The Heavenly Grille Café

by J. T. Livingston

  There was presently only one person at the table, a young woman who, from a distance, appeared to be about Amanda’s age. She had her back to Amanda so it wasn’t until the can of sauce hit her sandaled feet that she turned around and stared at Amanda.

  “Watch it, bitch...” she said, the last word barely under her breath. She leaned over, picked up the can of sauce, and practically threw it back at Amanda.

  Amanda caught the can and managed to balance the remaining cans without dropping them, too. “Thanks…” Amanda began but stopped when she noticed the woman’s tear-streaked face. It was obvious that the woman hadn’t used water-proof mascara because most of it was smudged beneath her tear-swollen eyes. Amanda took quick notice of the woman’s cut-off jeans and a black, tight-fitting camisole-like top. She wore simple, black flip-flops upon her feet. Other than her messy mascara, the woman appeared neat and clean. Amanda inwardly envied her curly red hair that was tied back into a neat ponytail. Her eyes moved quickly over the woman before her stare stopped at her pregnant midsection.

  “What are you looking at!” the woman hissed. It wasn’t a question. She grabbed her belly in what appeared to be a protective manner. “Get the Hell away from me!”

  Amanda’s eyes opened wide as she stared back at the woman. Just as she was about to issue an apology for staring, a distant sound of thunder boomed, shaking the ground beneath her. Amanda knew it was impossible but she had the distinct feeling that the thunder had come from the direction of the Heavenly Grille. It was then that Amanda’s heart seemed to skip a beat and she gasped. “It’s you… you’re the one...” she whispered, smiling back at the woman.

  The woman stared back at Amanda as if she had suddenly grown two heads. “Crazy bitch…” she muttered as she maneuvered her very pregnant belly up and away from Amanda’s outstretched arms.

  CHAPTER 9

  Kris Meets the Angels of HGC

  It was normal for there to be a lull in customers between the hours of five and six, and the employees of the Heavenly Grille appreciated it because it gave them time to regroup for the night crowd. The customers who frequented the café at night were of a different caliber than the construction workers, secretaries, preachers, retired folks, and children who gathered for meals during the day time hours. Word was spreading quickly among the neighboring communities about the great food and service offered at the Heavenly Grille. The majority of the day time customers came for Max’s home cooking and mouth-watering desserts, some came because they had heard about the floating halo and wanted to see it for themselves, and some just wandered in the small, out-of-the-way café as if they were somehow, mystically, drawn to it.

  On the other hand, the night crowds were more often than not a bit on the rowdy side; this was another reason that Max had specifically recruited Doug for the night shift. Martin had argued against the assignment from day one, concerned that Doug wasn’t quite ready for an earthly assignment and had worried whether or not Doug could keep his temper under control in that type of environment. However, Max knew that Doug’s physical strength and chiseled physique would help tremendously in taming the café’s nightly customers. Max’s recommendation had prevailed, as usual, and he had not been wrong. Doug had proven to be a quick learner and he had not shown any weakness in being able to control his temper. In fact, in the three short weeks Doug had been working, he continued to impress and reassure Max that he had been the right choice for the assignment. He assisted Max in meal preparation, he helped Bertie wait on tables, and he had amicably persuaded men twice his size that their reason for stopping at the Heavenly Grille was to enjoy God’s meal in a peaceful ambiance. So far, he had not had to use any physical force. His firm hand upon their shoulders had been all it had taken to settle arguments and to ensure a peaceful, albeit sometimes temporary, co-existence with their fellow patrons.

  It was now five o’clock and the café was temporarily empty of customers. Three of Heaven’s most popular angels sat around one of the tables with their eyes closed and their hands clasped beneath their chins.

  “Heavenly Father,” Max began in his raspy baritone. “Thank you for allowing us to serve you this day, for sending those to us who were in need of comfort. We ask that, if it is your will, they continue to return to us for whatever help we may provide them. As we begin our work on the night shift, we pray for the strength, guidance, wisdom, and patience to continue the work you have sent us here to do. We ask these things in the name of Jesus Christ. AMEN!”

  “Woo-hoo!” Bertie shouted, lifting her right hand in a celebratory fist. “Amen, and amen to that, Lord!” She reached over and punched Doug on the shoulder. “Make sure you remember the part where he requested patience, big fella!”

  Doug smiled and rubbed his shoulder. “I’m working on that one, Bertie; and, trust me, with some of the crowd in here at night, well... let’s just say, they really do test my patience at times.”

  Bertie noticed his inadvertent glance at the clock before stretching his neck to look out at the empty parking lot, again. She gave him another good-natured punch as she pushed back her chair and stood up. “She’s okay, handsome. Quit your worrying. In fact...” Bertie said, puckering her lips together and tilting her head sideways, “I’d say she should be driving up right about…”

  They all heard a car door close outside.

  “Now!” Bertie grinned and kissed the top of Doug’s head. She ruffled his thick, black hair and laughed out loud. “Oh, I just bet the girls loved you, didn’t they! You are just too damn pretty for your own good.”

  Max grinned at Doug’s reddened face. “Now you’ve gone and embarrassed the man, Bertie.”

  Bertie looked back and grinned at Doug’s obvious discomfort. “Settle down, handsome. Whatsamatter? Nobody ever pay you a compliment before? Why, your ears are so red they look like they just might pop a blister!”

  Doug shook his head and grinned at the two senior angels. ““Yes,” he thought, “this is definitely going to be an interesting five years...”

  All three of them turned at the sound of a second car door shutting.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” Bertie said, “Looks like our girl brought company...”

  Max looked out the window and whistled out loud when he saw the woman’s extremely pregnant belly. “Well, I just hope we won’t have to add delivering babies to the menu.”

  “Yessiree,” Bertie nodded, “That girl looks like she’s gonna pop any second now, doesn’t she?”

  Doug was the last to rise from his chair. He watched through the window as the two women made their way toward the café’s entrance. He noticed the protective way in which Amanda placed her hand against the woman’s back. He also noticed the subsequent flinch the woman made at that touch.

  All three angels said in unison, “She found her...”

  When Amanda opened the door, allowing her new friend to enter first, she was caught a bit off guard to find her three co-workers standing just inside the entrance, all of them sporting huge Cheshire-like grins. A strange feeling immediately came over her, causing her to shiver in spite of the hot, July temperature. It was a tingling sensation that she had never experienced before, one that started at the tips of her toes and quickly rushed to the top of her head. She shivered again as the tingling quickly immersed into a complete feeling of calmness that seemed to engulf her very being. She knew now, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she had made the right decision by convincing the stranger to come back with her to the café.

  It had taken Amanda a good thirty minutes to convince the young woman to accept her offer of help. In that short time, Amanda had learned that her new friend’s name was Kris DeVone, and that she was twenty-three years old and seven months pregnant.

  Kris had reluctantly told Amanda the short version of her story that involved her and her boyfriend stopping at Sam’s Warehouse to that Kris could use their facilities. When she had finished, she could not find her boyfriend anywhere. She had wandered around the store and pa
rking lot for nearly an hour before finally settling at the outside table where Amanda had found her. Her boyfriend was gone and so was her car.

  “Hey, everyone...” Amanda shrugged sheepishly. “Look who I found... this is… Kris.”

  Bertie swiftly moved in to offer her usual bear hug to Kris, but found it a bit difficult due to the size of Kris’ swollen belly. “Well, come on in, Kris…it looks like you need to take a load off, girl.” She glanced back at Amanda, raised her eyebrows, and puckered her lips together. “Well, Princess, I do hope you remembered the tomato sauce!”

  Standing before the four smiling strangers, and for the first time in her life, Kris DeVone was absolutely speechless.

  CHAPTER 10

  Kris’ Story

  After a momentary and somewhat awkward moment of silence, Bertie laughed out loud and embraced Kris once again. “Come on, shoog; what do you say we get you off your feet and some food in that belly of yours? Looks like you’re about to pop that little one any time now. How far along are you, anyway?” One of Bertie’s favorite terms of endearment was shoog, which was just her countrified abbreviation for sugar. Her grandmother had called her shoog and Bertie had used the fond expression while caring for her own two young children.

  Kris instinctively placed both hands upon her belly and wondered, not for the first time, what she had been thinking when she accepted a total stranger’s offer of help. She had never been a very trusting person, but her situation had seemed bleak and she felt she had little choice but to accept Amanda’s offer of a ride home. She had no car and no money for a cab. “The baby is due September twelfth,” she mumbled as she slid into one of the booth seats, which allowed her a window view of the parking lot.

  She noticed that Amanda’s Trooper was the only car in the lot, which caused another quick wave of fear to course through her body. She had heard stories about weird sickos who cut babies out of near-term pregnant women. However, all the uneasiness and fear she had felt just moments before dissipated into thin air the moment Max sat across the table from her and placed his massive, black hand atop hers. All her inward trembling and insecurity seemed to cease immediately upon his touch. She stared into his soulful, brown eyes, and time seemed to freeze as the strangest, most unusual feeling of calmness seeped slowly throughout her entire body. Her previously morbid thoughts of abduction and murder immediately quelled; she now experienced an immense sense of total serenity. It was the strangest feeling she had ever experienced. The next thought that popped into her mind was that she knew, without a doubt, that she was safe with these people. She couldn’t explain why, but she knew that nothing bad would happen to her here.

  Amanda scooted in next to Kris while Bertie followed suit next to Max. Kris looked up at the handsome man left standing beside the table. “Damn!” she thought, “he’s hot!” She was suddenly so entranced with the man’s piercing green eyes that she momentarily forgot where she was, who she was, and why she was here. She failed to notice the raised eyebrows and puckered smiles coming from the older woman and the black man sitting at the table.

  Doug was totally oblivious of the impact he had on women. He had been watching Kris and Amanda closely from the moment they entered the café. He extended his hand across the table and smiled. “It’s very nice to meet you, Kris. I’m Doug. I’m going to get you something to eat; is there anything special you want to drink?”

  Kris was still holding onto his extended hand. The first thought that entered her mind was that she never wanted to let it go. Once again, that feeling of warmth, safety, and security flowed through her while Doug’s strong hand held her own. Of course, the black man’s hand still lay atop her left hand. When both men finally released her hands back into her own custody, she closed her mouth, blinked hard, and shook her head. “Uh... coffee would be good, I guess. No sugar or cream…black is fine.”

  “That’s the way I like it, too. Coming right up,” Doug smiled back at her and made his way into the kitchen.

  Now that her hands were her own again, Kris’ thoughts couldn’t help but turn to the rich aromas of food filtering throughout the café. “Something sure smells good.”

  Bertie laughed out loud. It was her turn to take hold of Kris’ hands. “You’re safe here, you know, shoog. By the way, don’t know where the Hell our manners went. You’ve obviously already met our sweet Amanda. This gentle giant beside me is Max. He’s the owner of the café and he’s responsible for all that good food you’re about to sink your teeth into. You’ve met pretty boy back there; he works the night shift with me. Oh, yeah, and I’m Bertie.”

  Kris took her time looking at each of them. Her initial doubts of getting into Amanda’s car seemed dim in comparison to the total peace her mind and body were now experiencing. It was true, she had never been one to trust strangers, but she had a feeling that was about to change. She spent the next forty-five minutes eating the best food she had ever tasted and telling four strangers the story of her life...

  Kris had never known her biological father; in fact, she doubted if her mother even knew who the father of her only child had been. There had been so many men in and out of her mother’s life, men who always seemed to take priority over Kris. Her mother had somehow managed to get Kris into grade school without causing too much physical damage to the child and in spite of Social Services’ constant interventions. By the time she was eight years old, the roles between mother and daughter had been reversed. Kris was essentially taking care of her mother, cleaning up the aftermath effects of the woman’s drunken nights, preparing whatever meager meals she could scrape together from the little food kept in the house, and, getting herself to school every day. As bad as life was with her mother and the string of men who frequented their home, Kris was convinced that it had to be better than being shuffled from one foster home to another. Life with Sylvia Devone was, at the very least, predictable; and, that predictability was the only stable factor in Kris’ childhood. She was never disappointed because she knew never to expect anything from her mother.

  By the time she was fourteen, Kris looked a few years older than she was. She was petite but shapely, her delicate skin was as smooth as fine porcelain, and her vibrant red hair fell nearly to her waist. It didn’t escape her that the male population found her attractive, but she was always quick to downplay her looks as much as possible. She instinctively determined that the less attention she brought to herself the safer she would be. However, that all changed one summer night when one of the many men who shared her mother’s bed stumbled drunkenly into her room and raped her. It was the night of her fourteenth birthday. Her beautiful long, red curls became wet with the man’s drunken sweat, while his grossly obese body weighed heavily upon her own small frame. He mumbled something about “how good that was, Sylvia” just before he passed out. That was the first time Kris DeVone ran away from home.

  The rape experience changed her in more ways than one. Over the next three years, Kris fell in with a bad crowd. Her experimentation with drugs and sex was all encompassing. If it was made available, she tried it. If she liked it, she tried it again and again. Somehow, in spite of her downward-spiraling lifestyle, she managed to maintain impressive grades, keep Social Services at bay, and to stay out of jail. Life was as good as it had ever been to her but it got even better when she met Mike Stephens and fell in love for the first time in her life.

  She was in her senior year of high school and had no real direction of where her life was going. Her goal for the past several years had been to graduate and move as far away from her mother, who by now had added cocaine to her daily addiction, as she could get. She knew it was only a matter of time before the drugs and alcohol killed her mother and she didn’t want to be witness to that event. Even though she felt no real love for the woman who had birthed her, neither did she want to stick around and watch the life completely fade from her.

  Mike Stephens quickly became her ticket out of Hell. He was as good as Kris was bad, and she had no idea what he sa
w in her. Nevertheless, he eventually convinced her that he truly loved her and wanted her to move to Georgia with him. He was scheduled to start Basic Training at Fort Benning, Georgia in January 2005 and before he left, he had made Kris promise to meet him there after he completed his six weeks of Basic Training.

  Kris made the difficult decision to drop out of school in March 2005. She packed up what little belongings she had, left her mother a brief note, and moved to Columbus, Georgia, where she and Mike had six beautiful months together before he got orders for Afghanistan. Mike did his best to convince her to marry him before he left, but Kris thought they should wait until his tour was up, to give them more time to get to know one another. She knew that he was the best thing that had ever happened to her, but she wanted to give him enough time to realize exactly what he was getting in her, which in her own eyes, was damaged goods.

  During the following eleven months, Kris and Mike used email and SKYPE on a daily basis to keep in touch with each other. Mike consistently sent money home for Kris to put into a special savings account for their wedding. Kris made the most of the time that Mike was away. She spent her free time fixing up the small apartment she and Mike had found before he left; she waitressed at a local barbecue restaurant; she earned her GED; and, she enrolled in the local community college to take her basic, core classes. Life in Georgia was good, and their time apart was quickly coming to an end. Mike had less than a month left in his tour to Afghanistan.

  The phone call came in mid-August 2006, just as Kris was leaving the apartment to rush to her Algebra class. The woman identified herself as Irene Stephens; she was Mike’s mother. Mrs. Stephens’ clipped voice was quick and abrupt when she told Kris that Mike was dead, killed instantly by friendly fire during a routine training exercise. She never hesitated with her words, and her voice indicated no signs of emotion. She concluded the conversation by telling Kris that she, and the rest of her family, would appreciate it if Kris did not attend the funeral and did not ever contact them again in the future. She told Kris that her son had been engaged to a wonderful woman before he met Kris and that she doubted that Mike had really cared for Kris.