I ignored Jim’s comment and grabbed the bin of items I needed for the table. The promotions director had organized everything for me the day before.
As I headed back out towards the front of the office space, I felt Jim fall into step behind me. “You got the keys?” he asked, referring to the station vehicle.
“Not yet,” I answered, planning to pick them up at the front desk on my way out.
“Humph,” Jim breathed as he swung around the desk at the entrance of the office space and grabbed the keys himself. Jim liked to feel that it was always up to him to do everything and usually, we all just let him.
“Got everything?” I asked in a cheerful voice.
Jim pursed one corner of his mouth at my sarcasm. If Jim was one thing, other than cranky, it was well prepared.
By the time we got out to the station vehicle, a tiny sliver of light was beginning to show through the clouds in the sky. Jim unlocked the back door and swung it open so I could throw in my own box of items. Then, we both circled around the front. Jim unlocked the passenger side, leaned over and unlocked the driver’s side.
I climbed in and caught the keys as they flew in front of my face.
“Crank it hard this time, Jones,” he said gruffly.
The station vehicle was a tad bit like Chloe’s car. It had seen better days. When the station was still building its image many years before my time, those in charge realized it needed to raise its public image. That meant making appearances around the city and it also meant placing the station logo in a prominent position each time.
The company had not been able to afford a brand new vehicle and there were no car dealerships willing to work out a trade with a station that was still working its way up the ladder within the city. Instead of giving up, one of the employees got a lead on an old ambulance for sale for dirt cheap.
The station secured the ambulance and managed to scrape together enough money to paint the exterior with the station logos and catch phrases. The inside of the old vehicle was gutted so that all that remained was the passenger and driver’s seats.
It wasn’t legal for us to use the lights and sirens, of course, though we were permitted to use them in parades. The ambulance was unique and it stood out as it moved around the city, appearing at any and every station event. Over the years, it became so popular that now that the station could afford any vehicle it wanted and every car dealership wanted to work out a trade, it simply couldn’t bring itself to get rid of such an icon.
And so there Jim and I were, cranking the battery on the old ambulance, hoping that it would work the first time so we wouldn’t be late for setting up. Jim never drove “that blasted contraption” as he called it, but he liked to instruct others on how to do so.
Luckily, that morning, the ambulance roared to life and began to sputter down the road with Jim and me in tow.
A few short minutes later, we were at the diner’s entrance, angling the vehicle in front of the restaurant to get the most visible spot.
Cal’s Diner was a mom and pop type joint that had done very well in the area. The owners were looking to expand into other parts of the city and they wanted to draw as much attention to their business as possible.
With the remote, we would talk about the food and the atmosphere all morning and we would give things away and make a giant spectacle.
It was a great deal of fun. The hour before the broadcast began, however, was a great deal of work. As soon as the ambulance was parked in the right spot, Jim hopped out of his side of the car and ambled around to the back.
He began throwing items out onto the pavement as he tossed a quick statement over his shoulder, “Well?” he said. “What are you waiting for?”
I took that as my cue and I hefted one of the boxes onto my shoulder and headed for the diner door. I balanced the box and shifted my weight as I rapped on the front door. The diner was still dark, but I could see lights on in the backroom.
Moments later, I heard feet shuffling around the counter to open the door.
As the door opened, I turned, fully expecting to see Cal, the owner.
Instead, I could only say one word. “Chloe.”
CHAPTER NINE
I could tell by the look on Chloe’s face that she wasn’t as surprised to see me as I was to see her.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could hold the heavy box of equipment on my shoulder, but I had to ask.
“I work here,” she said.
“I was expecting Cal,” I replied as I moved past her into the darkened room. “You look nothing like him.”
Chloe laughed. “Thanks…I think. Do you need help with anything?”
“I think we can get it,” I surveyed the diner. “Where do you want us?”
“Oh, I’m not sure,” she said, looking over her shoulder. “Cal should be out any minute.”
I nodded, setting the box on the floor. I was glad to wait. It would give me a chance to talk to Chloe.
“How’s the car?” I asked, glancing back out the front window. I was surprised I had missed it outside.
“It’s…it’s good,” Chloe responded noticing the direction of my gaze. “A, um, a friend needed to use it today.”
It sounded strange and Chloe looked almost nervous.
“It’s good to see you,” I said honestly. And then, in my normal fashion, I spoke without reserve. “I’ve been thinking about you since we met.”
Chloe blushed, smiled and looked down at the floor. “I’ve…I’ve been doing the same,” she said.
As I ran the last few pieces of the conversation through my mind, I hoped I wasn’t giving Chloe the wrong idea. She was a pretty woman and she seemed very nice, but I was starting something really special with Abigail and I didn’t want her to think I was pursuing her.
“How’s Ian?” I asked.
“Good,” she said, her eyes brightening at the mere mention of her son’s name. “He’s had more energy the last few days. He was excited to be invited to a birthday party this weekend.”
“So that’s where he is today?” I asked.
Chloe laughed. “Well, not right now,” she said, gesturing to the still semi-dark sky. “He’s over at the neighbor’s apartment and she’s going to drop him off at the party this afternoon. I’ll get him when I’m done here.”
“Sounds like the best day any boy could have,” I said, remembering my own childhood and how fun those birthday parties were.
“I hope all of his days are good,” Chloe said, the sad look returning to her face.
I was just trying to decide how I could turn the conversation to Ian’s father to get some more details about his whereabouts when Jim threw open the front door with his leg.
“Thanks for the help, Jones,” he muttered in my direction as he stumbled into the diner with two boxes.
“Not a problem,” I said, raising my hand to tip my non-existent hat as Chloe quickly caught the door and held it open. “Guess I better get to it,” I said.
I side stepped around Jim and went through the open door, back out to the ambulance. Though I was putting one foot in front of the other with every intention of getting the equipment from the ambulance into the diner, my mind was elsewhere.
What had Chloe meant when she said she had been thinking about me? When I said the same to her, I had not intended for it to sound romantic. It wasn’t so much Chloe that haunted me, but more so her son.
I hadn’t even gotten a chance to speak with him, but I could tell he was a sweet kid. And to find out that he had a horrible condition at such a young age, it was simply more than I could fathom.
I couldn’t imagine going through heart surgery as an adult, being someone who understood what was happening, much less a small child. At least the first time around he was too young to know what was going on. Now, he would definitely know and he would be scared out of his mind.
But Chloe had said he wasn’t going to have another surgery. Why was that? I just d
idn’t understand.
As I hefted the promotional box off the ambulance floor I realized that it wasn’t my place to understand. At the same time, I wasn’t going to let it go. Not until I knew the whole story.
I just had to figure out how I was going to ask those difficult questions.
I walked slowly back to the front door, which Chloe had propped open with a brick. Jim elbowed his way past just as I reached the opening.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said with dripping sarcasm, “someone around here has to get the work done.”
I looked down at the promotions box I was carrying and opened my mouth to protest that I was, in fact, working. Instead, I just shook my head.
I slid the promotions box under the counter and headed straight for the front door to carry in another load. Chloe was no longer in sight.
“Top of the morning to ya!” I heard a booming voice say from behind the counter.
“Cal! How’s it going, man?” I said as I approached the robust diner owner and slapped my hand against his.
“Couldn’t be better, now that you’re here,” he said. “I’ve called in some extra help for today. You make sure I need it, you hear?”
“You got it,” I promised. It was likely going to be one of Cal’s busiest days that year.
Cal hunched down and placed his elbows on his side of the counter. “You guys can set the equipment up right there,” he said, pointing to a location near the front window. “Let’s go over the plan,” Cal said anxiously.
I was more than happy to give Cal a play by play of what I had planned. But as he and I hashed the morning’s events out, I could hear Jim grumbling behind me as he took one trip after another to the ambulance.
By the time Cal was done with me, Jim had all of the equipment in and half set up. “What can I do to help?” I asked as I approached.
“Humph,” Jim stated as he muttered something I couldn’t hear under his breath. “Just do your table.”
I smiled. “Happy to!” I knew my comment would only make Jim more cranky, but I couldn’t help myself.
I dragged the promotions box over to the front corner of the diner.
I got the tablecloth out and smoothed it over the long table Cal had set up for us before our arrival. I then took my time arranging the window stickers in an appealing pattern across half of the table.
“All set?” Cal called from behind the counter.
I gave him a thumbs up sign after completing a test on the equipment Jim had efficiently set up.
Cal swiftly moved around the counter and turned on the “open” sign. He moved fast for a man his size and he surprised me by suddenly appearing at my side.
“You need anything today, you just tell Chloe,” he said, throwing his beefy thumb to his right where I spotted Chloe in the distance, filling saltshakers. “She’s new, but she’s the best.”
Cal scurried back around the counter to the kitchen to prepare the kitchen staff for the first customers, who were bound to be there as soon as the diner opened.
I saw my chance and approached Chloe. Her concentration was so fierce and intent that she jumped when I said her name.
“Chloe,” I said quietly.
Chloe spilled a little salt on the table and then picked up a few grains and threw it over her shoulder. “For good luck,” she said.
“You spill salt a lot just so you can do that?” I asked.
“Sometimes,” she admitted with a smile.
“I bet the guy that cleans the floors loves that.”
“I clean the floors.”
“Oh, well then, I guess you have every right.”
“Can I get you anything?” Chloe asked, screwing the top back on the saltshaker.
“I’d love some coffee. Maybe a cinnamon roll. Jim will eat and drink anything you put in front of him,” I said.
“Humph,” Jim said as he tore at an electrical wire. Things were working perfectly and he still wasn’t satisfied.
I raised my eyebrows as I turned back to Chloe and we both laughed.
“Coming right up,” she said, moving towards the counter.
“One more thing,” I said and she stopped in her tracks, waiting to hear what more I wanted. “Do you have some time? To talk? You know…later?”
CHAPTER TEN
I could be wrong, but I thought I saw a sense of relief on Chloe’s face as she nodded. “Yeah, I can try to get a break when you’re done with your broadcast,” she said.
I smiled. “Great.”
With the conversation set up for later, I headed back to my table to listen to Jim grumble about how I had socialized all morning while he worked. He softened a little when Chloe set a large, gooey cinnamon roll in front of each of us.
The broadcast began when the doors opened and I broke into the normal programming on the radio station with an excited voice. “Jared Jones broadcasting live from Cal’s Diner on the corner of 84th and Fremont.” I went on for a full minute about what listeners could expect from the remote broadcast that morning and urged everyone to stop in for a warm cooked meal. “And to top it all off,” I continued, “the first person through the front door this morning will win four tickets to tonight’s concert.”
I watched out of the corner of my eye as I wrapped things up on the air. The door flew open shortly after I finished my sentence and I wasn’t surprised by who stood in the entrance of the diner.
Any time there was a giveaway, Kathy was there.
Kathy was an older woman probably nearing retirement. Her short gray-brown hair fell to her chin and looked as if it had seen too much sun over the years. Kathy herself was on the short side with thin legs and round hips. Her watery blue eyes sat behind her plastic glasses, which made them look too large for her face.
“Morning Jared!” she said as she approached the table.
Kathy and I were on a first name basis since she often called the studio, stopped by remote broadcasts, and showed up at other station functions. She was what we fondly called a station groupie.
“Kathy!” I said, faking a surprised look on my face. “Has it been thirty days already?”
The station had a policy that the same person couldn’t win a prize twice within thirty days. It wasn’t strictly enforced but when it came to Kathy, it was necessary. Kathy would win things every time they were given away if she could. And she was just a lucky enough person that she probably would.
“Thirty days yesterday,” Kathy said, digging through her enormous brown purse until she found her wallet sized calendar.
I smiled. I shouldn’t have asked.
“Humph,” Jim said by my side as he placed headphones on his ears and started messing with some wires.
“See?” Kathy said, pointing a semi-purple finger to today’s date and then flipping back to the previous month where she had marked the last day she had won. She knew her rules. “I almost called in yesterday for the CD they were giving away in the afternoon but I stopped myself.” She closed her calendar and shoved it back into her purse, a look of pride on her face. “I said, ‘Kathy, no, you’re going to see Jared tomorrow, you just wait.’”
“And so you did,” I said, knowing it was what she was about to say.
“And so I did,” she said.
I bent over the table and started filling out the contest form with her name, address and phone number. Kathy won so often that everyone in the studios knew where she lived and how to get in touch with her.
“What a blessing!” Kathy said, clutching the tickets in her hand as I handed them over.
“You’re the blessing,” I said, stepping out of my professional character and trying to be more sincere.
I could tell by the way Kathy stopped moving from foot to foot that her attitude had suddenly changed from excitement to something else.
“Why, Jared,” she said, her eyes more watery than normal. “That’s just about the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
I reached across the table, grabbing one of the window st
ickers from my perfect array and holding it out to her. “Here,” I said, “Take this too. You’re bound to need a new one by now.”
Kathy took a window sticker at every event. Sometimes, back at the studio, we would go back and forth as to what she did with them all.
“Haven’t you seen the Volkswagen bug driving around town completely covered in them?” the afternoon guy joked.
“No way,” the Midday girl said, “she has them plastered above her bed so she can see them first thing in the morning when she wakes up and last thing at night too.”
I didn’t care what Kathy did with the stickers. At that point, I just wanted to make her feel like part of something. I could tell by the way she clutched the window sticker to her chest and took a seat at a table halfway across the diner that it was exactly what she was feeling.
Instead of commiserating with Jim, who was still ignoring me and concentrating on his wires, I glanced around the diner, wondering how fast it would fill up.
I caught Chloe’s eye from across the room. She looked away quickly when she saw me looking at her, but before she did, I saw a sad smile on her face.
The rest of the morning went more quickly than I anticipated. We did a number of goofy giveaways and were able to get listeners to appear on roller skates, with feather boas, and even in full clown costumes to get concert tickets. It was all part of the publicity.
At each remote broadcast, I tried to figure out what the establishment needed most. This time around, it was all about getting the name of Cal’s Diner out to the other part of the city so he could expand successfully. The best way to do that was not only to work up quite a frenzy on the air, but also to give people something to talk about.
Word of mouth is the best advertisement, after all. And if you went to a diner and won concert tickets on roller skates, you’d talk about it too. That was one story that was bound to be told and retold.
During the broadcast, I always felt enlivened. I played off of the listeners that came in and truly appreciated them for coming by and saying hi. Cal, in turn, appreciated me and he appeared by my side several times to shake my hand and give me the latest on how many calls they were getting for catering jobs. I could tell by the fact that there were hardly any empty seats in the diner after the first hour that things were going well.
God In The Kitchen Page 4
