I didn't actually think she would say yes when I asked to take her picture. "I'm just another lost soul," she giggled, "a lost soul in a lost town." This much was true.
After some unknown amount of hours into my drive west, the roads became dark and both my stomach and gas tank were empty. My car coasted into the gas station and was buried in a sea of silver trailers and loose truck cabs. I could only smile politely as all the mesh caps turned my way to glare at my crappy little import car. I might as well have been wearing the American flag as a diaper. I left my car wedged between the massive blue cab of "The Highway Colonel" and the great orange metal beast of "The Porkchop Express." I grabbed my camera.
Laying quietly under the glow of a few dying parking lot lights was a small, time and traffic worn diner. This one was no different than the fifty I passed earlier in the day, all of them paired forever with gas stations and all of them looking equally as sad about it. The front steps were made of old wood and creaked for me like they probably had for every customer. I opened the door and a leather strap in bells on the handle called out my entrance.
Across from the door was a long silver countertop with thirty life weathered, flannel clad truckers pressed against it. Most of them we clearly too wide to be comfortable on the counter stools, but they hugged to it anyway. The air smelled like Marlboros and old motor grease, tasted like it too. The diner seemed to be a popular place, the pink neon clock over the food window said it was almost ten o'clock and the only table open was tucked in a far corner next to the windows.
I sat in the booth, the table covered in sticky coffee rings the seat cushion patched with duct tape. I stuck my finger into to circles, for some reason I thought I might be able to gauge how long it had been there. And as always, when you find yourself in a comprimising moment, the waitress comes.
"What can I get for you?"
I couldn't talk. She was beautiful. I remember everything. A mess of brown curly hair was forced back into a ponytail, an evening of putting her pen in her hair and pulling it out caused a few strands to run loose. She was wearing this red shirt that was just slightly off the shoulder, just enough to be teased with a few freckles. And she smelled of orchids or roses or something wonderful that guys know nothing about. She belonged here as much as I did.
All I could muster was, "Coffee...please." I wanted to blurt out, "I love you." She smiled and just replied with a wink that would have knocked me to me knees had the duct tape of the booth not held me firm to the cushion. She turned and left to tend to the more coherent customers.
For the next three hours, I watched her. I waited for her. When she came by, the old motor oil smell vanished and she had this way of looking right into you that made me forget I was in the middle of Nowhere, America. When she had free moments she would come and ask me questions about myself, where was I from, where was I going. Each time she asked me a question, I just wanted to beg her to come with me.
Around 11 o'clock, I stepped outside for a cigarette and she followed. The western winds blew through on the interstate and carried the taste of Los Angeles with them. She stretched her neck and raised her head, I think she tasted it too. She lit her own cigarette off mine and we stood looking up a the stars. She whispered, "You can see a million miles tonight, but you can't get very far." A strong breeze came through that gently lifted her hand and brushed it against mine. Shivers.
"Come with me." I know I shouldn't have said it, but I needed to. I barely knew her but I just felt l ike I had always had some idea about her.
"I can't," she said, "not now."
"Then at least let me get a picture."
I didn't actually think she would say yes when I asked to take her picture. "I'm just another lost soul," she giggled, "a lost soul in a lost town." This much was true.
The Polaroid flashed and buzzed, and out of old habit, I shook the developing picture. "Keep it on the dashboard," she said, "I like looking at the stars at night."
