It strikes Elena from time to time that there is something remakable about Warren McGinnis. More exactly, it occurs to her at odd moments that the ordinariness of their relationship – which word doesn't even come to her mind – transcends that same quality, and merely by virtue of its length and the quality of it. Other waitresses of course attend to other regulars for years. It is hardly unusual that diner customers, particularly in a country setting with minimal options, become so routine as to be fixtures. There is for example Scotty Falk, coming in for cheeseburgers and fries every Saturday night for longer than Elena can recall, on his way to the local dance hall outside of town. There are the Holleys as well, elderly and excessively polite, and the tradesmen who make a point of stopping by for pie and coffee with a regularity dictated by their work, and the weekly runs of supplies they make.
“How you keeping, Elena?” He always asks this as he takes his seat at the counter. The inquiry is perfunctory but she has noticed, more than once, that Mr. McGinnis seems to invest some genuine interest in the question. As though, if she chose to tell him a great deal about herself, he would not be surprised. As though he might welcome it.
“Not bad, Mr. McGinnis. Bearing up.” She varies her responses but never fails to reply as she moves to pour his coffee. There is never any need to ask what he would like. Nor does she write out an order for Simon, the cook; she nods at him through the service window and he knows to fix the eggs over easy, sausage, rye toast, and potatoes nearly burnt that Mr. McGinnis has eaten there twice a week, always on Mondays and Thursdays, always at one in the afternoon, for eighteen years.
It is a damp and cold Thursday in late November and Elena, for no reason she can imagine, is regarding Mr. McGinnis with a slightly heightened degree of interest. She knows that he owns and runs a small dairy farm just outside the town of Maple Hill, actually only a few miles from the diner. She knows that he inherited the farm long ago from a father who died in middle age, and she knows that Mr. McGinnis, perhaps sixty-five, maybe seventy, lost his own wife to cancer over thirty years ago.
Elena knows nothing more about him and what she does know was learned, casually and long past, through Gerry, the diner's owner.
“The damp makes it colder. Had to yell at Simon to jack up the heat.” He looks up and smiles. There is never any sense that he is only being polite, nicely indulging her but, if truth be told, uninterested. Elena believes this because the smile lingers just a bit. Sometimes he knits his brow by way of response, which Elena finds charming. She herself is fifty-five, a brunette of average height who has become more attractive with age. The round face and full figure, attributes less than desirable in her girlhood, add youth and an easy, confident womanly quality today. Elena does color the few streaks of gray in her hair but this, apart from the most minimal and discreet applications of make-up, is the extent of her vanity.
Mr. McGinnis adds cream to his coffee, takes two sips, then turns to the newspaper he carries in. He sets it aside when his food is served and finishes reading whatever concerns him when his dish is removed and he has a third cup. Five minutes after this, he pays his bill. For eighteen years, he has simply left the money on the slip of paper set discretely to his left on the counter. Prices have risen slightly over the years but he always has the exact change, and he adds three dollars for Elena. Ten years or so ago, it was two.
Maybe, Elena thinks this day, it is the weather. There is a holiday feel to the charcoal skies and the cold, and she has noticed that the hardware and drug stores a few doors down on the highway have lights and wreaths in their windows. Even Milton's Auto, nothing more than a run-down garage, set out a plastic Santa the day after Thanksgiving. She finds this agreeable, even lovely. This may then be prompting her interest, the hazy importance of Mr. McGinnis in her mind, although she has never felt quite this way in other years when Christmas neared.
“Keep well, Elena,” he says, rising to leave. She thanks him, reciprocates the farewell and, this afternoon, keeps her eyes on his lanky figure retreating through the door. She can even see him yanking open his truck, fumbling for the keys in his jeans pocket at the same time.
It is just then that Elena realizes that she is, or was, experiencing a feeling of gratitude for Mr. McGinnis. It is nothing more than that but it has a rich quality to it. It feels like the deep and nameless satisfaction of sitting near a fire when damp and cold are just beyond a wall, safely seen through a frosted windowpane. Then she makes an effort to dismiss the impression, an effort wholly instinctive. There is no one to serve after he goes and she actually concentrates on scrubbing the coffee maker, moving its bulk aside to get underneath, and permitting herself to think only of this. Nearly two hours later, breakfast and lunch shifts done, she takes her bus home, taking with her the subdued and pleasant feeling of warmth.
****
They are alike in one way, Elena Handy and Warren McGinnis, if only barely, and she has never once considered this herself. She too lost a spouse decades before, but the similarity ends there. In her late twenties, she had married a man named James Padleski. This was in her hometown of Decatur, Georgia, and the relationship developed as Elena, a waitress then as well, served James on his increasingly frequent stops at the Square Cafe in the center of town.
Leaving behind a family in Gainesville largely uninterested in her, Elena had one ambition then: to secure a simple life in which she worked, lived alone, and was secure from the messes of personal involvement. Nothing was ever natural in the home; Elena was ignored because, unlike her younger brother, she caused no trouble. As years passed, however, and Dylan Handy's deliquency began to involve the law and local scandal, the little attention she did receive from her mother and father was somehow tainted by association. She was not the good child all the more cherished; she was another reminder that children may go horribly wrong.
This safe life she achieved, and rather easily. It was a blessing to find that her father and mother made no efforts to stay in contact. Shame, maybe, she imagined. It did not matter, there having been no affectionate ties to lose, no debt of care to be repaid. It was a wonder to be highly valued at work which she found easy, even enjoyable, and there was real pleasure in turning the key to her small attic apartment, in shopping for weekly groceries, in training new servers after a few years, in being appreciated by the customers who would accept no other waitress. Everything was ordinary and all of it never ceased to generate actual happiness.
“Baby, you got an admirer.” This was said by Rebecca Nye, thin and tiny, blond, and a virtual whirlwind of energy and motion. It was a Saturday dinner service and both young women knew that the observation only stated the obvious, yet required being said. Elena and Becca had become close over the previous year, the distinction of Elena's higher rank, even within the small staff, fading in proportion to the other's value as a worker and striking personality. In Elena's mind Becca was a blade, lightning fast in all her actions, and strangely all the more human in her directness and quick tongue.
That same night, she agreed to have a drink with Jimmy when she was done with her shift. Becca became maternal and protective, and as immediately as she took on any task.
“I don't know. Go. Sure. Just keep it short and don't fall in love or anything.” All these years later Elena remembers the words, the squint in Becca's eyes appraising Jimmy from the hidden corner serving as waiter station, the clatter of the cafe around them. One day, she believes, she will thank Becca for the warning she should have heeded. She has not yet done so, however, and probably never will because there is no need. In the ways life has of moving things in circles, she is in Maple Hill now because of Becca. They share a small house and live as sisters, closer than most sisters are, each offering a kind of rescue for the other.
When Elena reaches her stop and walks the short block to the well-kept, two-story clapboard house on Grierson Avenue, there is in her the comforting expectation of security and good company, a feeling that has not diminished since she first came to this town.
The details of the changes in her life have been mercifully dulled by time. Over twenty years ago, just after Becca left the cafe to care for an ill mother in North Carolina, the dates with Jimmy rapidly took on an unexpected and oddly ordered structure. Over drinks or a late meal he would disclose information about himself, steadily moving from rote realities to more personal matters, and he would request, even politely demand, that Elena provide the same. He proposed two months after their first date and Elena had the impression that this timing had in fact been planned by Jimmy, as according with precisely how much time is necessary before going so far.
Still. She liked him very much; Jimmy had a sly way with him, a caginess that contrasted, and enhanced, his boyish good looks.
“My place should be home,” he had said after Elena agreed to marry him. This took place at a steakhouse in Buckhead and Elena never forgot the unreal sensation of the moment, of seeing the small diamond on her finger, listening to Jimmy, and feeling as though a charade of some kind had reached its conclusion. She had not yet been there but understood that he had a spacious apartment in Atlanta. There were of course doubts. She had, really, only his word as to his home, his career as a business machines consultant for IBM, his everything. They had not yet been intimate beyond minutes of holding and kissing, on empty street corners. No, not a charade; a film or a part of a film.
Was this how life is supposed to happen? Elena wondered while she allowed Jimmy's intentions to sweep her away. She did not know if she was in love with him but this was no real dilemma, any kind of love being unknown to her. Instead she relied on his unvarying sureness. He told her he had no family in Georgia, none to speak of at all, and she accepted this because it echoed her own experience. She relied on how Jimmy's holding her made her feel and she set aside concerns, date after date, until the ring was there on his palm, for her to take. Besides, Becca had gone and there was no one to whom she could express doubts, anyway.
****
When he struck her three days after the wedding, she fell to the floor because the blow was intensely strong. He left, swearing at her, as Elena propped herself up by her elbows and saw blood dripping from her nose onto the parquet floor of their – Jimmy's – apartment. She felt outrage, even beyond that created by the abuse, because he left while she was still on the floor. It seemed more cold-blooded than the punch to her face.
Resolution possessed her being as soon as she was able to stand. She went to the bathroom and attended to her nose; it was unbroken and the blood resulted more from the impact to her entire face as he punched her jaw. Then she went to the living room and locked the door with the chain, and propped a chair against it. Then – and Elena had not consciously summoned this course at all – she found the handbag in which she had left Becca's new address and number. Within an hour her things were packed in two suitcases – a good deal had to be left behind but this was unavoidable. She called a taxi and only when she was completely ready to depart did she move the chair from the door, holding the sharp edges of the keys in her hand ready.
There was the chance that he would be downstairs but there was no alternative, and she intuited that he would not risk a scene on the street. But no such scene of any kind occurred and Elena simply stepped into the cab. In this action she realized she was able to escape because, in a kind of bitter irony, she was not leaving behind a man she loved or needed. She would call Becca from the train station on Peachtree; the awkwardness from having not been in touch would quickly disappear, it only having been a few months since they parted, the urgency of the circumstances excusing it as well.
“Oh, shit. Elena. Honey. Just get here,” was Becca's response. Elena closed her eyes in a kind of prayer.
On this same evening Caroline Benoit visited her father, Warren McGinnis, for the first time since her mother died. Given the lengthy separation, which was owed to nothing more than Caroline's several pregnancies and distance – she and her husband made Seattle their home – she stayed for five days. Warren became used to the calls she made three times daily to check in even as he felt guilty for being annoyed by them. Then, too, his daughter had never been domestic and Warren experienced further guilt for not perceiving any advantage in having her in the home she had left behind so long ago.
The wind picks up a little as she nears the house but Elena does not draw her coat closer around herself, the door only a minute away. She mentally reviews what's in the refrigerator, easily planning something, a meatloaf, fried potatoes. Becca will not yet be home; she works at the animal shelter in town and the hours are normal, unlike a diner waitress' schedule. Tonight Elena will cook and they'll watch an old movie together, maybe. Or Becca will go out – there's a man in her life. Elena has met him but there is no danger of any kind. Becca, like a seer, knows that great change is not a thing she will like, anyway.
****
“Merry Christmas to you, Elena.” Gerry Doyle says this while handing her an envelope. The bonus is the usual amount but Elena is unconcerned. What matters to her is that it comes every year. Each Christmas envelope confirms another stage, another layer of security in this life. She has served young people in this town, young people feverishly making plans to create lives in Charlotte, or even New York. Frantic to leave the dullness, the limbo, of the town behind. She smiles to herself at these times.
Everything outside the diner is gray. The sparse town seems stilled by the cold, sleeping, dormant. Elena will be off from work tomorrow, Christmas day, and that is yet another source of profound pleasure. She and Becca will watch old movies, cook, and joke with one another wearing robes and warm socks or slippers.
“Big holiday plans, Elena?” Simon asks this through the pick-up window and her eye-rolling is the traditional and awaited response.
One o'clock comes and Elena immediately feels uneasy. Mr. McGinnis has not yet come in and something like real fear overtakes her. Should he not come today, for whatever reason, she knows that her contentment would be jarred, and badly. This is all it is but that is enough; he is a part of this life and routine. Elena does not hold to omens but his failure to appear would be to her a sign of a greater reality not right.
Then she sees, quite by chance, his truck pull in. She turns her head and literally breathes a sigh of relief. Then she catches herself. Something is different. Something was different about the truck.
“Merry Christmas, daddy's diner!” This is expressed as Caroline Benoit enters, her father behind her, his face a mask of stone. Out of habit Mr. McGinnis moves to the counter but his daughter redirects him to a booth, and he complies. There is one moment when his eyes meet with Elena's. Nothing is exchanged because the shock of the circumstance is too much for either of them.
“Merry Christmas,” Gerry says, pleased that a customer, any customer, so wishes to enhance the atmosphere of the place. He even brings them menus himself. Mr. McGinnis regards his as unaccountable, a document of some kind he has no use for. Still, he keeps his head down and pretends to scan the items.
Elena wills herself to not think as she approaches the table. He looks up at her, however, and his weak smile pains her. It seems to be so many things – a plea, a defiance, some measure even of apology. She greets Mr. Mcginnis, relying on his natural courtesy to make the introduction he offers.
“My daughter Caroline. Stayin' with me for Christmas. Caroline, this here is Elena.”
Caroline is breathless and animated, as though both the cold outside and the occasion are overwhelming. She presses her palm against the top of her chest and holds the other hand up, as people do when they require a moment to pull themselves together. Elena does not directly look at Warren McGinnis but, peripherally, she is aware of his blankly staring at his daughter, much as he had regarded the menu.
Elena tries to take the orders, fielding Caroline's many questions about the fat and gluten content of the meals. In this process she also learns that Caroline has left her own family to be with her father. She learns this because, still undecided, Caroline urges Mr. McGinnis to order and she places a call to Seattle.
Mr. McGinnis nods and Elena understands that he'd like his usual. As this is a rapid interaction, Elena than mouths to him that she will be back shortly to see what Caroline wants. Walking from the table, Elena can hear – it is impossible not to hear – Caroline affirm that she will be flying back home the next day, Christmas day, and that everything there is great. Even more loudly she sends her love.
“Simon, hold Mr. McGinnis. I don't know what she wants yet.” Suddenly the diner seems stilled, only the sound of Caroline's voice moving in the space. Oh, it's cold here too. Miss me? Miss you too.
Elena stands at the service window, an elbow resting on it, one hand over her mouth as in contemplation.
****
The hour passes. Caroline finally decides on an egg white omelette and, Elena notices, looks disapprovingly at her father's food as she probes and picks at her own. There are other customers and Elena is grateful for the distractions. At this point her only feeling is that all of this is too bad. Father and daughter speak very little to one another and Elena is certain that the relationship is strained, that this is no silence of mutual comfort. She is also aware that, time and again, this Caroline turns her head to regard her.
But it will be over. The woman will be gone the next day. Elena is quite sure that she herself will never mention this meal to Mr. McGinnis, ever. She is equally certain that he will never refer to it.
Mr. McGinnis does have coffee after eating, and his daughter scowls at this as well. Then he pays the check. Elena comes by to pick up the money and he says, “No change, Elena. Merry Christmas.” Feeling Caroline's eyes on her, Elena deftly takes the cash and the bill, and thanks them. She makes it a point to thank them both, although this is not easy because Caroline's expression is one of amused shock.
Behind the counter Elena discovers that Mr. McGinnis was more generous than he usually is on a holiday. She is aware that father and daughter are rising, getting into their heavy coats. The large tip somehow changes things. She does not consciously perceive it but, in the action, Mr. McGinnis restored the natural way it should be there, will be there again, and in no time.
But Caroline whispers something to her father and then walks to the ladies' room. Mr. McGinnis goes to the truck, to wait.
Elena can actually feel Caroline's coming to her, the deliberate moving to the counter rather than the door. She watches it, step by step, anticipating a wrong and disturbing encounter, the broad smile on Caroline's face reinforcing the sense of danger.
“Hey. Thanks so much for the service.” Her voice drops to the conspiratorial hush of the girlfriend. “I have to tell you, I think my dad likes you.”
Elena does not think as she responds. She is aware only of holding a damp cloth, gripping it. “Well, we've been friends, kind of, for a long time.” Then it upsets her that she declared a friendship when no such relationship has been in place, really. In the briefest of moments, this woman has trapped her.
“Well, woman to woman, I think maybe it's more than that. I think it's great. He's been alone way too long. Don't get me wrong – I'm not saying that anything's going on between you. God, I don't know! But it'd be so good, his having someone. I'm just saying, Elena.” Caroline reaches out to touch Elena's hand. “You take care, now.” And she exits the diner with the stride of a woman with a rich prize in her possession.
The day passes and Elena's shift ends by late afternoon. There is a thought in the back of her mind as she cleans up and prepares to go home. She wishes a merry Christmas to Simon, the regulars, and Gerry, and, when the diner door closes behind her, she defines the thought. Memory has returned and she knows, absolutely knows, that walking out of her marriage years before was not this painful.
Elena walks to the corner but she does not want to board the bus and walk the rest of the way home. It is extraordinary, what this child of Mr. McGinnis did, extraordinary and unspeakable. Elena hates her, never even having hated her own husband. Something important was taken from her, just like that, like it was nothing.
