The Bill Our Town Paid In Secret
Stan’s Diner
The place that finally cracked was Stan’s, the diner on the square that’s been feeding this town breakfast and lunch since before my parents were married. Stan Growcott is sixty one years old, has a bad knee from thirty years on a concrete floor, and has never in his life been accused of being a smooth talker, which is exactly why I thought he’d be easier to break than the pastor.
I sat at the counter on a Thursday morning and ordered coffee I didn’t particularly want, just to have a reason to be there at an hour when the regulars thin out.
“Stan. The hospital bill. Nora’s bill. I know it’s got something to do with this town, and I know it’s got something to do with you, because you’ve got a look on your face right now like a man standing on top of a secret.”
Stan wiped the same six inches of counter about four times before he answered. “Ask me again when you’re ready to actually hear it.”
“I’m ready now.”
He kept wiping, not unkind, just certain, the way he’d tell you the biscuits weren’t ready yet even though you could smell them. But a young waitress named Deb, carrying a coffee pot past us, caught just enough of the conversation to forget herself for a second.
“Oh, you mean the fish fry?” she said, mid-stride, and then saw Stan’s face and went very interested in a table of farmers by the window that did not need her attention.
“The fish fry,” I said.
Stan sighed like a man whose hand had just been forced by a twenty two year old with a coffee pot. “Back in March. While you two were still down in Wichita with Nora, living out of that Ronald McDonald House. We did a fish fry here on a Friday night. Charged ten dollars a plate, more if folks wanted to give more, and a lot of them wanted to give more. Had a silent auction table too. Raised a fair amount.”
“A fish fry. For my family. That I never knew about.”
“That was the idea, Cody. You had enough on your plate that week without worrying about a fish fry.”
“How much did it raise?”
“I’d have to look at the books.”
“Stan.”
He looked at me a long second, the look of a man deciding whether a dam is about to go whether he wants it to or not, and then he reached under the register and pulled out a green spiral notebook, the kind you’d buy for a kid’s homework, soft at the corners from handling.