Winning Dixie Read online

  “Young man, who are you and where is Dixie?”

  “Ma’am.” He gave her a slight bow. “Dixie is doing the cooking this morning. I’m Wade.”

  She tapped her fingers on the plastic-coated menu and eyed him much the same way his third grade teacher had when he was about to get a lecture on deportment.

  Then her eyes widened. “You’re Dixie’s new dishwasher, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Wade Harrison. May I get you some coffee or tea while you decide what you want for breakfast?”

  “We’ll get to that. Tell me why Dixie is in the kitchen. Where is Pops?”

  Small town, Wade thought. Everyone either knew everything about your business, or they were trying their damnedest to find out. Maybe he didn’t mind that as much as he thought he would. The lady was looking out for Dixie. He had to appreciate that.

  “Pops slipped and sprained his ankle in the rain last night, bad enough to have the doctor tell him to stay home and prop it up for a couple of days.”

  “Why, that poor man. I’ll have to take him a casserole this afternoon. You tell Dixie not to worry about feeding him tonight. It will be taken care of.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m sure Pops will appreciate it.”

  “Well, my goodness gracious, where are my manners? You can’t very well tell her I’m taking over a casserole if you don’t know my name, now, can you? Silly me. My name is Ima Trotter, and yes, I’ve heard all the jokes, so don’t waste your time making fun of my name. I worked at the Tribute Post Office from 1952 to 1990. Was postmaster the last thirty years of that. I am now retired.”

  Wade cocked his head. “Postmaster, not postmistress?”

  “Technically, postmistress. However, when you hear the word mistress, young man, what is the first thing you think of?”

  “Ah, yes.” Wade nodded sagely. “I see what you mean.”

  “Precisely. Now, I believe I shall accept your offer of coffee while I decide what to eat.” She opened her menu and peered at it through the bottoms of her thick bifocals.

  “Yes, ma’am. One coffee, coming up. Do you take cream with that?”

  “No, thank you.”

  While Wade picked up a coffee mug and the coffeepot, the boys came into the dining room. Bored, probably, Wade thought. He hadn’t seen any school books, so they wouldn’t have homework to occupy them.

  “Hey, Miz Trotter,” Ben said.

  “Good morning,” the woman said. “How are two of my favorite young men this fine morning?”

  “We’re okay,” Ben said.

  “But Pops hurt his ankle, so he had to stay home,” Tate told her.

  “So I heard. I’m sure he’s not happy about that.”

  “No, ma’am,” Tate said. “He even used bad words.”

  “He did? My, my. I’ll have to have a serious talk with him, don’t you think?”

  “I don’t know,” Tate said. “Mom pretty much let him have it.”

  Wade did his best not to laugh as he placed the mug on the table before her and filled it with coffee. “Do you know what you want yet, or do you need more time?”

  The boys snickered. “How do you like our new waitress?”

  Miz Trotter smiled at the joke.

  Wade scowled and shook his fist in the air. “You want to be nice to the person who’ll be bringing your breakfast to you.”

  “Whoops.” Ben saluted.

  Tate copied the gesture. “Yes, sir. This is us being nice.”

  “Shoo. Go work on your multiplication tables.”

  “No way! We don’t have any homework.”

  “So you can’t get better at what you barely know unless somebody forces you? Don’t you practice batting, even if there’s no game?”

  “But that’s baseball,” Ben said indignantly, “not multiplication.”

  “How do you figure out a player’s earned-run average?”

  “You read it in the paper or wait for the announcer at the game to tell you what it is.”

  “What if it’s your ERA. How do you know the announcer got it right?”

  “Neither one of us is a pitcher, so we can’t have an ERA.”

  “So what? You’ve got at least one pitcher on your team. Well,” Wade added, ruffling Tate’s hair. “You will have next year.”

  He had them thinking now. On the way back to their booth in the banquet room they made a bet as to who could figure out an ERA first.

  “That was nicely done,” Miz Trotter said.

  “Thanks,” he said. “They’re really something, aren’t they?”

  “That they are. It was a real shame about their father. He might not have had much ambition, unless it was for the rodeo, but that Jimmy Don did dearly love his sons. Now, as for my breakfast, I’ll have two eggs over easy with bacon, and on a separate plate, a pecan waffle with heated syrup. And I’ll take a small orange juice with that.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Wade wrote as fast as he could on his order pad. By the time he got the order turned in to Dixie she had the boys’ breakfast ready. While he delivered those, three more customers entered the diner.

  Time to get to work, in earnest.

  During the course of the day Wade solemnly and repeatedly vowed to be considerably more generous with his tips in the future. God, what a job.

  Everyone was nice to him, cut him plenty of slack when he didn’t do things just the way Dixie would have, or if he got an order wrong, which, thankfully, he only did twice.

  He and Dixie worked well together, if he did say so himself. She seemed to have no trouble figuring out what he wrote, only having to ask him a couple of questions. When she called that an order was ready, she told him if any side garnishes needed to be added, and he added them himself.

  Around 10:30 a.m. there was a lull, with the breakfast crowd cleared out and the lunch crowd not yet there. They caught a breather. Wade finished busing the last of the tables, then rinsed off a load of dishes and started them through the dishwasher.

  “I could have done that,” Dixie protested.

  “So could I. So I did. How are you holding up back here?”

  “I was going to ask you the same question.” She pressed her hands to the small of her back and arched. “Standing in one place is harder than walking around all day.”

  “Here.” He wiped his hands on a towel, then pushed her hands away and gripped her waist.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Be still.” With his thumbs, he dug into the knotted muscles on either side of her spine.

  “Oh.” Then she let out a long, low moan. “Oh, yeah. That feels…wonderful.”

  “At Dixie’s Diner, we aim to please. Mmm. You smell…delicious.”

  Dixie chuckled. “You must be hungry. I smell like bacon. Oh, God, that feels good. We should open a massage parlor in the back room and put you to work in there. With those hands of yours, we’d both make a fortune.”

  “You think so?” He moved up her back and went to work on her shoulders. “You’re tight up here.” He massaged the back of her neck and up into her scalp. Her head fell back until he was supporting its weight in his hands.

  “I’m not used to slaving over a hot stove all morning.”

  “I’d offer to trade jobs with you, but so far I don’t think we’ve done any permanent damage to your business or your clientele. If I cook, I don’t think we’ll be able to say the same. That’d be a shame, because so far I like your clientele.”

  “Yeah, I know. You just like it better out front where you can flirt with all the ladies.”

  “We’re getting to know each other,” he said cryptically. “Speaking of ladies,” he added, “I’m supposed to tell you that Miz Ima Don’t-Make-Fun-of-My-Name Trotter will be taking a casserole to Pops this afternoon, so you’re not to worry about him sitting home all alone and starving to death.”

  “My, my,” Dixie said. “You really are getting to know the ladies, aren’t you?”

  He trailed his fingers down her back, then poked
them in her ribs. She flinched, jerked away and shrieked with laughter.

  “Now I know where Tate gets his ticklishness from.”

  “Watch it, buster.”

  Laughing, he let her go. “I’ll have you know that I’m also getting to know the men, too.” He shook his head as if in sorrow. “I’m sorry to say, they don’t like me as well as the ladies do.”

  “Is that so?” She held a spatula out to ward him off as she circled around him to get back to the grill.

  “Yes, indeed. How was it the man from the hardware store, Frank, I think he said his name was, put it? Something about…oh, yes. My butt’s not as cute as yours.”

  Dixie’s eyes widened in outrage. “Frank Schmidt’s been ogling my butt?”

  “I have to tell you, being told I’m not as attractive as someone else hurt my feelings.”

  “Frank Schmidt,” she screeched toward the open order window, “has been looking at my butt? Where is that dirty old man?” She started toward the door, spatula held aloft like a bat. “Is he still here?”

  Wade was laughing so hard he barely caught her before she stormed out into the dining room to wreak havoc on sixty-year-old Frank Schmidt.

  “Now, hold on,” he told her, still laughing. “Take it easy. You can’t go out there and beat up a paying customer. Besides, the poor guy’s half-blind, anyway.”

  The bell over the front door dinged, announcing the arrival of a new customer.

  “Hmph.” Dixie sniffed and gave him a shove. “Back to work, waitress.”

  If breakfast had been busy, lunch sent Wade and Dixie reeling. A good dozen people came in just for coffee or a slice of pie, so they could check out the new “waitress” they’d heard about from friends who’d been in for breakfast.

  That part of the lunch trade was all in good fun, but it sure added extra work for Wade, serving drinks, refilling them, cleaning up the tables afterward.

  But the real lunch trade, the people who came in for a meal, was slightly more work than the breakfast crowd. At lunch the orders were more varied and sometimes trickier. Everyone wanted substitutions. Mustard instead of mayonnaise, toasted rather than plain. Baked potato instead of fries. Oops. No baked potatoes until after five.

  It was like running a marathon. He guessed. He’d never run a marathon. But he’d gone several miles at a stretch, and this was damn near as taxing.

  But he was gratified by everyone’s concern for Dixie’s whereabouts and Pops’s injury.

  At the same time, he knew the clock was ticking. Washing dishes kept him pretty much hidden from most of the customers. Now he was out among them, talking to them, serving them their food. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that the next person through that door would recognize him.

  He had to tell Dixie the truth, and soon. Or decide not to tell her at all.

  Telling her would presume that she wanted to know. It would surely dredge up old sorrow over Jimmy Don’s death. Yet not telling her at all felt sneaky and underhanded and somehow dishonest.

  And there was still the matter of leaving behind some way for Ben and Tate to know that their father was a hero.

  To top it all off, when he left, Dixie was going to have to hire a new dishwasher.

  “You’re not Dixie,” the man at table three said when Wade took him a menu and glass of ice water. “And I’ll bet you’ve been hearing that all day.”

  Wade smiled. “That I have. I’m Wade, the dishwasher,” he explained for what must have been the zillionth time. “Pops is home with his sprained ankle propped up, and Dixie’s manning the stove. That leaves me to be your server.”

  “I’d heard Dixie had hired someone from out of town. That must be you.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with the grapevine in this town.”

  “Not a thing. Welcome to Tribute.” The man stuck out his hand for a shake. “I’m Bill Gray, with the Tribute Banner.”

  Wade shook his hand and smiled. “William Henley Gray. I recognize your name. That was an interesting editorial last week about Homeland Security. You should send a copy of it to your U.S. senators and representatives to let them know how you feel, and that you’re not the only one who feels that way.”

  A light gleamed in Bill Gray’s eyes. “Did that very thing last week.” He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. “Forgive me, but could we have met somewhere before? You look familiar.”

  Here it comes, Wade thought, tensing. The end of his anonymity. But he spoke the truth when he answered. “I’ve been around for a couple of weeks. I walk around town a lot, for exercise. Go to some of the Little League games to watch Dixie’s kids play. Maybe we’ve run into each other. I’ll be back in a couple of minutes to take your order. Unless you already know what you want?”

  Gray studied him a moment longer, then shook his head. “It’ll come to me, where I’ve seen you before.”

  I hope not, Wade thought, trying not to let his wariness show.

  “As for my order,” Gray said, “I’ll have the grilled chicken salad with ranch dressing and Texas toast. And iced tea.”

  “I’ll have that out to you in a few minutes.”

  By two o’clock the bulk of the lunch crowd was gone. Wade stood in the front window, hands on his hips and shook his head. By all rights there should be a huge crowd out there, their backs to him as they dispersed around town after their lunch at Dixie’s Diner.

  Not a pedestrian in sight, and very few cars.

  Oh, look, an old gray panel truck pulled in at the gas station across the street. Traffic!

  He hoped, and was ashamed of himself for it, that they didn’t want to eat.

  He was turning back to face all the dirty dishes scattered over nearly every table, when a man stepped out of the panel truck. It was the man who had come in the other day looking for work.

  Here, then, might be the answer to one of his dilemmas.

  He started to yell to Dixie that he would be right back, but there were still two customers, one at table six finishing off the last of his pecan pie, and the other at booth four drinking coffee and working a crossword puzzle.

  Wade stuck his head in the kitchen. “That man who was looking for a job the other day is across the street. Do you want me to run over there and see if he’s interested in helping us out?”

  With her forearm, she wiped the perspiration off her brow and peered through the order window at the tables beyond. At the mess beyond. Then she looked around the kitchen, which looked as if a Texas tornado had struck.

  “Oh, yeah,” she agreed. “Just be sure and tell him it’s temporary, okay? I wouldn’t want to get his hopes up.”

  “Gotcha.”

  Feeling guilty as sin, because he knew she was going to need permanent help soon, Wade headed for the front door. On his way out, he called to the two customers, “I’ll be right back. If you need anything, Dixie’s in the kitchen.”

  He felt foolish looking both ways for traffic on a street that saw maybe a dozen cars an hour. Hell, compared to Manhattan, Main Street in Tribute, Texas, was a vacant field. Still, he would feel even more foolish to step out and get creamed by a housewife on her way to the grocery store. So, he looked both ways. Then dashed across the street.

  The man pumping gas into the panel truck saw him coming and suddenly looked uneasy, darting his eyes back and forth, turning slightly away as if he hadn’t seen Wade.

  Illegal, Wade guessed. No green card.

  They could sort that out later. After the dishes were washed.

  “Pardon me, sir, but you came into the café the other day looking for work, didn’t you?”

  “Sí. I was looking for work there.”

  “Do you still need work?”

  “Me? No, señor, I am now employed at the construction company down the street. I start there today.”

  “Oh, well, good for you. The pay’s a lot better there, I’m sure.”

  “You need help, señor?”

  “Yes, we need help. Thanks for—”


  “Señor, excuse, por favor. My son, he is nineteen. He needs work.”

  Wade’s hopes perked up. “Where is he?”

  The man banged on the side of the truck and yelled in Spanish for his son to come out. A moment later the back door of the van opened and a medium-height young man with the coal-black hair and dark brown eyes of his father stepped out.

  “¿Sí, padre?”

  “This man, he has work for you.”

  “For me?” The boy’s eyes lit up with excitement. “What kind of work?” he asked Wade.

  “Across the street, at the diner. Busing tables, washing dishes, pushing the occasional mop or broom. Are you interested?”

  “Yes, I am interested. When can I start?”

  “Right now, if you want. You’ll only work a few hours today, but tomorrow we’ll need you all day.”

  The teenager looked at his father. The man eyed Wade a long moment, then glanced at the diner. “Are you the boss?” the man asked.

  “No. The boss is the woman you spoke with the other day. Dixie McCormick.”

  “I remember. She seemed like a nice lady.”

  “She’s a very nice lady.”

  Finally the man gave the nod to his son. “You go straight back to our rooms when you’re finished for the day. Tu madre, she will be looking for you.”

  “Yes, sir.” The boy turned to Wade. “I am ready now.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  Dixie gathered the potatoes and carrots she would need for the roast she was going to put in the oven before she left. Then she took out a clove of garlic and instant onion flakes. This was one of the few instances when the dried worked better than the fresh. She placed everything in the roasting pan and set it aside. It was too early to start cooking dinner.

  As long as this lull in business held, she would clean up after herself. She had spilled flour all over the cutting board and the floor, and then there was the splattered grease. She looked around and frowned. The kitchen never looked this messy when Pops cooked.

  But if she told him that, his head would swell so big he wouldn’t be able to wear that twenty-year-old Stetson he refused to replace.

  And speaking of cleaning up, how long was Wade going to be gone? She checked her watch.