There were two hundred and thirty-one of them.
Rita had started keeping them in 1970, her first year at the Wagon Wheel. Her grandmother had told her that a two-dollar bill was good luck, and that if a customer ever tipped you with one, you should never spend it.
So she never had. Not one, in fifty-one years.
And because she was Rita, and because she could not help it, she had written on every single one of them, in pencil, in tiny letters along the white border.
The date. The customer. What they ordered.
She went through them on the bed, one by one, in order. They were rubber-banded by year.
1979 had eleven.
The ninth one was a little faded and soft from being handled. The pencil along the border was in her own young handwriting, small and neat.
Oct 13 79. Sat. 9:10 to 9:40 pm. Danny Voss. Cherry pie warm, vanilla ice cream. Coffee 2 sugars. Stool 3. Tipped me this. Nice boy.
Rita sat on the edge of the bed and held it in her hands for a long time.
The Legion vote was on Friday night, at seven o'clock, in the Legion hall.
The same hall. The same back door. The office where the cash box had been was a storage room now, full of folding chairs.
There were eighty-some members in the room that night. More than usual. Word had gotten around. Danny Voss sat in the third row with his wife, Joyce, very straight in his chair, in his Legion cap. Ronnie Pfaff sat in the front row.
Before the vote, the post adjutant asked if there was any old business.
Rita Baumgartner stood up in the back of the room.
She was not a member. She had asked permission that afternoon, and the commander, who had eaten breakfast at the Wagon Wheel every Saturday for thirty years, had said yes.
She walked up the center aisle with her cane. It took her a while. The room did not hurry her.
At the front, she turned around.
"I'm Rita Baumgartner," she said. "Most of you know me. I poured your coffee for fifty-one years."
A few people smiled.
"On Thursday, Ronnie asked me how an old waitress could remember a piece of pie from 1979," she said. "It's a fair question. So I'd like to answer it."
She looked out at the room.
"Bill Kuebler," she said. "Third table on the left, by the window. 1983. You came in the morning your daughter was born. Two eggs over easy, rye toast, and a chocolate milk, because you said you were too nervous for coffee."
Bill Kuebler, seventy-four, in the second row, slowly took off his cap.
"Marge Ellis," Rita said. "Booth by the jukebox. Every Friday after your shift at the hospital. Grilled cheese with tomato and a cup of chili. No onions. 1977 to 1992. Then your doctor made you stop with the chili."
Marge Ellis put her hand over her mouth and laughed.
"Ronnie," Rita said.
Ronnie Pfaff, in the front row, looked up.
"Your daddy brought you in every Sunday after church when you were a boy," Rita said gently. "Pancakes with a smiley face in whipped cream. You were eight. You cried the Sunday I forgot the cherry for the nose. It was June of 1970. Your first summer coming in, and mine. I never forgot it again."
The room was very quiet.
Ronnie Pfaff stared at her. His face had gone red.
"I remember that," he said slowly. "I remember the cherry."
Then Rita took a small envelope from her pocketbook.
"I don't expect you to take my word alone," she said. "So here's what else I have."
She took out the two-dollar bill and held it up.
"Since 1970, I've kept every two-dollar bill I was ever tipped. I wrote on every one of them. Two hundred and thirty-one bills. I have all of them at home in a cigar box, and anybody who wants to can come and look." She handed it to the post adjutant. "Read the border, please. Out loud."
The adjutant put on his glasses. He read it, slowly, to the whole hall.
"October 13, '79. Saturday. Nine-ten to nine-forty p.m. Danny Voss. Cherry pie warm, vanilla ice cream. Coffee, two sugars. Stool three. Tipped me this." He paused. "Nice boy."
The Wagon Wheel was four miles from the Legion hall. The cash box had gone missing between nine and nine-thirty.
Not a single person in the room needed it explained.
In the third row, Danny Voss had put his face in his hands. His wife had her arm around him. His shoulders were shaking.
He had been nineteen. He had carried it for forty-seven years.
Ronnie Pfaff stood up in the front row.
He did not say anything for a moment. Then he turned around to face the room.
"I withdraw," he said. "From the race. And I'd like to say something to Danny." He looked at the third row. "My dad was one of the men who said it was you. I grew up hearing it at the supper table. I never once asked whether it was true." He swallowed. "I'm sorry, Danny. I should have asked."
Danny Voss looked up. His eyes were red.
He nodded.
Danny Voss was elected commander of American Legion Post 112 that night by a vote of eighty-one to nothing, with one abstention, which was his own.
The next Monday, the county historical society added a small card to the glass case on Main Street, below the front page from 1979. Rita had written it out by hand, and the director typed it up.
Danny Voss was at the Wagon Wheel Diner from 9:10 to 9:40 p.m. that night. Cherry pie, warm, vanilla ice cream. Coffee, two sugars. His waitress remembers.
On Tuesday morning, Danny came into the Wagon Wheel and sat down on the third stool from the end.
Rita was at the end of the counter with her coffee. She did not work there anymore. But she got up anyway, slowly, with her cane, and went behind the counter, and the young waitress let her.
She did not ask him what he wanted.
She brought him a slice of cherry pie, warm, with vanilla ice cream, and a coffee with two sugars.
Danny reached into his wallet. He took out a two-dollar bill. A brand-new one, crisp, from the bank.
He laid it on the counter.
"For the cigar box," he said.