To think that another day could get as boring as every other day is not hard to do, when you live in a little Podunk town in Kansas, so just seeing a man as fascinating as this could become front page news. My parents, my grandparents, and their grandparents all lived in this town that houses a little over three thousand people. The only thing I ever wanted was to get out of here and see the world. All the people that accidentally found Atkins Green, usually opportunists, and snake oil salesmen, have run into me first, as I am the wait staff at the town’s only restaurant. A few of the smarmier men have tried something on me, and all the women have looked at me and put me in the category of white trash. My own promiscuous ways ended my wanderlust early, as my son was born when I was still fifteen, as I had said before. My daddy got out the old shotgun, and I married my prince charming, figuratively as my daddy was dead by this time in my life. The honeymoon lasted until about the time the baby was born, and the wonderful world of fatherhood, was not in the cards for Mr. Right, so I simply had to endure.
It was a real kick in the head when Jack moved out of my bed after work one day and moved into the bed of one of my friends from school. Her pregnancy came as a shock to everyone but me. You could trace back the conception date to somewhere between my son’s conception date and his birth. I made a name for myself by a good scene I made with her after she had miscarried, and a lot of the women around here secretly admire me, but they all publicly shun me. Small town life goes like that, and I am sure a few of you reading this could see that happening. Jack had many more paternity tests over the years, but nobody has ever been able to nail down his paternity and I have always wondered about that. Of course, it means that I alone where the scarlet letter of Jack Richmond’s DNA combining with mine in a legal sense, so despite every woman that I went to school with sharing that bastard’s bed I get brought up whenever he does something creepy. Well, I guess I should say did get brought up.
I have been gainfully employed here at this coffee shop since before my seventeenth birthday, and my aunt, dutifully took care of my wonderful son Jake until football practice started doing that for both of us. If I were a little smarter, I might have been in that university a couple of towns over, but I am sure that it would have made child rearing a real chore. Not to say that I am the greatest mother ever, but I try, and that is really all that counts. I have the instincts anyway, as I have sat at his games on the weekend wanting to kill some little jerk that hit him too hard. I cannot complain about Jake, since he has been the perfect little son, so I am doing fine really. I do sometimes wish that I had chosen a decent father for him, but when you are young and dumb, you do things that are young and dumb, and I also subscribe to the theory that you never regret anything because it makes you who you are.
As I had said it is not unusual around here, for someone to come through town and decide it is their job to tell the pretty waitress, that she should be a movie star. People in other parts of the country see that in cheesy movies, or television and think its all-fairy tale, but I assure you it is not. I do not know what is sadder, that this still happens, or the fact that I already know it is not really going to go beyond the back seat of their car, or the only motel in town. From the point that I am writing this right now, there are still many days to go before I am that jaded or worse yet, far beyond. A week can be a lot longer than week though and I need to remember that when I make it sound so easy and so relatively short of a time. The facts are still there that I occasionally, like to hold on to a dream or two, that I may be whisked away too far off places that nobody else from these parts will ever see. Sadly though, I am usually here every day, whiling away the time, with the “usual” which comprise nobody important aside from your stray weirdo that this type of town always produces. This man could be the weirdest of them all but my mind at the time could not decipher that from any other reality I have travelled between in the thirty years I have dealt with the daydreams of a waitress in a diner.
I am back standing in front of that beautiful man trying to think of anything I can other than that beautiful man, so I am looking around to all the people in the restaurant praying that someone else will make eye contact with me. That is a first realistically as I usually look around praying for the opposite. Now when I am in my time of need, I have nothing. Even the perverts that stare at my rear end every time I pass by them finally have things to do, and I did not think I would ever forgive them for that. How dare they simply use me and not reciprocate this to me in the least. I scanned the diner as quickly as I could before that amazingly, and quite unrealistically at the same time, beautiful man looked up to hold me in his gaze. You have Mary the church lady, as I prefer to call her because “God Woman” as everyone else does is a bit mean, perched over on her usual chair over in the corner there. She is no help now as she is staring at the new man and sweating from what it looks like over here. I do not think she has ever had her nose outside of a bible for more than twenty-five minutes in her entire life, but this guy is the cure for that ailment as she stares at him.
Over at the side of the counter is Burton, the town drunk or “do nothing” as I had said before and unfortunately in my case “pervert” as well. I wish he would find a way to tip me for every time he has touched my bottom, but he barely factors into this story at all, so I guess I will stop talking about him. He of all people should pretend to or really need something right now because every available moment of every day I have worked here he has. The real character is over here, as we are now looking at the Sheriff of this town, Walter G. Miles III. You care to venture a guess as to who the two Sheriff’s before him were? I have often heard stories about what a great man his grandfather was, but they are so overshadowed by the stories of what a creep this Walter G. Miles is. We all have our crosses to bear, but this character really stands out, like a monument to the stupidity that this town is also known for. His deputy is not like the ones you hear about in the movies either, when you have a Sheriff as corrupt as ours is; this deputy is bad too. His name is Jacob Granger, and I am sure that he will never accept no for an answer, but he really should, that is all he is getting here.
The rest just come here to eat, and not to live vicariously through harassing the waitress. If they are women, they are looking at the very thing I am avoiding. If they are men, they are simply trying not to like me, while the stranger continues to hold his nose in that book and scan the lines with his finger as if he is searching for something. He sweeps a page now and then but his empty coffee cup getting rudely ignored finally gets to me, so I start walking over to him with the coffee pot in hand. I stare at his cup and do not look at him for a second. Now that I think about it, this irrational behavior is incredibly silly, but these feelings were burned into me as I tried to just deal with this man and get the day over with. It will go smoother when he leaves; I remembered thinking while at the same time thinking it would make me sad. Really sad.
I have never had to shy away from anyone, but this man is making me weak. I cannot let in to this girly girl crush crap that is simply beyond explanation, and with a new resolve I had just talked myself into, I kept walking towards his cup. I do make it to the end of the counter, and his un-phased expression, the whole time would have infuriated me, if I did not want to strip naked and begin demanding his attention. He does not even wait for me to quiver the words out, as he breaks the ice with, “Thank you Anna, your timing is refreshing, and you make a wonderful hostess” and it did not shock me as much as it should have. I wanted to sit down at a table and start signing our names together a million times on a school notebook even though I did not know his name and took absolutely no note of the fact that he had no reason to know mine, but he did.
For some strange reason, as his words echoed into my head, I could feel myself starting to regain the composure I had before I set my eyes on him. I did really notice now that he had no reason to know my name. I had not noticed that he called me by a name that nobody calls me by, as I had always preferred to be called by the second part of my name Stacy. Hearing him say anything now had me ready to start skipping around the counter and looking back on that I see the creepiness of it all but at the time, thinking was not an easy thing to do. It did not matter because I can say with a smile on my face now that I was more concerned with finding out his name so that I could of course start seeing how his name and mine looked together in that notebook after all. You all need to understand that I was not even like that when I was a teenage girl so if I did not start laughing about that then I will not now, and not just because I am embarrassed admitting this, but because I am still a little scared.
I had not even really realized that despite the intoxication of him now, I was at least able to function when he looked at me, so I simply poured his cup and walked to the other end of the counter looking back with every other step to see if he was looking at me. I should have been making myself sick from all the prepubescent fascination going on here. This entire scenario was like combining the purest of bliss, with the harshest of cruelties. To not be in control of the very feelings that permeates in my own body is as unfair a reality as anyone has ever faced in their life, and now it is mine. I do not want to take my eyes away, I can think of anything else, and the littlest of scared voices in my head is telling me to just run in fear. It is starting to make the most sense at this point, but I must do my job, and I must get this man out of my mind anyway I can.
My new resolve at this point was not too terribly much better than my last two, but it did get a couple of more cups of coffee in front of him. Each one he was drinking as fast as the one before it despite how hot it was, and yes, it is amazing the things you notice after the fact when you are not suffering from total infatuation. At the time I could have just stood there and nodded along with anyone who tried to convince me that two-hundred-degree coffee is not that bad when it goes down. Surely the trick was to just do it fast right? As he peered through the pages of his old book, I did find myself able to do a little reading over his shoulder for whatever good that did, as I could not decipher the language or even half of the letters of the book he was reading. I did not dare to ask him at the time what it was, for I was barely making it through my shift now as it is, but he took it upon himself to point at a line and look up at me. “To be varied unto the creator is the simple set of rules that all creatures of any might must adhere to despite their own shortcomings or lack thereof,” which he then took a gulp of his coffee before he continued, “Everyone misses that part because of the translations,” which prompted him to stand up closing the large book, and walk directly over to Mary’s table where she was sitting alone, as she usually does.
Now of course this qualifies as very odd trust me. Every small town has a woman like Mary. Born to be a spinster, not attractive, pious, and lacking any sense of humor whatsoever. When the most beautiful man you have ever seen, and by most beautiful I mean a far shade more attractive than any of the men on television who get paid to be attractive. Mary looked at him and blushed, well bless her little chunk of ice that she would call a heart; I was thinking to myself and only now realize was the stuff that makes a woman’s cattiness legend. Again, I find myself seething with jealousy as I see him lean over and speak to her. She stares blankly at the wall and then manages to nod right before he sits down with her. I can only imagine that there would have been a lot of humor over the town “ice princess” being jealous of the town’s “ice queen” over a man that neither of them had seen before, but it was the reality of the time, and if anything, I am honest.
My mind is so cloudy that when the gorgeous stranger puts his large book on the table in front of them, I do a double take back at the counter where I had sworn he had left the book, but obviously hadn’t, and at that moment I was finally ready to give up on all of my delusional drama that I was playing out in my own head and get back to dealing with the customers that are probably angry that I have been ignoring them. None of them seemed to be though as they all were just as fascinated by the new guy as I was and had forgotten all about their food or coffee equally proficiently as I had forgotten about them. I startled quite a few as I was dropping off food or trying to refill all the hardly touched coffees, and when I reached the table with Mary, and the stranger, I did not appear to startle them at all, as they both looked at me at the exact same moment and smiled. Yes, that was as creepy as it sounds, and I hope I got that across to you all.
It took me a few seconds to clear my throat properly, and would have been embarrassing had I been paying attention to the real world at the time, but the words finally came out, “Can I get anything else for you two?” followed by an awkward silence, that gave me the opportunity to start wondering what I should do first, start ripping his clothing off, or ripping her eyes out. I had no shame now either as Mary is old enough to me my mother’s older sister. The stranger smiled at me and then looked at Mary.
Mary is taking equally as long to clear her own throat as I had, and I did actually notice that at the time it was happening and I think it calmed down my need to kill her when the words came out, “No sweetie, I am thinking about leaving anyway, as much as I like looking at Lou here, and talking about the good book, I have to go to the Church and help out with the plans for family aid,” which did come out rather painfully from her, I could tell. Her own emotions even in my own weakened state appeared to be playing with her, and she seemed far more uncomfortable with them then I did, and I did start to feel great compassion for her, because she was far more out of her element then I was. She no soon ever wanted any man to pay her attention much less the most gorgeous man on the planet that every woman wishes was paying attention to them instead. Of course he was not paying attention to them; he was paying attention to Mary.
“You’re a wonderful person Mary, let me get your breakfast for you today,” I said to her to help get her out of there as quickly as I could. Jealousy is an awkward shade on my pale skin, but I wear it as well as I can under the circumstances. It appeared to help her get up from the table. Her much older legs seemed far weaker than mine, as she was simply trying to escape the allure of such amazing beauty that was standing up as well, out of old-fashioned values that I have not seen in this place and rarely see on television anymore. I was still fighting off the jealousy that she had known the guy's name before I had, and the inner struggle throughout this entire childish scene was maddening. No man has done this to me before, and it was fifty, fifty as to whether I was going to let this man, or I was owed because I never let a man do it to me before. Ok at the time it was more thirty, seventy or even twenty, eighty, but that is as far as I go with it.
“I’m going to pay for her breakfast this morning,” Lou stated as he grabbed Mary’s hand and shook it, staring into her eyes, “I appreciate your help, and am forever in your debt Mary,” he then added as he kissed her hand, which made Mary blush for a moment, and then her face went rather blank, as if all of a sudden she was completely over her infatuation with him. As a matter of looking back on all of this, it was almost loathing as she looked upon him at that moment, but she did make the gesture of a proper thank you before she made her way out of the place in a bit of a huff. The mini “scene” that the whole incident caused brought forth some sniggers from the counter where Burton was sitting, the only person who was not in some state of “different-ness” throughout the new visitor’s appearance. Nothing like the saturation of cheap liquor to keep someone out of a daydream, and into unreality but that was Burton for you. It was more apparent as I walked past him to get back behind the counter and he grabbed my rear end again, as he always does, and I did not slap him, like I always should have. It was just part of my miserable life, and even though I felt more worthless than ever because the man of my dreams witnessed it, I went on with my job.
I grabbed some of the dishes that were left by a few of the unemployed who were fumbling through the trade papers to see where they were moving to. These were the lucky ones that rented and did not actual own large mortgages on houses that will never sell. I was calming down over my humiliation from another Burton attack on my self-esteem, damn I could have killed him for that more that time than any other time before, and it was good to fall out of enchantment to the new guy through humiliation anyway. I filled the bus bucket with dishes and paper and started walking back around the counter with it. As I walked it all into the kitchen I could see through the corner of my eyes Lou’s book, closed and alone where he had been sitting. It was odd but I continued into the kitchen and then proceeded to place all the dishes into the dishwasher bin and the paper into the trash. I started hearing something that sounded like wailing coming from the dining area. It was heart wrenching and awful to have to endure.
I made it back to the door back out into the dining room, but as I looked through the “don’t hit me” window I could see most of the people that were still left in here heading for the door. Some of them I had not even given a check to, and many others had not even finished eating. All I could think to myself as I barged through the door was that I was finally going to kill that whining Burton finally for scaring all the customers out of here with his idiocy. I barely got through the door when I saw the most pathetic thing I had ever seen. Burton’s entire face was muddy and wet from his own tears and the sounds coming from him were beyond pitiful. I had heard Jake wail like this when he was a lot younger and broke his arm playing football; this was just far more hopeless and weaker.
“I’m sorry Stacy, I’ll never do anything like that again I swear,” came quivering out of Burton’s mouth. At second glance I saw a quite different man than I have seen all these years as he was sitting there white as a ghost and quivering with his hands around his coffee cup staring down looking like he was about to keel over. With that my heart nearly fell out of my chest as I had immediately gone over and put my hand on his shoulder. It was like an instinct or something that a mother with a 15-year-old son would do, and the tears started falling from his cheeks harder than the day I had realized that my father had died. I was immediately wondering what in the name of God had done this to Burton, who I thought would never have a conscious moment of clarity in his life. This man was a drunk and a letch and I on many a day had wished he would not wake up, and here he was making me honestly believe that he was sorry and more over the fact that I wanted to forgive him. This would have pissed me off as a dedicated man hater if it had not been for the sincerity. I should have been angrier at him, and even as I look back on that moment, I still feel sorry for Burton for the first and last time ever.
There was only one thing that could pull me out of the morass that Burton had dragged me into, and unfortunately it happened. I had looked four stools over to where that beautiful man had been sitting, and he was gone. Burton’s tantrum and feelings of foreboding had taken my mind from the prize that I like every other woman who had ever looked at him coveted and now I was feeling more alone than I ever had in my life. Part of me wondered if that had more to do with everyone leaving than Burton’s outburst. As silly as that sounds now to all of you, I cannot stress enough how much loss went through me in that instant as I felt like I was never going to see the most amazingly beautiful man again. It was painful and I had a tough time staying on my feet even. Sheer pride at the thought of Burton regardless of his present state seeing me down on my knees in anguish kept me glued to the spot, but I still wanted to cry ... to be continued.
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