Page 38 of Grounded
“Bill, I have waited on people from here to Singapore, and I’m taking a break. Thanks anyway. I’ll let you know if I change my mind.”
“Now, see! You’ve had a stellar career in the service industry and all because you got your start here. That airline ought to pay me for your good training.” He went back to tending the hamburgers sizzling on the grill.
“What can I get for you two?” he called back.
“BLT,” Annie said.
“Cheeseburger and fries for me,” said Lindy.
Bill’s BLT had been Annie’s favorite sandwich for years. He piled on lots of bacon, ripe tomatoes, a generous piece of crisp lettuce, and a dollop of mayo on homemade sourdough bread.
Lindy chose a booth along the front window and they scooted in, Annie feeling a rip in the blue vinyl upholstery rub against her leg.
Looking around, she saw new red-and-white-checked curtains in the windows at each booth. Hissing sounds came from the grill where Bill dropped the bacon on it. Smoke rose as an exhaust fan sucked it out while Bill clattered around, pulling the other ingredients out for the sandwich.
The sounds and smells carried Annie back to her waitressing days in high school and college. Bill hired her to work the breakfast and lunch shift, but occasionally he’d need help in the evenings. Whenever she worked, she’d come home smelling like a bucket of lard. She took a bath as soon as she got off work, trying to rid her body, especially her hair, of the diner’s scent. But she loved serving people, and Bill and his wife, Viola, were the perfect bosses for a first job.
“Does Viola still make those delicious cream pies?” Annie asked Lindy.
“Viola has Alzheimer’s. When she has a good day, Bill lets her come down and pretend to help out in the kitchen, but he’s had to hire an extra cook.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Annie said. “I guess I expected to come back and have everything be the same as it was ten years ago.”
“It doesn’t change much, not like the young folks would like. I’m one of a handful of single people my age here in town. Believe me, that gets old.”
“I don’t know—after what I’ve been through, that sounds pretty attractive right now.”
“Bad luck in love, huh?” Lindy asked.
“Or bad choices.”
A young waitress brought their food with two glasses of tea. “Bill said he thought you would want tea. Is that okay?”
“Great, thanks!” Lindy said to the waitress, then turned back to Annie. “I hope you stick around. It would be nice to hang out with someone who isn’t already married with two kids.”
Annie smiled. “At least a couple of months until Grandma recovers from knee surgery.”
Bill walked over as he wiped his hands on a rag. “Did that lady rent the stone house from Beulah?”
Annie nodded, her mouth full of sandwich.
“She was turned a little odd, but you know how Northerners can be. I figured with it being a woman, and offering cash up front, it couldn’t be too bad.” Bill was summoned back to the grill by an employee in a grease-spattered white apron.
“Unless it’s counterfeit,” Lindy said.
Annie felt like her bite of sandwich turned into gravel as she half-choked it down.
“It’s not impossible,” Lindy said. “Believe me. I see everything in the court system.”
Inside the bank foyer, Annie would like to have admired the marble floors, decorative iron support columns, and walnut teller windows even more, had she not felt a growing sense of anxiety.
Lindy stood with Annie as she handed the teller the twenty one-hundred-dollar bills.
“Into Mrs. Campbell’s account?” said the teller. She typed away at a keyboard hidden below the granite and peered into a screen inset behind a hole cut in the stone.
“Yes, please.”
“How is Beulah? We heard she had a fall in the garden on Saturday,” the teller asked while her fingers clicked on the keyboard.
