Chapter 24: The Porch

On the second Sunday in November the diner reopened with a hand-lettered sign on the door.

STILL HERE, it said.

Dolly had written it herself, in red marker, and then underlined it twice.

The line went out the door by eight.

I carried plates through the crowd with my hair tied up and my sleeves rolled, and the whole room knew my name.

"Tamara, honey, more coffee."

"Tamara, is that blueberry?"

"Tamara, tell your husband the grease trap is leaking again."

"He's not my husband," I said, and poured.

He was on his back under the kitchen sink, with his legs sticking out and a wrench in his scarred hand.

Carl stood over him with a flashlight and no help whatsoever.

"Left," Carl said.

"Which left?"

"Your left."

"I'm lying down, Carl."

"Then it's my left."

Stanley slid out from under the sink with grease to the elbows and a streak of it across his forehead.

He looked up at me and smiled with his whole face.

It was the smile he'd had in the first year, before either of us knew anything.

"I fixed it," he said.

"You fixed the left one."

"There's a right one?"

Carl groaned.

Dolly leaned in at the pass-through, with her glasses on top of her head.

"He sold the house for eleven percent under," she told me, in a stage whisper.

"And he made the buyer promise the oak trees would stay. I'd say he's earned the pie."

"I'd say he's earned a hose," I said.

Dolly cut him the biggest slice anyway.

The parole board had denied Darryl on the ninth.

Carl had read it in the paper, in three paragraphs.

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