Tuesdays at Joe’s

She started coming in the first Tuesday in October, and her schedule remained thereafter. Each week, three minutes before close, the bell clanged as she’d swoosh through the door with her curls pulled into a nest on top of her head, strands sneaking away from the bunch to stick to her lip gloss.

“Still open?” she’d ask rhetorically with a sheepish grin.

“Nope! Just keep the door open in case anyone feels like robbing us,” he’d quip, and she’d throw her head back in mock laughter before ordering the blueberry bacon bagel. He’d remind her that these always sold out before the lunch rush.

“Those savages! Fine, I’d like to adopt one lonely, unwanted pastry, please. Whatever you have!”

He’d shake his head, trying to hide his amusement, then sweep both arms outward in an exaggerated flourish, both hands reaching toward the glass case as if to say, you tell me.

“All of it, please.” She beamed as she strutted out of the diner, calling over her shoulder, “I’m Helen, by the way! You’re rude for not asking!”

Joe couldn’t help but grin, but she was right. He was rude for not asking, but he was also lost in taking in every detail of her. She had a large birthmark on her right hand that was shaped like a tulip bulb. One of her eyes opened wider than the other when she smiled, and she had the most adorable little chip on her canine tooth. This he knew before he even knew her name.

Their rhythm continued until the second Tuesday in November. This time, when she arrived three minutes before closing and asked, as always, for the blueberry bacon bagel, it was he who smiled sheepishly. “Wait here,” he said, and disappeared into the kitchen. He came back with a single bagel in a box. “I saved one for you.”

It startled him when she tossed the box onto the counter and leapt into his arms for a hug. What startled him more was that he didn’t want to let go, and he noted that her hair smelled of honey.

Then he realized she was crying, and she jumped back as if she’d only just noticed too.

“I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head vehemently.

“No, it’s fine! Are you okay?” he asked without letting her go, his hands slowly gravitating naturally to her waist as if they belonged there.

“She’s had a rough week,” Helen said, looking down at the box. “She’s going to really appreciate this.”

“Who?”

Before Helen could answer, a sudden crack of lightning lit up the restaurant, making her jump back out of his arms.

“I think it’s about to come down. You’re welcome to wait the storm out with me?”

She looked up at the clock behind Joe, then at her watch, and at the clock again…

“I should go…” she began to say, but instead she somehow summoned the storm. The rain came down in heavy thuds. Helen, now accustomed to the dramatic and temperamental coastal weather, knew that the storm would only last a moment.

“Well, a few minutes won’t hurt,” she said. Minutes turned into hours, and Helen told Joe that she moved into the town over to take care of her grandmother with advanced Alzheimer’s who, in recent months, had begun asking for the blueberry bacon bagel from Joe’s diner.

Joe nodded. “My grandfather’s specialty. He never took it off the menu because he said there was a woman who used to come in for it all the time. Said she loved it so much he couldn’t bear taking it off the menu.”

“Wait. Your grandfather Lance Burrow?”

“The one and only! He passed away a couple years back. That’s how I got ahold of this place.”

Helen stared at him for a second then broke into a smile. “You’re kidding. My grandmother knew Lance. That’s why she loves this place.”

Joe laughed. “What’s her name?”

“Bertha.”

His mouth fell open. “Big Bertha?”

Helen reached over the table and punched him in the shoulder. “Hey! That’s still my granny!”

As the storm undulated between typhoon and trickle, they fell into a conversation that moved between bellowed laughter and silences that neither seemed in a hurry to fill. Sometimes Joe would catch Helen looking at him and she’d look away, smiling. Other times, he’d realize he’d been doing the same. Then one of them would think of a joke, and the whole cycle would start again.

Helen told Joe that she’d once crashed a coworker’s kid’s first birthday party just to be polite, only to learn the “baby” was a dog.

“You bought pull-ups for a dog?”

“I bought pull-ups for the baby, Joe, how was I supposed to know!”

He doubled over until his stomach ached and went on to tell her he was the oldest of six. “Somehow, we all ended up in the food industry,” he shared. One brother was a big city chef who owned a Michelin star restaurant. Their only sister was “basically Erykah Badu”—whatever that meant—and ran a juicing company. The young three siblings chose to work in the businesses.

“I love my siblings, but I wish there were less of us,” he trailed. “I remember for my 8th birthday, all I wanted was one of those little Transformer toys for myself, but my parents bought it for me to share with my brothers. I shouldn’t complain, I guess… There are worse things in life.”

Helen reached out and held his hands as the storm came to a close, and they knew it was time for her to go home.

Their Tuesdays went on this way until the third Tuesday in December, when Joe finally found the nerve to ask Helen on a proper date. He wore the blue button-up he liked best and the khakis Helen once told him fit him well. He stood near the door with a bouquet of tulips, three minutes before closing. But Helen didn’t show.

He convinced himself not to worry. Told himself that her grandmother probably had a rough day. He wanted to check on her, though. Except it was now 9 p.m., and in all the conversations they had, he’d never asked Helen for her phone number. So stupid, he thought. He waited another hour before he finally turned the lock. He resolved that the next morning, he would call his grandmother and see if she had any information on where Bertha—Helen—might live.

But Joe never got the opportunity to do so. The breaking story came on the 10:00 news. Earlier that evening, a young woman had been struck and killed by a drunk driver as she crossed the street. Joe barely heard the rest. Then the reporter mentioned the few belongings found with her: a wallet and a little Transformer toy.

Joe still keeps a blueberry bacon bagel behind the counter every Tuesday. Most nights he sells it to whoever asks. But some nights, three minutes before closing, he catches himself watching the door instead of locking it.

Note from the author

Thank you for reading the first fiction piece I’ve ever published! I’d love to hear your thoughts, especially because sharing fiction feels a little different (nerve-wracking) from sharing my usual writing.

• When did you realize where the story was going?!
• What detail or moment stuck with you most?
• And probably most importantly: would you have ordered the blueberry bacon bagel? Haha!

Write to me and tell me what stayed with you.