Clara didn't need to be asked twice. She looked me straight in the face for a moment, as if my resume and character references were written around my eyes. Then she said, "Okay, come on in."

"You ever been a short-order cook before, little lady?" she asked me.

"Yes," I said truthfully, and lying added, "My uncle owned a diner down in Red Bluff, California." There was no way I could tell her my real experience. "How many breakfasts do you serve, on average?"

"About 150," she replied.

"Really!" I exclaimed.

"Yep," she affirmed. "Most of that's take-out: coffees, muffins, breakfast sandwiches. The muffins and stuff get delivered, but you'll need to keep a row of the breakfast sandwiches going."

"Okay," I said, scanning the menu. "We'll have to— wait, let me have a look in the kitchen."

I ran in the back, found a hairnet, washed my hands, and took a quick inventory.

"Clara," I called, "We have to skip the oatmeal today. There's no time to cook it. We'll serve Cream of Wheat, and for a quarter extra they can have an egg blended in."

"Okay," she agreed as she bustled around, making coffee, getting ready.

"Hey," I called, more softly this time, "I won't let you down, Clara, don't worry. I've done this before."

"Hey yourself," she called back, without looking up. "For today, you just need to be better than nothing. I'm not thinking past the morning rush."
 

At first I felt a bit awkward. My reach wasn't as long as it used to be, and I wasn't as tall or strong as I used to be. Once I started moving, though, it all came back to me, and by the height of the morning rush, I was a breakfast-making machine. The pancakes were light and perfectly brown, the toast was golden and hot, the eggs were fluffy and not oily, the hashbrowns were crispy and full of flavor, and... the Cream of Wheat sold well enough, though the hard-core oatmeal crowd complained.

"That was the *only* complaint," Clara told me. "Tomorrow there's got to be oatmeal."

"Tomorrow?" I repeated. "Does that mean you want me to come back?"

"I want you to do lunch, if you're up for it," she said with a smile.

"Sure!" I said. "I love this kind of work."

"I can see that," she said. "You're very enthusiastic."

"I have to tell you, though, I can't promise to stay for long. I can help you out until you get a real cook hired..."

"That's fine," she said. "I'm not going to be here for long, either. Jeff's going to have to step up, because I'm going to be stepping off."

"Good for you," I told her.

"Here," she said, shoving a small pile of dollars into my hand. I looked down and saw several twenties. "That's yours."

"Oh," I said. "I didn't do this for money. I was just helping you out."

"Hey," she countered. "It's not *my* money! Do you get what I'm saying? You take it!"

"Oh, right. It's Jeff's money. I got it."

"Yeah, you got it and you keep it. You're not going to need a W-2, are you?"

"No," I said, smiling. "Cash is fine. Cash is king."

"Okay," she said. "Are you up for lunch? Do you know how to make soup?"
 

After looking over the supplies a second time, I decided to make minestrone. After chopping the vegies, I sauteed them. Next, I stirred in some white beans and chopped tomatoes. After that mixture had cooked for a bit, I added the pasta, stirred it around to get the pasta hot, and then covered it all with stock. Later, I added salt, pepper and a few other seasonings.

"Smells good!" Clara called. "Can I have a bowl?" I also gave a big bowl to the kid who came to wash dishes and pots. They both loved it.

"Clara," I said. "After lunch, after cleanup, I’m going to go. I’m not going to work all day."

"Neither am I, hon," she agreed. "I talked to Jeff. He’s coming and he’s bringing his mamma. They will cover the evening shift." She shook her head. "His mother is a trip and a half." She rolled her eyes for emphasis. "Anyway, Jeff wants to meet you. He’d like you to come by and have dinner with him here at about nine o'clock, if you can wait that long."

"Yeah, that’s fine," I said.

"Just don’t let him push you around," Clara admonished, and then the two of us worked out our game plan.
 

Lunch was busier than breakfast. Lots of take-out. Still, it wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen before. Breakfast comes as a series of big waves, but lunch is an explosion, all at once. I’d asked Clara what the big sellers were, and got pretty well set up before anyone arrived.

I was amazed by how quickly the soup went, but I had to attribute that to the previous cook’s efforts.

Somewhere around 12:30, Desiree — one of the five women I’d seen my first night here — came to the window and asked for a big container of soup. I had a few ready, so I handed one out to her.

She looked at it as if I’d given her the wrong thing. She picked it up, tilted it, and looked at it sideways. Then she looked back at me with an expression like What’s going on? Is this a joke?

"Something wrong?" I asked. "Do you not like minestrone?"

Desiree shook her head. "It’s not blended," she complained.

"Blended?" I asked. "Blended with what?"

That confused her. I could see she didn’t know how to respond, but I had no idea what she wanted.

"Do you want some cream blended in?" I asked. "Or grated cheese?"

Her jaw dropped open. Her confusion deepened. "No," she said. "I just want it blended." She stressed the word, as if that would make its meaning clearer.

Clara noticed the discussion and came over to help. "She wants it blended," she explained. "You know, in the blender." She made a horizontal circular motion with her finger.

"Ohhh!" I cried, the light finally dawning. "You want it pureed!"

"Oh, pure—aid!" Desiree responded tartly, "Excuse me for not being all hoity-toity with my vocabulary. Unlike you, I didn’t go to high school at the Sorbonne."

"Come on," I said, "I’m sorry. It’s just that blended means something else."

"Mmm," she replied in a voice laden with sarcasm, "I’m so sure."

"Alright," I said, grabbing the soup. "One blended soup, coming right up."

"Excuse me, young lady," Desiree said with exaggerated politeness, "the correct term is pureed."

The three of us laughed, and the tension was broken.
 

Lunch went well. There were a few complaints, due mainly to people expecting Andy’s food and getting mine instead, but there was nothing serious. I sent the plates back with the adjustments they requested, and all was well. Once again, Clara gave me a handful of cash. I left with a takeout container and a cup of coffee. Back in my room I drank the coffee, which made me warm and sleepy, and then I slept deeply for a few hours.

When I woke, I suddenly remembered Arrow. I needed to check in with him, or he’d be heading out here, racing to my rescue. So I called and filled him in.

"Good work," he commented. "You’ve infiltrated their hangout."

"Yeah, I guess so," I agreed.

"Have you charged the GPS?" he asked.

"Oh, yes," I assured him. "All night long."

After I hung up, of course, I plugged in the charger and attached the GPS.

Then I sat down and attacked my meal of Greek salad and onion rings. It tasted pretty good.

It suddenly struck me, as I was wiping some oil off my fingers, that the fears of last night were gone. Utterly gone. From the moment I woke to Andy and Clara’s argument until now, I’d forgotten all about them. Maybe all the activity drove the crazies out. Maybe it was because I'd stepped up to help Clara. Thinking about other people is a good way to feel better. Then again, it could be something as simple as getting some sleep. I didn’t know what cured me, but I wasn't going to wrack my brain over it. It was enough to know that I wasn’t afraid or uncertain any more.

Well, maybe not any more. The feelings could easily come back, but at the moment I felt fine. I knew I was Dexie, or Fred-in-Dexie. I wasn’t hallucinating any of this.

I left the hotel and took a walk. I walked for an hour, around and around the blocks near the hotel and the Happy Place. It was a fairly industrial part of town. There weren’t many stores or people about. Still, it was good to move, to get out.

That evening, I watched TV, watched the diner, and was pretty thoroughly bored.

At nine I went down and met Jeff and his mother at the diner. It went exactly as Clara predicted: he tried to make me feel badly about not working the whole day. "You let me down," he said.

"Exactly how did I let you down?" I asked him. "By cooking breakfast and lunch? Is that how I let you down? If that’s what you mean, I won’t offend you by doing it tomorrow. I can stay away, if I’m not wanted."

We argued back and forth for twenty minutes. I’m sure he was surprised that such a young girl held her ground against him, but I had nothing at all to lose. He offered me an insulting low daily wage, since (as he said) I was "just starting out and learning the ropes."

I replied that I already had an agreement with Clara, and that if he didn’t like it, I could go.

In the end he gave in, and left it all up to Clara. He knew he was losing her, but he was obviously very lazy, so he was going to let things go until Clara left.
 

The next day, breakfast and lunch ran about the same as Monday, except that I had the oatmeal ready, and the soup was a country chicken stew.

Near the middle of lunch, Desiree came to the window for the usual container of soup. I had it ready prepared, and handed it up to her saying, "I blended it for you this time."

She responded, "Don’t make fun of me. I didn’t graduate high school. I do the best I can. I’m not stupid."

"I’m sorry," I told her, taken aback. "I wasn’t trying to make fun."

"I don’t use fancy words. I don’t talk nice, the way you do. I’ve had to come up the hard way."

"I’m sorry, Desiree. I was just trying to be friendly."

"Hmmph," she grunted, sounding dubious. Her eye caught a fat drip of soup, rolling slowly down the outside of the container. Quickly, I grabbed the plastic bin and wiped it clean.

"Didn’t you take the soup yesterday?" I asked, in an effort to change the subject.

"What do you know about it?" she shot back.

"Sorry, I overheard you and the other women talking, the first night I was here."

"Well, if you must know," she told me, huffing a little, "we have a friend who is... indisposed." She looked at me, as if to see whether she’d used the right word. I nodded, and she went on. "All she can eat is soup. We used to take turns bringing it to her, but lately I decided I’d make it my job."

I was about to compliment her and say That’s awfully nice of you, but before I got the words out, she electrified me by saying, "Anyway... Lizzie is a good friend of mine, so I like to help her out."

"Lizzie?" I repeated. "Do you mean Lizzie Martineau?"

Desiree froze. "How do you know her name?"

In answer, I pulled off my hairnet and yanked the hair band out that held my hair in place. Lane had told me that my hair was just like Lizzie’s, and as my reddish gold curls fell around my face, I could see from Desiree’s expression that it was true. My hair was my ID, my passport in.

"She’s my mother," I told her. "I’ve come to find her."