I woke up hungry. Station North Café is closed all Federal Holidays. Something I can’t seem to get through my thick head. It’s also closed those days the owner Kevin feels the need to “live his best life,” which is understandable considering his wife is Oprah.  If he really likes you, you, too, can be one of his several faux wives.  Last count, seventeen and holding.  I’ve been asked on several occasions to consider being number 18.  Though flattered, I remind him of the 17 other Mrs. Kevins living their best lives in and about Baltimore, a fact I take issue with, but one which he doesn’t see as a problem.

As I walk the short two blocks to the café, I smile noting that all I need in life is to be play married to a black, gay polygamist. Though intrigued by the notion (if that’s not a reality show, what would be?) I recall that I still have three months on a Match.com subscription that I have yet to activate. 

Only a block away from the café, there are no colorful balloons, no sandwich board advertising the day’s specials, both absences indicators that the café is indeed closed to business.  No surprise. It’s New Year’s; but more important to Kevin, it’s the debut of OWN, Oprah’s World-Wide (Dominance) Network.

I sigh heavily. I can’t help it.  I like a civilized breakfast – one not made by me.  I let out a plaintive cry, like a three year old who knows the world revolves only for her, saying aloud, “But I’m hungry.” The guilt that usually overcomes me at this point, where loyalty tops hunger, is drowned out by the growl coming from my stomach.  I need my veggie omelet. And this day I don’t care if it’s from Station North Cafe, where you get your choice of four artisanal cheeses, or from the grill whose name I dare not speak—Cindy’s. “Cindy’s,” I whisper to myself, where there’s only one cheese and it’s neon orange and comes wrapped in separate cellophane sleeves.  It may be the beginning of a new year, but somewhere out there it’s also “National Girl’s Gonna Have Her Omelet Day.”

I cross North Avenue, the divide separating businesses like Kevin’s in up and coming neighborhoods from those like Cindy’s, entrenched and clearly forgotten by bureaucratic Master Planners and yuppies guiding high end prams in search of Wi-Fi and the latest caramel, mocha, whipped frappe concoctions. 

I enter Cindy’s, really, Cindy and John’s, though I have yet to see any sign of John.  But, to be sure, Cindy is there. I believe she is Korean. I don’t know and would never dream of asking, as I am committed to offering no assumption before its time, and this being the case, I remain silent.  As far as I can see, I squint my eyes as much as I dare to better see the occupancy license posted above the grill (not wanting to be mistaken for the food police), but still can’t make out Cindy’s last name.  Still I won’t go there, especially since any show of ignorance/curiosity these days can easily be deemed as racial insensitive, though I’m pretty sure Cindy wouldn’t mind me asking.

My cheese veggie omelet with side order of home fries ordered, I stand to the side, listen and watch as Cindy spatula in hand, admonishes the “patron” taking slow lazy sips from a brown bag -- it’s only just 9am -- to “Take that outside. I got no license for liquor. Take outside!” The patron, who has not ordered anything, sits at one of two stools, freely conversing with the fellow sitting on the other stool, who is slowly nursing his coffee as if it's being sucked through an inverted nipple. At hearing Cindy, both men laugh dismissively, saying over and over again, “Cindy, you so crazy. Girl, you so crazy.”

And as if Cindy didn’t have enough to do with taking both counter and phone orders, accepting deliveries, along with tending to coffee orders (no lattes, only coffee black, served with or without cream or sugar meted out by Cindy’s sure hand), there’s the small business transaction taking place just within the grill’s doorway.  “Get away from my door!  Whatchu think this is?  French Connection?!”  Causing everyone, those still at the counter waiting on orders, the two stool squatters and even those very same “business” men in the doorway, to begin laughing right on cue as someone shouts, “Go head, Cindy. Handle your business, baby!” A snort of approval also comes from a young man dressed as a young woman, his plaid boxers easily seen above low handing hip huggers, as he impatiently taps the pack of Salems in his hand, only able to make a speedy exit once Cindy finally gets back to handling her true business, creaming and sugaring his coffee order.

I must have that look of disdain on my face that so many tell me is too readable, that look that says, “God, kill me now,” because Cindy looks at me and says, “You call next time,” whereupon she then reaches in her apron pocket and pulls out a plastic metallic card: number, name of grill, Cindy and John’s, it reads. “Order ready when you come.”

I thank her. I would have liked to have been able to say, “No, I’m cool,” but I know she knows I’m as far away from cool, or being down with the people as someone can be who begged to take ballet lessons, begged to learn the violin, but spent her childhood living in an apartment complex her own mother described as the “projects.” 

Cindy smiles knowingly and hands me the card.  She knows.  I know too.  Though my bank account often only shows entries after the decimal point, my mindset is clearly a middleclass one, one not likely to change with crossing North Avenue every so often. I’m down alright, down with getting my food and getting on down the road as fast as my size eight Skeechers can carry me.

Not even half a block away from the Historic Charles Street Theatre, The Strand and Everyman Theatres, alongside my own Station Arts Café, Cindy’s business, on the other side of North Avenue, might as well be on the other side of the world. Still she continues to do what many are too chicken to do.  On the “wrong side” of North Avenue, in a neighborhood once labeled the Wild, Wild West, she serves an underserved population.  I admire Cindy for the having the fortitude and grace -- yes grace, necessary in order to provide a much needed service to those who many would prefer to see forgotten and denied. 

Days later back at my usual table at Station North Café, I sit blissfully chomping away at their version of a veggie omelet.  I overhear Kevin from behind the counter mention Cindy’s; he’s talking to no one in particular, something along the lines of “why would anyone bother going in there?”  I stop chewing and our eyes meet.  I want to say something, but I don’t.  I want to say, “Cindy’s really cool -- besides, they’re always open.”  But I don’t. I shove in another bite of omelet stuffed with seasonal veggies and artisanal cheeses and lower my head happy to feel so at home.  I continue my chewing, my swallowing, content to love, patronize and be silent, playing my part the way a gay polygamist’s wife would.