Leta had just welcomed and seated her 24-year-old son Dale and his new lady friend at a table in the diner she managed. While she suspected that the petite and giggling young woman, Kathryn, had already formed some preconceived notions about her, Leta was still eager to make a good impression. The diner was in a small truck stop complex that consisted of several fuel pumps, the diner and a bar.
Working in, for or near a bar was not information she would have preferred to share with Kathryn so soon. In fact, Leta and Dale had discussed whether or not to bring it up. Kathryn, he told her, was a devout Roman Catholic from a very straight-laced family that might not appreciate her dating a man whose mother was that connected to a bar.
However, the young and somewhat foolish waitress Susan started her service for the couple by offering Kathryn a cocktail. And Kathryn’s quick response, with a bit of astonishment combined with curiosity, asked, “You have a bar?”
“Well, yes, next door,” Leta stammered, shooing Susan away with a glare.
Dale continued, “The diner, bar and gas pumps are owned by the same man. It’s all one complex, dear.”
“A truck stop,” Leta added, as if to explain.
“Oh well, I see,” Kate laughed. “I guess, I didn’t… Anyway, coffee is good for me.”
“Maybe after, Ma,” Dale said. “But we’re pretty hungry.”
“Oh dear!” Leta exclaimed. “The fried chicken!”
She quickly dashed behind the counter, where her fried chicken was just starting to burn on one side. It wasn’t much burned, but it was burned enough to be unservable, especially to her son and his young woman. This infuriated and frustrated her. She had planned such a nice dinner for her visitors—mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans simmered in bacon and onions, stewed tomatoes with garlic, fresh apple pie a la mode and her special fried chicken. She didn’t want to serve them hamburgers. And aside from breakfast foods, that’s what she was serving.
She would have to start another batch of chicken and stall her visitors the 45 minutes it took to prepare the meat properly. She gestured Susan to her and whispered some hasty orders.
“But the new customer wants a hamburger,” Susan protested, pointing to one of the tables.
Leta glanced quickly at the corpulent diner, who usually stopped for a hamburger at least twice a month.
“God bless me,” she exclaimed, still whispering. “He’ll have to wait.”
A few moments later, she served her son and his lady friend dishes of cottage cheese and fruit cocktail.
“I love this!” Kathryn gushed, her dark eyes opening wide.
“Chicken is on its way,” Leta added with a big smile and then dashed back into the kitchen.
While she tasked Susan with cleaning the used skillet, she quickly breaded several pieces of chicken she had cut earlier and dropped them into the sizzling oil of another skillet that she had been heating. Once the chicken was underway, she tossed a hamburger into another skillet and diced up some potatoes to fry with it for the customer.
For the next twenty minutes, she zipped back and forth between her cooking and her visitors. During those first few minutes she was in the kitchen, the previously threatening storm struck, and several other truckers, temporarily stranded, came into the restaurant. Since they couldn’t drive and didn’t want to work, they might as well eat. The small eatery was quickly full of diners, demanding much of Leta’s attention.
Later, she would note that she didn’t have much of a conversation with Kathryn, who was to become her daughter-in-law, but at least, that first introduction, created the impression that her mother-in-law-to-be was more than a town whore. She was a woman who could work and manage a busy place.
Or at least that’s what Leta hoped. With a full restaurant, it was hard for her to keep up with the orders. And she was the primary cook. Certainly, Susan could wait on them, make and serve coffee and dessert, but when it came to the cooking, Susan was terrible. That left the entire primary cooking duties to Leta. On most busy nights, she managed just fine, but with her own guests, she was distracted and a little anxious.
Apologizing for the umpteenth time for her inability to actually sit down with her son and his wife-to-be, she finally set before each of them a plate filled with beautifully laid out, delicious-looking chicken, mashed potatoes with gravy and green beans.
“It smells delicious!” Kate smiled. She looked at the food ravenously.
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