Runaway Mistress by Robyn Carr Page A

here and relieves us of the waste.” Gloria got up and cleared away the old man’s plates. “Not much of a tipper,” she laughed. And then, “You’re welcome,” she yelled toward the door.
    The next couple of weeks Jennifer learned that there was much more to the diner than met the eye. More specifically, there was so much more to Buzz. His waitresses needed their jobs—jobs that seemed to be specifically designed for them. And he seemed to have a regular clientele of hungry people who needed a charitable bite to eat. Jennifer even saw Buzz tip his flask over a cup of coffee a transient was having.
    “Did I see you just give that man a drink?”
    “Appeared he needed one,” Buzz said, clearly not interested in discussing it.
    And then she realized that Buzz had his own little meals-on-wheels service. He frequently excused himself from the diner for just a few minutes with a take-out carton in a grocery-store sack. Or he’d ask Adolfo or Hedda if they’d drop something by Miss Simms’s or Mr. Haddock’s place as they were leaving. It didn’t appear to be a scheduled service, unless he had a schedule in his head. Buzz seemed to know when and where to fill a need.
     
    Saturday morning, around nine, found the diner packed to capacity and Hedda was serving up a storm. Jennifer was getting the hang of this waiting business, but she was nothing compared to Hedda in speed and accuracy. “Don’t worry about it,” Hedda told her. “You’re doing great, and I can back you up.”
    Hedda was picking up orders from the grill and switched the radio station to something with a little more boogy to it. “Oh, Mother Mary,” Buzz complained.
    A song by Usher blasted into the little diner and Hedda said, “Oh, yeah! ”
    Balancing two complete breakfasts on her arm and a coffeepot in her hand, she two-stepped across the floor in her high-top, rubber-toed athletic shoes to the rhythm of the hip-hop. She put them on the table with a flourish, poured the coffee in spurts that matched the beat, then hopped away from the table on her way back to the counter.
    Someone in the diner began to tap on a tabletop to the beat while someone else clinked a utensil against a saucer. Encouraged, Hedda continued to dance around the diner while she picked up plates. It was irresistible to Jennifer, who had always loved to dance. She joined in, moving to the beat as she went from table to booth to table, picking up dishes, then hopped backward and around in a circle just as Hedda had done. They met in the middle, bumped rumps, did a few hops and high-fived each other. There was a bit of laughter and the tapping turned to table banging, which only served as encouragement.
    As the waitresses hopped and slid and wriggled around the diner, the patrons kept the beat with enthusiasm. The song was a mere three minutes long, and when it came to an end they took a bow and erupted into laughter. There was a little applause from their tiny gallery. “You’re all right, Doris,” Hedda said. And she whispered, “Think any of these tightwads will cough up an extra dollar?”
    At the end of the shift they pooled their tips and divided them. It had been a good morning; Hedda’s face lit up as she pocketed sixty dollars. “Yeah, I think I might go to that prom. My boyfriend, Max, thinks he can borrow his older brother’s car for the night.”
    “Here,” Jennifer said, handing her another twenty. “You did twice the work I did.”
    “No way,” she refused. “A deal’s a deal. Besides, it was busier than usual. And I think that little hip-hop brought us in a little extra.”
    “It was a nice break from la orquesta, ” Jennifer laughed.
    “Hedda,” a woman called sharply.
    Both waitresses turned to see Hedda’s mother standing in the diner door with her seven-year-old boy by the hand. Jennifer wouldn’t have recognized her by the way she looked—her appearance was so much improved from the other day in the doorway of the bungalow. But the