Lorene Gibble was as much of a permanent fixture at the downtown Main Street Café as the table and chairs. She had worked at the café since she was sixteen, only taking time off to have three babies, and even then only a few weeks. After her kids were grown, she started working the early bird dinner shift. The hours suited her. Check in at three, do her prep work, start serving at four-thirty and home by eight-thirty, just in time to see her television shows, then to bed.
Tonight it was sad for Lorene not to see sweet little Mrs. Floyd sitting at table 4, the same little table by the window she had occupied since 1966. Her friend said that she had passed away the day before. Even though Mrs. Floyd had been unable to speak since her stroke, Lorene still missed her and her sweet, somewhat crooked, little smile. With Mrs. Floyd, it was always the same order: iced tea, baked chicken breast with the green beans and mashed potatoes, and chocolate pudding, if they had it.
Lorene loved all her little early birders, mostly widows and one or two old widowers. But it was the ladies that touched her. They were all living on fixed incomes, and for most this was their only real meal of the day. After they finished, Lorene would carefully pack up their leftovers and throw in a couple of extra dinner rolls she knew they would probably eat for breakfast. They were all poor as church mice, but still they dug in their change purses to try and leave her a tip, even when they couldn’t afford it. Lorene knew the dates of all their birthdays and made sure to make a fuss over them. Free cake and ice cream. It was such a small thing to do, and it meant so much.
For years now, just like clockwork, they all lined up outside the door at four-thirty, dressed in their best, powdered and clean smelling. She knew that most would be going home to an empty house. It just broke her heart to think that these ladies who had taught school, raised children, worked in stores or libraries, and paid their taxes and their mortgages on time, were now having to count their nickels and dimes.
It wasn’t fair. All those who had never contributed a thing to society and could work if they wanted, but were instead living off the government, sucking the life out of it. Namely her daughter, who was living on disability, just because she had a little back pain and a doctor that was a fool. Lorene had worked all her life with bunions, a bad knee that gave her fits, and sometimes with a hangover from hell, but she went to work and had a smile and sometimes a little joke to cheer her ladies up.
In this world of spectacular achievements, most would say Lorene never amounted to much. Every day for the past forty-two years, rain or shine, feeling well or not, she made sure her early birders were well taken care of. And for some, Lorene was the only bright spot in their day. She may not have set the world on fire with her brilliance, but when she finally arrived at Still Meadows, a lot of people were very happy to see her. “Our Lorene is here,” said Mrs. Floyd, without a hint of the stroke that had silenced her.
Downtown Elmwood Springs was looking a little shabby these days. Ever since the big Walmart opened just north of town, almost nobody shopped downtown. After Dixie Cahill died, there was no one to take over her dance studio, and so it was closed. So was the old Main Street Café and the Trolley Car Diner. The only place you could eat was the coffee shop on the corner, and it closed at three in the afternoon. Hardly anybody went downtown at night.
All the teenagers hung out at the mall, which had just opened a new multiplex movie theater and a food court. Even the Morgan Brothers Department Store had moved its downtown store out to the mall.
There was now a new Ace Hardware store near the Walmart, and Macky was having a hard time competing with their prices. The mall had also affected Tot Whooten’s business. As she told Norma, “Ever since they opened that new Supercuts out there, none of the younger set come to me anymore…just my old regular customers. I’d relocate to the mall myself, but a lot of my oldsters can’t drive that far. Some of them have been with me for over fifty years, so I’m gonna stick with them to the end.” And she did.
On Monday mornings, no matter how tired she was, she got into her car and drove out to the nursing home and did all the ladies’ hair for free. Darlene didn’t understand her mother. “Why do you fix them old ladies’ hair out there? They ain’t going nowhere.”
“Because, Darlene, it makes them feel like they’re still in the game. And they look forward to it…and everything is not about money, Darlene.”
“Oh, yeah? Then why won’t you lend me and Buster any money?”
“So you and Buster can buy more of that white stuff to snort up your nose? I don’t think so. You’re lucky I don’t call Ralph Childress on you.”
“You drink beer.”
“Yeah, and the last time I looked, it was still legal. I’m not harboring any criminals under my roof.”
“We’ll just move out then.”
“Oh, Darlene, quit flapping your lips. You know as long as there is a free meal to be had, you and Buster ain’t going nowhere.”
The old adage “Your children will be a comfort to you in your old age” did not ring true to Tot, at any age. Darlene and Dwayne Jr. had married every idiot that came their way. She had paid for seven divorces between them. Tot was not happy with the way the world had changed, either. There was no Disco City anymore. Years ago, it had become the Red Barn, a country-western boot-scootin’ line-dancing joint. Even the radio was now “less talk, all country, all the time.”
“I miss disco,” she said.
—
IN 1990, AT AGE EIGHTY, when Beatrice Swensen came up to Still Meadows, her parents were excited to talk to her. Her father, Olaf, asked right away, “How is my precious grandbaby, Hanna Marie?”
“Oh, Daddy, she’s wonderful. She’s married to a nice man named Michael. He works at the dairy with Ander. And she’s so pretty now. Everybody says she’s the most elegant lady in town. I’m so proud of her.”
A year later, when her husband, Ander, came to Still Meadows and was asked about his son-in-law, he said very little.
It’s funny, in a small town, how certain people are always referred to in a certain way. All her life, Tot Whooten had had such bad luck that everyone always called her Poor Tot. The same thing was true of Dottie Davenport. She was only five feet tall, and so everyone always referred to her as Little Miss Davenport. She was a dream employee, had worked for Mr. Swensen as his office manager for more than thirty-five years, and was loyal to a fault. Even after Mr. Swensen had retired, she’d stayed on at the office, just to keep an eye on the son-in-law. She didn’t trust him.