Jenna

The story of a young Hiram Falls woman with a flair for making doughnuts.

Note: This piece is the sixth character sketch from Hiram Falls to be presented on stage by the Vermont Stage Company in its annual Winter Tales shows in December.

Jenna Libby Bartels sets the phone gently in its cradle, gets up and walks into the kitchen. Her mother, Lavender Libby, is hanging up her apron, the dishes done.

“Thanks, Mum."

“What did he want?” Lavender says, the ‘he’ being Herb Stanton, owner of Herb’s Diner in Hiram Falls where Jenna has worked for years.

“He wants me down at the diner at 7 sharp tomorrow.”

“On a Sunday? Diner’s not even open. Aren’t you taking Gracie and her friend snowshoeing up on Mt. Riga?”

“Yep. He knows that. Said it wouldn’t take long. Whatever it is.”

“He’s up to something.”

“You got that right. He’s been acting squirrelly ever since November when the diner turned 30.”

“How so?”

“He keeps complaining about the winter weather. Says he hates snow, hates the cold. Hates December almost as much as November. Wonders how he’s managed to do this day-in, day-out for 30 years. And he keeps repeating the story about how he built the place, back when he was 32 years old just like me. Says it was the talk of the town.”

“It was.”

Indeed. It was.

It was 1921 when Herb bought a two-acre lot at the bend of Riga Creek for $100. It was nothing but rock ledge, a few hearty maples, a giant oak and a breathtaking view of the falls. Only Herb saw its potential.

“He’s crazy,” they said when he bought the land. “It’s too steep. Too rocky. And he’ll have to take out all those trees to build anything in there.” But Herb had a plan. 

He hired Lester Norton, the logger from up on Bickford Mountain, to clear the brush and scrub trees and build a rock foundation and lay some sill beams from down at the Mill. It all got the town curious. Buzzing even. “What the hell is he building up there anyways?”

One day it all became clear. It rolled in on a flat car at the tail end of the Montreal freight. It was a diner from Quincy, Massachusetts, cut in two, each half tied down to its own wagon both afixed to the rail car which was maneuvered onto the spur next to the Hiram Falls Lumber Mill. There the steam crane, a spectacle unto itself, rumbled down and lifted each wagon onto the ground. Ernest Eastman and his blue-ribbon, six-horse team hauled each wagon up the hill to Herb’s lot. There Lester and his crew, using a giant tripod of hemlocks like they used when they logged steep sections of the mountains, lifted each side of the diner and set it down on the sills just as gentle as could be. Soon the two halves were welded, the electricity was rewired, the interior was finished out and they even brought up a propane tank for the kitchen stoves. 

And that latter detail got people to wondering. “I hear tell propane is dangerous,” said one. “Hell, give me a wood cook stove any day.” “What about them new electric stoves?” Said another.

The old timers were concerned. “This must have cost him a fortune,” but they did not know that it was Herb’s cousin who sold him the diner for a dollar because he wanted to put in an apartment house where the diner once stood.

No matter. It was something to behold, particularly in the blue light of the full moon reflecting off the steel and glass with the falls roaring in back.

For those not present for the beholding, The North Country Gazette published a four-page photo spread of the whole operation.

Herb’s Diner opened for business November 16, 1921, and it was packed. Herb had taken out a full page ad in The Gazette saying there would be free samples of food all day as an offering for any inconvenience he might have caused.

But he needn’t have bought the ad. The Gazette’s coverage was enough for just about everyone in Kent County to make plans to come down and check it out.

“Who would ever have thought of such a thing?” they said, as they lined up outside to try Herb’s cooking which, they agreed later, “wasn’t half-bad. Fact is, it was pretty darn good. And not too expensive, either. … And oh that view of the falls from inside.”

* * *

Jenna is thinking about that story, trying to picture it in her own mind, when Lavender speaks up.

“I’m headed to bed. You coming up?”

“Nope. I’m gonna sit a spell. Maybe have another piece of your pie. Poke your head in and remind Gracie it’s bedtime, will ya?”

Jenna goes to the fridge, gets out the remains of one of Lavender’s raspberry pies and sits down at the island in the center of the kitchen, the baking island, the place where it all began.

Jenna was in high school when she learned how to bake. Just like her mom. Better than her mom. Just like her grandmother, Cara. But even better than her, too.

She made breads and pies, cakes and pastries. But her real knack — her signature — was doughnuts, cake or raised, plain or glazed, no matter. She had a sense for it, said it was all about the feel of the dough, the timing and the heat of the oil. And no question she could make the most scrumptious, luscious, perfect doughnut you ever tasted. 

For a while, Lavender and Cara tried to keep Jenna’s gift a secret. But Jenna got to making so many, they started sharing some with the other Libbys and Bartels and Churchills living nearby. Then word got around. People started asking for them. So Jenna decided she’d make a little money for the house. So she’d get up early, make the doughnuts and then she and Lavender would pile into Lavender’s old Nash wagon early in the morning and deliver them, still warm, all over Bickford Mountain in a long circuitous route to school. Lavender would take a dozen with her to work at the Lumber Mill and make the Bergerons, the mill’s owners, pay for them. “It’ll keep everybody happy,” she said.

One day Herb Stanton got wind of all this. So he came up in the early evening to sample a few and see just how a high school kid went about making doughnuts that everyone was gabbing about. He happened in on the day Jenna was perfecting her latest glaze from spearmint she’d picked and mashed and boiled down with maple syrup and powdered sugar. The doughnut drove Herb wild.

“Let’s work something out here,” he said.

So Jenna started making doughnuts for Herb. In her mind, he paid mightily for them. So she’d get up even earlier and make four dozen, then even earlier to make him six dozen but even that wasn’t enough. And it seemed to Herb that his customers had forgotten their manners. They didn’t even say hello when they came in. Nope. First thing out of their mouths was, “Any doughnuts left?”

After she graduated, Jenna went to work for Herb full-time. Lavender was furious. She wanted more for Jenna. “You should go to college,” she said. “Go out in the world and get a real job.” But Jenna told her mom she was done with school. “I’ve read all that crap,” she said, “and what’s the use of me going to college? You didn’t.”

Truth be told, Jenna had become something of a tangle of a late teen. She’d sneak out with her cousins and go to some party up at the Great Quarry or on top of Bickford Mountain. Sometimes she’d wander off with her friend Rina Lapsa who knew about some beaver ponds up on Mt. Riga for some late afternoon fishing. Rina also knew how to brew some mean dandelion wine to wash down the grilled trout. 

Some mornings Jenna’d arrive at Herb’s having been up all night. After she’d made the doughnuts, Herb could see she wouldn’t be much use for anything else so he’d send her home.

He cut her slack because most times she was a dream to work with — she did what she was asked but mostly didn’t need to be asked. He understood her, liked her, had come to realize she dwelt in a spot in his heart that he hadn’t even known existed. She was almost the daughter he never had.

The feeling was mutual. Jenna’s dad died in the Great War before she was even born. Over time, she told Herb things she hadn’t told anyone.

One summer morning when Jenna was 20, she served a nice-looking college boy from Boston who was up staying at his parents’ summer home for a couple of weeks, the old Bloom place down on the River Road. He’d finished his studies and was taking a deep breath, which is what people like that do, Jenna figured, and it wasn’t long before the two of them started dating. 

He’d drop by around closing time in his fancy blue Packard convertible — a graduation present — and the two of them would go off to the bars in St. Albans or up to Barton and sometimes go up to the Quarry to skinny dip. She was smitten. He was smitten. In early September, perhaps with the aid of a little apple brandy her cousin Jed had made, they got married by a Justice of the Peace in St. Albans and the next day she announced to the world of Herb’s Diner that she’d gotten married to Bradley Cabot the Third and was moving to Boston. 

Herb gave her a hug, mostly out of shock, but as the news spread he found he had to console his customers. None of them could understand why anyone would marry a person whose name ended with “The Third” though they chalked it up to those city folks’ lack of imagination. And what about the doughnuts?

When Lavender got word, she was irate. And also crushed that she had to hear it first from some damned logger who’d been down at Herb’s for breakfast. At home, that night, Lavender stood in the kitchen as Jenna packed a suitcase, came downstairs and kissed her grandmother on the top of her head and her mother on her forehead and hopped into Bradley Cabot the Third’s convertible and was gone. 

“Doesn’t he even have the decency to come inside?” she said as the screen door shut.

For days loggers coming into the Hiram Falls Lumber Mill — where Lavender ran the show — tread lightly. Gradually, she cooled off. Mainly because she’d come to the belief that her daughter’s marriage would never last and she’d come back home. 

Which is exactly what happened. But she had a bonus — a toddler named Grace. And Gracie, as she soon became known, was almost enough to make Lavender forget about everything.

After a time, Jenna squeezed out an admission to her mother that she, Jenna, may have been the only one in Hiram Falls who didn’t know the marriage wouldn’t last, but that was because she had not taken into account Bradley Cabot the Third’s hideous mother who held too much sway with Jenna’s now ex-husband.

So Jenna slipped back into the house where she was born and between Lavender and Cara and a few neighbors, Gracie had enough doting women around so’s Jenna could return to work at Herb’s Diner. It was hard to say whether Jenna, Herb or his customers were happier. By then, 1941 to be exact, The Diner in Hiram Falls had become an institution. 

And over these last 10 years, Herb and Jenna have run the diner from 4:30 a.m. until 3 p.m. every day except Sundays, and they cook good food at reasonable prices and make sure conversation stays friendly. 

Jenna is, unofficially, doughnut maker, prep cook, griddle cook, bookkeeper, floor mopper, opener, closer, food orderer and fill-in waitress. 

“My right-hand gal,” Herb tells people. “She could run this place without me.”

* * *

Jenna smiles to herself as she thinks back on all that, her time at the diner, her misbegotten marriage. She thanks the stars for Gracie, who’s just about the best thing that has ever happened to her.

Jenna finishes her pie, walks upstairs and pokes her head into Grace’s room. She’s asleep. Jenna closes the door gently and goes to bed.

At 6:30 Jenna bolts out of bed in a panic. She hasn’t slept this late in years. She dresses, creeps down the stairs in her socks, puts on her boots and winter coat and heads outside. It’s a bitter cold December day. Five below. The snow squeaks under her boots and a northwest wind hits her face — cold and damp. A haze of fine snow is falling, a start of something for sure.

She gets into her 1941 Ford pickup, pumps the gas pedal, pulls the choke half out and turns the key. On the third try it coughs to life. Jenna appreciates this truck. Ben Nash sold it to her. With some reluctance. “Remember, it’s only a Ford,” Ben had said, “and it’s ancient. So don’t be expecting too much from it.”

Soon she is out on the road and heading down the mountain into town. She can’t push back the curiosity, nervousness even, that’s crept into her belly about what Herb has in mind that absolutely can’t wait until tomorrow. 

“Jeezum,” she thinks, as she pulls in and sees Herb’s truck, the bed filled with something or other and covered and tied down with a tarp that is already collecting snow. Right next to it is the Nash sedan of Francis Lyman, the town’s nicest lawyer. Her curiosity is in overdrive.

She walks in. The bell above the door jangles. The two men are in the corner booth with only the nightlights on. 

“What in the world are you two doing sitting in the dark?” she says, flipping on the lights. She goes behind the counter for the coffee pot which, mercifully, has a fresh pot on the warmer. 

Herb’s lab, Toby, comes out from the kitchen, looks at Jenna, wags his tail, walks over to get his ear scratched and then returns to the kitchen.

Jenna fills her mug. “So what are you two up to?” she says, her stomach going all jiggly and tight on her. Herb directs her to sit next to him at the booth. 

“I’ve got something to tell you,” he says.

Jenna settles. She sips her coffee and looks at Francis. Then back at Herb.

“What?”

“Well,” Herb says with uncharacteristic bravado. “I’ve decided to sell.” He lets that settle for a moment. Then he sees the horror on Jenna’s face. “To you.” 

“What?”

“Francis here has all the paper work; you’ll find my price is quite reasonable, a steal some might say, and one of Francis’ clients who wishes to remain anonymous is going to loan you the money — at no interest — so you can make the purchase.”

“Why would anyone want to do that?” Jenna asks, flustered, still trying to make sense of what is happening. 

“Well,” says Francis, mustering his best lawyerly voice, “my client admires you — your work ethic, your attitude, your sense of humor. And your doughnuts. She has plenty of money and wants to help. Simple as that. If you want it, of course.”

Jenna looks back at Herb. 

Herb speaks up. “I’ve had enough, Jenna. I wanna be warm. I want to lay on a beach in Florida and sip piña coladas.”

Jenna is silent.

“And I want you to have this place. You’ll run it right.”

Jenna reaches for a napkin and buries it into her eyes. Herb reaches over and puts his hand on her shoulder and pats it gently.

“I presume that’s a yes,” Herb says. 

All Jenna can do is nod.

 Before she knows it, Herb says, “I gotta get going. Gotta beat the snow.” They all slide out of the booth. Herb gives Jenna a long hug and whistles for his dog, Toby. 

“I’ll see you in the spring, Jenna. As a customer.” 

Toby bursts out of the kitchen looking like he’s gotten into something he shouldn’t have, which is probably the case, and soon the two of them have hopped into the pickup and are heading down the hill for points south. Herb sticks his arm out and waves.

Francis gives her the papers. “Sure as it’s snowing outside,” he says, “Lavender will want to look these over. Come by the office when you’re ready.”

Jenna flops down on a stool at the counter and begins to cry, overcome by the kindness, by the sadness of Herb leaving, by the excitement of what lies ahead, for her, for Gracie, for her life. Jenna’s Diner, she thinks. Imagine that.

She stands up and looks around at the diner, at the booths, at the counter, out the windows at the falls now dim and blue in the early light. The snow is falling harder now, fine flakes. A hush.

Good day for snowshoeing, she thinks. She wipes her eyes with her sleeve, puts on her coat, locks the door and walks on the fresh snow to her truck.