God In The Kitchen by Brooke Williams Read Free Book Online Page B

done with your broadcast,” she said.
                I smiled. “Great.”
                With the conversation set up for later, I headed back to my table to listen to Jim grumble about how I had socialized all morning while he worked. He softened a little when Chloe set a large, gooey cinnamon roll in front of each of us.
                The broadcast began when the doors opened and I broke into the normal programming on the radio station with an excited voice. “Jared Jones broadcasting live from Cal’s Diner on the corner of 84 th and Fremont.” I went on for a full minute about what listeners could expect from the remote broadcast that morning and urged everyone to stop in for a warm cooked meal. “And to top it all off,” I continued, “the first person through the front door this morning will win four tickets to tonight’s concert.”
                I watched out of the corner of my eye as I wrapped things up on the air. The door flew open shortly after I finished my sentence and I wasn’t surprised by who stood in the entrance of the diner.
                Any time there was a giveaway, Kathy was there.
                Kathy was an older woman probably nearing retirement. Her short gray-brown hair fell to her chin and looked as if it had seen too much sun over the years. Kathy herself was on the short side with thin legs and round hips. Her watery blue eyes sat behind her plastic glasses, which made them look too large for her face.
                “Morning Jared!” she said as she approached the table.
                Kathy and I were on a first name basis since she often called the studio, stopped by remote broadcasts, and showed up at other station functions. She was what we fondly called a station groupie.
                “Kathy!” I said, faking a surprised look on my face. “Has it been thirty days already?”
                The station had a policy that the same person couldn’t win a prize twice within thirty days. It wasn’t strictly enforced but when it came to Kathy, it was necessary. Kathy would win things every time they were given away if she could. And she was just a lucky enough person that she probably would.
                “Thirty days yesterday,” Kathy said, digging through her enormous brown purse until she found her wallet sized calendar.
                I smiled. I shouldn’t have asked.
                “Humph,” Jim said by my side as he placed headphones on his ears and started messing with some wires.
                “See?” Kathy said, pointing a semi-purple finger to today’s date and then flipping back to the previous month where she had marked the last day she had won. She knew her rules. “I almost called in yesterday for the CD they were giving away in the afternoon but I stopped myself.” She closed her calendar and shoved it back into her purse, a look of pride on her face. “I said, ‘Kathy, no, you’re going to see Jared tomorrow, you just wait.’”
                “And so you did,” I said, knowing it was what she was about to say.
                “And so I did,” she said.
                I bent over the table and started filling out the contest form with her name, address and phone number. Kathy won so often that everyone in the studios knew where she lived and how to get in touch with her.
                “What a blessing!” Kathy said, clutching the tickets in her hand as I handed them over.
                “You’re the blessing,” I said, stepping out of my professional character and trying to be more sincere.
                I could tell by the way Kathy stopped moving from foot to foot that her attitude had suddenly changed from excitement to something else.
                “Why, Jared,” she said, her eyes more watery than normal. “That’s just about