“What would you recommend?” the mother asked.
Daisy’s head swiveled back, looking to the occupants of table eleven - mother, father, and two boys, ages somewhere between six and ten. They looked like a nice family. Normally, truckers were the only ones brave enough to venture into this diner. The families traveling along the highway tended to drive through the parking lot, then move on, not daring to step into such a rough-looking establishment. But whenever a family dared to come in, Daisy’s heart ached, wishing that she might someday find that kind of happiness. A family. People she could travel with, come home to. School, PTAs, dentist appointments, ballet lessons, soccer practice…
“Daisy!” Janice yelled from all the way across the diner.
Daisy jerked out of her dream and looked around, then realized that the family was waiting for an answer.
“Oh! Um…yes. Don’t let the décor fool you. Everything on the menu is delicious,” she told them, pencil poised above her ordering pad.
The four of them looked skeptical and Daisy didn’t blame them. Entering the diner had been a bad dare forty years ago and nothing had been replaced. Really, the only thing good about this place was the food and the warm, kind-hearted truckers that stopped by for a meal and a break from the monotony of hauling their rigs across the country. There wasn’t much else around this scarred piece of earth. The Appalachian Mountains were to the east and the Rockies to the west. A bit further down this exit, one would find the tiny town of LowPoint, Kentucky. But describing that patch of the state as a town was generous. At one time, the town had been a booming coal mining town. The trains had come through with a stop here for supplies after traveling over the mountains. But the trains had stopped coming a long time ago, re-routed to more forgiving pathways.
About forty years ago, there was hope that people from Louisville might find LowPoint a nice place to raise their kids since it was only thirty miles north-west of Louisville, but that hadn’t occurred. Instead, commuters shifted into the southern suburbs instead and LowPoint had been left desolated. There were a few businesses still eking out a living, but most of the buildings and store fronts were abandoned now, the weather and time taking a toll on their appearance so that only the most fool-hardy considered opening a new business there. The high school had barely a hundred kids, and that was only because they were bussed in from further out now, other schools having been closed due to the struggling economy in this area.
The people who lived in LowPoint were stuck. Most couldn’t afford to leave. Nor could they afford to stay. It was a constant struggle for the residents to make ends meet.
“We’ll just have burgers and fries,” the woman decided, handing back the menus, careful not to touch them too much.
“No problem,” Daisy said, quickly writing up their order and tucking the menus under her arm.
She walked over to the kitchen window. “Four burgers,” she called out, sticking the order slip up on Tony’s spinning circle that held all of the diners’ orders.
“Happy Birthday, big boy,” Ivy said, walking up to the window as well and sticking another order up. “We’re all going out to celebrate tonight, right?” she asked.
Marilee sighed and stuffed another order into the spinning wheel. “I really hate that woman,” she muttered. “And yes! We’re going out to celebrate!” She glared at the tall, good-looking man through the open window. “Don’t you dare cancel on us, Tony!”
Tony laughed, but tossed four frozen burgers onto the grill, then tossed a dash of spice to make the burgers taste like something more than frozen slabs of low-quality ground beef.
“We don’t need to go out,” Tony demurred, reaching for another shaker of spices.
Three women turned on Tony, glaring at the man. It took Tony several moments to realize what was going on, but when he looked up, he laughed, shaking his head as he took in the glares. “Fine! We’re going out. We’re celebrating!”
“Celebrating what?” Janice snapped. “Celebrating all four of you getting fired for being lazy idiots?”
Daisy, Ivy and Marilee immediately turned, dispersing through the restaurant. Not a single one of them answering their boss’ question.
“What’s going on?” Janice demanded, staring at Tony.
Tony grabbed the tongs and piled one of the plates high with fries, then set it up on the counter. “Order up!” he called out.
Janice sneered. “Siding with the bitches again, eh?” she asked. “Fine. Be that way. But know that I don’t like you any more than I like them.”
Tony watched as the older woman with freaky red hair, obviously dyed in her bathroom two months ago since her grey roots were already showing, walked away towards one of the customers. The orders remained on the window ledge and Tony wondered if that woman had ever helped any other human being in her life. He doubted it. A more selfish human being, he’d never known.
“What’s wrong, Burt?” Ivy asked, moving over to one of the men sitting at the end of the countertop. She pulled a ceramic coffee cup out from under the countertop and poured him a cup of coffee.
“That’s all for today, Ivy,” the man said, referring to the hot cup of coffee.
Ivy looked at the man who could stand to gain about twenty…or fifty…pounds. He was six feet tall and weighed maybe a hundred and twenty pounds. He was only twenty-five years old, but looked to be closer to forty because of the hard life he’d lived here in LowPoint. There wasn’t much work unless one wanted to drive the thirty minutes into Louisville. Not many of the residents could afford the gas money for that kind of commute. Those that could knew how hard it was to find a job in this economy. The rest of the country might be perking up in the jobs area, but not here in this small patch of the world. It was still hard. Still miserable.
Ivy was tall and naturally thin as well, with small breasts and long, skinny legs. But Tony made sure that she, Daisy, and Marilee got food several times a day. Working in a diner, none of them went hungry. They might live in ragged, desperate apartments with no air conditioning and only sporadic heat, but they had food in their bellies.
“You need more than coffee, honey,” she whispered, looking over at Janice. “Couldn’t get work yesterday?”
Burt sighed, wrapping his fingers around the coffee cup. “I tried, Ivy. I really did. But…well, people just…they don’t need a carpenter. And that’s pretty much all I know.”
Ivy pulled several dollars of her tip money out of her apron and some change, pushing it towards Burt. “Order a burger,” she instructed, then walked away.
“Ivy!” Burt called out, but she didn’t stop. She knew that Burt would try and give the money back. Yeah, she needed the money too, but Burt probably hadn’t eaten in a couple of days. His face looked pale and if that man passed out in the diner, Janice would ban him from coming in again. It was one of the only places for some of the townspeople to come in and get warm during the cold winter months.
Ivy put in the order for a burger as she passed by Tony’s window, marking the ticket with a smiley face.
“Hey Mona!” she called in greeting to the pretty trucker who stepped into the diner and sank gratefully onto the stool. “I didn’t think you’d be passing through this way again for another week. What are you doing back here so fast?” she asked, pulling another cup out and pouring some coffee from the pot that was still in her hands.
“I got another load,” she said, taking a long gulp of the scalding hot coffee. No matter how hot it was, truckers could drink coffee like it was water. Ivy never understood, but observed everything. The world was a fascinating place.
She caught something out of the corner of her eye and slid her phone out of her apron. Taking several pictures, she smiled as her thumb flipped through the images she’d captured. With a sigh of satisfaction, she turned and grabbed two of the plates Tony had just put up.
“You’re going to run out of memory,” Tony commented.
Ivy shrugged. “Not really. I just delete the old stuff an
d add new pictures whenever I can.” With a wink and a smile, she carried the orders out to the customers. “Okay, Joey. Don’t eat all of this in five minutes,” she warned him. “You know it makes you sick.”
Joey looked up at her with a smile of adoration in his eyes. “Yeah, but then I get you slapping some wet paper towels on my forehead.”
Ivy laughed, and shook her head as she walked over to the next table and put the burger with extra vegetables and extra fries in front of Burt, giving him a look that warned him to eat all of it and not argue. The smiley face on the order ticket was a secret message to Tony that the order needed a few “extras” if Janice wasn’t looking. In this case, Tony had put three slices of cheese and extra pickles on top – the only vegetables Janice allowed. Burt took a grateful bite as Ivy moved away.
“What can I get you, folks?” she asked of the truckers who were still pulling their arms out of their jackets, hanging them and their hats on the hooks nailed into a post right outside of each booth for just that purpose.
“Hey, darlin’” one of them said, giving her a wink. “Janice hasn’t scared Tony off yet, has she?” he asked.
Ivy laughed, shaking her head and winking right back at him. “Not yet, honey,” she replied, purposely using an endearment to tell the men that she wasn’t going to put up with any of their patronizing silliness. “But it’s a day to day thing.”
The four men laughed and she smiled, not really into the joke. Because, unfortunately, it wasn’t a joke. Tony was an amazing cook and he was wasting his talents here at a roadside diner. Janice was a nasty piece of work and tormented everyone on shift. She was a thief who stole the waitress’s tips, docked their pay for ridiculous, trumped up reasons, and forced everyone to work much longer than eight hours without overtime pay.
Unfortunately, there weren’t a lot of jobs in LowPoint, Kentucky. So even if this was a sucky job, it was better than being unemployed. Daisy was the only one that had a car…sometimes. It was a fifty-fifty chance that the old beater would start up on any given morning. So finding a job closer to Louisville wasn’t an option. Yet!
The four of them - Tony, Ivy, Daisy, and Marilee - talked and dreamed, fantasizing about the day they figured out how to get out of LowPoint. The day they would all tell Janice to go to hell!
When that point came, and all four of them were determined to make that happen, it was going to be a huge celebration.
Unfortunately, their departure wouldn’t do a whole lot to hurt Janice or her business. There was already a new team in place. Ivy, Tony, Daisy, and Marilee were the breakfast, lunch, and dinner shifts with two other waitresses working nights from late until early morning – and those waitresses had to cook as well as serve because Janice refused to have anyone just “lollygagging” around. The night shift, also known as the graveyard shift, which went from eight o’clock each night through to five o’clock the following morning, had just a fraction of the business.
So, the four of them might have a horrible job, with long hours and a witch for a boss, but it was better than a lot of the people who lived in LowPoint. Many were on food stamps, barely making enough to get by. There was only one old doctor in town who worked part time but should have retired about thirty years ago. Thankfully, Doctor Powell was a sweet man with a charming bedside manner and was able to treat all minor aches and pains. Anything major and the patient was pretty much out of luck, although the remaining residents did what they could to help. The community was small, but they were tight. Small meant that everyone knew everyone’s business, but that wasn’t always a bad thing. When someone went a day without a meal because they didn’t get paid on time, everyone knew about it and ensured that the family was covered.
Ivy took the orders of the truckers and wove her way through the tables, wondering why workers from Louisville hadn’t found their way to LowPoint as a place to live. It might be because of the name of the town, but it was so-named because it literally was the “lowest point” in the state. The city was nestled right at the base of the mountains in a beautiful valley west of Louisville. It was a beautiful area and right off of Highway 64, which was a major highway that stretched from West Virginia all the way to St. Louis. At that point, truckers picked up Highway Seventy that would take them over the Rocky Mountains and clear on to Utah.
There were other routes across the northern and southern states that were more heavily used, but trucks going through Louisville took Highway 64. And anyone coming through, usually stopped here at Janice’s diner for a bite to eat. All because of Tony’s amazing food.
It wasn’t even that the food was high quality, because Janice wasn’t one to spend money if it wasn’t needed. A burger was a burger. Frozen or fresh didn’t matter, in her mind. But Tony was creative and even grew his own herbs. It wasn’t because he liked Janice though. It was because he loved cooking and loved people eating his food. So he experimented with the flavors as much as he could with what he had.
And over the past year, ever since Tony had hopped off a truck heading this way and asked for a job, the business at Janice’s diner had been picking up. Janice never acknowledged that Tony’s cooking was the reason, but everyone knew it.
“Table twelve complained about the service,” Janice snapped at Ivy. “I told them their meal was free. It’s coming out of your pay.”
With that, Janice walked away, a smirk on her ugly features as she pushed her way into her office.
Marilee appeared at Ivy’s side. “They didn’t complain, Ivy!” she whispered. “In fact, they left you a huge tip. They asked Janice to make sure you got it and, as they walked out, she stuffed it in her apron pocket.”
Daisy hurried up to the Ivy and Marilee. “Did you see that? Janice just stole your tip money!” she gasped, pushing her strawberry blond hair higher up into the hair band, trying to hold all of the curls in place. The bands never worked. Daisy had too much hair. Right now, all of those strawberry blond curls were vibrating with anger and Ivy put a hand out, stopping Daisy’s forward momentum.
“Don’t do it, Daisy!” Ivy hissed. “You know what happened to Mindy when she confronted Janice. It isn’t worth it!”
Everyone knew that Mindy had been arrested and charged with embezzlement two weeks ago. Of course, Mindy couldn’t afford a lawyer, but the public defender had assured everyone that there wasn’t enough evidence to go to trial. It was basically Janice’s word that the money had been stolen against Mindy’s word that she hadn’t stolen anything.
Daisy’s pretty, chocolate colored eyes narrowed as she glared at the diner’s office door that Janice had vanished behind. “I hate that woman!” she snapped.
Ivy agreed, but wisely kept her thoughts to herself. “I’m fine,” she told her. “Let’s just stick together. That plan we came up with the other day? Let’s do it!”
Ivy, Daisy and Marilee all looked at Tony, then nodded. “I’m in,” Daisy said.
Marilee smiled for the first time that day and nodded, her dark brown pony tail bouncing behind her. “I agree. We’ve got to do something to stop her.”
Ivy nodded as well. “The only way we’re going to win against that evil woman is to beat her at her own game. We’ll win,” she said softly.
Tony came up to them. “I’m on lookout,” he volunteered.
The three women turned to face him. “Yeah, but don’t get behind on the orders.”
Tony’s handsome face broke into a grin. “You know I’m all over this, ladies. But,” he looked towards the office door, “if that woman pinches my butt one more time, I’m not going to be responsible for my actions.”
The ladies laughed, knowing that Janice used any excuse she could dream up to walk through the kitchen, rubbing up against Tony’s tall, muscle-covered body.
Marilee winked through the kitchen window. “You know you want her.”
Tony gave her a glare that said he wasn’t amused, but the ladies all laughed, hurrying away before he could lay one of his famous put downs on them. The man used
dry humor as a weapon with pinpoint accuracy.
The three of them moved about the diner, although their movements were different now. More coordinated. They didn’t have an actual station, but instead worked like a team, filling glasses, putting in orders, taking orders from Tony out to the tables. When Janice walked back out on the floor, a smug expression on her weathered face, the women were busy with the lunch rush. And not a single table was left un-watched. The women weren’t going to let Janice get near the tables. Not with her sticky fingers!
The lunch rush lasted until about three o’clock and, when they finally had a break, they moved over to one of the tables in the back. Tony, bless his handsome heart, had their lunches ready and carried them over to the booth. “Ladies. She’s on her way to the office again,” he warned.
Ivy’s green eyes narrowed as she watched Janice slip through the office door. “I’ll be right back,” she said and stood up before someone could stop her. Pulling her cell phone out of her pocket, she moved stealthily towards the back of the restaurant.
Sure enough, Janice was in the office, counting money. And just as Ivy had suspected, Janice pulled money out of her apron pocket, counting out the bills. Those were their tips, she thought as she snapped pictures. As more proof, Janice didn’t put the money into the cash safe. Instead, she stuffed it into her purse.
And Ivy had it all on camera!
Janice turned towards the door, obviously heading back out to the dining room and Ivy slipped away, pretending to grab ketchup as an excuse to be near the office when the others were off in a corner of the diner taking a lunch break.
“What are you doing?” Janice snapped.
Ivy lifted the ketchup over her head, wiggling the bottle in answer as she continued to walk away.
Sitting down in the booth, she plunked the ketchup in the center, then looked down at the meal Tony had cooked. Grilled cheese and soup? Oops! Ketchup wasn’t needed here, but Ivy just went with it.
Craving Him (Sinful Nights Book 6) Page 8