before his senior year at Harrison High School, he expressed his desire to study musical theater somewhere close to New York City. His dream was Broadway. He certainly had the talent. I’d heard him sing with the Wabash Valley Baptist Church youth choir. Folks all around town raved about his voice. He was an intelligent kid whose parents had homeschooled him until his third grade year. When he took the public school placement test, he scored high enough to skip third grade. Now he was the youngest senior at Harrison High School and following the AP and honors track. By the end of fall semester, he said he’d have enough credits to graduate midterm. Not long after I hired him, he asked if I’d let him work full-time in the spring and perhaps next fall, so he could save money for his east coast university dream.
“Absolutely, Trace. Anything I can do to help.”
“Well, now that you’ve mentioned it, I’d like some help with my college applications.”
“Sure. Where are you applying?”
“Where aren’t I applying?” he asked, somewhat exasperated. “I’m starting with the Boston Conservatory, SUNY Purchase, the Hartt School, and the New School.”
“Wow! You’re not messing around,” I said.
“I’m getting to Broadway one way or another. I’m going to apply to as many musical theater programs as I can. Thing is . . .” Trace paused for a moment. “Well, I need some help with the applications ’cause my parents don’t want me to apply. They’d prefer I attend a Baptist college like Baylor, Texas, or even Liberty University. So I’m gonna apply to those, too, just to keep them happy.”
“What happens when you get accepted to one of your dream schools? What’ll you do then?”
“My plan is to wait until I’m eighteen—then they can’t do anything. I really just want to work and save as much money as I can. Mother and Father won’t mind if I start a semester or even a year late so long as I’m working and saving money for school. Please, don’t say anything to them, okay?”
“I don’t want to cause problems between you and your family.”
“I won’t tell them you’re helping me,” Trace said, his eyes pleading his case. “I just know you do a little bit of writing, and I thought, maybe you could help me with grammar, punctuation, stuff like that. I want to make sure I don’t have any mistakes. All the applications pretty much ask for the same thing. It’s my auditions I’m worried about. They’ve got to be perfect!”
“Well . . . I suppose that won’t be an issue. But you need to make sure your parents understand I’m just editing your applications, not suggesting which universities you should apply to. Besides, who am I to stop someone from pursuing his dream? I think it’s admirable. God knows I wish I would’ve pursued mine, whatever it once was. You’re going to be great, Trace. I’m more than happy to help. When you feel they’re ready, just drop them off.”
“Thanks, Mr. Daniels. I really appreciate it.”
“Call me Grey, Trace. My dad is Mr. Daniels.”
“Thanks, Grey.”
Our conversation had taken place several months ago, and Trace was patiently awaiting responses. When the restaurant began receiving university flyers, pamphlets, and such in the mail addressed to Trace, I realized he’d used the restaurant address for his dream school applications. I let it slide. What harm could it possibly do? All teenagers keep secrets from their parents. Besides, I always enjoyed working with Trace. He was tidy and quick. He did his job and didn’t play around like the other bussers. He was serious but always smiled. His parents were also regular customers at Daniels’, and just from local gossip and observing their manner, I knew they would not be happy with Trace when they found out he was applying to non-Baptist universities. Mr. and Mrs. Thompson had a reputation as helicopter parents, always circling about the high school and Sunday school, keeping an eye on Trace, and more importantly, those who interacted with him. Teachers at Harrison High, I was told, purposely avoided the Thompsons. Yet in spite of his parents’ constant attention, or perhaps because of it, Trace began his musical ascent as lead in Harrison High School’s glee club, along with the youth choir at Wabash Valley Baptist Church. He sang often at weddings and funerals.
As he cleared a four-top, I asked him to make his way to the banquet room when he finished. “I’m sure they need help in there,” I said. He tucked the chairs under the table and looked up with excitement.
“Did you see Pastor Daryl?” Trace asked.
“Yes, yes I did.”
“Isn’t it cool he’s come back here? Our rehearsals at church have never been better. He’s got some great ideas for our youth choir. He’s even promised more solos for me. Mrs. Boil rarely gave me a solo,” Trace said, a gleam in his eye.
“That’s fantastic, Trace. I know you’ll be great.” And with a bounce in his step, Trace then pushed his bus cart toward the adjoining banquet room. Watching him leave, I noted he was one of the few bussers that not only stacked dishes neatly in his cart, allowing for easy unloading in the dish room and therefore less breakage, but he also wiped off the chairs before moving on.
“Grey, you have a call on line one. Grey, line one,” the cashier announced via the intercom. Opposite me, on the dining room wall of the restaurant office, above the dinner crowd, hung a silver circular neon clock. Its turquoise glow drew my attention; its hands pointed to one p.m. I knew it was Rosabelle. She called every Sunday at the same time to get the scoop on my Saturday night.
Chapter Two
November
As I walked toward the restaurant’s office, I thought about Rosabelle. Both her manner and her style were very dramatic. I always thought she was the embodiment of theater living in a thee-ater town. Thee-ater is how she pronounced it. She was whip smart and quick-witted. And I loved her southern accent. Her voice was vodka and cigarettes whispered in your ear. High kicks at dinner. Reason at lunch. Her sentences sifted, drawing her words out between breaths. To me she was Bette Davis, Marlene Dietrich, with a dash of Mae West.
Rosabelle was my touchstone, the voice of Fort Sackville reason. She knew the community, what people were capable of. She understood their humanity and their brutality—I learned all of it from her. She often tried to save me from myself. And even though she’d gone to high school with my dad, she and I were friends. I’d known her all my life. Rosabelle was the first friend I told I was gay.
For almost thirty years, she’d lived with Mae MacIntosh. Rosabelle had met Mae on a buying trip in Chicago at a quarterly trade show for retailers. They now operated Bonhomme’s Apple Orchard and its only remaining profitable business, Rosabelle’s, a gift shop and general store housed in the orchard’s former roadside market. Everyone said they were just roommates. I’d learned long ago, however, that in Fort Sackville two women could live together without folks taking issue. But when two men lived together, eyebrows were raised and voices were lowered.
When I was in high school, Rosabelle and Mae sold parcels of orchard land for commercial development, and it was on former orchard property bordering Highway 41 that Daniels’ Family Buffet had been built after Grandpa Collin shuttered Daniels’ Diner, our family’s first restaurant located near Main Street on Fairground Avenue.
Rosabelle’s phone calls were always the highlight of my Sunday afternoons at the restaurant. I walked into the office and closed the door behind me, sat down
