“I told him that his business plan is in trouble,” Mignon added, picking up a plate piled high with pecan pancakes.
I didn't know what a business plan was, so I said “Uhhuh” in agreement.
“My mother told Uncle Jess that Agent Orange had fried his brains and that he ought to check himself into the psych unit of the VA hospital up near Helena. I said, ‘Uncle Jess! No one is going to want tournedos of beef at a roadside joint in northwestern Montana! They want plain old steak, mashed potatoes, and green beans! Fried eggs and bacon! Stuff like that!’ Mother told him that the only French folks wanted to read on a menu was the à la mode with the apple pie!” She shut up like a clam when her grim-faced uncle returned with a tray of clean dishes— and my Vidalia onion.
“Thank you,” I said, taking it from him and trying to keep from smiling.
“Umph,” he replied.
I stared after him as he disappeared into the dishroom.
When Gardiner was out of earshot, Mignon grinned and whispered in my ear, “I think he likes you.”
I wondered if that was good or bad.
Chapter Eight
News travels faster in Paper Moon than it does in the projects after the talk shows go off.
By eleven-thirty, most of the residents of Paper Moon, and half of those living in nearby Mason, knew that Jess Gardiner had himself a new cook. Thanks to Sheriff “Mountain” Peters and his CB, the lunch crowd was even larger than the breakfast group, and it included some of the same folks! The Paper Moon Diner's regular menu was “temporarily out of service” and an “ad hoc menu,” as Mignon called it, was put in place. Foods like “Country Fried Steak,” hamburgers, fresh pan-fried trout, and a ten-alarm chili I whipped up in a hurry appeared instead. (One thing Jess did have on hand was a large bottle of hot sauce, a decent group of seasonings, some beans, and ground turkey.)
Even with Mignon helping me with the cooking, we had more orders than we could fill quickly. There were so many people coming in that we were all cooking and waiting tables—even Carl, who bussed dishes, scrambled a few eggs and flipped hamburgers. By two o'clock, I was dead on my feet. I hadn't had a shower in two days, and I didn't have a place to sleep yet.
But I did have a job.
Jess asked me himself. At least, that's what he thought he was doing.
He passed me on his way to the back, carrying a huge tray of dirty dishes. I was on my way to table eight with four hamburger platters and a fish sandwich. Mignon was taking a ladies' room break.
“Need to be here by six to get ready for the breakfast shift,” he said abruptly. “First customers come in at six-forty-five 'fore they go fishing.”
I stopped in the middle of the floor.
“You need to tell someone who cares,” I snapped. I dropped off my orders and passed him on my way back to the grill.
“Thought you'd like to know,” he said pointedly.
I put my hands on my hips and turned around.
“Listen here, the only reason I even got behind this counter was 'cause I was hungry and needed something to eat besides crêpes Suzanne or whatever you call them. And the rest of this … well, I'm just helping you out is all.”
Jess's eyes flickered for a second. And his cheek twitched.
“Guess I was mistaken. Thought you ran the place.”
I looked around me. “It would be an improvement. If you want a for-profit business, that is.”
“Six o'clock, you can open up.”
“Oh, are you offering me a job?”
“Yep.”
“I can't make those French dishes you have on the menu,” I told him. “You're on your own there.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“There's been a reorganization,” he said, simply. “New cook, new menu. You cook what you want. Obviously,” he looked around him at the full tables and flapping jaws, “whatever you make will be fine.”
And why was I even considering this situation anyway?
I had been complaining for years about spending too much time on my feet at the hospital. I had been whining about the hours, bitching about my back hurting (well, that might have been the extra twenty pounds I was carrying around but who wanted to go into that?), and moaning and groaning about the fact that I was tired of low-level jobs that didn't make any money at all and didn't bring me any respect or a bank account.
So why was my mouth agreeing to something like this when my bunions, my back, and my purse were telling me different?
Cooking.
I love to cook.
I love to eat. (You can see that in my backside.)
So I love to cook.
And not that 6:30 P.M. the kids are starving and crowded around your ankles yelling “Momma! Is dinner ready yet?” kind of cooking that you do every day Monday through Friday either. That shit is for the birds and I did that for damn near fifteen years nonstop.
Nope. I'm talking about that Julia Child, Gallopin' Gourmet, wearing a big white hat, cooking in a stainless-steel high-class kitchen kind of cooking. I just love watching those shows even though I don't have cable and the reception isn't very good.
Not that I need to have fancy pots and pans or recipe books to make my food taste good. I can whip up a tuna salad that will make your momma slap you. I can make a pound cake so rich you'll cry when you take a bite and then cry again when it's gone.
I can cook up some collard greens with ham hocks that will make the Pope beg for more. And I can turn a vegetarian into a carnivore with something as simple as my cubed steaks and gravy.
But finally, I just love it when people compliment my cooking. That, for me, is better than sex.
Well, almost better than sex.
And these folks?
They had paid me the best compliments ever.
They had licked their fingers, sopped up egg yolks off the plates, begged for extra potatoes (I was out and had to send one of the truckers out for more), slurped down fresh-squeezed orange drink I made (with oranges, lemons, and tangerines), and wanted to know how long I was staying on so that they could plan their summer.
I loved it.
Just loved it.
And even though my bunion gave me a twinge, I said “quit it” and went on with frying up the bacon.
And I told Jess “Yes,” I would stay on until he found someone else.
Mountain told him not to bother to look for someone else.
“What you going to pay me, huh? What are my hours?
What you want me to do exactly? I expect to get paid for the work I've done already,” I reminded him. “And remember, I'm just passing through. I'll only be here temporary. Six, eight weeks at the most.” I just stood there looking at him, cracking my chewing gum. I don't know why I was so antsy with Jess. He really hadn't done anything to me. But I didn't want to just stand there, quietly, and just look him straight in the eye.
Jess stared at me. You could tell that he'd never dealt with a premenopausal black woman with an attitude before.
Truthfully? I hadn't thought much about a job at all. I hadn't planned on staying in Paper Moon but a few days. Just long enough to see what there was to see. And I certainly hadn't planned on being nobody's short-order cook. But in the last four hours I'd had more fun than I could remember having for a long time—cooking potatoes and frying hamburgers. The people of Paper Moon came in, introduced themselves, and placed an order. They seemed to take it for granted that I belonged here. They thanked me for the coffee I poured them, complimented me on the hash browns. Said they had gotten tired of eggs Benedictine. Told me all about their families, their friends, the affair the chiropractor in Mason was having with the organist at the Presbyterian church. They acted like I was just So-and-so's cousin who'd been away for a while and needed to catch up with the news. And I was enjoying it. For some strange reason, the whole idea of being a part of this little spot in the road was beginn
ing to appeal to me.
Jess looked uncomfortable. And even in the few hours I'd “known” him, I knew why.
I had asked him several questions. He owed me answers. He might even have to use complete sentences. I wanted to laugh but I couldn't. I could tell that Jess Gar-diner didn't like to hold conversations. He wasn't the kind of man who'd lecture or bend someone's ear. He spit out instructions, grunted when he was satisfied, growled and glared when he was not, and used facial expressions and his eyes to convey the rest. I never knew a man who was so stingy with words. It was as if he was afraid he would use them up—and at the rate of four or five a day.
He scowled at me. I scowled back at him.
Then he took my questions—in order.
“Seven-fifty an hour is all I can manage now, but if things keep going like this, well, I could probably do better in a month or so. Six A.M. to three P.M., or two-thirty, if things are slow. My sister will do the dinner shift. You'll be the cook for breakfast and lunch and you can teach Mignon“—a short pause—“and me some of your recipes. That way, when you move on, we can manage and maybe teach someone else. And I'll pay you the seven-fifty for the hours you worked today.”
I kept quiet for a moment. Forgot and looked him straight in those black eyes. Saw something there I hadn't seen in a while. Filed it away for later when I had time to sort it out. After a few seconds, when I figured he'd waited long enough, I held out my hand.
“It's a deal.”
Jess smiled slightly. But his dark eyes were laughing at me.
“Six o'clock, Mrs. Louis.” He shook my hand. With that done, he quickly walked through the doors to the dish-room. Talking in paragraphs was exhausting for Jess.
“Juanita,” I called after him.
“Hummph” I heard him say as the swinging doors closed.
I returned to the counter, my Coke, and my Kools. Mignon sat down on the stool next to me.
“I'm impressed.”
“With what?” I said, collapsing onto a stool.
“Uncle Jess doesn't usually carry on a conversation with people unless he's known them for twenty years. I'm only nineteen, so he's only said ten words to me my whole life!”
“That was a conversation?”
Mignon nodded. ”For him, it was.”
I looked over at the doors, still swinging back and forth. I could see Jess in the back, helping Carl with the dishes.
“I'd hate to hear him when he's not in a talkative mood.”
Mignon chuckled. “He doesn't talk to just anyone, you know. Very selective man.” She looked over her shoulder, a slight frown on her face. “Momma says he wasn't always that way, though.”
“Well, I'll consider myself lucky,” I said wearily. “I've gotten your uncle to speak in whole sentences. I have a job. Now all I need is someplace to stay.”
“Gee, it's too bad you weren't here last week,” Mignon said sadly. “You coulda stayed with us. But now Aunt Pearl and Uncle Ben and their brood are here for a few weeks. We're filled to the rafters.”
“What about Millie Tilson's place?” I asked.
Mignon gave me a doubtful look. “What about it?”
“Well, doesn't she have rooms or apartments or something?”
“Yeah, she does,” Mignon conceded. “But she's crazy. Thinks she's Jean Harlow or somebody—you never saw anyone like her. Walks around in boas and silk robes in the middle of the day. She's got seven or eight cats and she thinks they're the reincarnated souls of her dead ex-husbands or something. She talks to them all the time like they were people, it's weird.”
I didn't remember Peaches mentioning cats.
“Are the rooms clean,” I asked, “or does the house smell like cat poop?”
Mignon shook her head, her black braid dancing against her waist.
“No, it's clean. My cousin Ruth stayed there last year while she was going to beauty school. Said it was OK, but Millie talking to those cats got on her nerves.”
“All I want is a shower and a clean bed.”
“Well, Millie will take you in. She's cheap, too.” Mignon looked at her watch. “It's almost two-thirty. If I don't leave now, I'll be late for class. Jess can manage until Momma comes in at four. Come on. I'll run you over to Millie's. It's on the way.”
I left my new boss with a grocery list as long as my arm: real bacon, ordinary sausage, eggs, frying chickens, pancake mix, stuff like that. I told him to have the food delivered before tomorrow morning or I wasn't cooking. I went over the list, item by item. I think I was getting on Jess's nerves.
“Now, get Oscar Mayer or a good bacon, not none of those off brands that just give you end pieces. And make sure you get plenty of syrup—the real maple kind. Those fishermen like pancakes with their eggs.”
“I think I can manage a simple grocery list,” Jess barked out, snatching the list from my fingers.
He looked at the piece of paper, grunted, and returned to the grill. Mignon says he's in love.
Millie Tilson's place looks like the Addams Family house from TV. If it ain't haunted, it's on the waiting list. It's got rafters, shutters, a widow's walk, and a porch that wraps around the front and the side. The house is huge, three floors or maybe four. It's Victorian, Georgian, Queen Anne, and Italianate—all mashed up together. It looks as if the architect wasn't sure which style to use, so he used them all. Mignon said it's over a hundred years old. I believe it.
There's a turret at the very top, and as I stood in the street looking up I could have sworn … well, more about that later.
I was greeted on the porch by a huge black cat who lay on a wicker rocking chair, blinking his green eyes at me. I spoke to him.
“Hey, Cat,” I said.
He blinked back. The front door creaked when it opened. Just like a haunted house.
At first, I didn't see anyone there.
“I see you've met Antonio,” came the voice from behind the screened door. “He knew you were coming, of course. He's psychic. You're Jess's new cook, Juanita. I'm so happy to meet you.” She held the door open for me. I glanced back at my suitcases. “Just leave them there, I'll have them brought up.”
The woman behind the voice didn't introduce herself. She didn't need to.
Millie Tilson was exactly like the house she lived in, except for the boa and the silk robe. She could have been twenty-five or eighty-five. It was really hard to tell. She was a hodgepodge of styles and eras—from the Roaring Twenties to the sixties. She had the blondest hair I'd ever seen, yet it didn't look cheap and brassy. It was cut in one of those thirties styles: short and curled close to the head. Her thin eyebrows were penciled on, her lips painted fuchsia in the shape of a bow. There wasn't a wrinkle anywhere. Her spicy perfume made my nose itch, and reminded me of the incense Rashawn used to burn to cover the smell of the weed. And how she managed to walk in two-inch-heeled mules without breaking her neck I didn't know. And I tried not to stare at the ring on her finger that had an emerald in it the size of a quarter. One thing's for sure, I'd never seen anyone quite like her before in my life.
Millie glided into a little room that reminded me of a parlor I'd read about in a novel about a cattle baron and a madam: Victorian, I think, with heavy, overstuffed red velvet furniture, ornate cherry-wood tables, paisley throws here and there, knickknacks everywhere, plumes of ostrich feathers drooping about, and a huge cat snoozing comfortably on one of the chairs. She shooed the large tabby away with her hand, long nails painted ruby red.
“Louis, go choose the wine for dinner.” Obediently, the cat left, and Millie sat down, arranging the folds of her gown around her. “And don't choose a burgundy,” she called after him. “We're having poultry!” To me she said, “Please, sit down.”
I moved toward a rather large armchair, but Millie stopped me.
“Oh, please, anywhere but there. That's Paul's chair and he's so possessive. He gets furious if anyone sits in
his chair, even for a minute!” She motioned toward another large, velvet-covered chair. “There, sit there. That's William's chair. He won't mind. William never minds anything.”
I nodded, and sat down, looking around me. Across the room was a beautiful fireplace, with molded designs in the mantel, and an old-fashioned fire screen in front. The furniture in the room, and there was a lot of it, was like the house—there was a little bit of everything. There were brocaded nineteenth-century fainting couches sitting next to Louis XIV tables; fat cushy Victorian-era settees next to end tables that look as if they had been designed by Salvador Dali. The drapes were paisley and red velvet— ugly but interesting. And tucked away in one of the few empty spaces was a two-drawer beige steel filing cabinet, hopelessly out of place but obviously useful.
Dominating the room was a large painting. No matter where else you looked or what you looked at, your eyes always came back to that painting. It was above the mantel and it was a large portrait of Millie Tilson, painted when she was much younger, judging by the long, curly dark brown hair that hung past her shoulders, and by the fact that she was completely naked, lying on a velvet-covered settee, which looked a lot like the one she was sitting on now. I quickly looked back at the real Millie.
“Oh, do you like that portrait?” Millie asked me. “Taubert painted it for me in Paris while I was married to the count. Of course, we had an affair during the sittings.” She sighed and smiled wistfully. “That's why I look so relaxed, you know.” She changed gears in a split second. “Now what can I do for you?”
“I … uh … Mignon Nightwing and Peaches Bradshaw told me that you might have rooms to rent …” I stopped when I noticed that Millie Tilson had pulled a tiny laptop computer out from under a pillow and was busily tapping the keys. Her black reading glasses trimmed in gold were perched on her nose. “I wondered if … uh … if I could talk to you about renting one …”
Dancing on the Edge of the Roof Page 8
