When Seagulls Fly Inland

Behind the hotel Mary Diggs was preparing for the noon-day crowd in her small restaurant. It was nothing much more than a large room with odd tables and chairs for the customers and a kitchen. Mary had a room in the back of the restaurant where she slept during the summer months. All summer long folks packed into her place with a line of people out the door waiting to get in. It was said she served up the best fried chicken and fish on the peninsula. “Bootsie, I’ve told you, you don’t have time to be socializing with the customers.” Though her niece had been named after her, Mary always called the child by her nickname. “Get the orders to the kitchen and keep moving. There’re people waiting to get in.” “I wasn’t talking to them, Aunt Mary. They were talking to me,” the small girl said. “Child, I don’t want to hear it. They can talk to each other. Your job is to keep the food coming to the tables,” the woman scolded her niece. The girls that waited tables were allowed an hour each day to run take a dip in the ocean to cool off. But Mary Diggs was a businesswoman who didn’t put up with foolishness from the help … related or not. Uncle John worked at the stove frying up the chicken in big cast iron skillets. Mary hired a man to wash the china plates throughout the day. It was “hotter than blazes in that kitchen.” Only Mary, always dressed in a bright, white apron, handled the money. If the customers paid one of the girls, they were to give the money to Mary. Mary didn’t want any mistakes and so she alone would see that the money was right. She had a cigar-type box for each denomination of bills and she made certain that her cash boxes were never disturbed by the hands of others. She even kept the girls’ tips and doled them out when the girls had enough to go on one of the rides at the park. Mary’s sister, Delia, made black and white, and red and white checkered tablecloths and napkins that decorated the restaurant. Customers were always impressed by the fresh flowers … often a big peony blossom in a glass of water… that was placed on each table. Delia also made matching curtains for the windows and added ruffles of the checkered fabric to the waitresses’ aprons. But such efforts by the family to brighten up the place, were not matched by Mary. Mary was strictly business. “I don’t know why some people ever come back,” Bootsie said. “Just now a customer tried to say how much he enjoyed the chicken and Aunt Mary just walked off.” “My momma says she’s a hard-boiled egg,” Betty Lou said. “What’s that mean?” Bootsie asked. “You know… a penny-pincher.” “Right. My momma says she doesn’t want to give her customers anything she can’t charge them for,” Bootsie said. “But I don’t see why she doesn’t want us to be friendly to the customers.” Repeat customers knew not to bother Mary Diggs. She was too busy to respond. Still they came back… and she knew they would, because her food was delectable. Most of the time when the girls went in the water, they paid no attention to the fence that separated their beach from the whites’ beach. As far as they knew, it had always been there. The waves were higher than usual on this day and the two girls stood on the wet sand eying the roll of waves coming20in towards them. Bootsie asked her friend, “How do you suppose they keep the white water separate from the colored water?” “What you mean?” Betty Lou asked. “You know… the water on that side is white and our water is colored. How do they keep it from mixing out in the ocean?” Betty Lou swiveled her head back and forth. “I don’t know, but I think some of that white water is splashing over on our side. I hope it don’t bleach us out.” “Maybe, we should only get our feet wet today, being as it isn’t so terrible hot,” Bootsie suggested. Just then a wave rushed upon them soaking both girls from the waist down. “We’re gonna look somethin’ awful if’n we end up half white, or even spotted.” Betty Lou said. “I’m getting’ all the ways in.” “Okay,” Bootsie followed her friend. “But if’n wes turn some icky color, it’s gonna be your fault.” Before going back to the restaurant, the girls inspected themselves. “Aunt Mary will put us to work in the kitchen with the dishwasher if’n we come back looking all phewy orange, or yell-low, or gree-een,” Bootsie told Betty Lou as she twisted every which-a-way examining her freshly dipped-in-the-mixed-water skin.” Then she announced with a shru g, “I guess the bleach didn’t get over hair.”