Twenty Four
Novak locks the front door and checks his watch—a few minutes until midnight—then moves back to the doorway of the storeroom, where he flips off the light switch. The dining area falls dark, as does the kitchen, but from the weak light of the storeroom he can see that he left his coffee cup on the counter where he stood talking to the salesman. Without turning the overhead lights back on, he returns to the front, through the narrow passage between the counters. The cup is still slightly warm, and never one to waste anything, Novak raises the cup to his lips and drinks down the last of the coffee.
He stands, looking across the curve of the counter, the stools, the square tables along the walls. Four customers this evening, Christmas Eve, including two who only had coffee. Or five customers, including the guard at the courthouse. He couldn’t have taken in much more than thirty dollars. He does the math in his head, comes up with the exact total. Certainly not worth it, if money is all that matters. But being open matters more to him than that. These people needed someplace to be—not work and not home—and he is touched, moved, that they chose to spend some of their Christmas Eve with him. They would all move on to someplace else, with family and friends, or alone, but for a while the Marquette Diner was where they wanted to be.
Christmas Day will be quiet for Novak. An old movie in the morning—George C. Scott in A Christmas Carol, definitely—and then to the diner to open up, and in the afternoon he’ll stop in at Kiernan’s to see Maggie, to drink a tonic and lime, talk about current news and remember Christmases of past years. A call to the girls later, after he gets back to his apartment, when he hopes to hear that they’re having a good time, and maybe even that they can’t wait to see him again when they get back home.
At the wash sink he scrubs the coffee cup with a soapy sponge, sets the cup in the drying rack and moves to the back door, where he switches off the storeroom light. The door closes solidly behind him as he steps into the cold night air.
Christmas will be a quiet day, but for Novak it will be enough, and good.