Page 10

Nine

“Frances!” Glen hollers past the cook station and out into the open café for all to hear. Sure, it’s just Mr. Crabtree at the counter and a couple sitting at one of the ten booths in this place, but my cheeks still flame with the use of my full first name.

“It’s just Fran, Glen,” I tell him for the fifteenth time this week. I point to my name tag. The one Glen had etched with Frances despite me telling him multiple times that I go by Fran. The one I strategically stuck a bright pink heart over the last three letters of my name.

“Your order’s been up for sixty seconds.

Where’s your head?” I am convinced that Glen is not a happy man.

He probably needs a date with some age-appropriate gal who would go the extra mile to plan something special.

Maybe then Glen, whose real name is probably something like Glendon , would be less cranky.

My brows cinch. It’s not like we’re busy tonight. We aren’t on most Tuesday nights. For whatever reason, no one wants pancakes for dinner on Tuesdays. Maybe it’s the whole Taco Tuesday craze—either way, waiting sixty seconds really won’t hurt anyone.

While my tips suck on Tuesday nights, my homework thrives.

Glen stays behind the open window of the kitchen, cooking and cleaning, while I man the front. I’m normally quick with my customers and my cleaning—and then, I study. It makes for a productive Tuesday.

But tonight—I’m distracted. Never did I ever think I’d meet my Grease 2 kissing friend again. And then, there he was, like an extra-hunky, sunny surprise, right in Rosalie’s classroom.

I grab the stack of fluffy buttermilk pancakes with four links of sausage, two extra that I won’t be charging him for because I like Lester Crabtree, and set the meal in front of my counter customer.

My eyes bounce to the gold band on Lester’s left hand. He’s a regular, and we’re friendly, but I’ve never pried. Apparently, I’m feeling brave tonight. It’s got to be due to the success of a remake I didn’t even plan out.

I pinch my lips, then refill his coffee cup. “How’s your wife doing?”

Lester’s eyes widen, and he blinks as if I’ve asked him if the aliens in his backyard are enjoying their visit. He says nothing—just continues looking at me like I’m about to be beamed up by Scotty.

“Mr. Crabtree, are you all right?”

He coughs, his eyes still bugged.

I reach over the counter and pat him, but I can’t reach his back from this angle, so I’m just patting the man’s upper arm and watching him choke. So not helpful.

“Are you— Do you— Should I—” I’m just starting to move, to leap over this counter and save Lester, when he clears his throat.

Lester takes a breath and sets a hand on his chest. “I’m fine, dear. Just fine. Last I checked, my wife was still very much dead. I thought you’d raised her from the grave for a second.”

“Oh.” I swallow, my eyes bouncing back to his left hand. “No. Of course not. I just saw your ring. And—” I gulp again. “I thought I’d make conversation.”

He nods once, his coughing spurt over. His gaze returns to his pancakes. “She always said she’d haunt me over breakfast.”

I clamp down on my bottom lip. This sounds concerning. Haunting isn’t exactly a grand love story. “I’m sorry for… startling you.”

“I’m sorry too,” he says. “I’ve been eating breakfast for every meal since the day she died, and she hasn’t shown up once. I thought maybe she’d finally come back, reincarnated as my pretty waitress.”

I press my lips together. I’m getting hit on a lot this week, and in the strangest ways.

“Don’t worry, dear. I know you aren’t her. Dorothy would have smacked me for such a comment.”

I nod and run both hands down the length of my apron. “Okay. Well, then. Enjoy your meal.”

“Now, don’t be like that. You asked me about my wife.

Other than the fact that she’s been dead for the past ten years, she’s fabulous.

Always was. Never in my eighty-one years have I met another woman like Dorothy Reese.

The woman never did take my last name. Very modern of her, considering we were married sixty years ago.

She just couldn’t stand the thought of being a Crabtree.

Always said she was much too pleasant to be called by such a name, and if she didn’t love me so desperately, she would have left me ages ago. ”

My nerves dispel, and a laugh bubbles out with his serious sentiments—I’m so glad to have been wrong about Mr. Crabtree’s love story. “Is that right?”

“Yes, dear, that’s right.” He stabs at a bite of pancake with his fork, swirling it in the syrup on his plate. “I hope one day someone loves you that desperately, Miss Fran.”

I appreciate Lester calling me by my preferred name. No doubt he’s heard Glen call me Frances a dozen times.

I clear my throat and tap the counter with my fingers. “Thank you. Enjoy your meal, Mr. Crabtree. I hope Dorothy haunts you real soon.” Maybe haunting sweethearts could be a grand paranormal love story.

“Me too, dear,” he says, the wrinkles on his face creasing with a smile. “Me too.”

I check on the couple at table four, then slink back to table ten, where my laptop awaits.

I send Professor Ellington a quick update on my research. She insisted that if I chose such a topic, I update her regularly. I add in a note about Lester and Dorothy, comparing the two to the older couple in The Notebook who just wanted to be together in life and death.

Ellington would have to be heartless not to love that story. But then, I’m not so sure she isn’t. How can anyone so in love with literature be so cynical?

I hit send and lean back in my seat, glancing at my customers. The café is quiet. I should have another minute before I check on my diners. Most want their drinks full and to be left alone.

With my sixty-second break, I pull out my phone. Nibbling on my cheek and dreaming about Drew Barrymore standing on a pitcher’s mound waiting for a kiss, I type in: Current Reno-Tesoro Red Tail players.

But before my page has time to load?—

“Frances!”

I jump from my seat at the back table—as if I’ve been caught. As if I don’t have a right to look up players on a team roster. “Yes, Glendon ?” I hurry around the lunch counter and peer through the cook’s open window, where Glen is grimacing.

“I’ve got pie back here,” he says, as if this should have already occurred to me. He hasn’t even noticed the nickname I’ve given him.

“Pie.” I nod. “Right.” Why Glen makes a fresh pie on Tuesdays is beyond me. There is no one here to eat his pie. “Hey, Mr. Crabtree, can I interest you in a slice of apple pie?”

“Blueberry!” Glen barks.

Blueberry? What was the man thinking?

“I’m all set, sis,” Lester Crabtree says. He reaches out and pats the back of my hand, sitting on the counter. I think the possibility of his dead wife coming back through me has bonded Lester and me for life. At least it’s upped my game from Miss to Sis.

I slide his ticket over to him, along with a chocolate chip cookie, on a napkin.

Glendon never needs to know.

Hurrying over to the couple at table three, I offer them pie too. To Glen’s frustration, no one wants his blueberry pie. I leave a ticket on their table just as a buzz sounds from my apron pocket .

Thanking the couple, I turn away and take two steps out of Glen’s sight to check my cell. The drop-down feature tells me Rosalie has texted. But the screen lights up with a Red Tail team roster. And that smiling face, front and center, is one I recognize at first glance.