Belinda’s Diner

Likely the most troubling time in her life, Jia found herself harnessing a deep need for a stack of blueberry pancakes and a cup of coffee. This desire was specific. Jia needed a cup of coffee that came in a small, slightly stained, biscuit colored mug with two packets of sweet & low, even though she read somewhere that sweet & low causes cancer.. but doesn’t everything cause cancer nowadays?

She needed the blueberry pancakes that only Mike, the chef at Belinda’s Diner, could flip to perfection. Nine perfectly placed blueberries in each pancake, almost as if Mike worked with a small case of OCD back there in the kitchen. This meal was familiar to Jia.

She needed familiarity. She needed comfort.

See, Jia’s life had recently taken a sharp left, spun out a few times, swerved just in time to miss a wild deer and landed sideways in a ditch. Or at least, that’s how she felt about it.

Belinda’s would help. Belinda’s always helped. It was the best and most classic diner Alabama had to offer.

Jia's favorite waitress, Tracy, had the vigorous voice of a nightclub singer from the 1920’s with an 1860’s burlesque body to match. Her words were wise, and the lines beside her lips and creases in the corner of her eyes told Jia that she had rightly earned the wisdom she apprised. Tracy was as much a friend to Jia as the kids in the cul de sac she grew up with, and Jia knew she’d have just the insight she needed right now.

“So how was that dirty thirty birthday party of yours, mama?” Tracy asked as she set her usual stack of blueberry pancakes and cup of coffee with a metal sugar caddy in front of Jia.

“Full of surprises” Jia answered, to say the least.

Sitting at her favorite booth in the corner, nearest the jukebox and furthest from the restroom that held a foul odor no matter how many Lysol wipes Eddie, the custodian, used to wipe it down, Jia pulled two packets of sweet & low from the caddy and emptied it into her coffee. She sighed, a response that had become familiar to her. All of the frustration, confusion and helplessness being released alongside the CO2. In an effort to stall, she cut a triangle shape out of her blueberry pancakes and stuffed her mouth. Jia didn’t want to explain the details of the shocking truth that had been uncovered in the middle of her toast, bidding farewell to her prime and entering this new, exciting, fully adult life that she built for herself. However, she knew that Tracy had a knack for picking up energetic discrepancies and wouldn’t let Jia leave without spilling the tea.

She looked up and, sure enough, Tracy had a hand on her hip with one eyebrow cocked up as if to say, “you know I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on.” Jia swallowed, sighed that familiar sigh and took a breath to begin to speak, but just as the words were threatening to roll off her tongue she heard the introduction to a song that propelled her out of the booth and to her feet. She grabbed Tracy’s hands and said, “I promise I’ll tell you more, but can we just dance first?”

Never having been more appreciative of that old jukebox, she looked pleadingly into Tracy’s eyes and began to sway both of their arms to the beat until a smile severed the skepticism and took over her face.

Frankie Beverly’s, “Before I Let Go” took over the atmosphere in Belinda’s diner and before she knew it she was two stepping side to side and front to back in a groove that was as natural to her as placing one foot in front of the other. Tracy joined in, and the other patrons in the diner followed suit as they couldn’t resist the frequency of joy emitted from Jia’s being.

When Jia hitched her leg up and over to switch directions and found herself looking through the glass window at her husband’s Alabama license plates in the parking lot, the disruption in that wave couldn’t have been more abrupt.

Time stood still. She felt that bite of blueberry pancakes climbing its way back up her throat, which had luckily grown tight. The last thing she wanted was to get sick in the presence of her husband stepping out of his brand new Cadillac truck with his pregnant mistress— one of the kids from the cul de sac— in the passenger seat.

Jia turned to Tracy, who was still swaying to the sounds of Frankie’s soothing voice, pointed outside in the direction of her husband’s truck and said, “Surprise.”

Cheryl Lyons,

August 18th, 2020