Page 10 of Monster Diner

As soon as she’d stepped into the office where Victor had now abandoned her, the scent of her dad’s cologne hit her like a visceral gut punch of grief and nostalgia. That was the best explanation she had for why she’d even heard Victor out. She was a fool to even consider his offer. A smarter woman would have stormed out of the place, sought a lawyer, and attempted to fight for ownership of the diner. But for one, she didn’t have lawyer money. She was flat broke and technically in the negative if you counted her looming credit card bills. And second, she didn’t want the diner enough to fight for it. In the rush to start over, she’d done what she always did—She’d jumped onto the next thing without fully thinking it through or looking back. The same way she’d jumped from boyfriend to boyfriend, job to job. Like the bad decisions before them, selling the diner and house seemed like it would solve all her problems. Clearly it would not.

Which raised the question, what next?

Her instinct was to run, but it was those same impulses that had led her here to this moment. Single, fired, and standing in her dead dad’s office. So, by that logic, she should slow down and really consider her options. She looked around the room. The space was cluttered, just like how she remembered it. There were old, framed clippings from the local newspaper hanging on the wall, depicting the restaurant’s opening. Next to them was a faded black-and-white photo of Frank Sr. with his arm around Frank Jr. She had a distinct memory of staring at it while doing her homework as a kid. Growing up, she practically lived at the diner. Frank Jr. worked the flat top, and Mom waited tables. Rather than be alone in their big empty house, Lizzy would hang around to be closer to them.

She sank down into Frank’s chair. It was an old, worn-in leather chair, a bit faded but surprisingly comfortable. Much better than the stiff plastic ergonomic ones she’d used at work. She spun side to side, swaying in place, remembering doing something similar as a kid, when she could have pulled up her knees and spun around until she was sick. With a sigh, she glanced over at the single framed photo on the desk. She was nine or ten in it, gap-toothed with twin braids, wearing a pink frilly dress and proudly holding up her spelling-bee competition trophy. Behind her, Frank Jr. was beaming in a way that was rarely caught on camera, or in life. Mom must have taken the picture because she was nowhere in view.

Lizzy picked it up and ran her finger over her chubby cheeks, but her eyes lingered on Frank Jr.’s smile. She remembered that day, but didn’t remember him smiling. He rarely smiled. All she recalled was him giving her a firm nod and a “You’re a smart cookie” when she fished for compliments.

Lizzy set the frame back down on the desk, eyes misting over. She’d been in such a rush to get here that she hadn’t even called her mom and broken the news. Her mom and Frank Jr. had divorced over twenty years prior, but she deserved to know he’d passed. Lizzy pulled her phone out of her pocket and scrolled to her mom’s contact page but hesitated to press call.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to deliver bad news—though she really hated it. But she’d also have to tell her mom that she and Steven broke up, which would lead to telling her he was cheating and her mom telling her “I told you so.” And Lizzy would feel worse than she already did. She suspected she knew what her mom’s advice would be too. Come home, we’ll figure it out. Pumpkin Hollow isn’t for you.

She set the phone down on the desk, and her gaze skimmed over to a piece of paper at the top of a pile. It was a schedule sheet with a sticky note attached noting everyone’s schedule limitations—kids, vampirism, full moon. Judging from the blank spaces and the thick layers of Wite-Out on the page, Victor had been trying and failing to accommodate everyone. Lizzy loved puzzles, and looking at the schedule reminded her of sudoku or a similar fill-in-the-blank type puzzle. She studied it for a few minutes and then wrote down a couple names, cross-checked limitations and nodded to herself, satisfied. There was a gap in the overnight schedule, however. There simply weren’t enough employees to fill all the slots. Because they’d lost Frank, she realized sadly. He would have worked those empty slots, and that was most likely what he’d wanted her to do. She sighed and pulled a fresh sticky note off the pad and scribbled a quick note for Victor in case he thought she was overstepping. But she was part owner of the diner, and it did seem he’d been struggling to make a schedule that kept everyone happy. Those gaps would keep nagging at her, though.

Rather than think about things that were decidedly not her business, she decided to do the hard thing and call her mom. She picked up the phone and dialed before she could chicken out again. Lizzy hit the call button, and her mom picked up after a few rings, breathless.

“Hi, sweetie, just on my walk with the girls. Say hi.”

Mom had a group of ladies in her neighborhood who met up daily. She said the community and activity kept her “young” and she’d outlive everyone, even Lizzy.

Lizzy didn’t doubt it with the stress she was under. She aspired to have her mom’s lifestyle. Her mom never doubted herself; she had every moment of her life planned out to a T.

“Hi, ladies,” Lizzy said.

The women in her mother’s friend group greeted her warmly, their voices overlapping one another to form an indistinguishable cacophony.

One voice broke through the rest. “That boy ask you to marry him yet? You’re not getting any younger.”

“Goddess, I hope not. He didn’t, did he?” her mother asked, panic creeping into her voice.

Lizzy fidgeted in her seat, swinging side to side. She couldn’t read her mom’s mood through the phone, and she’d hate to deliver double bad news without being able to gauge her feelings. Though, the breakup would be good news to her.

“No. He didn’t,” Lizzy said flatly. She felt the wave of numbness threatening to consume her once more, pulling her down into a dark pool of unfeeling. It was rather comforting.

“Good. You can do so much better. I emailed you about those online courses. Did you take a look?”

Lizzy had, in fact, not. The idea of going back to school overwhelmed her. Starting over at college in her forties, like her mom had done after divorcing her dad, wasn’t part of her life plan, but then again, she didn’t really have a life plan.

“Is now a bad time?” Lizzy asked, cutting off her mom’s tirade before it started. And right now, she didn’t want to hash out her mistakes and wasted potential with her mom.

“No, not at all—What’s that…?”

Lizzy heard a few muffled words from her mom’s companion, and then her mom laughed.

“Sorry, sweetie, Brenda was telling me about her neighbor who she’s been fighting with over the garbage cans. Anyway, what did you call about?”

She looked down at the picture on the table and then to the schedule with its gaps. She didn’t know what she wanted, and her mom would only pressure her to do what she thought best. What if she stayed, just for a little while until she figured herself out?

“You still there, sweetie?”

“Yeah. Sorry. I’ll call you back later when you’re not with friends.” Her voice cracked a bit.

“Ok. Love you, talk later.” Her mom hung up.

Lizzy sat for a moment in the silent office, staring at the schedule sheet. Then she dragged it over to her and wrote her name onto it, filling in the leftover shifts, including overnights, just as a gentle knock came from the door. She stood up and found Victor filling the doorway. His apron was splattered with grease, and there was a bit of flour smudged on his face.

“I hate to ask this, but could you help take some orders? We’re absolutely slammed.”