The Waitress Application at Dot’s Cafe

The Apology

He rubbed his face with both hands.

“I offered you nine dollars an hour,” he said, “to wait tables in a kitchen you ran for fourteen years.

“In front of Lyle Bauer. In front of everybody. I’ve been sick about it since about Wednesday at seven in the morning.”

I set the rolling pin down and wiped my hands on my apron.

“Why did you do it, Greg?” I said. “I’m not being smart. I want to know. You never once wanted that place. You didn’t come in except at Christmas. Why did you want it now?”

Greg’s Reason

He did not answer for a long time. He turned the coffee cup around and around on the oilcloth.

“Because she gave it to me,” he said. “And I thought, finally. Finally one thing of hers is mine.”

“Greg.”

“You don’t know what it was like,” he said. “You were always with her. You were in that kitchen with her from the time you could walk.

“You two had a language. I’d come home from practice and you’d both be laughing about something at the grill, and I’d go upstairs.”

The Burned Hand

He looked at the burn on his wrist.

“When I burned my hand at twelve,” he said, “she ran it under the cold water, and then she laughed and said, ‘Well, I guess you’re not a cook.’ And she went back to the grill with you.

“She didn’t mean anything by it. I know that now. But I never went back in that kitchen.”

He swallowed. “I thought she loved you more, Tammy. I thought it my whole life. And then the lawyer read that paper and it said the cafe went to me, and I thought, maybe I was wrong.

“Maybe she did want me to have something. So I grabbed onto it with both hands, and I did it the only way I know how to do anything, which is with a spreadsheet.”

What I Said

I sat down across from him. I did not hold his hand. We are not that kind of family. But I put my hand flat on the table next to his.

“Mom did not love me more,” I said. “She loved you so much it made her crazy. She drove to Jefferson City every time you had something at that office.

“She kept your newspaper clipping on the refrigerator for nine years. She saved you the corner piece every Christmas whether you came or not.”

“I didn’t always come,” he said.

“I know,” I said. “I saved it anyway. After she couldn’t.”

Partners

He looked at the keys on the table. “I want you to run it,” he said. “I want you to take those back and run it. I’ll pay you whatever you want. Twenty. Twenty-two. I’ll stay out of the kitchen.”

I did not pick up the keys.

“No,” I said.

His face fell. I think he thought I was going to say no to the whole thing. So I said the rest of it quickly.

“I’ll run it,” I said. “But not as your employee. Only as partners. Half and half. Both our names on the same line at the bank. I run the kitchen.

“You do the insurance and the taxes and the books, the parts you’re good at. And you come up on Saturdays and pour coffee at that counter so Lyle Bauer gets to see your face.”