Heartbreak Cafe

by Penelope Stokes J.

  “We stick together,” I said at last. “We care about each other. We get out of bed every morning and put one foot in front of the other.” I patted his arm. “We give it time, and we help each other get through.”

  Fart and I sat there for the longest time, not talking much, just drinking the last of the coffee and shifting in our seats. Finally I got up and went into the kitchen to finish getting stuff ready for the next day. There wasn’t much in the way of leftovers—the locusts had pretty much cleaned me out—but there was enough roast beef left to make stew, and plenty of vegetables.

  As I cut up the butt end of the beef and peeled potatoes, I let my mind drift back to Scratch, locked up in the jail-house, probably pacing the cell like a big black panther.

  Wasn’t a blessed thing anybody could do about it. Boone and Toni kept talking about bail money, but it wouldn’t do any good. The sheriff was still holding out on releasing him, claiming he hadn’t got word from the authorities in Atlanta yet.

  For God’s sake, I thought. This is the twenty-first century. What kinda communications technology is that idiot sheriff using, anyway? Pony Express?

  But I knew, of course, that it wasn’t about any communications breakdown. It was about power. Using it, flaunting it, proving it.

  A pissing contest.

  I’d finished the potatoes and moved on to the onions—big red Vidalias, from over in Toombs County, Georgia. Sweetest onions in the whole wide world.

  But this afternoon they didn’t seem so sweet. Soon as my knife blade sliced into the first one, tears came to my eyes. I blinked and sniffed. Usually Vidalias didn’t do this to me. My eyes burned, but I didn’t dare raise a hand to wipe them away.

  Somehow I knew, even if I tried to deny it, that these tears weren’t about the onions. How many times, I wondered, could you get your heart broken before it was shattered beyond all hope of repair?

  Everything blurred. The knife came down, slipped, and glanced across my finger. Blood splattered the worn wood of the cutting board.

  I musta yelled, because in a flash Fart Unger was standing beside me, holding my hand, gripping my cut finger to put pressure on the wound. He had his other arm around me, and a good thing it was, too, because my head went fuzzy and I woulda fallen if he hadn’t been there holding me up.

  “It’s okay, Dell,” he said. “Just hang on; I’ll take care of it.”

  And he did.

  He took me over to the sink, washed out the cut, and then went into the pantry to get the first-aid kit. With a gentleness I’d never felt in a man’s touch, he applied antibiotic ointment and bandaged it. And then, in an instinctive gesture undoubtedly traced to his years as a daddy and granddaddy, he lifted my finger to his lips and kissed it.

  “All better now,” he said.

  I looked up into his face. And though I’d known him all my life, it was the first time I’d ever noticed how blue his eyes were.

  We stood there, frozen, looking at each other, while a strange unnamed awareness flooded through me. He felt it, too. I could tell by the sudden tension in his hands and the way his breath caught and stuttered.

  I didn’t know what it was, but it terrified me. His face, so familiar—and so close—suddenly transformed into something else, a stranger’s face. It was like that horrible midnight moment when you wake up and look at the person lying next to you in the moonlight and think you’re in bed with someone you’ve never met.

  I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t swallow. Couldn’t move, even though everything inside me wanted to bolt and run.

  If the bell over the door hadn’t rung, we mighta just stayed that way.

  But the bell did ring, and we jumped apart like two guilty teenagers. I ran a hand through my hair and stepped out into the cafe.

  In the doorway stood a woman—the most beautiful woman I had ever seen up close and personal. She looked like a movie star, like a cross between Halle Berry and Queen Latifah. Tall and curvy with skin the color of caramel, and black, black hair, and wide brown eyes and high cheekbones. Pressed close to her side, as if needing protection, was an equally stunning little girl. A daughter, obviously, the spit-tin’ image of her mama except that the child’s skin was a dark rich chocolate brown.

  “Excuse me,” the woman said in a voice like velvet. “I realize you’re probably closed, but—”

  “Come in,” I said. “Please, have a seat.”

  “Thank you. We’ve been driving for hours.”

  The little girl tugged at her mother’s arm and whispered something in her ear.

  “Would it be all right if my daughter used the restroom?”

  “Of course,” I said. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

  The child shrank back a bit. “It’s okay, honey. Go with the nice lady.” The woman looked up at me. “Her name is Imani. It means faith.”

  “Well, I’m pleased to meet you, Imani,” I said. I held out a hand and the child shook it solemnly. “My name is Dell. I own this place. And believe me, we can use a little more faith around here.”

  Imani smiled shyly. I took her back to the restroom, and then returned to find the mother slumped in a booth with her head in her hands. I watched her for a moment. The body language spoke of despair and frustration, and it did not fit the image she projected when she first walked in the door.

  Here was a woman, I thought, accustomed to putting on a good front. But inside, she was crumbling.

  I went over to her, and without thinking if it might be an intrusion, laid a hand on her shoulder. She didn’t pull back. Instead, she leaned into it as if she hadn’t felt a comforting touch in a long, long time.

  “What can I get for you?” I said. “Sweet tea? Coffee? I’ll need to make a fresh pot, but it won’t take a sec.”

  “Coffee would be nice. And orange juice for Imani, if you’ve got it.”

  “Coming right up.”

  I went back to the kitchen to get the OJ and start the coffee. Fart had disappeared.

  When the coffee was done, I took it out to her, steaming fresh and fragrant. She had settled Imani at an adjacent booth, where the little girl had pulled crayons and paper out of her backpack and was busy coloring.

  “Do you have time to sit for a minute?” the woman asked.

  I got myself a cup of coffee and joined her. “Would you care for something to eat?”

  “No, we’re fine.” The woman hesitated. “My name’s Alyssa. Alyssa Greer.”

  I had known it, of course, from the instant she walked through the door. It couldn’t have been anyone else but Scratch’s family. Scratch’s estranged wife. Scratch’s baby girl.

  This woman was cultured, refined, obviously educated.

  He had been telling the truth.

  How she found her way to Chulahatchie, I couldn’t for the life of me imagine. But here she was, and ready or not, Scratch was about to have to deal with the unexpected meeting of his past and his present, the collision of two vastly different lives.

  • 30 •

  Seeing Scratch in that jail cell is a picture I wish I could erase from my mind forever. When he was first arrested, and I had gone with Boone to talk to him, he had been in a room with a table and a few chairs. It was bleak, for sure, but not like this. Not bars and locks. Not a cage for an animal.

  Peach was back at the restaurant, coloring with Imani and playing hangman. She had come immediately when I called, and didn’t seem the least bit surprised that Scratch’s estranged wife and daughter had shown up without warning on my doorstep.

  The look on Scratch’s face when he caught his first glimpse of Alyssa revealed everything. No matter what had happened between them, he loved her, and to have her see him here, cooped up like a dangerous animal, was almost more than he could bear.

  Alyssa, on the other hand, was all business.

  “Oh, so you’re the little woman.” The sheriff leered at her.

  She raked him with an appraising glance. “I’m the lawyer,” she said. “And you will release my client
. Now.”

  “Hold on there, missy,” he said. “He’s a convicted felon who’s violated his parole. He ain’t going nowhere until I get the paperwork—”

  She retrieved a manila folder from her bag and slapped it against his chest. “There’s your paperwork. He’s completed his parole, as you very well know, and you don’t have a shred of evidence to hold him on the robbery. I’ve also got cause to bring charges against you, and against this office, for false arrest and unlawful detainment. And maybe even racial profiling. But I’m guessing you’d rather not go there.”

  The sheriff gaped at her and tried to respond, but apparently his mouth had gone dry and he couldn’t speak. Without a word he fished out his keys, opened the cell door, and stood aside.

  “Thank you,” Alyssa said.

  Scratch edged out of the cell and stood there shifting from one foot to the other. “Alyssa,” he said. That was all, just “Alyssa.” He choked up and couldn’t go on.

  “Let’s get back to the cafe,” I said. “There’s a beautiful little girl waiting there who might like to meet her daddy.”

  It was nearly dusk by the time Scratch came down from the apartment, showered, shaved, and looking more like himself. Alyssa was sitting in a booth alone, clenching her fists and gnawing on her knuckle. Imani and Peach were drawing on the paper place mats. Boone and Toni had gone home, and I was in the kitchen seeing what kind of makeshift meal I could put together for the five of us. Folks gotta eat, no matter what else is going on.

  I figured mac and cheese might be good comfort food, and God knows we were gonna need it. I put a pot of pasta on to boil and started grating Parmesan and Romano. Scratch and Alyssa were in the corner booth closest to the kitchen door, and I could hear most of their conversation. I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but I listened anyhow.

  “Why did you come?” he said. “And how did you know where I was?”

  “I got a call,” Alyssa said. “Apparently your Peach Rondell is an extremely resourceful woman and a good researcher. I should hire her as my assistant.”

  “So Peach found you, and interfered—”

  “She didn’t interfere, John. She was concerned about you. You ought to be thankful to have such good friends.”

  “I am thankful. These people have been like family to me. They believe in me, unlike—” He stopped suddenly, and I could imagine him gritting his teeth like he did sometimes, that big muscle in his jaw popping out.

  “Unlike me.”

  “Yes.”

  “John, I was young. I was stupid. I was afraid. Daddy had controlled me all my life, and he wasn’t about to let me go that easily. He was convinced you were going to ruin my life.”

  “So he framed me and ruined my life.”

  She let out a deep sigh. “Yes.”

  “And you did nothing to stop it.”

  “I was barely twenty years old, John. I couldn’t stand up to him.”

  “And now that you’re nearly thirty, and he’s put you through law school, and you’ve passed the bar, you’ve suddenly grown a backbone?”

  A long silence stretched between them, disturbed only by the gurgle of the pasta bubbling at my elbow. After a while he said, “Answer me, Alyssa. Why are you here? Aren’t you afraid your daddy’s going to find out and come haul you back to Atlanta?”

  “Daddy’s dead,” she said. “He died two years ago.”

  Scratch made a small strangling sound in his throat. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not!” she fired back, her words hard and fierce. “I’m glad he’s gone!” She let out a little sob. “No, that’s not completely true. He was my father. I loved him, no matter what his faults. But what he did to you—”

  “All right,” he interrupted. “I guess I can accept that you were young and didn’t know how to handle the situation. And I’m sure you were scared, too. You’d never lived on your own, without your daddy’s support. But why now, Alyssa? Why come looking for me now?”

  “I’ve been looking for you for a long time,” she said. “Until that Peach woman called me, I had no idea where you were. What on earth made you choose a place like this, anyway?”

  He chuckled, that deep, rumbling laugh that started way down in his chest. “I reckon I didn’t choose it at all,” he said. “Feels more like it chose me.”

  A pause, the length of a heartbeat or two. “I still love you, John,” she said. “I’ve always loved you.”

  The homemade mac and cheese went down easier than I’d anticipated. By the time the meal was done and I had served the last of the lemon meringue pie from lunch, Imani was sitting on her daddy’s lap and eating from his plate.

  She kept looking up at him, as if amazed that this mountain of a man was somehow connected to her and her mother. Alyssa sat close to the two of them, her eyes fixed on his face, her hand straying now and then to brush against his fingers.

  Something happened to me as I watched them. Something I didn’t expect. My doubts about Scratch thinned like a cloud in the wind until I could barely see it anymore, just a haze, a thin veil between me and the sun. And then it was gone.

  Scratch shot glances at me over the top of Imani’s head, like he was trying to read my mind, figure out what I was thinking. And I couldn’t have told him to save my soul. All I knew was that the knot in the pit of my stomach was gone, and I could look him in the eye. He seemed to understand, and when I smiled at him, he just nodded and let it go.

  “We oughta get out of here, Dell, and let you get on home,” he said at last. “I’ll help you clean up.”

  “You’ll do nothing of the sort,” I said. “You’ll go and spend time with your wife and daughter. And if you even think about coming in to work tomorrow, I’ll fire you.”

  Scratch laughed, but the unspoken question hung out there in space. Where would they go? Not to the dingy little apartment above the restaurant, surely.

  And then I knew. Knew as surely as I’d ever known anything.

  Chase had mortgaged our future for that damned river camp. I hadn’t been back there since he died; swore I would never set foot on that ground again. Every time I thought about it, rage and pain rose up in me. Bitter disappointment, like hot bile in my throat.

  And now, for the first time, I was glad I owned it. It felt like Somebody had a different plan for that cabin—not my husband’s little love nest for his affair, but a safe place for the healing of a relationship that had been broken for a long, long time.

  I got up, retrieved Chase’s keys from the nail next to the kitchen door, and handed them to him. “It’s not exactly the Hilton,” I said. “And I can’t guarantee how clean it is. But it’s yours for as long as you want it.”

  “Thanks, Dell,” he said.

  And by the way he said it, and the look in his eyes, I knew he wasn’t just talking about the cabin.

  • 31 •

  Now that Scratch and his family were staying out at the river camp, I couldn’t get the place out of my mind. I kept thinking about it, sometimes even dreaming about it—those forbidden images from Peach’s journal, the lithe blonde woman walking into the cabin, into my husband’s arms.

  Mama always advocated facing a problem head on—taking the bull by the horns. “You might get gored,” she said, “but it sure as heck beats grabbing the other end.”

  I’d been grabbing the other end for months—suspecting every woman in town, including my best friend, stressing, obsessing, twisting my gut into knots, turning circles like a rabid dog.

  So when Peach Rondell came into the Heartbreak Cafe on Friday, that third week of December, I decided it was time to let go of the back end and face this thing head-on.

  Lunch was over and Peach was the only one left. As usual, she was writing in her journal, oblivious to her surroundings. I edged over to the table, coffeepot in hand.

  I refilled her cup and poured a mug for myself. “You got a minute, Peach?” I said.

  She finished her sentence, stuck her pen between the pages, and closed the
book. My eyes gravitated to the cover. She was stroking the brown leather, absentmindedly, the way you’d pet a beloved dog. I knew what the leather felt like, could almost see the imprint of my own fingers against the spine.

  I sat down, afraid my jelly legs wouldn’t hold me up much longer. Confession might be good for the soul, but it wreaks havoc on the rest of you, at least until it’s done.

  She was looking at me, curious, waiting. Get on with it, I told myself. Bull. Horns. Spit it out. Now.

  “I need to talk to you about something,” I said. My voice cracked and shook.

  She leaned forward. “Sure, Dell. Is anything wrong?”

  “It’s about—well, about your journal.”

  Her hand clenched protectively around the book. “What about it?”

  “Remember the day Purdy Overstreet sprained her ankle? You left your journal in the cafe, and came to get it the next day?”

  “I remember.” Her eyes narrowed. I was pretty darn sure she knew what was coming.

  “Well—”

  “Did you read it?” she said. Her voice was even and steady, which was worse than yelling.

  “Yes. I’m sorry, Peach. I shouldn’t have done it.”

  “No, you shouldn’t have,” she said. “I trusted you.”

  “I know.” I ducked my head and let her anger and disappointment flow into me. “I’m sorry. But—”

  “But what?”

  “But there’s something I’ve got to know about what you wrote in there. And the only way I can know it is to ask.”

  Peach shrugged. “Might as well. The damage is done.”

  I looked up at her. She had gone eerily calm, stony, like a statue made of ice. If I’d held that gaze a second longer, it would have frozen me from the inside out.

  I stared down at my hands, clenched so hard around my coffee cup that it was a wonder the thing didn’t shatter. “You wrote about my husband, Chase, and the woman he was having an affair with. The river camp. The meeting between the two of them. Who was she, Peach? And how did you know?”