by Mike Ramon
WHAT’S A PRETTY GIRL LIKE YOU DOING IN A PLACE LIKE THIS?
Candy cleared another table, first stacking the empty red plastic food baskets and abandoned beer bottles on a tray, which she in turn placed on a neighboring table, and then using a rag to clean the table off, wiping away a puddle of beer and a glob of dried marinara sauce. The rag (too dirty to clean tables with, but she didn’t give much of a damn, if truth be told) disappeared into a pocket of the lime green apron that all the waitresses at Lucky Bucky’s wore, and she lifted up the tray, wincing at the slight cry of protest from her back, and carried it to the kitchen. She left it by the sink for Freddy, the dishwasher with the milky eye, to take care of.
She left the kitchen and stood near the front counter, staring across the dim interior of the restaurant. There was only one table occupied at the moment, a guy sitting alone finishing off a sandwich and catching up on yesterday’s news with a newspaper, the Franklin County Register most likely. She glanced at her wristwatch (only $15.99 at the Super Mart, but it looked real fancy, which is why she bought it) and saw that it was only fifteen minutes till closing time, so as soon as this last guy was finished, she knew she could head home, count her tips, and get some sleep.
She looked over to the cash register and saw Charlie leaning against the counter, reading a comic book. The man was as dumb as a stump, and he had a penchant for giving people too much change when they paid for their meals (not as a kindness, simply because he was too stupid to figure out the right change), but his uncle was Buck Larson, known as Lucky Bucky to his friends, and so nobody gave him shit, or at least not too much
Candy looked back out at the nearly empty dining area, and at the lone straggler, the man who stood between her and home. She decided give the guy a sort of message, to let him know that maybe it would be best if he hurried along and finished his sandwich, and then disappeared to wherever his destination was on that particular night. She walked over to a nearby table, reached into her apron and pulled out the rag that really was too dirty to be cleaning tables with. She started wiping down the table; when she was done wiping it down she stacked two chairs on top of it, facing down, and moved on to another table. She shot a glance over at the man, but he seemed to be absorbed in whatever he was reading in the paper, which she could now see was indeed the Register. She couldn’t imagine what it could be that demanded such rapt attention from him--the biggest stories the Register carried usually had to do with bake sales or some bullshit like that.
After wiping down the second table and stacking chairs on top of it, she looked over at the man again, and was a little surprised to see him looking back at her, with a small smile spread across his lips. His eyes were chocolate brown, his hair jet black. He reminded her of Sam, an old boyfriend who hadn’t been so bad, even if his breath always did smell like mints.
“How ya doin’?” the man spoke.
“I’m doin’ fine, Jack,” she said back.
“Name’s not Jack. You can call me Bob.”
“Sure thing, Bob,” she said, moving to the next table.
“Would ya like to sit with me for a spell?”
“I’m workin’, Bob.”
“Ah, hell, you can sit with me while I finish my sandwich, can’tcha?”
He looked back over his shoulder at Charlie, still leaning against the counter and reading that damn funny book.
“That is, unless I would be getting’ you in trouble with the boss man over there,” Bob said.
“That ain’t the boss man; that’s just Charlie, and he ain’t much of nothin’.”
“Then come on and sit a spell.”
She considered using some other excuse, a story about a sick kid at home that she really had to hurry off to check on, perhaps, but she didn’t have any kids, and the truth was that she really didn’t have anything better to do. She sighed, stuffed the rag pack into her apron, and sat down across from Bob.
“Whatcha readin’ there?” she said, nodding at the paper laid spread out on the table.
“Nothing important.”
He folded up the paper and set it aside. He lifted up his turkey and bacon sandwich and took a bite.
“Good sandwich,” he said. “You make it?”
“No. The cook made it.”
“Hmm. Makes sense, I guess.”
Candy reached over and grabbed the paper, sliding it over to her. The first story on the front page was something to do about a shortage of crossing guards at schools in the county. She pushed the paper aside.
“I told you my name, but you haven’t told me yours,” Bob said, taking a swig of root beer.
“Candy.”
“Your name’s Candy?”
“Yep,” she said with a nod of her head.
“It’s your for real name?”
“It’s my for real name. My mama thought it sounded nice. Most people think it sounds like a stripper name.”
He laughed softly; it wasn’t an unkind laugh, though.
“Want a bite?” he asked, offering her his sandwich.
“No thanks. I have a rule: never take a bite out of a half-eaten sandwich that’s offered to me by a stranger.”
He laughed again and took a bite himself.
“Oh, I’m not a stranger, honey. We know each other--I’m Bob, and you’re Candy. See?”
“Mm-hmm. We’re just like old friends, you and me.”
“Exactly.”
“What do you do, Bob?” Candy asked.
“Oh, I do lots of things.”
“I mean your job, how you make a living.”
“I drive a truck. All across the country.”
“Do you like it?”
“It ain’t half bad, I gotta tell ya. I get to see the country, cities I ain’t never thought I’d see. Plus, I like drivin’. Lots of people get lonely out on the road, but for me it’s different.”
“You don’t ever get lonely?”
“Oh, I do get lonely sometimes, but it’s a different kind of loneliness. I can’t explain it really. It’s a peaceful loneliness. A content loneliness. I guess I’m not makin’ much sense, am I?”
“Not much.”
“How about you--do you ever get lonely?” Bob asked.
She flinched at the question; no one had ever asked her that before.
“Well, yeah, I guess,” she said. “But everyone does sometimes.”
Bob sat quietly for a moment, just looking at her, like he was trying to figure out some secret that she didn’t know she was keeping. Then he finished the last of his sandwich, and drank the last of his root bear.
“I guess I’d better get going,” he said. “I gotta be in Kansas City by tomorrow afternoon.”
“It’s gonna be a long night for you.”
“Yep. Why don’t you come with me?”
She was taken aback by the abruptness of it. For a moment she just stared at him, not really sure that he hadn’t meant it as a joke. There was no humor in his eyes, though.
“Do you use that line on all the girls, Bob?” she tried.
“It isn’t a line. It’s a question. An offer.”
“I can’t just up and leave with you. Things don’t work like that.”
“Things work lots of different ways.”
“Just…no,” she said.
“You got ties here? A man? Kids?”
“No.”
“Is it this job? You can’t bear to leave it behind?”
“No, it isn’t that. I don’t even know you.”
“I’m Bob, remember?”
“Yeah, I remember. Listen, buddy, are you a bit touched up there in the head, or somethin’.”
He laughed good-naturedly.
“Nope. And I ain’t no pervert, neither, in case you were wonderin’. I just thought you looked like a nice woman, and I enjoyed talkin’ with ya and all, and I thought maybe we could get along together. If we get to Kansas City and you decide you don’t like me, I’ll bring ya right back.”
“Oh, you’re touched, alright. I can�
�t go with you to Kansas City. I have a job here, I have friends here. I’m not gonna just up and leave. That’s not me.”
“It could be you, though,” he said.
They looked at each other for a minute, neither of them saying a thing. Then Bob saw some final answer in her eyes, an answer that told him that what she had said was true, that it couldn’t be her.
“Well, maybe I’ll catch ya around some time,” he said.
He stood up, grabbed his jacket from where it hung on the back of his chair, and put it on. He took out his wallet, grabbed out a five, and set it on the table. He walked over to the front counter, tapping Charlie on the shoulder to get his attention. Charlie put his comic down and took the man’s money. On the way out Bob gave Candy a nod, and then he was gone. She got up, picked up his plate and empty root beer bottle. She walked back into the kitchen, tossed the bottle in the trash and set the plate down near the sink.
She leaned against the sink then and thought about a few things. How does one measure a wasted life? She wasn’t quite sure. For one brief moment, she let herself imagine what it would be like to run outside right then, to catch Bob before he pulled away, to travel with him to Kansas City and to whatever lay beyond Kansas City. Perhaps if she was someone else, some other self, some other Candy, she could do just that, she could stop him and climb up into the cab of his truck. But she was not someone else, she was not some other self, she was simply Candy, a forty-five year old waitress at Lucky Bucky’s near Route 9, and she did not stop him, did not climb up into this cab. Instead she drove home, counted out her tips (twenty-one dollars), threw off her apron, stripped out of her clothes, and took a hot shower. Then she went to bed. It was some time before she was able to sleep, and when she did she dreamt she was in a town she had never been to before. She wasn’t certain, but she thought it might’ve been Kansas City.