fiction story excerpt

 renegade

At the corner diner the forks were always just a little bit bent. You could feel that one tine lifted from the rest as you slide the fork over your tongue while eating a slice of apple crumble. Clear glasses containing juices of orange or cranberry projected shards of color on the tables like little northern lights while white, speckled plates holding steaming piles of fried eggs and sausage clanked when set down on the metal rimmed tables. Waitresses in blue aprons topped up cups with thick, dark coffee as the griddle sizzled behind them.

A girl about fifteen in a maroon, hooded sweatshirt poised at the door as if unsure whether she was on her way out or in. Peering at her over half moon glasses, the seating host shifted a white, powdery peppermint from one cheek to the other, hearing it rattattling over his teeth as it went. He believed the youth had become too informal. If she wants a table, he thought to himself, she better approach and request one in proper fashion. He was a man of principle. He’d fought in a war, learned the importance of balancing a checkbook, accepted that not all men leave the house with a hat though he, personally, did not agree with this. He had no time for ill-mannered children, teenagers, who believed words only existed in tiny pixels on a screen. 

Sensing his growing annoyance, the girl stepped up to the counter. “May I help you?” The host’s voice feigned openness but his eyes said otherwise. The girl gave a stiff nod and held up a nail bitten finger. “A table for one? Yes?” Another nod was the only answer. “Okay. Right this way.” 

He escorted her to a table by the window and made one final gesture of courtesy by handing her the menu before retiring back to his post. She shifted around on the slick, red booth seat. Somehow they made you feel you were slipping and stuck all at once. Out of habit she opened the menu and considered her options. Her eyes stared blankly at the pancakes page, resting somewhere on the white space between chocolate chip and blueberry, as her mind slinked back to the email from her aunt. “To give you a new perspective.” She had written. Not a change of scene, not some fresh, coastal air, but a new perspective. Her aunt had never much liked that her sister had moved closer to the city and left the quiet-town-feel of her upbringing behind. Resentment shouldn’t be allowed to be carried cross-generationally, but they almost always are. They get passed down like brown eyes and widow’s peaks. 

The ching of a bell called her attention back to the diner. A waitress came by with the usual “Whuddya have?” to take her order. “Pastrami and a coke.” Indifferent to the order of a sandwich at 7:30 in the morning, the waitress took the menu and headed off to another customer already hailing her by name. 

Outside the sky was a blue-green, like ice too thin to skate on. Only New York seemed to have a sky like that this time of year. Maybe there was something in the water. 

The girl heard her phone pling from somewhere in her backpack. Probably her mom or her aunt asking where she was. It wasn’t her first time out east, not her first time taking the train, and definitively not her first time being left to look after herself, her mom had made sure of that, so they really didn’t need to act so concerned. She had traveled to the next county over, not fled the country. Her phone went off again. 

“Popular gal.” The waitress said as she set the sandwich and coke down on the table. “Boyfriend won’t leave you alone?” 

The girl looked up at the waitress. She wasn’t all that old, maybe early forties. Her feathery, chestnut hair was pulled up a bit carelessly and one of her hips seemed a bit higher than the other. Her thin, gold name tag said ‘Rana.’ 

“What’s Rana short for?” The girl asked. 

“Adriana. But I never much liked the way a capital ‘a’ looked written out.” The girl didn’t respond, half expecting to be asked for her own name in return, but instead Rana just told her to let her know if she needed anything else and then moved along to fill up someone’s coffee. 

The phone plinged as the girl took a bite of the pastrami. She reached into her JanSport, felt around for the silence lock, and flipped it. 

She then fished one of the large, square ice cubes out of her coke glass and placed it on a napkin. She took the salt shaker and set the tiny, white, crystalline soldiers to attack the iceberg. They tore through its solid flesh and imbedded themselves deep within its heart. So strange how ice reacts with salt. 

At a small table across the aisle sat a man with two large, round eyes and one large, round stomach. He sported a worn, dusty green jacket with Gastani’s Hardware embroidered on the left side. A plate of hot oatmeal with raisins sat in front of him, though he seemed to have little interest in eating it. Instead, in one hand was fixed a coffee cup and the other a local newspaper. At the moment no other nourishment seemed necessary. 

The girl looked him over a moment before focusing on an ad on the back of the paper. A pair of headphones had a SALE sign above them and she was trying to figure out what store was featuring them, but the paper was creased right at the logo. The girl leaned farther over the table, slowing her chewing as if being quieter would aid her eyesight, when she scanned her gaze back up to the man and met his eyes. She rubbed her nose and looked away. The man seemed amused. 

“You know, you should wait for the fall when the Black Friday deals come out.” The man folded up the newspaper as his gravelly voice boomed across the aisle. “They usually have a better deal on the Sony.” 

The girl fidgeted with the hood of her sweatshirt. “Do people your age really use noise cancelling headphones?” 

“Age only matters in whisky and wine,” he responded with a chuckle. “And while I drink enough of both, I happen to be neither.” 

The girl reminded him of someone. Her eyes seemed eager to understand, to evaluate. The man cleared his throat to push the thought away. 

“You know, I once made a set of speakers using a couple of empty paint cans and the hose of a vacuum.” The man rose with his coffee and paper and walked to the girl’s booth. “May I?” And upon no objection he slid in across from her. 

“Why would you do that?” The girl wasn’t sure if she was more confused about the MacGyvering of the speakers or the sudden guest she had at her table. 

The man took a sip of his coffee. “Eh, it was a quiet day, New Years Eve if my memory is worth its salt, and it still is more often than not.” 

“For someone with such a good memory you seem to have forgotten where your table is.” Rana stood over the man, hip cocked and a sly smirk across her lips. “Albert, I hope you’re not disturbing other guests.” 

“We are discussing very important things here, Rana, and you’ll do well not to interrupt us.” The wry glint in Albert’s eyes made the girl smile a bit. It was fun to see two adults poke fun and not abuse at one another. 

Rana pressed on. “You’re at my table and so I’ll do as I please thank you very much. Now, why haven’t you eaten your breakfast?”

“That bowl of paste isn’t food, it’s what you use to install floor tiles.” 

“Albert.” 

The man pointed at the girl’s plate. “Give me some of her stuff, that looks good, that’s food.” 

“You know you can’t with that heart of yours. You’ve got to last a few more years if you want to be able to last at all.” Albert waved her off. Rana shook her head and retrieved the bowl of oatmeal from the other table. Albert pushed it to the side. “It’ll get cold,” Rana insisted. 

“Good, let it freeze and then maybe you’ll give me some whipped cream and chocolate sauce and I can eat it like a sundae.” 

Rana turned to the girl and asked if the crazy, Italian man was bothering her. The girl shook her head. 

The Italian man held out his hands pleadingly. “Rana, you’re standing over me like I owe you lunch money.” 

“Your heart, Albert.” 

“My heart, my heart is here, look!” Albert gestured to the girl. “Cuore mio.” 

Rana sighed, conceding the battle for the moment. She turned to the girl. “So how did you end up here so early in the morning?” 

The girl’s face changed. Albert and Rana waited. “My mom called last night to see how I was doing at my aunt’s and she and my aunt got into a huge argument. Again.” 

Rana pulled a piece of lint off the cuff of her sleeve. “What about?” 

“Guns.” 

Albert shot a glance to Rana. “Rana, don’t start.” 

“Albert, it’s an important debate.” 

“It wouldn’t have made a difference, Rana.” 

“What wouldn’t have made a difference?” The girl asked. 

The air felt dense. The light had shifted in the diner and for a moment everything quieted, everything became grey. 

Rana swallowed. “I had a daughter, Jennie, and during the summers she used to work at the small newsagent on Second Street. Albert’s hardware store is just across the way. He used to treat her to lunch every Tuesday and Thursday. After she finished her first year at Iona, she was thinking of studying psychology, she came back and picked up the job as usual. One afternoon the storekeeper went into the back storeroom and had Jennie watch the floor as she’d done in the past. Couple of kids came in to rob the place and shot her.” 

“Rana, it wouldn’t have made a difference.” 

“Police think she took too long to hand them the money. Mr Young said he could hear her voice trying to reason with them.” 

“Rana-“ 

“She should have had a gun. She should have had a way to protect herself.” Rana’s neck was streaked red and her bottom lip had the slightest quiver. “She had no way to defend herself.” 

“Those kids shouldn’t have been able to get a gun in the first place and your daughter having a gun wouldn’t have stopped the bullets.” 

“She was my daughter. I kept her and yet she was still taken away from me. She should at least have had something to scare those bastards off.” 

A family came into the diner and gave a friendly, familiar wave to Rana and Albert. Rana went over to take their orders, determinedly flicking something wet from her cheek. 

“It wouldn’t have made a difference.” Albert seemed to be talking only to himself. “I ran over as soon as I heard the shots, I found her body, they caught them but catching them doesn’t bring back a life…” His large eyes were heavy as his mind drifted off. The girl pulled at the sleeve of her sweatshirt. 

“What did she mean when she said she kept her?” 

Slowly returning to the present, Albert looked across the table at the girl. “Hmm?” 

The girl repeated the question. “What did she mean by that?” 

“Jennie wasn’t what they call expected and Rana’s father wasn’t all too happy with the idea of his daughter being a single mother, but Rana’s got gumption. She raised that daughter of hers spectacularly. I’ve no doubt she’d have gone far in this world.” 

The girl slid a glance over to Rana. “She’ll be alright,” Albert said. “She’s had worse customers than the two of us.” And he gave a little wink. 

“So you don’t support guns?” The girl was a bit surprised, she assumed any area that was more rural supported guns. “How come you and Rana are friends if you don’t agree about that?” 

The Italian man chuckled. “You’re allowed to be friends with someone and still disagree with them on certain topics. Aren’t Magneto and Professor X friends who talk and play chess together even though they disagree on how to handle mutants in the public ?” 

The girl smirked and raised an eyebrow.

“Oh I’m not so old as not to know what X-Men is, cuore mio. Age only matters in whisky and wine.” 

Rana returned and pulled up chair. Her neck had settled to its natural color and her voice was steady and calm. “What are we talking about?” 

“The delicate balance of opposing opinions in friendships.” 

“He used the X-Men reference, didn’t he?” The girl hid a smile as Albert tried to defend himself from the mockery. 

“You know, young lady, sometimes I wonder why I still come in here and don’t just move to the diner up on Washington.” 

“I’m entitled to speak my mind,” Rana gently jibed. “There’s free speech in this country.” 

“People love to take advantage of the fact that they’re allowed to speak their mind, but what they too often forget is that so are the people who disagree with them.” 

Rana squeezed Albert’s forearm and said I know. The girl couldn’t help but feel how unusual that was to her. How could two people disagree so calmly? So kindly? 

“I don’t understand all this stuff, these arguments about school funding and health care and guns and statues and what we should or shouldn’t talk about. I thought what we, my mom and me, think is right, but with how much my aunt and her disagree I’m just not sure. What if what we think is wrong?” 

“It’s not so simple as right and wrong,” Rana interjected. “Life, especially politics, isn’t always so cut and dry as that. Different experiences garner different schools of thought. You shouldn’t just discredit someone because they disagree with you. Hear their side, maybe there’s something you haven’t considered. 

Albert nodded. “People should vote for who they support, whose policies they agree with, or at least mostly so, and should be allowed to have an opinion.” 

“I’m only fifteen, I can’t even vote yet. How the heck do my mom and my aunt and everyone else expect me to have an opinion on this stuff when I can’t even vote for it yet?” 

“I told you, age only matters in whisky and wine.” 

Rana turned to Albert. “What about cheese?” 

“Yeah sure, that too.” 

The girl shook her head and sat back in the booth. “Why should I have to know all these things when I don’t have any say in them for another three years?” 

“Because right now is the best time to start learning about them.” Rana looked over to an elderly couple was being seated in the corner of the diner and headed over to them. 

“Cuore mio, it might take years before you even begin to understand all of these complicated things, and a lifetime even then to feel you’re qualified to state your opinion and a valid solution for them, but that’s exactly why you should be asking and questioning it all now. It’s not easy, it’s not clean, and most of the time it doesn’t make sense even to the experts. Experts may be able to tell you about these issues, but that doesn’t mean they have an answer to them.” 

The girl poked the small bit of ice still remaining on the napkin. “My mom and my aunt don’t seem to have any trouble finding solutions.” 

“Solutions and the right solution are not always the same thing, and what’s more, the right solution today might not be the right one tomorrow. Your mother and your aunt have made choices. They have weighed their options, whether fairly or not, and decided to pick a side they felt fit them. But that is their choice. You can do the same, maybe you’ll find you agree with one side more than the other, or the other side more than the one, maybe you’ll end up somewhere in the middle.” 

“Yeah well…” The girl let out a sign. “I don’t know what I agree with.” 

Albert rubbed together the palms of his dry, cracked hands. He never was able to keep the skin from cracking. “You’re allowed to have an opinion of your own, even if that opinion is that you’re not sure, or that it changes with time and experience.” Rana sat down again and Albert continued. “It’s important to remember, cuore mio, that these are your parents’ fights. You’ll face challenges all your own in time. Sort out your thoughts with these long-fought familiar battles while you can, it’s good practice for the unknown future wars.” 

The sense of time had returned to the table, all three became aware that it had passed, but weren’t sure quite how much of it. The ice cube was now just part of a wet napkin and the girl’s plate had been emptied of its sandwich and gherkin. Rana looked at her watch and rose, saying something about a lunch rush. She ripped out a sheet from her notepad and placed it on the table with a half smile at the girl. Don’t you be a stranger. “But next time don’t expect any ice cubes.” The girl let out a weak laugh and nodded. 

“Well guess I should be off too,” Albert said as he collected his paper. “These hardware stores don’t run themselves you know.” He began to walk away when the girl stopped him. 

“Albert?” 

Albert turned around with a hmm? 

“What’s wrong with your heart?” 

“It skipped a beat looking at a pretty girl and got me into some trouble,” the Italian said. “The doctors in the hospital called it a heart attack, but I still say that it only skipped a long beat, a very long beat.” 

“But what did Rana mean that you have to last longer?” 

Albert cleared his throat and rubbed his hands together. “The recession made it pretty difficult to retire at a decent age. I’ve got quite a few more years of working to do before I have the money to relax and stop caring about what I eat for breakfast.” He chewed at his cheek. “How funny that we spend our lives trying to save up the money to do the things we want, and by the time we have the, well, the time to do them the face in the mirror isn’t so young anymore.” 

“Can’t anybody do anything about it? I mean, there’s got to be some way for you to get money to retire sooner.” 

“There is. Tell those with their whole lives ahead of them about it so that they don’t have to find out the hard way, and maybe instead they’ll be able to take a whack at changing it.” Albert gave the girl’s cheek a friendly nudge. “And if you ever need an innovative set of speakers, you come to Gastani’s Hardware, we’ll set you up just right.” 

The girl looked around the room. The family had left a while ago and the elderly couple was finally dawning their coats to depart as well. Outside the sun was still teasing in and out of the clouds, managing to jump through the half closed blinds every now and then. Rana was bringing food to two women while saying hello to three men who had just walked in the door. The diner was still a hum with plates clattering and sausages cooking. It felt like an oasis, but the girl wondered if it wasn’t just a mirage. 

The girl rose and slid a tip under the sugar shaker, then under her plate, then back under the sugar. She looked around for her bill, but didn’t see it. 

“Excuse me,” she said approaching the host’s desk where the cash register was, “I’m so sorry, but I don’t know where my bill is-“ 

“Mr. Gastani paid it,” the host said. 

“Oh,” replied the girl. “That was very kind of him.” 

“He believes in investing in our future.” The host looked at the girl. “And hope they pay it forward.” 

His face wasn’t all so unkind like when she’d arrived, but he wasn’t so forthcoming with warmth either. Different opinions… 

The girl thanked him and gently removed a mint from the small, silver bowl on the counter. She popped it in her mouth as she left, reaching into her backpack to get her phone. Thirty-four new messages and twenty-six missed calls. Shit.