The Breakfast Bunch

by Aubrey Kosa

 

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I thought. What are the odds that after not being to the restaurant for an entire week—the Warwick Restaurant in Newport News, Va.—that both of the ATMs on campus would be “temporarily unavailable to process my transaction?” I walked out of the library doors, frustrated with the inability of the universityi ATMs to provide me with cash for my breakfast at the Warwick. This was serious.

 

 I thought back on my trip home to Northern Virginia the week before. One of my closest friends, already having been stationed in Okinawa for a year, was now being deployed to Afghanistan. Of course I made the decision to make the trip home by any means necessary when I found out that his trip would include a two-hour layover in Dulles airport. The train ticket had been necessary. I could not have gone to the restaurant and spent the remainder of my semester’s spending money not knowing whether or not I would be forced to buy a train ticket back to school as well. No, my weeklong absence at the restaurant had been well warranted. Nevertheless, the frustration continued and threatened to bubble over when I discovered that not only were CNU’s ATMs broken, but I was also unable to withdraw money from the gas station across the street because of “insufficient funds.”

 

I stood there in front of the gas station ATM for a moment, debating whether to make the trek across the parking lot to the Warwick, whether it was even worth it at this point. Then I remembered the phone call that I received the day before:

 

“Aubrey, Hi it’s AC from the Warwick. We hadn’t seen you in a week. They kept telling me to give you a call and make sure you were okay but I kept saying that I would wait one more day until finally it had been a week. How are you?”

 

That call was reason enough for me to show up that morning, even if I had to pay with my debit card. I had told AC that I would. More than that, I had actually promised him that I would be there that morning. And I never break promises. So I turned around, still fed up with my helplessness to obtain cash, and headed out into the cloudy morning to the Warwick. There is a car pulled up close to the front door, brake lights on, clearly stopped to let its passenger out. I see the cane emerge from the passenger door first and then the signature baseball cap and slightly hunched figure that I recognized as belonging to Billy Castelow. He was here. He was out of the hospital. Relief, surprise, and joy simply washed over me, far more of a reaction than I would have ever expected to experience after only spending an hour with this man. But one of my greatest fears as I noted Billy’s absence week after week was that he would be the next of the bunch to pass away, before he even got a chance to see the sound slide that he narrated. That cloud was lifted as I greeted him and held the door open so that he could join the breakfast for the first time that I had seen in weeks.

 

We walk in, past Dave and Tommy. The smell of breakfast is delightful every time you even open the doors of the restaurant in the mornings, of eggs and biscuits and waffles cooking and the coffee brewing in the back. George’s back is to the front door, but his wife, Rhonda, catches my eye, smiles, and waves. I slide into the booth across from AC, but Billy walks on, into the back room, to the three or four tables that are pushed together ever Tuesday morning for the ‘Breakfast Bunch’, as they like to call themselves. I can hear the din of their greetings, chaotic and energetic as always. I can’t even help the smile that creeps onto my face as I attempt to focus my attentions back to AC now that I’ve absorbed the fact that Billy is no longer in the hospital. I, of course, must explain my absence, to him and everyone else. But I don’t mind one bit. They missed me.

 

Fred walks by the booth as I am catching up with AC. He stops and asks how the project is going, as he always does. Then he pushes AC over so that he can sit in the booth. He wants to thank me for what I did for him a few weeks ago and extends a ten-dollar bill across the table to me. I helped him write a letter to the insurance company asking about his father’s life insurance. Not even that. All I did was look over the letter that he had already written. I tried to tell him that it was completely unnecessary and that I didn’t need it, but he insisted, and I graciously accepted (a grand feat considering that I usually throw a fit when anyone attempts to pay for me in any form or fashion). How is it that on the day when I most need it, money is provided? And not only money, but cash. Enough to pay for my breakfast for two days. Is there any way he can ever know how much this means to me?

 

 I sat across from AC and Fred, soaking it all in. AC got his GPS from his car to show Fred what a GPS even was, and then show him how it works. Two heads, wise from old age, bent over this device that our generation takes for granted, brows wrinkled as they navigate its many functions, one teacher, one student. Rhonda and George sit in their usual booth, Rhonda with her beautiful, curly white hair. George sitting in the warmth of her smile. Rhonda (waitress) going back and forth across the restaurant, taking trays of food back to the ‘Breakfast Bunch’, smiling when she catches my eye. I am content in that moment. That moment is beautiful. It feels as if I am a puzzle piece that clicked into my place. The Warwick is mine too.

 

The spell only lasts a few moments however. AC finishes his GPS lesson, Fred heads off to wherever he goes when he leaves the Warwick in the mornings. AC gets ready to return home and make his wife’s morning coffee for her before his doctor’s appointment. When he hands Rhonda his payment, he asks if it will cover everything and it is twice the amount that I know his breakfast costs every single morning. There’s no way… Rhonda doesn’t bring me my check. AC gets up, takes his paper and his GPS and as he is walking away, he turns around as if it is an afterthought and says, “You’re covered for the rest of the week.” I of course immediately protest, hoping that the truthful relation of my tight financial situation had not prompted him to pay for my breakfast or that it had came across as a plea for funds. Those were not my intentions. I had only been trying to share my life with them as honestly as they had shared theirs with me.

 

After my moments of analyzing the causes for his generosity, my heart just melted. He wants me here. They all want me here. He is willing and able to offer to pay for my breakfast for almost an entire week. While that may only be twenty dollars to him, it is the world to me. Already moved beyond any expression, I bid a goodbye to the ‘Breakfast Bunch’, and then went to let Rhonda know that I was leaving. She tells me that I should have called if I knew I wasn’t going to be there and when I point out that I don’t have her phone number, she gives it to me and tells me that I need to call her the next time that I’ll be gone so that she doesn’t worry. Why does this woman who has only known me for four months care so much whether or not I am absent for a week? I had started to lose hope that places like the Warwick still existed: places that assume trust until you break it, immediately drawing you into their circle, embracing you, encircling you with their love just like a family. If I hadn’t already, I came to the conclusion that the end of my documentary class would come long before the end of my mornings at the Warwick. I couldn’t tear myself away from that place and those people even if I wanted to. I found another home. ◊