The sign above the cafe had seen many storms but weathered and washed it still stood with its faded neon letters: Auntie A.’s Classical Greek Diner. And classic it was with each stool at the bar resembling a Doric, Ionic or Corinthian pillar all topped with a velvety, light blue cushion. The tables were heavy like strong decks of triremes, their chairs with backs in half circles like ships’ wheels. Most cosy of all were the booths along the walls, their dusty rose pink cushions were half-enveloped with a scalloped seashell that glistened like an opal in the moon. In the very center of the restaurant bubbled a long stretched aquarium with fish that swam like confetti at a ticker tape parade. Auntie’s A.’s had been the cool place to go for generations there in that town in the Midwest. No one really knew how old it’s proprietoress was, but she had given the place its name and everyone loved Auntie A. and her son. Nobody knew his real name either, but his nickname had become Lover Boy with his dark curly hair and deep chocolate passionate eyes. All the girls swooned over him and even the men when he winked at them felt a pitter-patter in their chest. No one wondered, strangely enough, why the two of them had never grown older since they opened in the Summer of Love 1968. No one really cared, the food was great and there was no better place to go on a date in a five county radius.

On the wall above the cash register was a small museum of pictures. Auntie A. always kept photos of those who had met there and sealed their lives together. She always floated through her tavern, her sea blue eyes seeing what those flushed cheeks of the patrons told about their hearts. When she saw the blush of enduring love she made sure that her moussaka was herbed just right with crushed Pragma leaves, they made the most perfect balance of the five flavors, of bitter, salty, sour, bland and sweet. Still to that day every Saturday at 5 p.m. Theodore and Barbara came in for their moussaka like they had for 52 years. Their dinner was so early because they were only allowed to drive in daylight. She knew as she brought their plates and put her hands on each of their shoulders that they only had a few more evenings together left. She knew then she would have to place a black ribbon across their photo hanging in the center of all the others.

Sometimes singles came in for a bite to eat, their hearts a bit empty, their libido a bit full. It was so easy to ask each of the soon to be one-night-stand pair if they could share a table or a booth because the wait list was so long. She always offered her oysters with a pinch of Ludus. Often they would return the next morning hungry for her feta and black olive omelette. Mostly the night before was also enough to lift their hearts and empty their libidos so they concentrate on their daily lives again

Even the town’s Catholic priest (whose faith she never quite understood except that it had also something to do with love) came for his kolokythokeftedes with a slight sprinkling of Agape to go with the dill and the mint. She made sure her son never waited on him after the time the priest’s eyes began to sparkle and flame when her son turned in his apron to walk away. Father O’Connor’s Adam’s apple heaved up and down three times as he stared at the wave of her son’s aft rising and falling in his tight denim pants. She then offered him another delight of honey packed sticky baklava.

Although, it was never easy making the right matches for long love or just a night to satisfy the thirst of lust, she did it because she cherished every one of them. They, too, held her dear. But everyone was careful not to be smitten by her son.