I walked into the diner on Saturday, expecting to be opening the place by myself, when I saw Helen leaning against the counter. I figured she would have closed last night, so I would be opening alone in the morning. But there she was, looking fresh as a daisy, with her arms crossed and a look like she was expecting me to spill.
“Alright,” she said as I closed the door behind me and locked it. “Spill the beans.”
“What beans?” I asked, grinning.
“I need to know if my main cook is okay or not,” she said. “That means you need to get to talking. Since everything that happened with your dad and then Wendy coming in here and you two leaving together, I feel as though you’re holding out on me with the story time, when I kept you in the loop with my drama last year.”
“Fair,” I said. “You did keep me in the loop.”
“Right.” She straightened up and revealed a giant mug of coffee behind her. “So, here’s some caffeine. Let’s do prep, and you can tell me what the hell is going on.”
I nodded, taking the delightfully warm mug and sipping some of it down immediately. I didn’t care that it burned my throat. She chose the sober-up beans. It was worth the burn.
“Alright. Only because you made me the Valhalla coffee.”
“Is that what it’s called?” she asked. “I like coffee, but I tried some of that stuff, and it was like drinking jet fuel.”
“Yeah, that’s the name of the company. They make one even darker and more caffeinated than this one. It’s just called ‘Bronson.’”
“Why is it called Bronson?” she asked.
“After Charles Bronson,” I said, chuckling. “The star of Death Wish.”
“Ahh.”
We walked into the kitchen, and I opened my knife bag, setting up my cutting board and taking a deep breath.
“Alright,” I said. “So, Wendy’s pregnant.”
It took a little while for Helen to stop spazzing out. When she did, she had chopped at least two days’ worth of onions. She put down the knife and leaned her back against the sink as we continued to chat about the last few days and what had led there. I went over everything, from my parents’ drug abuse and narcissism to Wendy inviting me to stay again last night. It was cathartic in a big way to get it all off my chest and share it with someone, and as I was wrapping up, the waitresses began to arrive.
“Alright, I have to do something,” she said, picking up a menu and taking a few steps closer to me. “I’m sorry, but…”
She whacked me in the back of the head with the menu hard enough to cause a smacking sound, and I ducked down, laughing.
“What the hell?” I asked between laughter.
“From now on, you need to talk to Wendy, you dingus,” she said. “You wouldn’t just not communicate in a kitchen, would you?”
“No,” I said.
“Well, a relationship is a kitchen. There’s prep work you have to do. You have to communicate, and for God’s sake, clean up when you’re done,” she said, faltering a little at the end.
“That one kind of got away from you, didn’t it?” I asked.
“Yeah, let’s pretend I didn’t say that part. But the rest applies,” she said. “You can’t raise a baby with her if you don’t talk to her. So, talk to her.”
“I will,” I said. “I promise.”
“Okay, well,” she said, “with that settled, I think I see our first customer coming. Brace yourself. Yesterday was too slow for today not to be nuts.”
I got off work around four, Helen shoving me out of the door as her mother came in to work a shift and Roger and Tony came in to run the kitchen. Helen was going to stick around and hang out with her mom while she ran back of house, but I was under orders to go take care of my pregnant girlfriend.
It was the first time someone had referred to Wendy as my girlfriend. It hit weird. Part of me loved hearing it, just the acknowledgement that she was “my” anything. But girlfriend was… weird. Cheap in a way. Like it wasn’t as serious as it should be. But there was only one real option for changing that, and I felt like now might be a tad bit too early to go into those discussions.
Going back to my apartment, I grabbed all three of my duffel bags and filled them with clothes and other assorted items. I had a feeling I wasn’t going to be seeing the inside of this place for too long. Not as long as things kept going the way I thought they would.
With all the stuff I would need for at least a week and a couple of the creature comforts I tended to keep around, I stuffed my car full. I had to go through the fridge and empty out anything that was going to be spoiled if it didn’t get used, either tossing it in a cooler to bring with me or just tossing them in the trash. Thankfully there wasn’t much. I hadn’t been much of an eater while we were separated.