Original fiction · Chapter 1 of 2
The Ledger Under Booth Six
I was scraping gum off the underside of Booth Six when I found a ledger wedged between the seat and the wall.
A rubber band had dried around the cover and cracked when I took it off. Inside, someone had written our menu in pencil. Next to each meal was a name, and beside each name a number. At the top of every page, in my father's narrow handwriting, were the words already paid.
Dad had washed dishes at May's for twenty-three years. After he died, I took the breakfast shift there. It was supposed to be temporary. By my third winter, I could recognize the regulars by the way they closed the door.
I carried the ledger to the counter. Gordon, who owned the place, was peeling the plastic cover off a new card reader. He turned the ledger around without asking where I'd found it.
“I thought he took this home,” he said.
The entries made no sense as a record of debts. Two eggs, toast, no meat, for a man named Will. Oatmeal with brown sugar, once a week for a month, for somebody Dad called Red Hat. Nobody owed a balance. Some numbers had a line through them. Others hadn't been crossed out at all.
“Who paid?”
Gordon put the card reader down. He'd agreed to sell the diner at the end of the month. I knew because the buyer's son had spent a morning photographing the kitchen and asking how much of the counter could be removed. Gordon said they'd keep me on if I wanted. They'd offered me nights.
“People did,” he said. “Your dad kept track.”
A man came in with a small boy wearing a school backpack. They looked at the menu without sitting. The man asked how much a side of toast cost. His son quietly took the menu from him and pointed to a picture of pancakes.
Gordon tore a slip off the order pad and put it beside the ledger. At the top he wrote Will.
I looked from the slip to the man. “That's him?”
Gordon shook his head. “Will was his father.” Then he turned to the first page and put his finger on a name I hadn't seen.
Mine.
