The Hotdish

Mona steps out the back door of the Hotdish Diner absolutely swimming in Carl the Line Cook’s coat and digs out his pack of smokes. She pats around the pockets and digs in her apron and looks up. Sticks her tongue out.

It’s supposed to snow tonight.

It was all anyone could talk about. All day long. Every trucker on every stool at the counter, every gaggle of bluehairs in every booth:

Did you hear it’s supposed to snow tonight?

Gonna get some snow, can you believe it?

Oh, it’s only flurries, if that!

That’s not what I heard.

Oh really? What’d you hear?

I heard two to four inches.

From who?!

I’m just sayin.

It’s not even gonna stick.

I’m just saying what I heard.

You can’t hear shit, Gail.

What’d you say?

Exactly.

Everybody had a Once Upon a Time it Snowed in Florida story. Everybody except for Mona. Coldest she can recall was just a few years back when all the lizards froze stiff and fell out of the trees like old fruit. She can’t remember the “white” Christmas of ’87, when everyone in town woke to a light dusting on their car hoods and porch decks and rooftops, all stamped through with strange, three-toed footprints. And she wasn’t alive for the “Barlow Blizzard” of ’58, which would be remembered more for the three, unsolved, grisly murders discovered in its wake, than for the— admittedly unprecedented—six-inch blanket of snow it laid over the town.

She can’t find a lighter, so she takes a long drag on the unlit cigarette and play-acts exhaling smoke with a plume of frosted breath and imagines she’s anywhere else. She plays a game in her head during these little breaks from work. Closes her eyes and thinks back to all the customers she’s served over the long shift, and wonders what her life would be like if she went with any one of them when they left. The sad single dad. The day drunk. The quiet guy with the book. The girl with the pink hair and black fingernails. The longhauler who ate everything with his hands. Even his eggs.

Carl bangs out the back door and jars her from her fantasy.

“You got one.”

“Who is it?”

“Who do you think it is? It’s your man. I took care of him.”

“He’s not my man.” She flicks away the cigarette and puts her hair up.

“Did you even smoke that? Those things ain’t cheap.”

“Couldn’t find a lighter.”

When she steps back behind the counter, Big Zud is nearly finished with his double slice of pie. He starts singing when he sees her, the way he always does, that old Neil Young song:

“She used to work at a diner. Never seen a woman look finer.”

She smiles. She can’t help it.

“I used to order just to watch her float across the floor…”

“You know the only people come in here this time of night drinking high-test are truckers and cops.” “Good to see you too, Mona?” She tops up his mug.

“What’s keeping you up nights, Dean?”

“You mean, besides the coffee?”

She laughs and watches as he drags an enormous finger around his empty plate, picking up every last crumb of pie crust and licking it clean. “Okay,” he says, “now you can take it.”

“You sure?” She smiles. Hands on her hips.

“That’s good pie.”

She drops the dish into a bus tub under the counter with a clatter. “You know I made that pie.”

“Is that right?”

“That’s right.”

“Well then I’ve got another question.”

“Okay…”

“Will you marry me?”

“Ha!” She snorts a laugh and quickly turns around and fusses with the coffee maker to hide a flush on her cheeks.

“Is that a no, then?”

She stutters, flustered, and changes the subject. “You know we have a lot of other things here, not just pie.”

“Really?” He cuts a look at his watch, and then, at the clock on the wall behind her. “I had no idea.”

She playfully throws a stack of napkins at him. He casually starts sweeping them up with his huge paws like playing cards. “Don’t you ever get tired of having the same thing all the time?”

He sits up at this and stares at her. Grins big and says, “My grandfather came over from Poland, in the thirties. Just in the nick of time, ya know?”

“Wow. No kidding.”

“Went through Ellis Island, the tired, the poor, the huddled masses, the whole deal. His brother was already here with his wife and kids, so he stayed with them in the Bronx. Now, he didn’t know a lick of English right? So, he asks his brother to teach him how to order at this little diner down the street. Something simple, something American. So he says to him, just say “Apple pie and coffee.” Apple pie and coffee. Okay. All right. So, he goes and he does, he sits down at the counter, the lovely waitress comes over—I imagine not too dissimilar from you—and she says “What can I getya hon’?” and he says, “Apple pie and coffee.” And he sits there, my grandfather, looking around at all the different faces, and hearing all the different languages and accents, and the hustle and bustle on the streets outside and he eats his pie and he drinks his coffee and it’s the best damn thing he’s ever had in his life. Because he’s here, ya know? Fresh start. New life. And so he does this all the time, two three times a week, goes to the diner, sits at the counter, “Apple pie and coffee.” And then one day he says to his brother, in Polish of course, that he’s kinda getting sick of apple pie and coffee and he wants to try something different. So his brother—my great uncle I guess—tells him, “Say, ‘Ham and cheese sandwich.’” Right? So the next time he goes to the diner he’s strutting down the street, probably whistling a tune, and he goes in and sits down and the waitress comes over and says, “The usual?” and he says “No no no. Ham and cheese sandwich please.” Big shit-eating-grin on his face. And she smiles and flips out her little order pad and says “Oh, switching it up are we? Okay then, what kinda bread would you like?” And my dziadek he shakes his head and says, “Ham and cheese sandwich.” And the waitress says, “Sure thing. White bread? Rye?” And do you know what he says to her?”

Mona crosses her arms and smiles and says, “Apple pie and coffee.”

Dean’s mouth falls open. “Apple pie and coffee that’s right. How’d you know that?”

“Because I’ve heard that one before.”

“I told you that story?”

“No, it’s not—That didn’t really happen.”

“What are you talking about it didn’t really happen?”

“Come on, Dean.”

“Come on, what?”

She arches her eyebrows and shakes her head. “That’s not an anecdote. That’s a joke. I knew the punchline because I’ve heard it before. It’s an old immigrant’s joke.”

“The hell are you talking about?”

“Only when I heard it, it was an Italian guy in Brooklyn.”

Dean puts his two big mitts on either side of his head, shocked, or at least feigning it. “I can’t believe this.”

“Oh come on, I can’t be the first girl who didn’t fall for that.” “My whole life has been a lie.”

“It is a good joke though.”

“Why’d you let me tell the whole thing if you knew it already?”

She smiles. Shrugs. “You just told it so good.” He glances at his wristwatch again, and then again above and behind her to the clock on the wall. “You got somewhere to be?”

“I’m sorry?”

“You expecting someone?” In lieu of an answer he gulps the rest of his coffee and then covers the top with his huge palm to stop her filling it back up.

“Dean can I ask you a question?”

“I wish you would.”

“We’ve gotten to be sorta friends right?”

“Is that what you wanted to ask me?”

“No.”

“Okay come on let’s have it.”

“Were you really taken?” He chuckles. “Was I taken?”

“Yeah, you know…”

“You mean like,” he points to the sky.“Is that what everybody says?”

“That’s what everybody says you say.”

He smiles and looks down and begins anxiously stirring the spoon around and around in his empty mug, clinking it on the ceramic. She gently stays his hand with her own.

“No. I wasn’t taken.”

Mona straightens up, hands on her hips. “Well okay then. Good enough for me.” She swipes his mug and spoon and saucer into the bus bin and shakes her head. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that. I feel so silly—”

“It wasn’t for lack of trying though.”

He stares into her eyes and she feels her cheeks flush again. Her heart flutters a little. Whenever she plays that game in her head on the days that Dean comes in, she always picks him. The one she’d run away with.

“You ever think about just going with them? Seeing whatever it is they want to show you?”

He nods.

“It sounds like such an adventure.”

“Maybe.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Same reason you never left this place I imagine.” Her eyes well up. “Why’s that?”

He shrugs. Smiles. “I got kids.”

Mona cries. She isn’t entirely sure why and she doesn’t bother trying to hide it. “Yeah. And they’re all grown up and gone now, and I’ve never even seen a mountain.”

“Would you like to?”

A long silence stretches out between them while she considers his question. Invitation? Then the phone rings. She yelps. Shocked. Dean doesn’t flinch. He cuts his eyes to the clock again.

“Why do you keep checking the time?” RINNNNG! She turns toward the phone.

“Don’t answer that?”

“What? Why—?”

Suddenly the coffee machine gurgles and starts spitting onto the empty hot plate. She fumbles a pot under the hissing stream. The jukebox whirs and lights up at the far end of the room. A song starts blaring.

She used to work at a diner…

“What’s going on?”

An oven timer dings. And dings and dings. The phone rings. Never seen a woman look finer…

“Whattaya say, Mona?”

“What about Carl?”

“They’re not here for Carl.”

“Are you serious?”

“Purse, coat, keys. Now or never.”

As they tear out of the parking lot she looks out at the Hotdish and swears she sees something crouched on the roof. In the sky above them, a jet-black spade the size of a football field follows them silently north.

It begins to snow.

Colliding with the very air she breathes…

The air she breathes.