An Order of Coffee and Tears Read Online Free PDF

folks and chat up a hello and goodbye, followed by a whispery please come again . But her diner out-lived Mrs. Angela Thurmon. She’d grown ill, and the arthritis aged her more quickly than she should have. And then there came one afternoon. The sun was setting, and Ms. Potts said she saw a tear in Angela’s eye as she told Junior that she thought it was time for her to go home. Ms. Potts told me she often wondered if on that particular day, Angela knew it would be her last day at the diner.
    She died less than a month later. Ms. Potts said that a little piece of Angela’s Diner died the day they put Mrs. Thurmon in the ground. Junior was already grown, and now a well-respected lawyer in downtown Philadelphia. He cared and supported a family of his own. He brought them to his mother’s diner from time to time, which always pleased Ms. Potts. He made sure Ms. Potts and Clark stayed on. He’d kept Angela’s Diner. He’d kept all of it.
    I’d met Mr. Thurmon sometime during my first month of work. An attractive older man, he wasn’t at all anything like I pictured him. Often, I’d hear Ms. Potts and Clark make light of Junior and some of his antics growing up at Angela’s. But the man I met didn’t fit the image. I suppose this is true for most of us. The cousins and the younger siblings of friends we grow up with end up completely different. The person they become is a mere shadow of the person you remember them to be. They’re grown-up with adult lives and adult problems. That was Junior.
    Mr. Thurmon’s laugh is something, too – I think we’d all admit to enjoying it. Ms. Potts said it was Angela’s laugh, as well. It’s a very contagious laugh that almost always gets us all going when we hear it. When he’d get to talking about his time as a child in the diner and the games he’d play, he would smile and laugh, and maybe even glow a little; just enough for me to get a glimpse of the little boy Ms. Potts and Clark liked to talk about.
    We never knew exactly when Mr. Thurmon planned to stop in. Fridays were payday. As waitresses, we earned an hourly wage, as did Clark, so there was something. Not much, but something. Other than Friday, I think his stopping in had more to do with being in the neighborhood, or a drop in with the kids to see Ms. Potts.
    On this particular visit, he didn’t come with paychecks in hand, he wasn’t looking to get a bite to eat, or to pick up the receipts and books for the week. I could smell his aftershave follow him as he walked passed me. He offered me a polite smile and a hello, and threw another smile and hello to Clark, who replied with a brief nod from behind the grill. Ms. Potts was already in the back, which is where they’ve stayed. Some of the time, he’d stand with one hand stroking his necktie, and other times he’d talk as Ms. Potts listened.
    All kinds of thoughts were going through my head. The biggest was that they’d have to let me go. I’d overstayed my welcome. My time at Angela’s might be over. My newfound family would have to say goodbye. Angela’s could be busy at times. Almost crowded. But it wasn’t consistent, at least not as often as I saw the first months of working here.
    Just a block away from Angela’s Diner, a fast-food restaurant was put up, nearly overnight. One day, a group of construction workers showed up, wearing green-yellow reflective vests, and white helmets. With shovels and pick-axes in hand, they broke the sidewalk into pieces, digging up the ground, and making an awful noise that rattled the diner’s front window. Within a week, it seemed, there were already lights on the inside of what they’d built, with palm-sized round bulbs twinkling a run along the pitched red roof outside. The same types of lights blinked around a bright sign that stood in front of the freshly manicured landscaping. The sign spelled out a ‘Grand Opening’ welcome, and some other nonsense I didn’t read. I’d walked past the sign, stopped, and