Looking at the ancient clock over the hood, I saw it was just about lunchtime, which could only mean one very specific visitor. I grinned, setting the cover down on the cheesesteaks to let the cheese get nice and gooey, wiped my hands on my apron, and pushed through the swinging doors.
I immediately spied Polly sitting at the counter, her menu in front of her, looking very grown up.
“Drinking soda isn’t illegal. That’s just silly, Daddy,” she argued, giving Leo one helluva a sideways glance.
I leaned against the doorframe and smiled as Leo calmly took the menu and closed it, setting it down between them.
Behind them I saw my mother with the coffeepot, bopping from table to table, chatting it up, making sure everyone had what they needed.
And a flash forward suddenly struck me—or maybe just a daydream. Clear as day, I had the sharpest vision of a slightly older Polly helping me at the diner. She snapped gum and took an order from a boy who wasn’t much older than she was.
I gazed out at the scene before me: happy people, in a happy town. All the hap-hap-happy—could it be real? Could this be real for me?
Just then Leo noticed me, and as always, his eyes traveled over my entire body, heat flaring in his eyes before he gave me a wink.
I grinned instantly. Maybe this could be real. I waded into the argument with that same grin.
“Pork Chop, you can’t have soda. White milk or apple juice are your choices. Take it or leave it,” Leo said, in a firm voice.
“Grandmother, please,” she whined.
Grandwhat? I stopped so fast I left skid marks.
Sure enough, there sat Mrs. Maxwell. And she looked so profoundly out of place I had no idea how I hadn’t seen her.
Maybe I was distracted by the little family fantasy of me and my very own Almanzo raising Polly on the farm.
Her severely chopped bob was so silvery it would glow in the moonlight. And she had green eyes like Leo and Polly, though hers were the color of money and power.
She was dressed sharply in cream colored trousers that were tailored within an inch of their life, and I silently applauded her for having the balls to wear them into a place that served chili seven days a week. The crisply pressed navy blouse was capped off with pearls that probably cost what I’d paid for culinary school. Or more.
Mentally cataloging my outfit, I cursed, thinking about the rice pudding that had splotched onto my capris earlier. Not to mention the smear of cranberry on my apron.
“Hi, Roxie!” Polly chirped. Smoothing her napkin over her denim shorts, she continued, “Grandmamma, this is Roxie. The girl I was telling you about. She makes the best pie! And we make a superfancy grown-up grilled cheese with fawnteeni cheese and apples and rye bread with these weird little sticks in it. It is soooooooo good!”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you. Roxie, is it?” she asked coolly.
No handshake. She probably couldn’t even lift her hand, due to the weight of the diamond as big as a skating rink.
“My Leo tells me that you have been helping out your mother here until you move back to . . . where is it?”
“C-C-California,” I spluttered, seeing my mother heading toward the counter with two empty coffeepots and a wide grin. Oh boy. My mother and his, in the same place and time, could be the stuff of legend. It could also be the stuff of epic train wreck.
“Hey there, Polly, you’re home from camp early, aren’t you?” my mother called out, scooting around the counter in a swoop of sandalwood and leather fringe to stand in front of Leo’s daughter, reaching out and tweaking her nose. Polly giggled, and answered my mom’s high-five offer with a resounding smack of her own.
“Hi, Ms. Callahan! Camp was just okay, and Daddy missed me so much we decided I should come home early.”
“We’re glad to have you home. And, Leo, you just get better looking every time I see you!” My mother moved down the counter. “How’ve you been this summer? It sounds like you and Roxie have had a grand old time! Goodness, look at you, turning as pink as a pig’s butt.”
If you say the word butt in front of a seven-year-old, no matter how brainy they are, they will laugh until their head pops off. Hearing her father referred to as a pig’s butt sent Polly off into a gale of giggles that rolled on and on and on, no matter how Leo’s mother tried to kindly quiet her down. She giggled so hard she likely missed the comment about me spending the summer with her daddy, but his mother sure didn’t.
“And this must be your mother, Mrs. Maxwell. You know, I think you’ve been coming here all these years and never once made it into my diner. Now, how is that possible?” My mother moved across from Leo’s mother.
“You know how summers can be, so busy with guests and parties. I always mean to get into town when I visit, but Leo keeps me so busy back at the house,” she replied in that nasal, Northeast monied voice. A little bit Boston, little bit Hamptons, a lotta bit Upper East Side. “And I don’t think I quite caught your name, Mrs . . . ?”
“Just call me Trudy.”
Mrs. Maxwell smiled evenly, likely wondering how she’d suddenly become on a first-name basis with some hippie. She extended her hand across the Formica, a gesture that my mother ran away with.
“Say, look at that lifeline!” she exclaimed, turning Mrs. Maxwell’s hand over and examining her palm. “Unbroken, but this curious line here . . . hmmm . . . were you in an accident when you were a child?”
“Mom, lay off, huh?” I urged, placing my foot on top of hers behind the counter and pressing down. “Mrs. Maxwell, what can I get you? Cup of coffee? Cup of chili?” I’d just asked the equivalent of a modern-day Mrs. Rockefeller if she’d like a cup of chili?