Breakfast at the Poseidon Diner

Breakfast at the Poseidon Diner

by Jerie Clowes

It was a late Saturday night of pub crawling through my new neighborhood with an old fraternity brother and now my head is pounding and all I want is hot coffee, bacon, and eggs, more coffee—preferably black and scalding. Last night on my way home I walked past a diner a couple of blocks from the apartment. So, I cleaned up, swallowed a couple of aspirin, and stepped out into the cold November morning. By the time I arrived at The Poseidon Diner, my headache was almost gone.
When I walked into the restaurant, I was grateful to find only one occupied table and no screaming children to add to my headache. “Sit anywhere,” the waitress behind the counter called out. “Or sit at the counter.”  
I opted for the counter and slid onto a stool and opened the newspaper left on the counter. “May I?” I asked.
“Be my guest,” she smiled. “Coffee?”
“Please.” She filled a mug with steaming coffee and I gave her my order. “Thanks,” I said and had just taken my first sip when the door burst open, letting in a blast of cold air and a young woman pushing a stroller holding a baby bundled up against the cold and sleeping contentedly. 
“Hi, Stella!” the waitress called out. “How is little Stevie?” she asked. “Over his cold yet?” 
“Morning, Karen,” the young woman said. “Stevie’s better, just sniffles now. I should not have brought him out today, but you know how it is,” she added with resignation. “He wants to see his cousins, and Boppi missed him last week. She told Mom it was my fault he got sick.” She unzipped the boy’s jacket and with a sigh collapsed into a chair. The boy woke up and started fussing. “Okay. Okay,” his mother said removing his coat and mittens.
Karen brought a glass of water and several packets of soda crackers. “Here are some crackers for Stevie to munch on until the others arrive.” She glanced out the window, “Your mother and Boppi are coming down the street now.”  
“Here,” Karen said. “Let me hang up your coat and bring you some coffee.”  
“Thanks,” Stella said.
The door swung open letting in another gust of frigid air and two more women entered the diner. “Ah, Stella, you’re here already,” the older woman said. “Is that sweater warm enough for Stevie?” she questioned, bending down and giving the boy a kiss on the cheek.
“Morning Olga,” Karen called from behind the counter and poured three mugs of coffee. “Mrs. Giannopoulos.”
Olga waved to Karen, “Morning.”
“Morning Stella. How’s Stevie,” Olga asked her daughter giving her a quick peck on the check.
“Hi Mom,” Stella said. “He’s better. Just sniffles.”
Olga hung up her coat and asked, “Boppie, can I hang up your coat?”
“No. I’ll keep it. It’s cold in here,” she said casting a disparaging look in Karen’s direction.
“How’s my little prince?” the older woman said to the boy while nudging Stella to move over and give up her chair. “Boppi’s going to sit down right beside you Stevie. How’s that?” He looked up and gave his great-grandmother a big cracker-filled grin. “Boppie,” he squealed raising his pudgy hands up for a hug.
The cook had put my order on the pass under the heat lamps and tapped the bell. It took Karen a couple of minutes to get back and give me my order. “Sorry for the delay,” she smiled. “It happens every Sunday.” Grabbing a coffee pot she asked, “More coffee?”  and before I could answer the mug was full again. As she was filling several mugs for the front table, three more women came through the door with four more children in tow. One in a stroller while, one ran ahead. There were two children in a double stroller being pushed by a woman who appeared to be older than the other two. The last one was carrying an infant seat. In one smooth move, Karen grabbed the handles of three mugs in one hand, two in the other, and carried them, without spilling a drop, to the front table. “Morning, ladies,” she called to the new arrivals. 
“Morning, Karen,” they all said in unison. One little boy ran to Karen hugging her around the legs.
“Hi, Karen!”
“Careful…careful,” she said. “I’ll spill this hot coffee all over you,” she cautioned. She set the mugs on the table, then asked, “The usual for the table? Bacon, eggs, toast, oatmeal, brown sugar with raisins for the little ones? Maria, can I heat up a bottle or something for Connie?” she asked. Maria lifted the baby girl out of the stroller and passed her across the table to Boppi.  The elderly woman grinned, taking the baby. “Little Connie. Come to Boppi, how big you’re getting.”  
The baby’s mother dug around in the diaper bag and pulled out a baby bottle full of milk. “Here,” she said, slightly out of breath, handing the bottle to Karen. “Thanks, Karen.”
Back at the counter, Karen called in the new order. “Scrambled eggs for five, family style, bacon—well done—family style; eight buttered toast, four oatmeal with raisins, cinnamon, and brown sugar.” 
In fascination, I watched as the ballet of sorts played out at the front table.
Greetings were made to one another, some warmly with hugs and kisses, others with cool acknowledgment, and still others with only a sideways glance. Babies were passed around to be cuddled and admired and the ladies settled into familiar conversations. I counted at least four generations of mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers, aunts, cousins, and siblings gathered around the table, laughing and talking all at the same time. It was mayhem, and Karen, the waitress, managed them all without breaking a sweat.
As I watched, an almost forgotten memory came to mind of my great-grandmother’s ninetieth birthday. I was about nine years old. The whole family had gathered at the farm outside of Iola, Kansas, where my grandmother still lives. My father, two uncles, and one aunt had all been born on that farm and in that house. One of my uncles still managed the farm and lived there with his wife and four children. The gathering of the women at the birthday celebration differed from the one here at the diner, in that there were men present at the farm. But as families arrived in their cars and pickup trucks the women and young children migrated to the kitchen and the men drifted to the backyard to smoke, drink beer, and play horseshoes. The older kids stayed outside and played hide-and-seek or kick-the-can.
After a while, I would go inside to find the women sitting around the kitchen table shelling peas, cutting green beans, standing at the stove frying chicken, stirring gravy, or at the sink washing dishes, talking, gossiping, catching up on news.
The men in the backyard with their beer and horseshoes laughing and joking, whooping and slapping each other on the back when their team scored a point. The kitchen, on the other hand, was a hive of activity. The kitchen was always more interesting than the horseshoes.
Against Dad’s protests that he hadn’t had that much beer, my mom would drive the thirty miles home talking the whole way and filling him in on family gossip. He acted like he wasn’t interested, but he never told her to stop, either. I couldn’t see it back then but now I see the beauty in the community of the women in the kitchen at a family picnic, or in a diner enjoying breakfast together on a Sunday morning unencumbered by their husbands. Maybe, subconsciously, I miss that sense of security and community of belonging. Perhaps that’s why I moved out here from the city to a smaller neighborhood to find community.
“That’s quite a group you’ve got there,” I said to Karen as she filled several glasses with water placing them on a small metal tray. 
“Yes, it is,” she agreed. “Every Sunday after early mass they come in with the kids for breakfast. No men allowed,” she laughed. 
“Really?” 
“See the older woman holding the baby in pink?” Karen pointed toward the woman they called Boppie.  
“Yeah,” I said, looking over at the collection of women and assorted children. 
“She’s the matriarch of the group, Irini Giannopoulos, Mrs. Giannopoulos to you and me. The baby she’s holding is her great-granddaughter, Connie. The woman sitting next to her, who she came in with and is summarily ignoring, is her daughter-in-law, Olga, Stella’s mom,” Karen said. “I asked Irini once why their husbands never came for breakfast. She responded with a dismissive flip of her hand and said, ‘Men. Women cannot talk with men around. When you are young, they only want you to say ‘yes’ and when you marry, they want you to shut up, spread your legs, and cook. You are no longer a woman to them. A white dress, a fancy party, and you become a cook, a cleaner, a mama. They blame you for all the babies and find a girlfriend. This is our time without them.’” 
“Harsh words,” I chuckled. “But if their husbands are so demanding, don’t they want their wives at home, cooking their breakfast?”  
“Look at her,” Karen replied with a laugh. “Would you argue with Irini ‘Boppi’ Giannopoulos? She’s tiny but fierce,” Karen said with admiration. “Besides, the men are home sleeping off Saturday night.”
“You called her Boppi. What does that mean? It doesn’t sound very Greek.” I asked. 
“I think it’s just a made-up term of endearment. From what I understand it goes back to before Irini was born. No one really knows the origin of it. It just became a family thing.” 
The bell on the pass dinged. “Food’s up,” the cook hollered from the kitchen. Karen took the water and the warmed baby bottle to the table, then came back for the food order. She loaded up a large round metal tray with plates and bowls of steaming food, stooped down, and with the palm of her hand hoisted the full tray up to her shoulder, grabbed the folding tray stand with her other hand, and walked to the table in the window. I marveled at the ease of her movements. That tray weighed twenty pounds easily. At the table, and seemingly in one smooth motion Karen flipped open the tray stand, bent, and slowly slid the ladened tray off her shoulder onto the stand. Her job was done. “Thank you, Karen,” everyone said in unison.
The women not holding babies leapt into action, distributing the food while others made room on the table. Children were pulled up on laps or put in booster seats and fed their oatmeal with one hand, while the mothers ate their own breakfast with the other hand. No one except Irini sat at rest. She waited to be served by her daughter-in-law. Arms reached for pieces of toast and mouths now full everything quieted down for a time. Baby Connie started crying and was unceremoniously passed across the table to her mother, who put her back in the stroller and gave her the warmed bottle of milk. Almost on queue the other infant started to fuss and was handed back to her mother who cradled her in one arm draping a pink blanket over her shoulder and across her chest, covering the baby. The mother deftly slipped her other hand under the blanket, unbuttoned her blouse, and the baby silently suckled at her mother’s breast and her mother resumed eating. 
“More coffee?” Karen asked when she returned back to the counter where I was sitting.  
Any more coffee and I would float away. But I was hooked. Maybe it was the journalist in me or the intriguing woman telling the stories but I wanted to know more. “Thanks,” I said, pushing my mug forward. She filled it, then poured one for herself. 
“How long have they been coming here?” I asked. 
“Oh, years,” she said, pouring some half-and-half into her coffee, stirred, and took a sip. Leaning her elbows on the counter she continued, “Olga and I went to high school together. Olga’s the one who came in with Irini. She told me that Irini and Irini’s mother-in-law, Sophia started the tradition years and years ago before Olga knew them.” 
“Was Irini born here?”  
“No. Irini and Petros were newlyweds when they came to this country. To this very neighborhood, and they’re in the same apartment. That was after the war. Petros’s cousin Philip and his wife, Christine, had come here the year before and started an automobile repair shop. Petros went to work in the business. Two years later, when Irini and Petros could afford it, they brought his parents, Sophia and Dimitri, over and got them a small bedsit apartment in the same building. Irini never talks about those days, and Olga doesn’t know a lot, but apparently, Dimitri beat his wife. He was always strutting around wearing one of those tank t-shirts they call “wife beaters.” It gives me the willies just thinking about it.
“Irini and her mother-in-law attended seven o’clock mass every morning at Saint Agatha’s Orthodox church on the corner. The diner was on their way to and from church and one Sunday Irini suggested they stop for a coffee before going home to get breakfast. That’s how this,” Karen gestured toward the chaos at the front table, “started. They became Sunday morning regulars. A few weeks later Christine, Philip’s wife, joined them and the Giannopoulos women have kept the tradition going and growing ever since. Weddings, funerals, christenings, first communions have all been discussed, planned, arranged, and fought over at that table.”  
“So, you’ve known Olga since high school,” mentally trying to tick off exactly who was who. “How long have you worked here at the diner?” Also trying to figure out the timeline.
“Since my junior year in high school. I started part-time after school and weekends then,” she paused. “I wanted to go to college, Olga and I both wanted to go to college...but what’s the expression? ‘Life happens.’”  
A crash from the front of the restaurant interrupted Karen’s story. She grabbed a cloth and a roll of paper towel. “Duty calls.” She looked back over her shoulder and called into the kitchen, “Dom, accident at table one.” A young man, who I assumed was the busboy, came out of the kitchen pushing a large pail mop. 
A glass of milk had been spilled all over the table and onto the floor. Karen turned to little Stevie mockingly shaking her finger at him. “Look at what Auntie Karen has to mop up.” She tousled his hair and kissed him on the top of his head.  Olga grabbed paper napkins from the dispenser on the table and started mopping the table.
“Karen, I’m so sorry,” Stella said. Taking her son by the arm, she scolded, “Look at this mess, young man. You apologize to Auntie Karen.” 
“I’m sorry, Auntie Karen,” the boy said through a quivering lower lip.  
“No harm done,” I heard Karen say and she kissed the boy again. “Why don’t I clear some of these plates off the table and make more room for everyone?” 
Again, she loaded up the tray, hoisted it onto her shoulder, and carried it into the kitchen. “Sorry ’bout that,” she said when she returned. “More coffee?” 
“No thanks. I’m good for now.”
“Are you finished with that,” she asked pointing at the empty plate in front of me.
“Yes, thank you.” She took the plate away and started wiping down the Formica counter. “So, you were saying you wanted to go to college but...what happened?” I asked wanting to hear her story.”
“My father disapproved of girls going to school, much less college. ‘You find yourself a good boy and you get married,’ he yelled when I brought up the subject of college.”  
“You’re not Greek, are you?”
“No, I’m Irish, but when it comes to following tradition there is little difference. My parents grew up in a small village near Dublin. Mother never learned how to read and write until they emigrated to this country where she had no choice. Girls’ education was just not deemed necessary in the old country. Boys from the village went to school only until they were old enough to work and learn a trade. Some went on to university, but very few. I was born here, but old traditions die hard. Olga and Stavros started dating our sophomore year. By junior year, she was pregnant, then married, and never graduated high school. Without Olga, I sort of lost interest and the will to fight for the college dream.” 
“You never married?” 
“Wow, you don’t beat about the bush, do you?” she joked. “But no. I’d had enough of domineering men telling me what to do.” 
“I notice Irini doesn’t speak or even look at Olga. Why not?” 
“Jealousy.” 
“Jealousy?” 
“Irini has always been jealous of any girl who showed the slightest interest in Stavros, her “baby”. She has never forgiven Olga for getting pregnant. She says, ‘That slut trapped my Stavros into marriage. What kind of girl gets pregnant before she’s married? She’s not even Greek.’ That’s the way Olga tells it, anyway. The truth is Irini had a bun in the oven, as the expression goes when she got married at sixteen back in the old country. Stavros has an older brother, Constantine, who was a couple of months ‘premature’. But woe betide anyone who mentions that indiscretion,” Karen laughed.  
“Then how do you know about it?” I asked. 
“Well, Olga told me about it a long time ago. She got it from Philip’s wife, Christine “Tina.” Tina is the one who came in with her daughter Angela, the one nursing her baby. Philip is Irini’s nephew by marriage. Olga swore me to secrecy, and I’ve kept my mouth shut until now. In fact”—her face flushed—“I don’t actually know why I’m telling you.”  
“Your secret is safe with me,” I assured her. To my surprise, I was enjoying myself listening to her stories. It must be the Irish—natural-born storytellers. Then I changed the subject. 
“So, which one is Constantine’s wife and why isn’t Irini jealous of her?” 
“Her name was Maria. She passed away a long time ago. Before I knew Olga. She and Constantine had a daughter, Maria,” she paused and continued. “Buckle up, now it gets complicated.” She looked over at the front table. “See the woman in the blue sweater with the little baby, talking to Stella?” she said.  
“Yes,” I said. 
“That’s Maria.”  
Maybe it was the hangover or lack of sleep, but part of me envied these women and their closeness and intimate knowledge of each other’s lives and families, everyone looking out for everyone else. There was an unbreakable bond even between those who didn’t like each other. They stuck together.  
My mother and her sisters and my father’s sisters were much the same way. We all lived within a few blocks of each other, nobody more than a half hour’s drive away, and it lasted all their lives. My aunts took great interest in my life, as did my mother, especially when I started noticing girls. If they weren’t trying to set me up, they were telling me who was and was not suitable for me. In a large family and a small town, there are no secrets. Sometimes I wanted to yell, “It’s my life and none of your business!” My father would holler from the living room, “Leave the boy alone,” but, of course, they never did. I loved them, but I couldn’t wait to go to college and get away.
The day I left for college; everyone was there to see me off. My mother and grandmother and aunts and uncles. They were all crying and wishing me well. I was the first one in the family to go away to school. My car was packed to the hilt. When all the goodbyes had been made, lipstick smears all over my face, I got behind the wheel of my rusty VW and drove off. When I looked back in the rearview mirror, I saw my entire family in the middle of the street waving and dabbing their eyes. Full disclosure, I was dabbing my eyes too.
In college I majored in journalism and after college, I moved around wherever a job took me and those family ties started to fray. Then the job brought me to New York and Queens.
But now, today, seeing these women and children, I am regretting having let so much time pass since I last went home or called home.
Wrapped up in my own memories I forgot Karen was still talking.
“What were you saying? I’m sorry my mind drifted away.”
“Yeah, I thought your eyes glazed over there for a minute,” she teased.
“You were talking about Maria.”
“Right. I was saying I didn’t know her,” Karen continued. “Olga and I were fifteen when she died. It was the spring of our sophomore year in high school. Olga and Stavros had just met, so Olga was not part of the family yet. She watched from the sidelines, so to speak.” 
“What happened?” I asked. “How did Maria die?”  
“Cancer,” Karen said. “They thought she was pregnant with their second child. But it was a mass in her abdomen. It was only a matter of weeks after the diagnosis that she died. Olga and I were not at the funeral. But we heard Irini made a terrible scene, crying and wailing, throwing herself on the casket. Afterward, Irini practically turned Maria into a saint. Olga told me Irini built a shrine in her living room for Maria. Candles, crucifix, photographs, statues, like an altar to her memory.” She wet a cloth and absently started wiping down the counter.  “It’s creepy if you ask me. Olga said that after Petros, Irini’s husband, died the shrine was moved into Irini’s bedroom. Now she has two altars, one for Maria and one for Petros.” Karen shivered and shook her head. “It’s still creepy. And where does that leave Olga? Tell me that,” she looked across at her friend.
I didn’t know what to say, but I thought I should say something. I’ve always hated pregnant pauses, so why not ask a stupid question, “Why does Olga put up with it? I mean with Irini.” 
Karen shrugged and laughed one of those ironical laughs. “Tradition…and her husband Stavros. Maria was before Olga’s time in the family. Olga’s a good woman, a good person. She understands Irini and accepts her in ways I don’t completely understand. I’ve asked Olga the same question, and she just says, ‘It’s her way. She’s lonely.’” 
“Oh,” I said.  
“Maria was the only girlfriend Constantine ever had. She was the daughter of Irini’s best friend back in Greece. It was as close to an arranged marriage as you could get, without actually arranging the marriage. From the photos I’ve seen of Maria, she was really beautiful.” 
I laughed. “Okay, I’ll bite. How did they meet?” 
“Constantine was sent to their village in Greece for a summer when he was seventeen. Maria was fifteen. When he returned to the States three months later, Maria and her mother came too.” 
I practically choked on my coffee. “They were married!”
“Nooo!” she laughed. “Maria and her mother moved in with Sophia…” 
“In a bedsit with the wife-beating grandfather?” I interrupted. 
“Yes…no…Dimitri—the wife beater—had died of a heart attack the year before,” Karen explained.  
“What about passports and visas?” I asked. 
“Well, that’s the arranged part. All of that had been taken care of long before Constantine ever got to Greece. The mothers, you see, had it all planned. Maria’s mother got a visa and Maria as her daughter could come on her mother’s visa because Maria was a miner and would attend school and not be working. There might have been some sleight of hand or palm greasing—I’m not saying and I’m not speculating.” She grinned, shaking her head. “But two years later, when Constantine was nineteen and Maria seventeen, they were married. Immigration was not as strict back then, I guess.” 
“What did Maria do for those two years?” I asked. “Did she go to school?” 
“She did, but only so she could learn to read and write English. Anyway, eight months after the wedding, baby Maria was born.” 
“A subject not spoken of; I suppose.”  
“Exactly,” she confirmed. “Constantine had already joined the auto-repair business where he’d worked part-time throughout high school. He attended night classes at City College and through his brains and business acumen he turned the auto shop into the thriving and sought-after concern it is today.” She took another sip of coffee and wrinkled her face, “Yuk, it’s cold,” and she poured it down the drain. She leaned back and looked over at the table, “It may not look like it, but sitting at that table is a pile of money. Millions I’m guessing. They don’t spend. They accumulate. People from all over bring their cars to be serviced by the Giannopoulos boys. Their specialty is foreign and vintage cars.” 
The story stopped while she took care of other customers and I could go to the restroom and get rid of all the coffee I had drunk. When we were both back at the counter, she said, “Life’s funny, isn’t it?” 
“How do you mean?” 
“I mean, some people just go along with tradition and what is expected of them and are happy and contented in that kind of…security, I guess it is,” she said, “while others fight it and balk at the expectations of others and never seem to quite find their niche and happiness. Sometimes I wonder, what would have happened if I had stood up to my father and found some way to go to college way back then, after high school, how would things be different today?”  
I was wondering that myself. How could an attractive, articulate, obviously very intelligent woman like Karen end up serving coffee in a diner her whole life? We must be about the same age, I thought. Olga looks to be about forty. God, and she’s a grandmother. Karen’s deep blue eyes that went almost to violet concealed a story that I very much wanted to hear. Suddenly, I was imagining what her raven hair would look like loose from the neat French twist wound at the back of her head. The contrast of black hair and blue eyes is unnerving and beautiful.
“So why didn’t you defy your father and go to school, at least part-time?” I asked and immediately regretted the bluntness of my question. Her smile faded and her eyes turned black with rage as she stepped back from the counter. Why she didn’t turn on her heel right then and there and walk away, I don’t know. 
“You judging me?” 
“No,” I said. “I’m sorry. I have the tact of a charging bull sometimes,” I apologized. I reached for my wallet and stood to go. “I better be getting home. I have work to do.” 
She didn’t speak right away, but I saw her eyes were moist with tears.  
“Karen, I really am sorry. I didn’t mean to be so personal.” 
Her expression was pained like she’d been kicked in the stomach. “It’s not your fault. You just touched an old nerve that hadn’t been touched in a long time. That’s all,” she admitted. “My mother died the Christmas of my senior year of high school. Olga was married and had her own problems. My pa was so angry at my mother for dying. I’d heard him yelling one night at her picture: ‘What am I going to do now? Who’s going to keep the house and do the cooking? I can’t work and do everything else myself.’ He went on like that for days after the funeral and drank. I know it’s disrespectful, but I sometimes wonder if she didn’t die just to get out of the drudgery of her life. They came here for a new life, but they dragged the old one along with them. At least my pa did. In his mind, he never really left Ireland.” She paused and blew her nose. “That night we had a huge fight, and I threatened to run away from home. ‘Then what will you do?’ I screamed at him. ‘You’ll have to do your own cooking and washing. Mom will be laughing in her grave!’ His face went scarlet. I swear he was vibrating with rage.” She paused again exhaled and drew in a deep breath. “He slapped me across the room. I tried to break my fall but broke my arm instead. I left school after that and I stayed at home and took care of him and continued on working here at the diner.”  
She stopped abruptly. “Wow! That was too much information. Sorry, that came out of nowhere. I don’t know what got into me. I haven’t told that story in a long time, or even thought about it, for that matter,” she said. “So, now that I’ve poured out my life story, what about you?” she asked. “I haven’t seen you in here before, have I?”  
“No.”  
“A man of few words, eh?” she said. “I like that. Most men are too in love with the sound of their own voice.” 
Now it was my turn to change the subject. “Who do the twins belong to?” I asked. The boys had climbed out of their booster seats and were running all over the place. This family was like none I had ever known, not even mine, and Karen seemed to enjoy telling their stories. I regretted pressing her so hard to talk about herself; I wanted to move away from that subject and onto safer ground like the Giannopoulos clan. 
“Yeah! I know. You almost need a scorecard, don’t you?” she commented. “Okay, here goes: The older one is Christine ‘Tina’, Philip’s wife, and her daughter Angela Pappas. Her husband is Alexander Pappas. He also works at the car repair shop. The two-year-old twin boys are, Apollo and Alex. Look at those eyes even at two years old. God help us when they start noticing girls!” she joked. “The baby Angela is nursing is Chrissie, named for her mother." Karen stopped and thought for a moment, counting on her fingers. "Oh, Niki, four years old, he belongs to Maria. And I think that’s everybody."  
I looked at my watch. It was nine o’clock. I’d been here two hours. The women in the front were stirring. Irini passed baby Connie back to Maria. “Okay, Olga,” I heard Irini say. “It’s time to go. Stavros will be pacing the sidewalk looking for his breakfast. My son likes his meals served promptly,” she added, nudging her daughter-in-law to get up.
“Yes, Boppi,” came Olga’s reply, heaving a sigh.
“We should be going too,” said Tina to Angela who was trying to corral the twins and get them strapped into the stroller. 
“Me too,” echoed Stella. “Bye, Karen. See you soon.” They each waved goodbye and blew kisses to Karen.  
Olga put her coat on, and came to the back counter, and paid the check for the entire table. “Thanks, Karen,” she said. The two women embraced. Up close, I could see the deep affection and history they shared.  
“You’re welcome, Honey,” Karen said to her friend. “Call me later. I get off at three.” 
“I’ll try,” Olga said. “Probably after dinner.” As she turned to go, she glanced at me but said nothing. I nodded and smiled. She nodded back. It was one of those odd exchanges that said nothing but spoke volumes. Then I realized she was sizing me up! I could only imagine what her thoughts were: Stay away from my friend, or else. I got that message loud and clear. Despite her silent warning, I smiled back. Loyalty. I respect that, I thought.  
Karen walked her friend to the door. Even before the door closed, Karen began clearing up the remains of the breakfast. It felt odd sitting, watching her work. I half wanted to get up and help. But I didn’t. She carried the loaded tray back and pushed the kitchen door open with a quick jut of her hip. I watched her through the swinging door. She left the tray by the sink.  
I was standing, holding my coat, when she came back out. “Leaving already? And just when I can relax for a minute.” She smiled.  
“After the look Olga just gave me, I don’t dare linger.” 
“Don’t mind Olga,” Karen said with a gentle smile. “She’s protective of me,” she said. “How about a fresh coffee and a nice piece of warm apple pie with a thick slice of cheddar cheese?” 
“Just coffee,” I said. “Thanks.” 
“Don’t like apple pie with cheese? It’s good. I promise.” 
“If you say so,” I said. 
Just then the front door popped open and a teenage girl with earbuds plugged into her ears and sporting purple and green streaked blonde hair came dancing through the door. “Hey, Karen,” she said in a singsong voice. She started taking off her coat as she walked to the back of the kitchen. The girl wore a uniform like Karen’s only mint green with a white collar and apron instead of yellow with white.  
“Good morning, Tiffany,” Karen said. “Nice of you to join us.”  
“I hid around the corner until I saw the circus leave,” she giggled. “They’re too much with all those rugrats screaming and making a mess,” she cringed. “I am never getting married or having kids.” The girl eyed me and then said to Karen, “You can go on your break now, Kar.” She winked and said, “I can take it from here.” 
“Thanks, Tiff,” Karen said with a teasing scowl on her face. Karen turned to me. “My business is everybody’s business in case you haven’t guessed.” She untied her apron and tucked it under the counter. “Do you mind if I join you?” 
“No, not at all,” I said.  
Tiffany was behind the counter tying her apron when Karen said, “Tiff, we’ll have two coffees, from the fresh pot, and warm...” 
“Don’t tell me...warm apple pie with a thick slice of Irish cheddar cheese. Yuck!” The girl glanced at me and said, “I hope you know what you’re in for,” and she bounced into the kitchen. 
Karen and I moved to a booth in the back and sat facing each other. I felt like a teenager all tongue-tied.  We sat without speaking until Tiffany brought our coffee and apple pie. 
I stared at the pie for a second. “Okay, I give up,” I said. “How did you come up with this?” 
“You’ve never eaten it before? That’s surprising. It’s a staple here at the diner.” 
I looked at the pie dubiously. “Well, not where I come from. Where I come from, apple pie comes a la mode, with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream on top, and it’s served after dinner, not for breakfast.”  
“My grandmother back in Ireland used to serve pie with cheese for breakfast at the holidays. Whenever I would visit her, she’d give it to me with hot chocolate.”  
“It’s an Irish thing, is it?” I took a bite. I knew she was watching for my reaction. I looked up at her, my mouth still full, and nodded my head. “Your grandmother was right. It’s not bad,” and I proceeded to eat the plate clean. “Okay,” I began, “now what should we talk about?” 
“You,” she said smiling over the rim of her coffee mug.  
“Me?” The mischievous twinkle in her eyes told me I would not get off easily.  
“Well,” she began. “This is one small neighborhood in a big city. No one dreams about living here. People from here dream of living on the other side of the river. So, when a newcomer shows up, we are naturally curious about them.” She smiled and cocked her head to one side. “So, yes, I want to talk about you,” she said. “What’s your name? Where are you from? What do you do?”   
Her directness caught me off guard. I was about to speak when she preempted me. 
“Let me guess. You don’t look like you're down on your luck,” she observed, staring quizzically at me. “From your slightly rumpled appearance, I’d say you’re a writer, from the other side of the river, looking for a story.” She teased. “And you moved here, trying to be inconspicuous and soak up the local culture and atmosphere. How am I doing?” 
“Okay, you found me out,” I laughed. “How did you do that?” I held up my hands in mock surrender. “Can we start over?” I asked. “My name is Jeremy. I am a journalist, originally from Kansas . . .”