The Diner

The Diner with a capital D. How strange to be there in the middle of the morning. It was past the busy breakfast hour, but still surprisingly full: a large contingent of senior citizens eating in couples, tables full of gabby old women – talk about make-up! They looked like that clown. And what she hadn’t expected, groups of dapper middle-aged men, conferencing at large tables over coffee and plates of pastries.

Old ladies with nothing to do but gab, and white middle-class males who run the world. Nat Grogan was one of them. A slight, debonair character out of some movie, he wore a hat that he didn’t take off, even though he was indoors and there were ladies present, and a pin-striped suit. He sported a shapely, thin mustache that gave him a roguish look.

There were two other people at the round table. She recognized Chauncey Donahue who’d once been the captain of an undefeated high school football team in the district. He had broad shoulders and a monster belly that kept him from buttoning his tan jacket. Next to him was an African American woman with a straight shoulder-length flip, a pert pretty face and dancing eyes. She was smiling with what looked like real delight. Brenda liked her immediately, and gravitated toward the empty seat next to her.

But she didn’t make it that far. Before she got there, Wagman pulled out the chair one place away, directly across from Grogan, held it for her so she had no choice, and sat down next to the pretty lady himself. He was between them.

He introduced everybody as if they were all meeting for the first time. The woman, who looked more like an unthreatening girl, was Adele Delicia.

Chauncey held up his menu, totally eclipsing his face. Everyone followed his lead. Each dutifully read at least some of the ten long, fat pages covered with plastic and print. When the waiter came around, Chauncey was the first to relinquish his volume. He ordered a lox and bagel platter.

It was going to be a feast! She was suddenly starving, in spite of the bowl of oatmeal she’d already had. She loved diner breakfasts and ordered an egg-white omelet with home fries – a sin – and whole wheat toast.

The other three ordered coffee. She was mortified.

The plates were huge ovals, each big enough to feed three people. She and Chauncey were the only ones eating. The others sat demurely over their cosmopolitan cups.

“Eat up, little lady,” he said, toasting her with his orange juice glass.

Once the talk got started, she was glad to have the food. It gave her time to think before answering; it gave her something to look at besides these ardent, urgent people who said they were pinning all their hopes on her.

Nat looked her piercingly in the eye from across the table, as she wrapped her mouth around a forkful of fluffy eggs. “Let me summarize,” he said. “Even though our beloved Congressman Richard Towne is Republican, he’s been tapped by Obama for Number Two at Homeland Security. That’s a post-partisan crumb for our opponents, but a glimmer of hope for us. A Republican will probably win the special election in November, but there’s a chance – a slim one – that we’ll prevail because of the current political climate. And with you, we have an issue.”

“An issue?”

Grogan gave her the grin. They all had one. “The children. That’s our issue. Even Republicans have children. You, my dear, are the champion of children. Children cross party lines.”

Chauncey had been breaking small pieces off his bagel, slathering them with cream cheese, then delicately adding a small square of lox, squeezing on lemon juice, and topping the construction with a sliver of onion and a quarter of a slice of tomato. Now he looked up, white-tipped knife in one hand, a bagel bite in the other, and said, “With your reputation, they won’t dare say no to you.”

“My reputation?”

He pushed back a bit from the table, easing the dent in his belly, wiped the corner of his mouth with the tiniest corner of his napkin, and watching her face to gauge her reaction, said, “They’re afraid of you, ma’am.”

Ma’am? Afraid of her? Ridiculous.

“That’s ridiculous,” she said.

Nat joined in. “Oh, no, no, no. Not ridiculous at all. The people who know you, know you do what’s right come hell or high water, that you don’t let anyone get away with anything, that you’ve got them sitting down with their kids doing homework, that they can’t get out of it any more than their children can. You’re the boss, Brenda. You’re The Man.”

She liked that. She was the man. Not the wo-man. She was the real thing.

Wagman said, “The appeal you have to the people who know you can be extended to other parents, in other schools, all across the district.”

“And what will they think when I abandon my post and my charges?”

“The greater good, m’lady, the greater good.” She was back to being a lady again. So much for The Man.

Adele sat sipping her coffee, letting the others talk. And talk they did, painting pictures of a nutritious school breakfast for every child in America. And health insurance. We’ve got to bypass the employer, a lot parents are out of work. Children get covered the moment they enter public school. (To hell with private schools. Home schoolers too. They aren’t real Americans. They think they can do without the government, let them do without it.)

The three men bid themselves up like people in a poker game, each one trying to top the other. She would have clinics in the schools, not just a school nurse who couldn’t do anything. A clinic whose job it would be to ferret out children who needed medical attention, and goddamit, give it to them. Send them to hospitals, if need be. What do most parents know about things like that? Center the professionals in the schools, the officially designated sites for childcare.

Brenda imagined them sending Sheba to the hospital without her permission, giving Zeke a needle he didn’t need. “What about the rights of parents?” she asked.

Grogan shook his still-hatted head. “They’ll give ’em up out of guilt,” he said. “They can’t deny their children the best. Can’t take a chance, once it’s offered, of not having their problems handled by the pros. What if a parent makes an unnecessary mistake?”

“What if the school does?” she asked.

Grogan shook his head again, looking sly. “Professionals don’t make mistakes. They simply encounter unexpected consequences. Fate’s fault, not theirs.”

The meeting was wrapped up, and they stood outside on the concrete, saying their goodbyes. Chauncey shook her hand. “Please to meetcha, little lady,” he said, and swept her a one-armed bow over his belly. Grogan winked at her. But Wagman, whom she thought of as her sponsor, was busy whispering to Adele.

Several hours later, she picked Zeke up at the long play-date she’d arranged for him.

“Mommy! What happened to your face?” he greeted her as he launched himself into the back seat.

“It’s make-up,” she said.

“You look weird.”

“Do you think Daddy will like it?”

He scrutinized her in the rear view mirror, appraising her face with frowning concentration.

“Yes,” he said. “I know what Daddy likes.”

“How do you know what Daddy likes?”

“From television. Sometimes I watch him watch.”

“You do?” That was a strange thing for a child, wasn’t it? Children shouldn’t be so aware of adults. They’re supposed to take their parents for granted and not notice the details.

“I watch everybody,” he said.

Oh. That was not good to hear.

“Do you watch me?” she asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“What do I like?”

He thought for a moment, smiling to himself, organizing his memories into an answer.

“Animals,” he said.

“Animals! What about people? Don’t I like people?”

“People make you cry. Animals make you happy.”

“Ohmigod,” she said. “People make me cry because I care about them.”

“But you don’t like them. You like animals.” He disappeared from the rear-view. Conversation over, the oracle closed up shop and took a video game out of his backpack which he still took everywhere, even though school was over.

She was left alone with his pronouncement and didn’t know whether she wanted to laugh or cry.