alone in an aquarium, exposed to everyone's view, then was suddenly tossed into the ocean with schools of other fish, becoming too small and insignificant to even draw a passing glance. For that, I was truly grateful. If there was one thing I wasn't looking for, it was attention.
When the rush finally ended and the cafe thinned out, all the introductions were completed. Mrs. Mallen wanted to give me a welcome hug, but she just touched my shoulders and smiled. Uncle Tyler kissed and hugged me. I glanced at Aunt Zipporah. She hadn't yet told him about my request to come live with them and attend high school here. Despite what she had said about it and what I knew about Uncle Tyler, I was still nervously anticipating his reaction. The last thing I wanted to do was become the cause of anyone else's tension and unhappiness.
With the lull in business, we were able to eat a little dinner ourselves. Working this hard had taken away most of my appetite, but I especially loved Uncle Tyler's meat loaf, and it was still his signature dish. I sat at the rear of the new section in the restaurant to eat and talk with Uncle Tyler. He was very concerned about me and my reactions to the accident and Craig's death.
"It's not something you can ever get over or maybe should ever get over, but it's like most disappointments and hardships in our lives, something we have to learn how to live with, embrace. Yes," he said, nodding at my surprised expression. "We even have to embrace our unhappiness. It's part of the overall."
"Preaching your Far Eastern thinking again?" Aunt Zipporah asked him as she pulled up a chair with her platter of food.
"Preaching? Was I preaching, Alice?"
We all laughed. I looked at Aunt Zipporah. She knew why I had this look of expectation written across my face.
"Tyler, Alice asked me if she could do something. I told her how I felt about it, but she won't be comfortable about it until she hears your response directly from you."
"Oh? Okay. You can pierce your ears but not your nose," he said. I smiled, but he saw from both Aunt Zipporah's controlled reaction and my subdued one to his joke that this was far more intense. "What is it, Alice? What do you want'?"
"I'd like to finish my high school education here, attend school here for my senior year."
He glanced at Aunt Zipporah and then turned back to me.
"You mean, you want to live here with us?" "Yes," I said.
"What do your grandparents say about that?"
"They're not dancing in the streets, but they understand, I think."
"Zipporah?" he asked her.
"She's right. I couldn't have put it any better," she added, smiling at me.
"So you want to know if I mind?" He sat back, the fingers of his right hand grasping his chin. He squeezed and massaged and looked like he was in very deep thought. I knew he was putting on an act.
"A wise man once told me home is the place where when you go there, they have to take you in. S000000 . . . welcome home, Alice," he said and slapped the table. "Free help forever!" he cried, laughing. "Sure, move in. I need someone who appreciates my jokes." He rose and kissed me on the cheek. "Whatever makes you happy, makes us happy, Alice. It's not a problem. Besides, Zipporah needs the practice. We're getting closer and closer to having our own child, right, Zipporah?"
"Closer," she said without fully committing. I wondered in what bed of doubt and insecurity her reluctance to have children lay. I couldn't help but puzzle over what she knew that I didn't and if it would lead me to be just as reluctant as she was.
"See?" Uncle Tyler said. "See why I need help?" He patted me on the shoulder and returned to the kitchen.
"I hope he's not putting on an act for me," I said immediately.
"You know him well enough by now to know that's not true, Alice."
"Are you really getting closer to having your own child?"
"We'll see," she said, shifting her gaze away as a way of telling me the topic was off the table. "I'd better go help him. We get a little play before we close this place, some latecomers, stragglers. Relax, finish eating," she said.
Missy had left, but Cassie remained, reading one of her textbooks and handling the occasional customers. Mrs. Mallen went home to do something but was returning to close, as usual. I remembered that during the summer hours especially the cafe really wasn't a bar hangout after dinner until the weekends, when there was music. I debated going over to talk more with Cassie and then thought she probably cherished the opportunities to grab some reading. It wouldn't be fair to steal some of that time for chitchat.
While I sat there, I gazed around the cafe, noting the changes _and picturing where anything I painted could be hung. I was--perhaps because I felt so welcomed here--suddenly very eager to get back to my art and hoped my grandfather wouldn't forget to bring my things along when they came. I would finally make some use of that studio behind Aunt Zipporah and Uncle Tyler's house. Thinking about all that brought me to the phone.
"I'll call the Doral House," I told Aunt Zipporah, "and let them know I'm settled in."
"Good idea," she said.
My fingers trembled as I grasped the receiver and began the call. My grandmother answered so quickly that I could imagine she had been sitting on top of the phone, waiting.
"Hi, Grandma," I said when she answered. "We're here, and guess what?"
"What?"
"I had to get right to work. The cafe was packed and the waitresses needed help. I made forty-two dollars in tips."
"That's wonderful, Alice," she said, but not with a great deal of enthusiasm. I knew what she was waiting to hear. "How's Tyler?"
"He's great, as usual. They expanded the restaurant. I had forgotten."
"Oh, right."
"We just had a serious talk about it all, Grandma. Uncle Tyler isn't concerned about my staying with them and attending school here."
"Is that so?" she asked. There was
disappointment in her voice, but also a sense of fatigue. I couldn't blame her for being tired of all my crises. It was time she and my grandfather enjoyed their lives again.
"Are you and Grandpa coming up next weekend?"
"That was the plan, yes."
"Well, you can tell him I would appreciate my art materials after all," I said. "I know I sounded unsure, but I'm not anymore."
"Really?"
"I don't know if I'll do anything good enough for it, but there is plenty of open space on the cafe walls for pictures."
"That will be something. I'm happy for you, Alice. Really, I am," she said.
"Thank you, Grandma. Where's Grandpa?"
"He went down to the grocery for me. We need some milk for the morning. Do you want him to call you when he comes home?"
"No, it's fine. Tell him hi and . . ." "Yes?"
"That's all. I'll talk to you in a few days," I said. "Bye."
"Okay, Alice. Take care of yourself," she said, her voice drifting off, as if the phone line had been dying slowly or as if she'd been on a ship leaving port.
I'm the ship leaving port,
I thought and hung up. Aunt Zipporah was watching me.
"Everything all right?"
"Yes," I said. "It's fine."
"Good."
She returned to work, helping to put away some things in the refrigerators.
I watched a dark-haired boy in jeans and a sweatshirt with cutoff sleeves come in and
deliberately choose a table in the far right corner of the cafe. He sat and started to read what looked like a notebook. I glanced at Cassie, who looked up at him and then back at her textbook.
How odd,
I thought and walked over to her. "Want me to take him?" I asked.
"Take him as far away as you can," she replied. "If he orders anything, it will only be a cup of coffee, and he'll spend an hour sipping it and sitting at the table. He'll leave you a dime."
She returned to her reading.
Everyone else was occupied, and there were no other customers in the cafe who needed attention at the moment. The boy, who looked old enough to be in college, didn't seem to care or mind that no one was hurrying to attend to him. He continued scribbling in his notebook, his head down. When I approached him, he didn't look up until. I said, "Excuse me."