Chapter 16
Zoe
“Would you like toast with that?” I say, and I say it in my cookie monster voice. Yeah, I don’t look like the kind of person who has a cookie monster voice, but I got a whole repertoire of voices.
“Yeah!” Richard, the little kid I am talking to, bounces up and down in the booth beside his mother, as she beams at him.
Richard and his mom are regulars. She’s the wife of a businessman, who has a little bit of extra money, and is rather lonely. She drops the other two kids off at school and sometimes brings her youngest, Richard, into the diner to eat. They're some of my favorite customers, mostly because Richard loves my voices. They are also at the library almost religiously for story hour. I don’t really know what her husband does, but sometimes I resent the fact that it seems like he’s never around.
I write down toast on his order, and smile at Carrie. “I’ll be back with your drinks in just a bit.” I know how she takes her coffee. She’s one of those customers.
I walk away from the table, trying to keep a smile on my face. I am a little disgusted with myself. I had the chance last night to talk to Pete seriously about the possibly of a relationship, and I go rambling off about my career and how I don’t want any entanglements or something like that. I realized later that maybe he was feeling me out. Maybe he was interested in more, and I totally shut him down.
A guy like Pete doesn’t come along very often, and I know I didn’t handle that well. But my fear of admitting that I was on the brink of losing everything, and knowing that that is not the slightest bit attractive to anyone, I felt like I had to...maybe take myself out of the market so to speak.
I haven’t had a good feeling since.
I go to the back and tack my order up, telling the cook two eggs over easy and one egg sunny side up, before I go to the counter and put both hands on it, my head down.
I have to stop beating myself up about this. He probably wasn’t interested anyway, and he certainly isn’t interested in someone who can’t take care of herself. How am I supposed to take care of a husband and a home and do all the things that a wife is supposed to do if I can’t even take care of me?
“Hard morning already?” Connie, an older co-worker, comes by and puts a motherly hand on my shoulder. She feels more like a mother to me than my own mother does. Or I guess I should say my stepmother. I don’t really know my real mother.
Regardless, I think there’s something in every person’s soul that longs for family, someone to care, someone to go out of their way to do whatever they can to be a blessing to you, and know they’re in your corner no matter what.
I guess I just don’t feel like I really have someone in my corner. I’m sure that my family would be horrified if they heard me say that, but, I guess whenever you are in someone’s corner, you make whatever sacrifices necessary to be there for them.
At least that’s how I feel about it.
“No. You know how sometimes you just say stupid things because you think you’re making yourself look better, but you know you’re shooting yourself in the foot while you’re doing it?” I don’t expect her to understand.
“I suppose. You want to give some details so I can tell you for sure?”
“There’s this guy,” I say.
“I thought so,” Connie says immediately. That makes my head jerk up. I suppose there are questions in my eyes, because she smiles her motherly smile.
“You look like someone who is having some love issues. Everyone your age goes through that, before they finally settle down with someone.”
I don’t know if I agree with that. But, I do think that it’s probably very common. Except...
“I don’t think that too many people are as stupid as I am,” I say, knowing I’m not supposed to call myself stupid, but if the shoe fits, and all that.
“Why don’t you tell me and let me be the judge?” Connie says, as she fills her tray up with an order.
I see another order ready for a different table and I turn and grab a tray.
“I feel that someone like me - I can barely pay my bills, barely make ends meet - I’m not girlfriend material, you know? How could anyone look at me and see anything good?”
“Because you don’t have money?” Connie says gently, and it makes me feel even dumber than I already did.
“Yes?” I say. I want to justify myself. “Someone who can’t even take care of herself, who is constantly struggling to pay bills, who is one paycheck away from moving back in with her parents, is not the kind of person that anyone finds attractive.”
“If it was because you refuse to work. If it were because you’re too lazy to get a job. If it were because you squander your money, because you gamble, drink, have a shopping addiction, or whatever it is that people squander their money on, okay. Even then, that’s just a flaw. It’s a fault. You don’t have any of those things. You just want to try to use the talent God’s given you to be a blessing to people, and to support yourself. There’s nothing wrong with that. And in fact, I find that rather admirable.” Connie lifts the heavily laden tray to her shoulder, and then backs out the swinging doors.
We’re used to having conversations that are interrupted by our jobs. And I soon have my tray filled and go to deliver it as well.
I take another order, and go back to the back, putting my order up, and turning around to find Connie waiting on her last plate for the next order.
I go over and stand beside her.
“Does that mean I’m shallow? Because when I look at a guy, and he’s not able to afford to support himself, I totally am not the slightest bit interested in him.”
“Maybe in a way. I guess you need to look beyond that, and see why. If he is a missionary, living in Peru, trying to bring the gospel to people, then, yeah. I think you’re shallow. Because he obviously has character. He’s obviously not afraid to take risks, take chances, and he knows where his treasure should be.”
I’m quiet for a moment. Do I really know where my treasure should be? Am I living for myself? Pursuing my goals?
“And I know, that’s because he’s a Christian, but isn’t a society better when people in it are living for things higher than themselves?”
“Or someone higher than themselves,” I muttered, knowing that I’ve gotten confused. Maybe I took my eyes off of my heavenly goals, and I have them stuck on myself.
She puts the last plate on her tray. “Right. That’s exactly right. When we stop living for ourselves, and we live for the Lord, if everyone did it, we’d have the kind of utopia that certain politicians want us to have, only they want us to stop living for ourselves and start living for the government. Except... The government is imperfect. And you don’t want to live for something that isn’t bigger and more and mightier than yourself. The way God is.”
I start setting my order which has been completed onto my tray. She’s right. If God created the universe, and everything in it, if I believe that He loves me and sent His son to die for me, my reasonable service is to give my life for him, to lose myself in His will and His way. But, why aren’t I living that way?
I fill my tray and carry it out to the table. The two ladies I’m serving are regular customers as well, and I’ve been invited to their book club multiple times to do readings. Not of any books that I wrote, since I don’t write books, just because they love listening to me put the voices with the characters and bring them to life.
I end up standing at their table and talking for a few minutes. We’re not exceptionally busy, and I feel like I have the time. I know that my other order isn’t ready, and after I’m done, I fill up a couple of drinks.
I have one table to clear off. Since we don’t have a busboy, the waitresses do everything themselves.
I like to stay busy. My time here goes so much faster if I’m constantly rushing to keep up. If I have everything in hand and don’t feel challenged at all, time crawls.
Regardless, I enter the kitchen with my tray heavily laden with dirty dishes, and my eyes light on a bouquet of white roses sitting on the counter.
“Those were delivered while you were out there.” Connie’s eyes are shining, but they contain questions as well. Questions I can’t answer.
“Well, that was good timing. Is it from your secret admirer?” I say, as I set my tray down, and take the dirty dishes off of it and set them beside the sink.
“They’re for you. There’s a card,” Connie says, and I know she wants me to grab the card and read it in front of her. But I haven’t figured out who in the world would have sent me white roses? And they sent them to the diner.
So it would have to be someone who knows where I work, obviously. I see my name on the card and I’m sure they’re really mine. Up until that point I kinda thought Connie might be mistaken.
“Oh I’ll get it in a second. This order’s up,” I say, seeing the food for Carrie and Richard is ready.
I set it on my tray, as Connie walks out with her full tray.
I figure we’ll probably both be back in about the same time, although I’m going to need to stop and take an order at a new table that was just seated.
It turns out it’s almost twenty minutes later before I get a chance to walk into the kitchen and grab the card while Connie is there. We don’t have a whole lot of exciting things going on here, and it seems kind of selfish to deprive her of the pleasure. Plus, for those twenty minutes, I’m trying to figure out who could have sent them. My sister? I haven’t really done anything, but I did say that I would give her a hand with her daughter while she was gone.
My parents? Nope. Not a chance.
Maybe a mother from the library?
I suppose there were lots of people who have heard me read, and might want to show some appreciation. Since around town, I usually do it for free.
Maybe it’s even the author of the book I just finished. I laugh a little to myself. Hardly, but I suppose it’s possible.
Still, I set my empty tray down, and pull the card off of the little holder.
Connie stands beside me, watching as I open the card.
I skim it, before I start reading aloud. I think like everyone else, I can read faster quietly than I can aloud.
My heart stops at the signature.
Thanks for a great talk last night. The roses are because I know you were tired this morning. Maybe that will brighten your shift up a bit.
Your friend, Pete.
Connie just stares for a second, her eyes going from me back to the flowers and then to me.
“That must’ve been some talk,” she says, looking at the flowers again. “I’ve never had a friend I talked to send me flowers the next day.” She sets a hand on my shoulder, and then brings me in for a hug. Warm and matronly, she smells like vanilla, underneath the diner smell of coffee and fried food. It’s not an unpleasant aroma. She feels warm and safe, and I lay my head on her shoulder. “I think the boy likes you for more than a friend, but I think he’s respecting the boundaries you set.”
She looks again at the flowers, and she says, “Yeah. Those are way too nice for some guy who’s only interested in friendship. Especially if he doesn’t have a whole lot of money.” She looks at me, her brows raised. “Does he?”
“He’s a policeman,” I say before I think about it, and then I wish I wouldn’t have said anything. Even though I love Connie, this is probably going to get out, and if people find out I’m ... “friends” with the policeman who arrested me for indecent exposure, my life will be a laughingstock.
“ That policeman?” Connie says, and she doesn’t need to say anything more.
I don’t need to see her face to know that it contains a lot of surprise.
“Yeah. That policeman,” I say, although I wish I could deny it. The bell rings, and I turn, seeing my order is up.
Friends . Connie might be right. I’ve never had any of my friends send me white roses before, but I’ve never really been friends with someone like Pete. He’s...funny, but serious. Is that even possible? And he’s kind and sweet, but not a pushover. He likes rules, and I can tell that he’s as honest as the day is long, but he doesn’t come off as uptight or inflexible.
Guess he’s just pretty much perfect. And I told him I just wanted to be friends.
The flowers are gorgeous. I take another glance at them as I back out the doors. And he had them delivered to the diner. That makes me smile. Like, everyone knows I have a friend and that somehow makes me...feel good. I’m not sure what’s wrong with me, that I need the whole world to know that people actually like me enough to send me flowers, but it does make my heart happy.