Help Wanted

“I know what you’re up to,” Todd confronted her. “Don’t think you can fool me.”

Rachel smiled and looked up at her co-worker from where she bent over her little black book. “Couldn’t fool you if I tried,” she said. “But just so we’re clear, how am I trying to fool you?”

Todd whipped his head side to side with a glare before leaning down and stage-whispering. “I know you’re Roscoe.”

She scoffed. “Come on, now-”

“Don’t deny it!” He shook a finger at her before tapping her book. “This is proof! I’ve watched you write in it every day for the last five years. In that same time frame G. Roscoe has been handing out massive donations to people around town. Now, tell me I’m right and I’ll promise to keep your secret.”

Rachel couldn’t help herself. She straightened up with a resigned expression. “You’re absolutely right,” she told Todd. “I’m G. Roscoe. The mysterious town benefactor.” She turned away from Todd to face the rest of the diner. “I am the famous G. Roscoe!” She shouted. “Anonymous millionaire philanthropist!”

James, seated at the very end of the counter, chuckled over his breakfast. “And I’m a John Deere tractor,” he joked. “We know it ain’t true, but we still appreciate you, Rach.”

Leaving Todd to fume silently, she slid her book into her pocket and joined her much older friend. “Thanks, James. By the way, how’s your niece?” She asked. He looked down to fold and refolded the napkin at his elbow.

“Sara’s alright... been clean for months now. But she’s tired,” he admitted. “Most places around here know her history, and they aren't willing to take the risk and hire her on.” He huffed.

Rachel nodded and pulled her roll of tips from her apron pocket. James watched with his nose scrunched like he smelled their Tuesday special in the dumpster on a Thursday. “I didn’t tell you this just to fleece you,” he grumbled.

“And I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t ready to offer.” She said, dropping a few ten-dollar bills and three twenty-dollar bills next to his plate. “Groceries and a few nights at the motel. And I have a friend I can talk to that might help.”

James tapped his fingers on the counter as his eyes watered. He helped his family where he could, but a retired farmer and grocery store clerk had little to live on, much less spare, even for family. “Bless you, Rach. I promise I’ll-”

“Uh-uh. The only thing I need in return is to see you and Sara in this diner next Friday.”

She left James with some privacy to finish his food and wipe his eyes. She clocked each of her tables to assure herself that nobody needed her, then took out her little black book again. This time, Todd was too busy to notice.

In her little book, with its coffee stained pages yet still pristine cover, she wrote what people needed her to hear. They talked about their families, friends, and jobs, and the struggles with each. She kept track of who might benefit from her help and approached them later with an offer of cash, time or whatever resource she could muster.

“Sara Carroll,” she wrote. “Out of rehab. Check up Friday. Call Katie.”

With some of her pay after this week's shifts, and the average tips from her regular customers, she could manage another $200 to help Sara along. Tonight she would talk to her friend, Katie, who owned an online shop and mentioned needing an assistant.

An incessant clanging drew Rachel’s attention from her book, and she took a deep breath before closing and stuffing it back in its pocket. At the far end of the diner, Mrs. Julia stared hard at Rachel, and tapped her fork against the glass rim like an annoyed metal head drummer. Rachel took the already printed receipt over and left it on the table without eye contact or words exchanged.

The older woman never spoke to anyone. She never chatted or complained, but still appeared on their busiest days. Like the other regulars, she had her favorite booth and meal. Unlike the other regulars, she always entered and left in silence. The only time she had spoken, allegedly, was to a server who had quit right after Rachel started. She claimed that when Mrs. Julia first came in she gave her order and instructions that the same meal be brought to her whenever she came in, and asked to be left alone by the staff. The diner, wary of her reputation, did as she asked as long as she paid. From then on she was treated with the same respect and reverence that a religious statue might be; with silent offerings made by mere mortals with a little fear in their hearts.

“She turns her hearing aids down so as not to be bothered,” a server had told Rachel during her training, “so don’t try chatting. As long as she pays, you treat her like anyone else, but without the bother of acting nice.”

Today, as usual, the older woman left without so much as a glance at anyone. With the table safely abandoned, Rachel tidied up the dishes and the empty cup. Underneath, she found the signed merchant's copy of the receipt.

With a written tip for twenty-thousand dollars.

The plastic dishes clattered on the floor

“Rach?” Todd called from the register. “Are you alright?”

She didn’t answer, just stared at the zeros, the comma, the signature, knowing that some part of this had to be a mistake.

She sensed Todd approaching behind her, then felt his breath on a long exhale as he looked over her shoulder. “Sweet Mary and Joseph, that’s-”

“Too much,” Rachel whispered. “It’s too much.”

“I wouldn’t say so,” Todd argued. “After years of being rude, this seems like the least she can do. Hey!”

Todd’s shout trailed Rachel as she darted past the booths and ran outside. She scanned the parking lot, looking for the old woman, or a car leaving the lot. A mistake, she thought. Too many zeros or a misplaced comma-

“Here I am, dear.”

Rachel turned back to the diner where a painted bench held a smiling and waving Mrs. Julia. “Come sit with me, will you?” Mrs. Julia looked away as Rachel took a tentative seat, feeling spooked by the sudden difference in demeanor.

“What do you know about me?” Mrs. Julia asked.

Rachel's racing thoughts settled into straightforward answers. “Your name is Julia Canton. You visit the diner when it’s busy, but turn your hearing aids down. You never say a word. And you've been around town for... a long time,” she finished lamely.

“Not the best impression,” Mrs. Julia admitted. “But I don’t turn my aids down. I turn them up.” She tapped on her ear. "I started coming just to enjoy the ambiance while I ate, but ignored any attempts at small talk myself. I realized that if I pretended not to hear a thing, I could pick up very interesting conversations. And every so often, I could hear about someone's hard times. And I wondered if, maybe, I was meant to hear these things." She reached into her purse then and pulled out a familiar black book.

"That's-?" Rachel felt in her pocket to make sure her own notebook still rested within it.

“I promise this one’s mine.” Mrs. Julia giggled. “Although I got the idea from you. I watched you constantly scribbling with such a troubled look on your face, and I wondered if you were hearing the same things that I was. So I started listening just to you.”

Rachel opened her mouth but closed it when Mrs. Julia held up a hand. “I’m not a saint, dear. I’m a nosy old lady. So save any righteous preaching and allow me my hobbies.” She put her hand down and leaned in closer. “Sometimes you speak your thoughts out loud, did you know that? And I picked up tidbits. Things that I also heard from those people you spoke to. Things they were too ashamed to bring to their own gods they brought to you.”

"So, you started writing them too?"

“Not immediately. I first came to the diner because I hated being at home after my husband died.” She flipped through her book. “I found a few journals like these when I cleaned out his office. He was a doctor. He copied his thoughts and theories from all of his old papers into these little notebooks. Easier reading, I imagine, than filing boxes. His notes were so meticulous, you could almost see everything he talked about yourself, medically knowledgeable or not."

"He sounds very good at his job."

"He was very good. Very professional. And yet, he couldn’t remember my birthday. My favorite color. The flowers I loved. Perhaps he should have kept a notebook on me. But then again, he never proved to know anything about me. Except blood type and bowel movements, maybe.”

She looked up at her then and smiled. “I hated these notebooks, and thought about burning all of them, even the empty ones. But then I caught on to you. And I thought, ‘what if I could use these to rewrite those feelings he left me with?’ All those little black books that took up so much of his time and attention... I could use them to banish my thoughts of him and only think of others, the same as he did to me. I wanted to care for people the way I never was.” With gentle fingers, she took Rachel’s little book and flipped open to a page near the back. With the pen hanging from the spine, she looped a cursive signature across an empty line.

G. Roscoe.

“You?” Rachel breathed in surprise. “You’re the anonymous donor? But why use a different name?”

Mrs. Julia smiled, and below her cursive signature rearranged the letters into another name.

Scrooge.

Rachel blinked between the two as Mrs. Julia cackled. “Lord, your face! I hate I couldn’t share the joke with anyone. When I decided to do what I do, I figured I needed a nom de plume. Being married to a doctor, I knew too much about everyone for them to be comfortable around me. They might think I had some ulterior motives. So I started writing about who and what I heard, like you, and figured out ways to help later, courtesy of G. Roscoe.” MRs. Julia tucked her own book away, but kept Rachel’s open between her hands. “Now your book has a new name, and a new need.” She slipped the forgotten receipt from between Rachel’s fingers and trapped it in the book’s gutter before closing it.

“You can do with this money what you will,” she said. “Spread it out amongst people or make a big donation to a shelter. But I would like you to consider using some of it for yourself.” She handed the book back. “Put down your own name, for once.”

“Why me?” Rachel finally asked. “Why not just spread this around like you have been?”

“Because I want to spend what I have left, of my time and money, to do more. I realize now that a few bucks spent here and there is important, but it's not enough. People need something more. They need opportunity, and hope, and a chance. I want you to become greater than what you are already are, because I know you can. Then come home and provide that same chance I have given you to someone else. They will do the same, and so on and so forth, long after you and I are gone. So,” she stared not at Rachel anymore, but beyond this moment; into a time where the conversation they just shared was only a memory and a name on a page, “will you help me?”