suddenly recognizing the man. “His wife is dead.”
She wrinkles her freckled nose in surprise. “How did you know that?” she asks.
“He used to teach music at my elementary school,” I tell her. “Until about fifth grade, when his wife died. I… I haven’t seen him since. Gheez, he looks old.”
“That’s right,” she says, looking me up and down as if seeing me for the first time. “I forgot you grew up here.”
“You didn’t,” I remind her.
She smiles. “I transferred from private school my freshman year,” she says. “But thanks for noticing.”
“Why did you say he brings his wife?” I ask. “That’s kind of mean.”
“You’ll see,” she says, drifting away as a table for two leaves. “And… I’m not the mean one.”
I watch her bus the table, taking notes. I’ve never bussed a table before. In my life. Ever. Never. Even at home, I don’t even take my plate to the sink. She takes the glasses off, stacks the plates, then the silver, wipes it down with one of her rags, then disappears into the kitchen with everything on her tray.
While she’s gone, a few more people come in. A hostess seats them. She’s older, wearing a frilly red apron over a maroon skirt and a tight white blouse, her gray hair up in a bun.
A table leaves and I race over, cleaning it off the way Grace did. I wipe the table down, lift up the tray all cocky like and, boom, down goes a Santa mug. It chips but luckily it’s early in the night and nobody much notices. I clean it up and bring it back to the kitchen, where Grace is joking with the dishwasher.
“I broke one,” I tell her, holding up the mug.
She shakes her hand. “It’s not as easy as it looks, huh?” she says.
“I guess not,” I pout.
“Cheer up,” she says, chucking me on the arm. “My first night, I was bussing a party of ten and dropped about a dozen water glasses all over the place.”
“And you still earned your candy cane?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “You need to let the candy cane go for now,” she chuckles, rolling her eyes at the dishwasher. “It’s not that big a deal.”
But it is a big deal. This job, this night… to me.
We wander back out to the kitchen and I watch Grace limp out a step or two in front of me. She’s fast, and I wonder if it ever hurts, limping like that all day.
The floor is crowded now, loud, with waitresses in little Santa caps and matching red aprons running around bringing cups of hot cocoa and steaming plates of turkey and dressing.
Grace and I bus our butts off, and in between racing from the dining room back to the kitchen, I notice Mr. Carol’s waitress putting down two of everything in front of him. One cup at his place, another across from him. One plate at his place, another across from him.
He’s talking; to someone. Though there’s nobody there. Smiling, laughing, looking younger with every course of his meal. Long after tables that came in after him are gone, he’s still there, drinking a glass of brandy, toasting nobody in mid-air, eating a slice of pumpkin pie, then having another cup of cocoa, wiping crumbs that never fell from in front of a wife who isn’t there.
By the time the dining room is starting to clear out he’s just wrapping up, and so are we. Waitresses come by as I’m wiping down empty tables, tables that will stay empty, and start handing me crumpled bills. “Thanks, kid,” they say, with a wink. “You’re a real hustler.”
I stand and stretch and arch my back, sore like I’ve never been, not even from two-a-day football practices during the summer. And still, Mr. Carol is taking his time, slicing his pie, taking small bites so that the evening will stretch on and on and on.
Holly Day breezes about, saying goodnight to the customers, wishing them “Merry July-mas” as they drift past the hostess stand and out the door.
She lingers at Mr. Carol’s table, turning from him to the empty chair and talking to it. I look to see if anybody else is noticing it, and none of them seem to care.
Grace comes by, untying her tip apron. “Seriously?” I ask, nodding toward his table.
She shrugs. “I told you he brought his wife, Toby.”
“I just… nobody thinks that’s weird?”
She shrugs some more. “I think it’s romantic. I hope if I die first, my husband misses me so much he still brings me out to dinner after I’m, you know… dead.”
She makes a face as she finishes, like even she knows what she’s saying is weird.
I chuckle. “What, like your skeleton or something?”
She snorts and slaps my arm. “Gross, Toby. Don’t be morbid.”
The place is empty, except for Mr. Carol. “What are you doing after work?” she says, and I kind of flinch because… she always seems so shy at school.
“What… what do you mean?” I’m thinking of Dad and the fight we had last night, how I left it when I walked out, how he told me never to come back. Never. Like, ever.
And this time, I kind of think he meant it.
Grace rolls her eyes, like I’m making too big a deal out of it. “I mean, I have something to show you.”
I arch one eyebrow and she rolls her eyes. “Gross,” she says, then, slyly, “and don’t flatter yourself. Meet me out by the dumpster after you clean Mr. Carol’s table.”
Before I can agree she limps off, past the hostess stand, and out the front door. As if on cue, Holly Day helps Mr. Carol out of his seat and on with his coat. As he walks by, our eyes meet but only briefly, and if he recognizes me from six years ago, he doesn’t say.
I clean up his table and stow the dirty dishes in the kitchen, where the night crew is jamming to very un-Christmas music from a boom box by the gingerbread machine.
Holly Day wanders in and out, smiling, laughing, and I keep waiting for her to notice me, give me my candy cane, but eventually she drifts back into her office and shuts the door.
I sigh and slip out of the kitchen, walking back down the service ramp where I locked up my bike six hours earlier. My back is sore, I smell like cornbread stuffing and cranberry sauce, and I’m starving. I still have my tip apron on and I count my money as I wheel my bike over to the dumpster across the back parking lot. Fifty-seven bucks. Not too bad.
Not enough for a hotel room, yet, but enough for me to buy a six-pack at the Minute Mart with my fake ID and use it to bribe my buddy Booger Johnson to let me stay in his pool house tonight.
Grace is waiting, a brown bag in each hand. “Here,” she says, handing me one. “Your shift meal.”
I open it and there’s a big gingerbread cookie inside. I smile and eat it while we ride. Her limp doesn’t seem to affect her bike riding and we cruise through the silent streets of Noel, North Carolina.
It’s July 25th, school still a few weeks away, and the soft summer breeze feels good on my skin as we ride right down the yellow lines in the middle of Mott Street.
She doesn’t say anything, just munches contentedly on her gingerbread and smiles.
“Where are we going?” I ask as we drift toward the dodgy end of town.
“You’ll see,” she says, steering through the entrance of the Mistletoe Motor Court. We cruise along an unpaved path, surrounded by trailers, many of them decked out in blinking Christmas lights.
Noel is such a weird town. Here it is, the middle of summer, and half the town acts like it’s already Christmas. She pulls up to a picnic table next to a swing set and a slide and slips off her bike, leaning it against the jungle gym.
I do the same and sit next to her on top of the table, facing a darkened trailer. “Who lives here?” I ask, finishing up my gingerbread with a satisfied grunt.
“Mr. Carol,” she says.
“Really?”
As if on cue, an old car pulls up, engine wheezing, one light out, and parks under the trailer’s sagging car port. Mr. Carol gets out, still in his rain hat, and shuts his door. Then he goes to the passenger side and opens it.
It was too loud in the restaurant to hear
what he was saying, what with the other diners and the Christmas music and the clinking ice and scraping forks, but now it’s quiet, still, and I hear him plainly say, “Merry July-Mas, Christine!”
To no one, as he reaches his hand out to help… Christine… out of the car. Then he helps Christine up the stairs, and into the trailer, turning on lights and a Christmas tree and floating in and out of view, always smiling, still talking, laughing, as the strains of Christmas music drift from beyond the screen door.
“So, he’s crazy?” I ask.
Grace slaps my knee. “Toby, Mr. Carol is sad. He lost his wife, and never got over it.”
“But that was six years ago,” I say.
“So,” she says, too quickly. “I lost my Dad when I was seven and it still hurts, especially at Christmas.”
I look at her, our faces close in the dark. “So why does he want to celebrate Merry July-mas then?” I ask, because I don’t know what to say about all the other stuff.
“Because it is so sad. He needs Merry July-mas, and Holly Day’s Diner, to feel less sad. That’s why Holly’s in business, and that’s why I work there, and that’s why her candy canes are so important.”
I sigh, watching Mr. Carol
Elf Wanted: A Romantic YA Christmas Story Page 2