Yours Seductively

Chapter 4.4

   Nearly everyone in Honoria dined at Dora's Cafe, at least occasionally. One of the last establishments still thriving in the old section of downtown, it was within walking distance of city hall, the police station, the bank and a few small businesses, so the daily lunch trade was brisk.

   Jane was swept with nostalgia when she entered the cafe for lunch with her accountant on the Friday after her dinner with the Hamiltons. The place looked the same as it had fifteen years ago, she thought, looking around at the crowded tables with their red-and-white-checked coverings. The same cheap prints hung on the walls, though they were considerably more faded now, and the same old noisy cash register was still in use at the front checkout. No computerized register for this place—and they didn't take plastic.

   Heavyset, frizzy-permed Cindy Cooper greeted Jane at the door. Cindy has gone to work for Dora straight out of high school—almost ten years before Jane's own graduation—and had been there ever since. She hadn't changed much during those years; now fast approaching forty, Cindy was slow-moving, broad-bottomed, plainspoken and apparently content with the sameness of her daily routine. "Hey, Jane. I wondered when you were going to come see us again."

   "It's good to be back, Cindy. Does Dora still make the best chocolate pie in the state?"

   "Best chocolate pie in the world," Cindy replied, wryly patting her wide hip. "I'm waddling testimony to that."

   Jane laughed. "Is Mark Roster here yet? I'm meeting him for lunch."

   "No, not yet. You go ahead and get a table and I'll send him your way when he comes in."

   "Great. And when you get a minute, I'll have a glass of iced tea. It's already hot out."

   "Just wait until summer really kicks in," Cindy predicted with cheery pessimism. "'Bout melted the dash in my car last August."

   Since Georgians loved nothing more than complaining about the weather, Jane murmured something sympathetic before heading for a nearby free table. She saw several people she knew, of course, and stopped on the way to exchange pleasantries. Dora's was almost as bad as the discount store when it came to being seen. Hardly a place for discreetly anonymous tryst, she thought humorously as she took her seat. Not that there was anyone she was thinking of seeing on the sly at the moment, she added.

   A balding, soft-middled businessman in his late thirties pulled out the chair across the table from her. "Sorry, I'm late," he said. "Traffic was a bear."

   She lifted an eyebrow. "Traffic? In Honoria?"

   "Okay, it was old Mrs. Turret," he admitted. "Driving five miles an hour right down the middle of Main Street."

   She laughed. "Driving that big old car of hers? The one that looks as if it's driving itself because she's too shot to be seen over the dashboard?"

   "Yeah. She's had that car since before we were born, I think , and it might have all of twenty thousand miles on it by now."

   "Most of them from driving down the middle of Main Street, right?"

   "Exactly." He reaches for one of the plastic-coated menus stuck between the paper-napkin dispenser and a wooden box holding salt, pepper, ketchup and pepper sauce. "You haven't ordered yet, have you?"

   "No, I just got here. I did ask for iced tea...oh, here it is." She smiled up at Cindy, who unceremoniously plunked two mason jars full of iced tea in front of them.

   "What'll y'all have?" Cindy asked without bothering with an order pad.

   Mark glanced up at the menu. "What's today's special?"

   "Same as it is every Friday. Chicken-fried steak with mashed potatoes, creamy gravy, white beans and turnip greens, or fried catfish with coleslaw, hush puppies and fern tomato relish."

   Mark replaced the menu. "I'll have the chicken-fried steak."

   "Very healthy choice, Mark," Jane teases, having heard him complain more than once about his difficulty losing weight.

   He sighed. "You're right. Add a green salad to that, will you, Cindy?" With Thousand Island dressing."

   Jane chuckled and shook her head. "I don't suppose you have anything broiled or grilled, Cindy?"

   "Got the diet plate. A fried hamburger patty, cottage cheese and canned peaches."

   Dora's Cafe has been serving the same diet plate" since the 1950's, despite changes in diet philosophies. Jane conceded defeat and ordered the catfish.