Lee stood somewhat behind Twain, who had interrupted his lessons on the proper poaching of eggs long enough to ring up a customer. When Twain swiped the credit card through the slot on the card reader, the sound of the little electronic squeal as Twain's card reader talked to some bank somewhere out there reminded Lee of something in a distinctly unpleasant way. Twain pushed a button on the old, tan mechanical cash register and it said, "Ching," and the drawer sprung out with a solid recoil and the sound of rattling change. Lee's stomach tightened, and the muscles in his lower back seized up. He looked over at the register, which had a little red flag in its view window that said "No Sale". Lee's heart constricted, and his skin went clammy. Cold sweat seemed to be seeping out of all the pores on his flushed face, and the queasy tightening in his esophagus radiated down to the already tightened abdomen and up to the already compressed throat where it doubled and tried to raise his gorge.

Twain put the credit card slip under the change tray, then closed the register drawer with another sound of rattling change. He turned to resume the lesson on poaching, and saw Lee's face.

"Gas?" Twain asked.

"What did I do?" Lee gasped, which didn't answer Twain's question at all. "I wonder if I can stop him. Damn, he didn't tell me where he was staying. I gotta stop him. Oh, my God, I've got to stop him."

Twain watched, nonplused, as Lee ran out from behind the counter and out the diner door. Then he watched, even more nonplused, as Lee stood on the sidewalk for several minutes, turning his head in several directions in small spasmodic movements, while rapidly breathing in and out (breathing usually involves in and out unless it's your first or your last one, Geoff. Nevertheless, we shall continue), then came back in with a wholly defeated look on his otherwise defeated face, pale from hyperventilating.

"Okay," Lee said, shakily. "It's not the end of the world." His voice steadied. "I can just call her." As he gained confidence, he talked louder. "Better yet, she can just call me. Or come to me. I don't need to jump at her beck and call." He would have pounded a table if he were in front of a table to pound. "She needs that money as much as I do. More." His voice was that of a town crier. "Let her come here and get my signature face to face," he bellowed, and his normally soft brown eyes seemed to sharpen with sparks of fire, and the pupils glowed with the red found in a Polaroid™ photo taken with indoor flash. His half smile was that of a jackal who had just gotten hold of some gamey raw meat. Like Jack Nicholson® in ads for The Shining©.

The constriction and nausea lifted a bit, and Lee breathed in, then noticed the customer that had just paid staring at him. Then he noticed that the other patrons in the diner were also staring at him with something that looked like it might be fear. Twain came from behind the counter, unhooked and picked up the microphone and stand from the corner, and carried it carefully away and out of sight.

Lee's nausea returned, although now from embarrassment rather than panic. His face softened through his usual fair complexion all the way to a whiter shade of pale. Like a dog who pooped on the new avocado shag carpet. Like anyone in ads for The English Patient. Twain returned with a brown lunch bag and handed it to Lee. Lee focused only on him so as not to see anyone else.

"I, um," he said. "I have to go do my stint at the theatre. I'll um. Be back before the dinner rush." He left, dutifully breathing into the paper bag.

As he rode the Stingray to the theatre, Lee's mind buzzed with what he had done and all the information Twain had forced into his butt (Steve! Sorry) brain. He thought about having his own apartment. He revisited the exact slicer setting needed to slice bologna for fried bologna sandwiches. He pondered listening to his own stereo. He recalled the particular scent that indicated a well done hamburger was well done. He envisioned his own bed, warm and inviting with actual covers. He recaptured the technique needed to flip an over-easy egg. He imagined the sweet aroma of Eggos emanating from his own toaster. He recoiled when his front tire hit the curb just outside the Willow Lane Theater.

The office was getting stuffy, and Peter was getting anxious because Lee was supposed to be there already. Stella was getting annoyed that Peter was getting anxious.

"He's a volunteer, Peter," she said with a flip of her full, dark hair. "They're always late."

There was the loud thud of a one hundred and fifty-eight pound object hitting a door.

"There he is," Stella said.

Lee entered the room. There was a red impression of the edge of a door that ran from his forehead up into his hairline.

"I wasn't looking," he said, and Stella flipped her hair again, letting Peter know just how stupid she thought this guy was. "It was the door to the box office," Lee said lamely, trying to ignore the hair flip, and the scent of perfume it sent across the room at him like a dagger. One with a carved ivory handle.

Peter jumped up from the desk he was sitting on, and told Stella he was going to take Lee back to the scene shop and introduce him to Bear.

"Why?" Stella said with disdain that actually emanated out with her perfume.

"Because he has power tools," Peter said. "He likes to build things."

"I wouldn't trust him anywhere near a power tool," Stella said, looking right at Lee in the third person.

Peter and Stella argued back and forth about who was in charge of volunteers and who needed one more and who did more for the theatre and who was just a controlling bitch and who discovered helium. Lee sat on the edge of the desk waiting for them to stop fighting over him or notice he was still in the room or both. He glanced down at the work on Stella's desk.

"Um," he said. "Those two columns don't balance."

Stella looked at him like he was a talking hat stand.

"What?" she asked snidely. "Are you an accountant?"

"Well, yes. A CPA, actually," he said. "At least I was. In Chicago. I guess I still am. Technically. I still have my certificate. Unless I left it with Beverly. Damn her."

Stella turned to Lee with a "you are mine, now" look and then to Peter with a "I am victorious again, and you will never surpass my obvious superiority because you are the subservient lower class serf and I am the landowner and you will always do my bidding, willingly or not, and with humble servitude you will crawl at my feet through mud and broken glass, and you shall never set foot in my abode" look.

"But he has tools," Peter said pathetically.

Peter left, pulling at his beard, and Stella looked at Lee. He wasn't sure why, but the look made the back of his neck sweat. She smiled, and pulled a box of ragged pieces of paper out of a drawer and handed it to him.

"Here are some receipts for the last production. Some of them were paid from petty cash, and some we reimbursed with checks."

Lee waited for further instructions, his heart rebelliously beating to the rhythm of her perfume, then realized there weren't any more instructions. He was the accountant.

"Where is the receipt book?" he asked, frightened by what the answer might be.

"You just made a comment about it," she said.

Of course. The two columns that didn't balance were receipt entries. He picked up the book and took the box from her, careful not to touch her fingers when he did, then sat at Peter's desk to get to it.

"In Chicago, I used to make eighty thousand a year doing this," he said as he automatically began separating the receipts into groups.

"You're not in Chicago, now," Stella informed him with a smile. "You are a volunteer at the Willow Lane Theater. My volunteer."

The door to the office opened and a slight man with a ring of long, thin hair around his otherwise bald head and a huge, thick mustache and two day growth of beard, wearing a tee shirt through which his chest hair protruded, sauntered into the room.

"Why don't I get the volunteer I was promised?" he asked quietly.

"I never promised you a volunteer."

"Peter did."

Stella laughed, and flipped her hair. It had absolutely no effect on the guy, but the back-flash hit Lee soundly in the right nasolabial fold. He reeled a bit in his chair, thankful that he was sitting down.

"This the guy?" The strange bald man asked.

"This man is an accountant. Therefore he is mine."

He looked over at Lee and smiled.

"Hi. I'm Bear."

"Lee. Harris."

"I understand you have tools."

"I do," Lee said, "Power tools." The two men had thus bonded.

"How's the marble yard set going?" Stella asked pointedly in an attempt to exert power over Bear.

"It would be going a lot faster if I had my help, but I know you come first, so I'll go back and make do with who I have," Bear answered calmly.

He smiled and nodded at Lee and left. Lee glanced up at Stella, afraid to look at her too directly for fear his mischievous body might do something abhorrent like suddenly redirect blood flow, and noticed that she was seething. It made him, somehow, glad. Her face was pale, her mouth was pursed and the pulse in her neck was almost audible.

"What are you staring at?" she demanded, and Lee, who had been quite careful to not be staring, looked at her fully.

"Nothing," he said, and she didn't even get the slight. "I need to relieve myself."

He got up grandly to leave and knocked the chair over. When he bent to pick that up, he hit his head on the desk. He left the chair and just left, leaving "leaving grandly" for some other time, perhaps when Stella was in her eighties.

When he came out of the bathroom, about to steel himself for another bout of Stella, he noticed Agnes standing at the end of the hallway, and steeled himself for her instead.

"Hello, Lee," she said. "How was your party?"

"Hi, Agnes. I'm sorry I didn't call you. I, um," he said. "It was a chance for me to be alone. Um. It was late, and I... Um. You know. It's not you. I just got out of a relationship."

Agnes looked him up and down with all the power of her years.

"Dear," she said with obvious pity. "I didn't want to marry you. I just wanted to sleep with you."

Lee almost completely forgot Stella while he was trying to process that. His mouth tried to form some sort of response that wouldn't show how confused, embarrassed, humiliated and titillated that simple statement had made him.

"I..." he said.

A man in his early thirties, perhaps a year or two younger than Lee, came out of the door beyond the side auditorium doors. He had full brown hair, a two day growth of beard, bright green eyes, big thumbs (Steve! Sorry) and a well developed chest which bulged arrogantly through his tee shirt.

"About ready, Agnes?" he said with a rumbling deep voice.

"Just waiting for you, Billy, Dear," she purred.

"I just finished up. Bear said he might as well just do it by himself. I didn't feel like painting, anyway. At least not sets."

"To everything there is a season," Agnes said with an almost unconscious shift of her hip that radiated a mature feminine confidence.

The front of Lee's pants moved. (Steve! Sorry. Sheesh. I'm sorry. Sorry.) Tented. (STEVE!)

Agnes linked her arm in Billy's and they walked down the hallway toward the lobby. When they turned the corner, Lee was sure he heard Agnes say his name then laugh so hard she farted. She had actually just been telling Billy a "light bulb" joke about actors, and the front door hinge needed oiling.

Lee breathed in to calm his chest. He had left the office to get control of himself, and had only stirred the waters more. Now he had to go back and have them stirred again. He leaned back against the wall and looked at the pitted acoustic tile ceiling. The hallway had a sound all its own, the hushed conversations between the air conditioner, the carpeting and the wall paper. No, it was only the hushed conversation of Peter and Bear who were coming out of the theatre.

"You've got to help," Peter said. "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their comrades."

"I dealt with her for an entire year and it added several years to my life," Bear said with a laugh. "You're on your own."

Bear continued across the hallway to the men's room, and Peter just stood staring after him. He sighed, then turned and jumped when he saw Lee. Lee stayed leaning against the wall. Peter regarded him for a moment.

"I just turned down forty-thousand dollars," Lee said rather off-handedly. Peter raised his eyebrows. Both of them.

"Beverly sent a dick..."

"The guy looking for you all over town," Peter said.

"... Yeah. He wanted me to sign a paper so she could sell the house. I didn't."

Peter cocked his head to the left and looked at Lee to see what reaction he should have to this news. Lee turned off his face and didn't give him a single clue.

"They're striking the set on Sunday," Peter said, finally. "Want to help do that?"

Lee had no idea what striking a set meant, but was sure it involved power tools. He was about to jump at the chance, then remembered.

"I'm running the diner this weekend."

Peter regarded him again, then remembered.

"Oh, yeah," he said. "Must be Twain's weekend away. I would never imagine him putting the diner in someone else's hands, though. It doesn't seem Twain-like somehow."

"He wasn't going to," Lee said. "He only let me when... um. You know, I'm not really sure why he let me."

He thought about it while he walked back to the office, and while he sat in the chair finishing up entering the receipts in the book. It was a strong enough conundrum that Stella's perfume only tickled at the edges of his senses, arousing only the slightest quickening of his blood. When he was done, he put the receipts and book back on her desk, said goodbye to her, and rode the Stingray back to the diner.

Dinner was busy. Matt actually worked up a sweat running back and forth delivering meals. Lee stayed in back, soaking up the last bit of cooking experience he could before the big weekend, and generally getting in Twain's and Matt's way. At the end of the day, Twain opened the refrigerator and pointed to two covered pans. One, he explained, was the meatloaf for Saturday's special. Instructions on cooking it were written and taped to the top of the cover. The other was the pot roast for Sunday's special. Similar instructions were similarly taped to that lid.

When the door was locked, the grill scrubbed and the last dish was dried and put away, Twain removed his apron and looked at Lee for a very long time. Lee looked back, getting a bit edgy as the seconds ticked into moments. Twain still looked. Lee looked away. When he looked back, Twain was still looking.

"Look," Twain said. "Don't break my diner."

Twain turned to leave. He unlocked and opened the front door to let himself out, and, just before it closed, said "I'll see you Monday," then winked and blew Lee a kiss (I mean it, Steve!) closed the door.

Lee woke at six and leisurely stretched, sat up, blinked to wake his face up, opened and closed his mouth noisily several times to wake that up and breathed in deeply to wake his chest. It was another day in River Bend. The air that seeped through the one small window high on the wall was chilled and clean and cut the grease smell from the air in the room. It brought with it, through the dust on the window, a window-shaped golden stream of light. He scratched his side, just under the pit, then put his hands down on the Naugahyde cushion while he woke the rest of himself up enough to stand, cross the room and get into the shower. He looked up at the shower, ready to stand.

Then he remembered that he was running the diner that weekend. His palms, which were still resting on the Naugahyde cushion, suddenly slid off on a layer of cold, freshly formed sweat. He breathed in quickly, every part, now, fully awake. He stood and turned.

"Twain!" he shouted up to the one small window. The dust motes in the amber glow swirled prettily in the path of his suddenly expelled breath. "Come back, Twain!"

Lee showered quickly but thoroughly. He went downstairs, his feet forgetting the familiarity of the oft descended passageway. (Steve? Aren't you going to comment on that? On what? Never mind.) Then he spontaneously combusted. (You win. I always do.) When he got down to the kitchen, he set it up for breakfast just as he had done every morning for the last several weeks, but it felt, somehow, stilted, out of sync, like a bike ride over railroad ties, or artificial root beer flavoring. When the coffee was brewed, he automatically poured a cup and set it on the counter for Twain. He looked at it for a very long time, poured it down the sink and unlocked the front door. There were no throngs of people storming to get in. He went back in and sat on a stool, not the one Twain always used first thing in the morning, that would just be wrong, and listened to his heart trying to escape his chest. I really need to see a heart specialist, he thought.

Matt came in, took off his jacket and sat on the stool next to him.

"Morning," Matt said.

The front door opened. Lee closed his eyes for a moment, then stood up.

"And so it begins," he said, and went into the kitchen as Matt went behind the counter.

"Bacon and eggs, over easy," Matt shouted back as he put the slip on the circular order slip thing.

Good. Over easy. He had mastered that. The first three customers were well spaced and fairly easy. I can do this, Lee thought, and dropped his spatula. He picked it up and looked around to see if anyone had noticed. No one had. He raised it just above the two beautiful basted eggs that were bubbling on the grill, emitting the wonderful aroma of browned butter, but just couldn't do it. He washed it quickly, then washed it again, carefully. Very carefully. The eggs burned.

"Poached eggs," Matt shouted back.

"You're kidding."

"With sausage. Where's my basted?"

Lee turned around, threw away the burned eggs with the flip of his now very clean spatula, broke two more eggs on the grill and painted the butter onto them, grabbed the small sauce pan, filled it with water, then looked around for the little poached egg form thing. Twain had been very specific about the poached egg form thing. It formed the eggs in the water. I wish I had paid better attention, he thought. Who would have imagined someone would order poached eggs. In the whole time he had been there no one had ordered a single stupid poached egg. He hadn't even realized they were on the menu until yesterday, when Twain had carefully demonstrated the proper poaching technique and he had chosen that moment to send hate energy to Beverly. And the Jerk. And love energy to Excalibur, surprised that he actually missed the stupid little rat dog. He had heard just enough to register that the poached egg form thing was crucial to proper egg poaching.

He opened a drawer and the contents violently rushed forward. It was all knives. Very dangerous looking knives. He opened another drawer, a big one, a bit more gently. It was filled with all sorts of odd things, and he rummaged around in it. Several of the odd things he remembered seeing in the antique shop Beverly worked in. There was a cigar box, which he pulled out and opened. It was full of old index cards. He set it on the counter, and began pulling other things out and putting them on the counter until he had built a large, unsightly pile. In the fourth drawer he opened, he found the thing. Right in front. On top. He went back to the grill and the basted eggs were burned, and the water had boiled out of the sauce pan.

"Scrambled and steak, medium," Matt shouted. "And where's my basted and my poached? People are yelling at me. I don't like to be yelled at."

Lee, trying to ignore the sweat trickling down his nose, pulled the huge garbage can close to the stove, flipped the burned eggs into it, broke two more on the grill, painted them with butter, slapped a steak on the grill next to them, and refilled the sauce pan with water. He put the poached egg form thing in the water, and broke eggs into the form. It looked really nasty.

"Hey," a voice said, and he turned around to see Peter standing in the doorway to the kitchen.

"Hi," Lee said as he broke two eggs into a bowl and beat them soundly with a fork, then poured the resulting frothy goo onto the grill next to the steak.

"How's it going?" Peter asked.

"Got it covered," Lee said as he carefully slid the spatula under the basted eggs, picked them up and slid them onto a plate. He set the plate on the window and hit the bell. It rang thinly. He smiled at Peter.

"They're supposed to have a patty with this," Matt said when he came to pick them up.

Peter found an apron and donned it, then looked at all the order slips on the slip holder, comparing them to what was on the grill.

"Where are the patties kept?" he asked Lee, and took the spatula from him as he went to the fridge. "I need more bread," Matt said, and Lee closed the fridge side and opened the freezer side to get more bread. He picked up a loaf, and noticed the vug in the built up ice behind it right next to Roy Disney. It was where the corsage box had been. He stared at it, trying to figure out what in God's name Twain could be doing for a weekend with an ancient thawing orchid.

Peter turned and saw Lee standing at the open freezer door. He smiled at the poor, vulnerable man who stood staring into the freezer, admiring his willingness to try in the face of overwhelming obstacles.

Matt, who stood at the window that separated the kitchen from the front waiting for the bread, glanced at Peter and noticed that Peter was looking just a moment too long at Lee. He turned his head away, embarrassed, and occupied his attention with the arrangement of the order slips on the slip holder.

Peter turned and noticed Matt looking away and realized he had noticed his overlong look at Lee. Embarrassed, he turned quickly toward the grill.

Lee turned and noticed Peter turning quickly toward the grill, and quickly shut the freezer door, embarrassed that he had spent so many precious breakfast cooking moments with his head in the cold, and brought the frozen bread to Matt who took it and walked away very quickly.

With Peter's help, they caught up with the orders and actually had a moment to breathe. Peter looked over at the pile of stuff from the drawers.

"Garage sale?" Peter said, with a smile. "Fifty cents for the tea bell."

"What?" Lee said, still sweating down his nose. "Oh. Yeah. Garage sale. No. I needed the poached egg form thing."

Peter laughed, and after a moment of confusion, so did Lee, and they began putting the stuff away. Peter promptly picked up a peculiar package of pastel pink paper potato pokers (Steve!) the cigar box, and opened it.

"Recipes," he said, picking up one of the index cards. "Steak Tar-tar?"

Lee picked up another yellowing card and looked at the hand scrawled recipe for chicken with ginger. The handwriting looked like Twain's. Or, perhaps a younger version of Twain's handwriting. Another card was for liver dumplings in soup.

"If you can't get goose liver," he read out loud, "chicken will do. If you can't find fresh nutmeg, cook something else."

He and Peter laughed. One day he was going to have to sit Twain down, get him very drunk and find out everything.

"Scrambled with sausage," Matt said, and Lee and Peter put the cards into the box and went back to work.

When Peter put a plate of eggs on the window, he noticed a pile of dishes on the counter that hadn't been brought back.

"Oh, my," he said, "can you watch the grill while I go help Matt?"

Lee looked at the grill, then at Peter, then out the window at the dishes.

"I'll help him," he said. Then, as he was leaving, "Are you all right back here?"

Peter assured him he was. Matt was buttering two pieces of toast and brushing sweat out of his eyes. He looked like he might cry.

"Why didn't you ask for help?" Lee asked.

"Help," Matt said.

Lee told him he would handle the toast and bring the dishes in back. Matt was good at waiting tables, and bussing them shouldn't be that hard.

"Okay," Matt said, still sounding like he might cry. "We need two more pieces of wheat, and four of white."

"Where's my breakfast?" demanded a man sitting at a booth. He was wearing a hat that said "Visit Beautiful Butte", but that has nothing to do with this story.

Lee put the bread into the toaster, pushed the handles down, and as the faintly, quickly ticking timer started, he turned to pick up the pile of dirty dishes that Matt had stacked in the sink and saw Bear sitting at the counter, just finishing up his poached eggs.

"Hey, Lee," Bear said.

"You!" Lee said staring at the remains of poached eggs on Bear's plate.

Bear was nonplused.

It took Lee several trips to carry the dishes back, and several more to clear the ones off tables. In between, he cooked toast. I can do this, he thought. Get the right people in the right positions, and I can do this. Matt still looked like he might cry, but he would get over it. He's sixteen. The trauma won't last long. He pulled toast out of the toaster and buttered it just as Matt came up to the counter for it. Yes, he thought. I can do this.

"Two more slices for this order," Matt said.

Lee looked into the glowing slots on the toaster. Two of the slices looked like they were probably done. He forced the handle to get them to pop up. The toaster sparked with a puff of blue smoke and an angry sizzle and the handle flew up a few inches, then landed on the floor with a quiet but final thunk. Lee jumped back. The bustle in the diner stopped. Even the man from Butte stopped complaining about his eggs. Lee stared at the smoke briefly, then quickly jumped forward, pulled the cloth covered cord from the wall socket, and jumped back again. The acrid blue electrical flavored smoke dissipated. Lee just stared at it. The metal lever that had held the handle seemed to scowl at him, gleaming.

"Are you all right?" Peter asked through the window. "Oh, hi, Bear."

"I broke Twain's diner," Lee said. Now he looked like he was going to cry.

Matt's face looked like it couldn't decide whether to think that was cool, to wonder how they were going to make toast, or to fear this might be his last day at work. It chose the last three.

"Where's my toast?" a lady at the other side of the diner asked meekly.

Lee just stared at the toaster. Matt stared at Lee. Peter looked at Bear and said, "Hey, Bear can fix that."

Bear's eyes got very wide and he sat back on his stool.

"That thing sparked and smoked," he said, shaking his head, the fringe of hair following the movement in an absurd dance.

"You've made flash pots for the stage. They sparked and smoked," Peter said. "And you've made an authentic looking refrigerator for Death of a Salesman when we couldn't find the model we needed for the set."

"I control a flash pot, and magnesium is fun to burn," Bear said. "And I can make something that looks like a real toaster out of wood or Styrofoam™ and make it look like it really toasted the toast they eat on the stage, but it still wouldn't make toast. The stage manager makes the toast backstage before the curtain goes up. I can't do anything with real stuff."

"Now what?" Matt said, his face losing the sense of the coolness of smoke and fire.

Peter said he had a toaster at home, which reminded Lee that there was an old kitchen one upstairs amongst all of Twain's old stuff. He ran up and got it. It was a Mary Proctor toaster and had a picture of Snoopy engraved on its side and the words "Happiness is a Snoopy toaster". He plugged it in. There was a single Pop Tart in one of the slots. The kind with white icing and colored sprinkles. Except for the layer of dust on the top edge, it was in showroom condition. Lee sniffed it like a dog sniffing (Steve...) and it even still smelled new and sweet. He set it on the counter cautiously, and put two pieces of bread into the slots. All the patrons in the diner were now fascinated with the process of making toast. The world seemed to stand still like an old Michael Rennie film until the toast popped up. It was uneven with lines of dark and white. Not pretty at all. And it smelled bad. Like Bob Dylan's singing.

"I suppose I could go home and get my toaster," Bear said. "It's real and it works, and you'll never catch up with that thing."

"Could you stop by my place and pick up mine, too?" Peter asked, and handed him his keys.

The patrons were now fully engaged in the workings of the diner. Each pair of toasted bread pieces that popped out of the Snoopy toaster felt like a personal win for each man and woman hoping the few evenly tan colored slices would come out when their order was up. Bear returned with two toasters; one, a Sunbeam, was very squared off and had silk screened glass sides depicting a very sixties flower-like design. The other was a utilitarian one with wide slots. Everyone applauded.

"That looks like the set to True West," Bear said, admiring the arrangement of machines as he set them down. When Lee looked confused by that, Peter explained that it was a play with a lot of toasters in it. That explanation seemed to satisfy him.

"That's a really pretty toaster, Peter," Lee said with a sarcastic grin as he plugged in the Sunbeam.

"That's mine," Bear said. "From when I was married. Can the kid do it, please?"

Lee's grin disappeared.

"Pretty toaster, Bear." he said. "Boring toaster, Peter."

"I like to toast home made bread," Peter said. "I found it at a factory outlet store. It was a real bargain."

"I'll make the toast," Matt said.

When Peter's was plugged in and started producing toast, the thrill faded, and the patrons gradually went back to their plebeian concerns, waiting impatiently for their individual orders to be delivered.

When the diner finally thinned, Matt asked if he could take a little break. Lee looked at the huge stack of unwashed dishes and was about to say no, but saw the look on Matt's face which said "if I don't get to go away for a moment, I might really cry, which none of us want to witness, all being men and all."

"Of course," Lee said, and made a wide berth around the toasters in order to get to the door to the kitchen.

As Lee started washing dishes, Peter opened the cigar box and pulled out a card. Lee looked over at him for a moment.

"Thanks for helping out today. It's your day off, you don't need to stick around," he said as the steaming water filled the sink.

"Don't worry, it's fun. I haven't done this since college when I was on work study. Listen to this," he said, effectively diverting attention to the card. "Consomme is basically just thick beef stock. When you put fancy garnishes in it like asparagus tips or leeks in becomes a hoity-toity French meal." He thumbed through a few more cards. "I can't imagine Twain admitting he even knew what a reduction was. What's the matter?"

Lee was standing, staring ahead with a very soapy dish in one hand and a very soapy sponge in the other. He didn't seem to be moving at all.

"Lee?"

"I'm dead," Lee said, still not moving

"The toaster? That could have happened to anyone."

"Why the hell didn't I sign that stupid piece of paper?" Lee said, letting his arms drop so that he was now elbow deep in sudsy water. He hadn't rolled his sleeves up.

"Oh. I thought you meant the toaster."

Lee turned, spraying soap suds everywhere, one tuft landing demurely on Peter's bulbous nose.

"I did mean the fucking toaster, damnit!" He seemed to be ready to pounce.

Peter was very confused. He was frantically trying to figure out how to calm Lee down. How to make it better. But first he had to figure out what, exactly, the problem was.

"I'm sorry," Lee said setting a soapy quarter on the shelf above the stove for the cuss jar. "My life seems to be turning in some very strange directions, and I keep getting dizzy."

That helped Peter get his bearings. "Go. Make some phone calls. Get the toaster repaired. You can deal with Beverly another day. I'll wash. Go."

"She had a nose job, you know," Lee said, then he shook the suds off his sleeves, nodded and left the kitchen. Peter watched him go, then carefully tested the water, added more hot, and started scrubbing the dishes and putting them in the other side of the sink. When he had a sink full of sudsy dishes ready for rinsing, the hands of a clock spun rapidly to indicate the passage of time, (nice touch, Steve. Film school), and Lee came back into the kitchen.

"Three people laughed at me," he said, "one with a thick Irish accent. I'm a dead man. And I'm spending my last few hours on earth sweating over a hot stove."

"I know what we can do," Peter said, drying his hands on the very clean towel that was hanging on the oven door handle. "We could make one of these." He thumbed through the recipes and pulled one out. "Uncle Hubert's Five Alarm Chili. I'll bet Twain has the ingredients for this one."

Lee's face turned several different shades of puce in rapid succession, then he sputtered, then his face went white, then puce again.

"I've already broken the toaster," he said finally. "Isn't that enough?"

"He can't kill you twice. And I didn't mean to sell. Just to make. To eat. It will occupy your last few hours alive. A last meal, so to speak. Like da Vinci."

Peter picked up the card to begin gathering ingredients, then looked up at Lee with a quizzical look on his face. Lee let the look go on as long as he comfortably could.

"What?" he said, trying not to sound too terse, but failing miserably.

"There's a small part in Look Homeward Angel that they haven't cast yet," Peter said, still looking quizzically. "You'd be perfect for it."

Lee was tired of his mind trying to process so many reactions to one single thing. Ever since he had come to this town, he had been forced to try to make his mind multitask. He even hated that word, multitask. It was so inefficient, so nonlinear. Now his mind was once again bending in several directions at once, and it made him tired and irritable. Rather, even more tired and more irritable. Okay, No, he wouldn't want to be on stage, he's already told Peter that, but sure, Yes, it would be fun to try a little role in a play. And All right, it was flattering to be asked, but the fright over-rode the flattery and wouldn't it be fun to try and what the hell do I think I'm thinking, I couldn't even stand in front of a room full of Rotarians and explain the difference between the inheritance tax and luxury tax and why does even the mere thought make the soles of my feet damp and when the hell does he need me to make a decision?

"When would you need me to make a decision?" he asked, not sure which part of his diseased mind came up with anything but a resounding no. He was about to slap that part of his mind into sense when the front door bells clanged, and Lee sighed heavily and went out to take the order of the couple that had just come in and were now sitting at the counter looking at menus. They were wearing matching striped shirts under matching wool coats from Jakarta, Indonesia. They ordered club sandwiches. Lee panicked and looked through the window at Peter.

"Okay," Peter said. "Once."

Lee very carefully put two pieces of bread into Peter's toaster and very gently pushed the handle down just to the point where it clicked, than stepped back. Peter smiled and nodded. There were still four slices to go for the order. He carefully put two slices into the Snoopy toaster, then looked around to make sure Bear was nowhere around, set himself squarely in front of the Sunbeam glass sided silk screened work of art. He lifted his arms carefully, one piece of toast in each hand, and put them into the slots without touching the toaster. He breathed in deeply, held his breath, and pressed the lever down slowly. It squeaked as it went down, and he squinted and turned his head while he pressed until it clicked into place. He sighed, careful not to do it too strongly.

The two Snoopy slices of toast went into the center of the club sandwich, the Sunbeam slices on the bottom, and the sandwiches looked quite passable.

By the time Lee was bussing their dishes, Peter already had the browned beef, onion and garlic simmering in tomato and water.

"What's wrong with that clock?" Lee said, then breathed in the mingling aromas. "God, that smells good."

"It has several more ingredients and several more hours until it's chili," Peter said, proudly.

The front door opened again and a man in a John Deere hat came in and sat at the counter.

"BLT," he said.

Another man came in wearing a Cat™ cap sat at the other end of the counter.

"Tuna salad," he said, and Lee sighed, relieved. "On toast."

The man in the John Deere hat said he also wanted three BLTs and a club to go. The Cat cap guy asked if he could have a slice of toast with his coffee. Lee looked around for the hidden camera. (You know, Steve, we should have called this "No accounting for Toast". I think we should have called it "Installment Eight and Nine".) The front door opened again. It was Matt.

A chorus of angels sang. Matt was holding, carefully cradled in his arms, the most beautiful toaster Lee had ever seen. It gleamed. It was bigger than a bread box. It had six slots. Matt came behind the counter and gently set it down. Peter came out from the kitchen to admire it.

"It's a Dualit," Matt said. "It's made in England. Mom says it's the Rolls Royce of toasters. Mom likes toast."

"And she let you bring it here?" Lee asked, in awe of the gleaming machine.

"Sure," Matt said. "She seemed proud that I was being so responsible at work. You know how moms are."

The three of them stared at the machine until the man in the Cat cap ahem-ed and asked for his toast.

"Can Mr. Principal or I make it?" Matt asked very quietly, trying to sound nonchalant.

By the time the theatre crowd showed up at four-thirty for their pre-show meal, Lee had turned the clock to face the wall and the chili was a thick red-brown brew that sent tendrils of wonderful seduction out around the tight-fitting lid and into the kitchen and beyond. (Just say it smells good, Geoff. No. Pontificator. Is that your last breath, Steve? No.) It even overshadowed the smell of the meatloaf special, which was a good smell in itself.

Agnes settled into the booth, and Billy settled in next to her. Lee was surprised to see that he still wore the same tee shirt but it was now stretched out and wrinkled, that his eyes looked tired and red and that he had an insufferable smile on his very relaxed, closely shaved face. Agnes was dressed for closing night. As they looked at their menus, Agnes raised her head, testing the air like a do... (Stop. Now. I really mean it. No dogs. Not now. Never.)

"Is that Uncle Hubert's Five Alarm Chili?" she asked Matt.

"Oh," he said. "I don't know. It's something Mr. Harris and Mr. Principal made for their dinner. I don't think it's on the menu."

"Oh, Lee, dear," she cooed over Matt's shoulder. "Is that Uncle Hubert's Five Alarm Chili?"

He nodded.

"I'll have a bowl," Agnes said, then convinced Billy that he should, also.

Lee was about to object when Bear came in, still dressed in his tee shirt and jeans. He sniffed the air (What?!) before he even sat down at the booth.

"Uncle Hubert's Five Alarm Chili," he said. "I'll be damned. I don't even need to look at a menu."

"I'm a dead man," Lee said, and went in back to get the chili.

At the end of the day, when the last customer had eaten his Uncle Hubert's Five Alarm Chili, and the left over meat loaf had been put away to be used for meat loaf sandwiches, both cold or hot open face with gravy, and the front door had been locked, Lee sat on a stool at the counter and sighed.

"Don't you have to prove the till?" Peter asked as he joined him at the counter.

"I already did," Lee said matter-of-factly.

"When? You just rang up the last thing fifteen minutes ago, and then washed dishes. Jesus," Peter said, in true admiration. "When I was in college it used to take me minimum forty-five minutes to balance a register."

"I'm an accountant," Lee said, then sighed, really miffed that that was all he could do well.

Sunday passed in a dream. Peter showed up at some point and helped, and Lee wasn't sure if he asked why. Matt was there for the brunch rush and the dinner rush, then went home to do his homework or practice on a piccolo or timpani or something. The special was the special it was supposed to be and the predictable number of people ordered and ate it. Nothing got broken.

When Lee closed the till at the end of the day, he realized with mild amazement that he had actually done it. He had actually successfully run the diner. For a day, anyway. He smiled quietly, allowing himself a moment of glory. He really should be satisfied that he really could run the diner, even if it was because he had been in a numb haze that felt like small chainsaws nagging at the end of all of his nerve endings all day. But he had broken the diner, so the moment of glory was short lived and the chainsaws resumed their nagging.

Lee woke at six and stretched, sat up, blinked to wake his face up and breathed in deeply to wake his chest. It was another Monday in River Bend. The air that seeped through the one small window high on the wall was chilled and mingled with the grease smell from the air in the room. It brought with it, through the dust on the window, a gloomy window-shaped stream of light. He scratched his side, just under the pit, then put his hands down on the Naugahyde cushion while he woke the rest of himself up enough to stand, cross the room and get into the shower. He looked up at the shower, ready to stand. He stood, then sat back down again, heavily. Small particles of dust billowed up from beneath the green Naugahyde cushion and swirled and danced mockingly in the light from the window.

He had given up thirty or forty thousand dollars. He had, for some unknown reason, convinced Twain to let him run the diner. He had broken the prize toaster, and he had inadvertently served a special. Granted, it wasn't enchiladas, but it was a special that wasn't on the approved list. Being branded a transient drunkard jailbird, it seemed, wasn't the worst thing that could happen in one day. The couch was green and it was Naugahyde, but it was indoors and relatively dry.

He dragged himself across the room and took a shower, then dragged himself down the stairway, wondering if he could gather the courage to just leap forward, roll down the stairs and stop the insanity©.

Lee set the kitchen up for breakfast, brewed the coffee, set a cup on the counter for Twain and sat on a stool. He took a deep breath and looked out the window. A dented metallic-green 1972 Impala drove up.