Theo wiped down the lunch counter, grumbling to himself. Helen had called in sick, and he was stuck playing waitress for the day. He looked up when Greta walked in, her hair slightly curled and damp at the edges as she walked in from the humid outdoors.
“How ya doing, Greta?” he greeted.
“Hi, Theo.”
She sat down at the counter and he handed her a menu.
“Late lunch, huh?”
“Um, yes, I have some things to do today,” Greta said. She looked over the lunch specials. “I think that I’ll just have the minestrone soup.”
He might be wrinkled, brusque and demanding, but he had a soft spot for Greta. He’d known since she was little, when she and her mother would come in the after mass on Sundays. She’d acted the perfect little lady, demure and almost afraid to speak in the presence of her mother. Her mother didn’t like him, he knew, but he didn’t give a hoot’s ass what she thought. To him she was a stuck-up snob and he didn’t like how she treated her daughter.
He poured Greta a cup of coffee, setting a fresh container of cream next to her. She was a big coffee drinker. Maybe she needed to cut back a little, seeing as she was already the nervous type.
“You make the best coffee, Theo.”
“Yeah, I know – you say that every time you come in.”
“It’s true. So, what’s your secret?”
“And you ask me that every time, too.”
They laughed over their standing joke.
“Alright, I’ll tell ya.” He leaned over and whispered in her ear. “The secret is — a little salt in the coffee grinds.”
Greta’s eyes widened. “Really?”
He leaned back and winked at her. “Don’t you give away my secret, you hear?”
The cook slammed on the order bell and Theo shuffled over to deliver lunch to the couple at the table near the window. Greta sat at the counter, a dreamy look on her face, the same look she’d get when she would come in with her Aunt Rosa. She was more relaxed when with her aunt; she’d ask if she could help him, and he would let her play hostess, chatting with the customers and seating them.
“Theo, do you know the auto shop down the street – Richie’s Auto Repair?” she asked hesitantly.
“Richie’s Auto Repair?” he repeated. He looked up at the ceiling, tapping his finger against his chin. “Richie’s – that’s the shop that works on a lot of old cars – that’s Richard Braun’s place.” He looked back at her with a piercing look. “You don’t drive, Greta – are you or your mother thinking about buying a car or something?”
Greta laughed nervously. “No, I just wondered if you knew the shop.”
“Richie’s a good guy,” he said. “He has a couple guys working for him.” He refilled her coffee and poured himself a cup, then came around the counter to sit next to her. “He’s been in business a long time,” he mused. “Years back he was one of the mechanics for the Family.”
He paused and took a swallow. Greta watched him, waiting for him to continue the story.
“Finally he told them he was getting too old to do the work and quit. Good thing, because if he hadna done that, he would’ve never gotten out. You know what I mean?”
Greta nodded.
“So, anyway, he started working with one of the chain shops, Texaco or Esso, I think. Couple of years later, he quit there and opened up his own place. Figured he’d get plenty of customers here, seeing as we got a lot of old cars in this town.”
“Did he work on your car?”
“Hell, yes,” he said, wheezing a little as he let out a big laugh. “When I had my ”62 Impala, Richie was the only guy I’d let under her hood.” He sobered. “But I got rid of that car years ago. Too old to drive now.”
“You’re not that old,” she protested.
Theo snorted. “Nice try, Greta. I’ve known you since you were what, eight? Now here you are, all grown up and I’ll be 75 my next birthday.”
Greta was quiet for a moment. “So, who works for him?”
He tapped his finger against his grizzled chin. “Let’s see, there’s the part-timers, Greg and Larry. They’re old timers, like me. Been around almost as long as I have.” He chuckled. “Then he has that new kid, Nick. Been working there for about a year now.”
Did her eyes brighten at the mention of the young man? He remembered her liking some boy when she was in high school, and how Lillian had squashed the whole thing. Greta was different after that, was quieter and kept to herself more.
The cook pounded on the bell again.
“Gettin’ too old for this,” he mumbled as he got up to retrieve Greta’s order. He set the bowl down before her. “You know,” he said, “Richie’s been pulling in a lot more business since he hired Nick. The kid knows a lot about cars, plus he’s good with the customers, especially the female ones.”
Her cheeks bloomed crimson, confirming his suspicions. “But he doesn’t seem to be interested in any of the girls who come ogling him. He seems to like the more quiet type.” He fixed an intense gaze on her face. “You’re probably more his type.”
Greta looked down into her bowl, her blush deepening.
Theo chuckled and got up to tend to his other customers, leaving Greta to her embarrassment.
“Well, I have to go now,” Greta called out. “Can I have the bill?”
Theo waved her away. “It’s on the house. Go on and enjoy your afternoon.” He smiled as she fled out the door, a spring to her step that wasn’t there before.
***
In the office of Richie’s Auto Repair, Richard tended to the coffee machine. He poured the old coffee into the sink, then added fresh water to the coffee pot. He threw the old filter of grinds in the trash bin and added a new fresh filter, scooping coffee into the new one. He always added a little extra because he needed that extra kick in order to get through the work day. Already lined up were three cars that needed work, and he hadn’t even had his first cup of coffee.
He headed into the shop carrying two mugs of coffee, handing one to Nick before sitting down on one of the stools at the work table. Nick came over to sit with him.
“I met a girl,” the younger man said.
Richard raised a brow as he scrutinized his employee. “I see,” he said, blowing gently into his cup before he took a sip.
He was fond of Nick, and treated him like the son that he never had. Nick did not socialize much, and Richard figured it had to do with something that had happened before he moved to the town. Nick had finally confided that he’d had a sister, but she had died long ago. He’d clammed up after that, and Richard didn’t press him any further.
Nick was a good looking kid, and received quite a few stares from women bringing in their cars to the shop, or from the teen-aged girls coming from school in the afternoons, walking past in small groups, huddling and giggling when they saw him. But Nick never seemed to notice. For him to bring up the subject of a girl, meant that she’d made quite an impression on him. He knew Nick well enough to know that he wanted to talk.
“You planning on seeing her again?”
Nick thought for a moment. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “She might not be interested.”
Richard furrowed his brows, waiting for an explanation.
Nick raised his hands in protest. “Not that it’s anything wrong. It’s just that we met under … unusual circumstances. Plus, it was at night and she might not remember what I look like.” Nick stopped talking, as if aware of how ridiculous he sounded. His cheeks burned bright red and he looked down, busying himself with his cup of coffee.
Richard chuckled and got up to throw away his coffee cup. “What did you do, attack her or something?”
Nick did not smile. “No.” He turned to look at Richard, a strange look on his face. “She was being … attacked and I chased the guys off.”
Richard turned sober. “Whoa,” he said slowly as he returned Nick’s gaze.
“Yeah, so then I helped her get home,” Nick continued. “Her and her little dog. Cute thing.”
“The dog or the girl?”
Nick rolled his eyes. “I was talking about the dog.”
“I thought we were talking about the girl.”
Nick laughed. “Yeah, I thought we were too.”
Richard slid under the car, hammering away at the rusted exhaust pipe to remove it from the car, and Nick returned to his own car, bending over the hood as he pulled out a few of the hoses leading to the carburetor.
“So, is she?”
At the sound of Richard’s voice, Nick glanced over to where he was laid out under the car he was working on.
“Huh?”
“Is she cute?”
Nick stared at Richard in surprise.
“Yeah,” he said absently. “I mean, she’s not pretty, and she seemed kind of shy, but she had a nice way about her.” He pulled another hose from under the hood, and discarded it in the waste bin next to the worktable. He reached up to the top shelves surrounding the perimeter of the shop walls, pulling down a couple of boxes of hoses. He pulled one tube out and picked up a knife and cut the hose in half.
“And her dog liked me, too,” he added, picking up a smoother and proceeded to shave the hose down to fit the coupling.
Richard chuckled from beneath the car.
“So, why don’t you ask her out?”
For several minutes there was no answer from Nick as he concentrated on ironing out the kinks in the hosing that he was working on.
“I would if I knew how to get in touch with her.”
“Didn’t you walk her home?”
Nick was silent for a moment. “I know what street she lives on. But we stopped before we got to her house, I think. I mean, she did not really know me except that I saved her from those assholes.”
More silence as both men worked. Finally, Richard came out from under his car and stood up, stretching his legs to get the blood flowing. He went over to the coffee machine.
“Hey, you want a cup, Nick?” he called over.
“Sure,” Nick replied, not pausing in the work that he was doing. He finished installing the first hose, then put his tools aside and went to the sink to wash his hands. Then he came back over to where Richard was sitting and sat down beside him, picking up his cup of coffee.
“Have you heard this one?” Richard asked. It was a habit for Richard to tell Nick some long obscure joke and wait for him to get the punch line, which he usually did after a few moments. The two of them would sit there cackling like two old hens over the stupid jokes that Richard seemed to pull out of nowhere.
“Once there was an Irishman who married a Ukrainian girl, and he was crazy about her mother’s cooking. The girl used to make him a special soup that he absolutely loved, but when he would ask her what she put in it, she would say that it was a secret ingredient. She called it czarnina. Well, one day he was talking to one of his buddies at work who also happened to be Ukrainian, and he told him about the czarnina that his wife would make, but that she would never tell him what was in the soup. His buddy explained to him that the “czarnina” meant duck blood soup in Ukraine. When he learned the truth about czarnina, the shock was severe. He went to his priest to ask if he had done something wrong by eating the duck blood soup. The priest told him that as long as the blood was from a duck and not a Protestant, it was OK.”
Nick listened, puzzled for a moment before he laughed, Richard joining him in laughter. Then Richard gazed at Nick.
“So, what are you going to do about this girl of yours?”
Nick almost choked on his coffee. He gulped down a mouthful of coffee as he looked over at Richard. He shouldn’t have been surprised that Richard had no intention of letting the subject rest.
“Don’t choke there, buddy,” Richard murmured as he gazed at Nick, sipping on his own cup.
When Nick could talk again, he answered in a monotone. “I don’t know.”
Richard smiled. “I tell you what you can do,” he said. “You know where she lives, right? Or at least, you know what block she lives on. So I say that you go on over there to that block and wait around on the corner where you dropped her off, and wait around until she comes home.”
Nick laughed. “Yeah? Then she’ll really think I am some idiot, or worse, that I am stalking her.”
“Nah,” Richard said. “She will probably think that you are just checking to make sure those guys aren’t around to bother her.”
Nick pondered on it, turning to stare out the shop window. He watched the people passing by in the street. He eyes widened when his eyes fell upon Greta on the other side of the street and he jumped up from the stool.
“What’s wrong?” Richard asked worried. Nick was not the type to move so quickly.
“There she is!” Nick sped to the shop door and flung it open, stepping outside into the bright sun.
“Greta!” he called.
Greta looked up at hearing her name and looked around, her eyes coming to rest upon Nick. Her face broke into a smile that warmed his heart.
