A Piedmont Porchlight Story
There’s an old saying around Piedmont that Thursday is the longest day of the week.
I don’t know who started it, and I don’t particularly agree with it myself. I’ve known Mondays that lasted approximately three fiscal years, and one Wednesday at Magnolia Mortuary that I sincerely believed would never end.
But Thursday was special to Miss Viola Pruitt.
Every Thursday, rain or shine, she went down to the Coffee Cup at precisely ten o’clock in the morning, ordered two cups of coffee, and sat in the booth nearest the front window.
One cup for herself.
One for somebody who never came.
Now, Piedmont is a town where folks generally mind their own business, provided there’s absolutely nothing interesting happening in anybody else’s. And an old woman ordering coffee for an empty chair every Thursday is interesting enough to keep a town occupied for years.
Miss Viola was eighty-six, maybe eighty-seven. Nobody knew for certain, including Miss Viola, who maintained that a lady had no obligation to remember anything that occurred before Roosevelt.
When asked which Roosevelt, she’d say, “The handsome one.”
That didn’t narrow things down much.
She was a small woman, hardly five feet tall, with silver hair she wore pinned up in a loose arrangement that appeared to be held together by two hairpins and a generous helping of determination.
Her dresses were always freshly pressed. Her shoes were sensible. And she carried a little black pocketbook that looked as though it had survived the Great Depression, three wars, and a disagreement with a lawn mower.
She’d been coming to the Coffee Cup for as long as anybody could remember. But the second cup of coffee was something she’d only started ordering about sixty-eight years earlier.
At first, folks figured she was waiting for a friend. Then they figured the friend was late. Then they figured the friend was dead. Miss Viola never corrected anybody.
One Thursday morning, Curtis Pope decided he’d had enough wondering.
Curtis had been cutting hair in Piedmont since the invention of electricity, or so he claimed, and considered unanswered questions a personal affront. He slid into the booth opposite Miss Viola.
“Morning, Viola.”
“Morning, Curtis.”
“Mind if I sit?”
“You’re already sitting.”
“Reckon I am.”
He glanced at the untouched cup of coffee.
“Expecting company?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Somebody.”
Curtis waited. Miss Viola stirred her coffee.
“Well,” he said finally, “when’s this somebody coming?”
“Thursday.”
Curtis looked at the calendar hanging beside the cash register.
“Viola, today is Thursday.”
“I know.”
“Then where is he?”
She smiled.
“Not here yet.”
Curtis considered that for a moment. “Well, he must be walking from Birmingham.”
Miss Viola laughed. It was the first time anybody at the Coffee Cup remembered hearing her laugh in years. After that, Curtis made a habit of checking on her. Every Thursday he’d stop by, sometimes with Earl, sometimes with Miss Lorene, and ask whether her company had arrived. The answer was always the same.
“Not yet.”
Eventually, people stopped asking. But they never stopped noticing. The coffee would sit untouched until Miss Viola finished her own. Then she’d carefully move the second cup to the edge of the table, leave enough money for both, and go home. The waitress, Minnie, once asked whether she ought to stop bringing the extra cup. Miss Viola looked genuinely distressed.
“Oh, no, honey. He’ll be needing that.”
“Who will?”
“The one who’s coming.”
Minnie didn’t ask again.
I became interested in Miss Viola’s little ritual because of something that happened at Magnolia Mortuary. It was late October, and I’d been going through some old records in the basement.
Clifford Monk had left behind a filing system that was best described as archaeological. Every document appeared to have been buried beneath three others, and nothing was arranged in any order recognizable to modern civilization.
I found an envelope containing photographs from a church picnic held in 1958. There were the usual scenes. Ladies standing beside folding tables loaded with fried chicken and potato salad. Children running around with paper cups of lemonade. A preacher attempting to look dignified while eating a watermelon.
And in one photograph, standing beside a young woman in a pale blue dress, was a handsome young man with dark hair. The woman was unmistakably Viola Pruitt. She couldn’t have been more than twenty. The young man had his arm around her shoulders.
On the back of the photograph, somebody had written:
Viola and Thomas. Thursday, June 12, 1958.
Now, I wasn’t particularly interested in the day of the week until I checked an old calendar. June 12, 1958, really was a Thursday. I put the photograph aside. Then I noticed something else. There was a small handwritten note tucked inside the envelope.
Thomas never came back after the accident. I took the photograph down to the Coffee Cup the following Thursday.
Miss Viola was sitting in her usual booth. Two cups of coffee. One untouched.
“Morning, Viola.”
“Morning, Jim.”
“Mind if I join you?”
“Not if you behave yourself.”
I smiled at her. “I’ll do the best I can.”
I sat down. “Found something I thought you might like to see.”
I slid the photograph across the table. For a long moment, she didn’t move. Then she picked it up. Her fingers trembled slightly.
“Well,” she whispered. “Look at us.”
“That’s you and Thomas?”
She nodded.
“He was a fine-looking boy.”
“Sure was.”
She smiled. “He thought so, too.”
We sat quietly for a while. Then I asked the question I’d been carrying around for days.
“Viola, what happened to Thomas?”
She looked out the window. “He went away.”
“Where?”
“Didn’t say.”
“Was there an accident?”
She turned toward me. “Who told you that?”
“Found a note with the picture.” She looked down at the photograph.
“Yes,” she said softly. “There was an accident.”
I waited.
“Thomas worked for the railroad. Had a job out of Anniston. Came home every Thursday, just in time for coffee.”
“What happened?”
“One Thursday, he didn’t come.”
She ran her thumb along the edge of the photograph. “Train accident, they said. Never found enough to bring home.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “That was a long time ago.”
“Then why do you keep ordering his coffee?”
Miss Viola looked at me as though I’d asked why the sun came up. “Because he said he’d be here Thursday.”
Now, I’ve heard a great many things in my life that were difficult to answer. And that was one of them. I didn’t tell her she ought to stop waiting. Didn’t tell her sixty-eight years was long enough. Didn’t tell her that sometimes people make promises they can’t keep. I just sat there while she finished her coffee.
When she stood to leave, she picked up her pocketbook and tucked the photograph inside.
“Thank you, Jim.”
“You’re welcome.”
She glanced at the untouched cup. “He’s going to be late again.”
Then she walked out.
The following Thursday, Miss Viola didn’t come to the Coffee Cup. Minnie kept her booth empty until eleven. Then noon. By one o’clock, she was worried enough to call me.
I drove over to Miss Viola’s little white house on Church Street. Her curtains were open. Her porch was swept. The front door was locked. I knocked. No answer.
I called Sheriff Booker. We went inside together. Miss Viola was sitting in her favorite chair beside the window.
She’d passed away sometime during the night. Peacefully, as far as anybody could tell.
Her little black pocketbook rested on the table beside her. And tucked inside was the photograph of her and Thomas.
We held her funeral the following Monday. There weren’t many relatives left, but half of Piedmont turned out. Curtis Pope cried, which he later denied.
Miss Lorene brought a casserole and informed everybody that grief was no excuse for serving dry chicken. Hattie, who ran the Coffee Cup, closed for two hours so she could attend. After the service, I went back to the mortuary to finish the paperwork.
That evening, I found something in Miss Viola’s personal effects that made me sit down. It was a small envelope. Inside was a note written in careful, old-fashioned handwriting.
Thursday.
Ten o’clock.
Coffee Cup.
Don’t forget.
And beneath it, in a different hand:
I won’t.
Now, I might have left the matter there. A sad little story about a woman who’d waited a lifetime for somebody she loved. But the following Thursday, Minnie telephoned me.
“Jim, you better come down here.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.”
“Then why do I need to come?”
She hesitated. “Because I don’t know what to do with the coffee.”
I drove over. The Coffee Cup was nearly empty. Minnie stood beside Miss Viola’s booth. On the table were two cups. Both empty.
“Who ordered these?” I asked.
“Nobody.”
“Then why’d you bring them?”
“I didn’t.”
I looked at her. She looked at me.
“Jim,” she whispered, “I came out of the kitchen at ten o’clock, and they were sitting there.”
“Maybe somebody from the morning shift—”
“There ain’t anybody else on the morning shift other than me and Hattie.”
I glanced toward the window. The sunlight fell across the booth in a narrow golden stripe. And there, resting between the two empty cups, was a photograph. A young woman in a pale blue dress. A handsome young man with dark hair. Both smiling. Both looking directly at the camera.
It was the same photograph I’d given Miss Viola. Except it wasn’t. Because in the original, Thomas had his arm around Viola’s shoulders. In this one, they were sitting together in the booth. At the Coffee Cup.
Two cups of coffee on the table.
And behind them, through the window, I could see something that made my heart give a peculiar little jump. The Southern Railroad depot. Just as it had looked in 1958.
I took the photograph home. I still have it. Sometimes I look at it and wonder whether Miss Viola finally got her Thursday. And sometimes I wonder about something else.
Because if you look closely at that photograph, you can see the reflection of a third person in the Coffee Cup window.
A man standing outside. Wearing a dark gray suit. Black tie. Polished shoes. His hat resting in his hands.
Now, I don’t know who he was. And I don’t intend to ask. But every Thursday morning, when I pass the Coffee Cup, I glance toward that booth.
And I swear, every now and then, I can see two cups of coffee sitting on the table.
Both empty.
Some promises, I reckon, just take a little longer to keep.
⁂
