The Long Drive
My eyes were filled with sand. I had been driving for hours and forcing my eyes to open. I had gotten a call from my daughter in college. She was a wreck. Her boyfriend had dumped her, and she was barely able to speak without sobbing. Normally I would have chalked it up to histrionics, but Faith and Edward had been together for three years.
Edward had planned an evening out, and Faith thought he was finally going to propose. Over the dessert course, he told her that he had met someone else and was in love. He left her to drive herself home behind a curtain of tears. It’s amazing that she made it back to the dorm without any injury.
Faith called me. Her mother had passed away from cancer when Faith was seven. She and I were very close, but I still didn’t always know how to handle girl problems. I got in the car and headed across the country to her college.
When I finally decided that it wasn’t safe for me to keep driving, I pulled into a parking spot outside an all-night diner. It was an anachronism, straight from an old movie.
It was even called Pop’s.
I walked in, already certain I would be ordering a burger and a root beer. I was also pretty certain that the older man flipping the burgers was the aforementioned Pop. I found my way to a booth and slid across the vinyl seat and picked up a laminated menu. After perusing the sparse menu, I settled on the burger and root beer I had known I would order.
The waitress, Alice, took my order and hollered it back to Pop.
I looked around the diner while I waited for my burger. Most of the patrons looked as lost in time as the diner was.
There were older men who had obviously driven the dented pick-up trucks covered in the red dust of the area.
Two middle-aged women pulled up in their powder blue convertible, removing scarves from their shellacked hair.
A twenty-something waitress, presumably on her break, sat at the bar chomping gum and sipping her cola. She didn’t look in any hurry to get back to work. Pop didn’t seem too concerned, and Alice wasn’t holding any ill will. There were only a handful of people.
What else would one expect at 2a,m,?
My burger came in all its glorious greasiness. I bit into it, chewing and wiping my chin, nodding to Alice when she asked if I wanted a refill. The AC felt good and was helping me wake up some. I might just make it to Faith’s campus.
I could lay down in my car for a little bit, but I know better than that. If I were to lay down now, I would sleep for a day.
I couldn’t do that. Faith needed me, and she needed me in one piece. I finished my burger and was thinking about a piece of peanut butter pie when Alice brought a piece. My surprise must have shown on my face.
“Did I forget to tell you I’m a mind reader?” she asked. “ I also see that you’re a good tipper.”
She winked and went to bus a table after she tucked the bill under my plate.
I finished the silken goodness of the pie and left a $10 tip as I went up to pay my bill. She really was a mind reader, I grinned.
Walking to my car, my total concentration was on Faith again. Turning the key, I backed out of the parking spot and turned back on to the potholed highway.