MONICA CALLS THE ORDER IN: “Grilled coffee roll, drown it in cow paste. And two chicks and hanger steak on the hoof, whole-wheat shingles.”
“Got it!” Roberto says, in a cheerful, birdy tone that, frankly, Monica resents. She herself has been depressed for a while now, ever since she and Polly came back from New Orleans. In her heart is a black tick-tocking, a sense that time is passing and she has got to get going on finding someone else. Tiny has been in twice with that woman Iris, and the last three times he came in alone and sat at the counter, where Janelle waited on him.
Monica doesn’t tell anyone how she feels. It doesn’t show, either. Dimpled smiles for everyone, a cheerful refilling of coffee endless times for endless customers, Thanks a bunch! written on every check, a little bouquet of three daisies drawn beside it. She comes to work on time; she stays for as long as she’s needed; if someone tells a joke, she says, Ha-ha-ha. Tiny says hello to her when he comes in, but that’s it. Well, hello, Monica, in that way that used to zip up her spine and make her think he cared for her, or was interested in her, but she guesses now that she was wrong. Maybe he and Iris have a thing going on, even though anyone can see that Monica is a much better match for him.
“You might have to start all over again in the boyfriend department,” Polly said. “But that could be a good thing.”
Maybe Polly was right. The fortune-teller Monica saw in New Orleans said the love of Monica’s life would have a name starting with P. Monica doesn’t have any more faith in fortune-tellers now than she did before the reading. But here’s the thing: the day after she and Polly came back from their trip, Polly met a man at the Henhouse who kept an apartment in Paris. Just like her fortune-teller said she would. Astonishing that such a person would come into the Henhouse, but such a person did. He was a movie person, out on a cross-country trip, exploring the back roads in search of a location. Needed to be a really small town in the Midwest, which of course is exactly what Mason is. In the end, he decided not to pick Mason for the movie, but didn’t he just pick Polly for someone to spend the evening with, and they got along like a house afire. Polly came into work the next day dreamy as an old-fashioned high school girl wearing bobby sox and a ribbon around her ponytail. The guy—his name was Larry Bristol—had asked Polly to finish his road trip with him. Oh, he’d take care of separate accommodations at night, she shouldn’t worry about that, but he thought she’d be an awful lot of fun to have on the drive back out to L.A. And then he’d buy her an airline ticket home, if she wanted to go back home. “Would you be in charge while I’m gone?” Polly asked Monica. And Monica said sure.
“I’ll pay you extra, of course,” Polly said, and Monica said never mind, she didn’t have to.
“Time and a half,” said Polly, and Monica said all right.
Monica has never thought of herself as a jealous person, but she has begun to grind her teeth in the daytime as well as at night and nearly weep into the bowl of chicken dumpling soup she has for lunch every day at the Henhouse. Maybe she should switch up soups.
In fact, maybe she should switch up everything in her life.
Wait.
Maybe she should! Who’s stopping her? Only her! Why, she could start to change her life right this very second!
“Two slabs, two wrecked, burned British, jam in the alley!” Roberto calls out, and Monica says, “Got it.” Which she thinks might be prophetic.
She delivers the order and she’s suddenly thinking a mile a minute about things to do: Go after what she wants like she deserves it. Think positive. Get a new haircut, drive over to Columbia—or even St. Louis!—and get a great new haircut. Buy some new makeup, buy a pair of those sexy hoop earrings. And next time she sees Tiny alone, ask him out again. Only this time, instead of thinking, Oh, my goodness, I’m so nervous, he’s going to say no, he’s going to say no, think Say yes, you little cupcake. You know you want to. You say yes, right now.
Buy new underwear. Buy fancy dish soap that smells as good as perfume. Go to the library and find books on…well, go to the self-help section and see what’s there.
“Honey, you’re fine just the way you are!” her mother used to tell her, especially after she’d suffered another breakup.
Well, no, she’s not just fine the way she is. Obviously. But she’s not going to be the calm center of a storm with everything around her swirling at a dizzying pace. She’s going to jump out there and swirl, too.
And looky here. Look who just came in the door. Alone. Talk about the power of positive thinking.
Tiny moves to the counter and Monica motions to Janelle, who is the counter waitress, to come over. “Let’s switch sections for a while,” she says. Janelle is only too happy to oblige. So many of those counter people still think they can slide some change beneath the lip of a saucer and call it a tip.
Tiny lowers himself onto the stool and picks up a menu. He doesn’t see Monica gliding over, doesn’t see her until she is directly before him.
Then, “Oh, hey!” he says. “Hey, Monica. Gosh!”
“Hey, Tiny.”
“How are you?”
“I’m fine. You?”
“Yeah! I’m okay!” He looks at the menu again, then closes it. “Guess I’d better eat and go, I’ve got to get to work.”
“Sure. Double pigs in a blanket?”
“Well, no, actually. Not today. I’m kind of switching things up a bit.”
Serendipity! Monica thinks. Talk about a sign! He’s practically hers. They’re practically married and lying in bed at night in their Sleep Number bed. They’ll get one of those, Monica has saved up enough for one, but it seems weird to get one for one person. It would be like going on a roller coaster ride alone.
“Monica?”
“Yes?”
“I need to order, so could you find Janelle?”
“I’ll take your order.”
“That’s okay. I’ll give it to Janelle. This is her section, right?”
“Usually, it is. But not today. Today, I’m your girl.” Look at that. Look how she did that.
“Well…” He looks at his watch. “Oh, jeez. You know what? I guess I miscalculated. I’ve got to pick someone up in just a couple of minutes. I’d better just…”
He lays down a five-dollar bill and races out.
She watches him go. She guesses he’s in a hurry, all right; looks like he forgot his belt, the way his pants are hanging on him.
“Janelle!” she calls.
The waitress comes over and Monica says, “Let’s switch back.”
“Aw, really? I hadn’t even gotten started over there. Can’t I keep it just for today? I’ll get some good tips with lunch.”
“All right,” Monica says, and then, “Hey, you waited on Tiny, right, last few times he came in?”
“Yup. He’s a good tipper. He only gets a boiled egg and dry toast, but he leaves me a few bucks anyhow.”
“Boiled egg and dry toast?” Monica asks.
“Um-hm, and he didn’t even put no cream or sugar in his coffee. Skim milk. That’s it.” She lowers her voice, steps in closer to Monica. “Do you think he’s sick? Do you think he’s got some horrible disease that—”
“No. I think he’s on a diet.”
“Lordy! Tiny? What would Tiny be on a diet for? He’s one of those seems right stubborn ’bout his weight. I wonder what happened!”
Iris, Monica thinks. Iris happened. Iris with her beautiful blond hair and svelte figure and high cheekbones and her big-city sophistication.
Well, there you go. Polly is off on a wondrous adventure, having her fortune come true. Maybe she’ll stay out there in L.A. and sell her café, that was another thing the fortune-teller told her would happen, she’d sell her café, and then it would fail and go out of business.
But maybe she’ll sell the Henhouse to Monica, and rather than the café failing, Monica will make it an even bigger success. And then she can at least be a successful business owner and her love life won’t matter so much. Who has time for a relationship, she’ll say, like all those women she’s read about in magazines. She’ll serve breakfast all day, people love breakfast. She’ll put some things on the menu that Polly never would: Sweet-potato fries. Deviled eggs with bacon garnish. Peanut butter and pickle sandwiches and deep-fried pickles, both of which Monica loves and which are surprisingly good. Veggie burgers. Polly always said if you want a burger, you don’t want it made of vegetables, you want it made of cow. But Monica will add turkey burgers and veggie burgers. She’ll put a fresh flower on every table, too, another thing Polly would never do.
Her spirits rise, and suddenly she’s hungry.
His name will start with a P, my eye. On the way to the kitchen, Monica looks around the crowded café. If every guy in there had a name that started with a P, she wouldn’t be interested in a single one of them. Not one.
Her mother about her father: I’ll tell you something, honey. I didn’t even talk to him. I just saw him, and I knew. Now, I was engaged to another feller, and I couldn’t get that ring off my finger fast enough. I hated being so mean, but I’d found the one I thought I’d never find, and wasn’t any swaying me from doing what I had to do. And I have never regretted it. That’s what I want for you.
For the first time in her life, Monica is glad her mother is gone. Because she is giving up. She is trading love for money.
She goes back to the kitchen and says, “Dish me up some chili, would you, Roberto?”
“No chili today. Vegetable soup and chicken dumpling soup only.”
“But I want chili.”
“There is no chili.”
She moves closer and crosses her arms. “Make some. I am the captain now.”
Roberto laughs, salutes, and starts making chili. Monica goes out to make sure everyone at her station is taken care of. There’s a man sitting at the end of the counter studying the menu, and Monica goes over to him.
“Good afternoon!” she says, and when he looks up at her she practically faints. There are the eyes of Paul Newman, reborn. There they are. And the rest of the guy is pretty great, too: Curly black hair. A cleft chin. Heavens!
“Do you know what you’d like?” she asks.
“First time here,” he says. “Are you still serving breakfast?”
See? Monica thinks. People want breakfast all the time.
“We are,” she says. For you.
“Okay. So would you recommend the Maple Sausage Sandwich or the Eggs Fiesta?”
“They’re both good,” Monica says.
“Come on now, you have a favorite.”
“I do. But it’s neither of those.”
“What is it?”
“The Flapjack Kerfuffle. It’s pancakes with bacon and maple syrup already mixed in. That’s my favorite.”
“Well, then, that’s what I’ll have. And coffee. And orange juice. And your phone number.”
Monica smiles at him and goes back to the kitchen to place the order.
“It’s lunchtime now,” Roberto says, and Monica says, “Make it anyway. Hey, Roberto, what do you think about making breakfast available all day?”
He shrugs. “People seem to like it.”
Monica goes into the corner of the kitchen to sit on a stool and wait, and when the order is ready, she rushes out to deliver it. Across the room, she sees Janelle standing frozen, looking at the man Monica has just served like, Uff da! which she says all the time because her grandmother was Norwegian. Monica would bet Janelle is wishing she had her usual station right about now. She raises her eyebrows at Janelle, and Janelle blows air out of her cheeks and lifts her uniform up and down from her chest.
By the time the man has finished eating, they’ve had a pleasant conversation. He’s a truck driver, passes through this way quite often, though he’s never been here before. But he’ll be back now that he knows what a good place it is. He’ll be back in two days, in fact, will Monica be here then?
“Yes, I will,” she says.
He squints at her name tag. “And your name is…Monica?”
“Right.”
He stands to take his wallet out.
Oh. He’s short.
Well, that’s all right. What difference does it make? Okay, it makes a little difference at first, but you could get used to it. Monica’s not that much taller, maybe a few inches.
“I’m Phil,” he says. “Phil Porter.”
“Nice to meet you,” Monica says faintly. A double P!!!
Phil pulls a card out of his wallet. “I know you don’t want to give me your number, at least not yet. But here’s mine. In case you get bored tonight and want to have a conversation.”
Monica can’t wait to get bored. She might take a bath tonight and put on her pretty blue nightie and pour herself a glass of wine and get bored as can be.