The Rest Stop

She spotted him sitting at a cement picnic table, a large fancy cake stretched out before him. His head was bowed, his hands still in his lap as leaves swirled around him in a fall breeze.

Marta caught all this in a sidelong glance as she pulled into the rest stop. You always had to look around for possible trouble at these places; that was a given.

At the moment, though, she had more pressing concerns.

She parked as close as she could to the women’s restroom. That last cup of coffee had become a problem about 10 miles back. She snatched up her purse, hugged it against her chest, pulled her coat tighter around herself, and hurried stiffly towards the bathrooms.

“Stay out of it, Marta,” she whispered to herself. “Not your business.”

Leaving the restroom, Marta glanced toward the man again. He hadn’t moved. It was simply too much mystery, and the cake sat there like a beacon.

The rest stop was miles from any town that she knew of. Oh, there were a few scattered farmhouses here and there, but what would make a man sit out here with an entire shop-made cake in front of him and no one else around?

“Stay out of it, Marta,” she reminded herself.

Her feet crunched through the leaves as she headed straight towards him.

“Excuse me,” she said. “I’m curious about all this cake. Are you expecting a party?”

She tipped her head slightly to read the cake better. “A birthday party,” she amended.

The man looked up as her shadow crossed him.

“Absolutely not.”

“Oh.”

Marta waited a second, then sat side-saddle on the bench opposite him.

He continued his vigil over the cake.

She studied him while she waited. Pink scalp showed through thinning hair, and his eyebrows were so bushy they sat on his face like two gray caterpillars.

He didn’t elaborate.

“That’s a beautiful cake. An awful lot for one person. Is it your birthday?”

“Weren’t you warned against talking to strangers when you were a kid?” the man grumbled.

“Well, if I was, that was a long time ago.” Marta swung her feet around carefully to face him. “And it had something to do with candy, not cake.”

He glared. The caterpillars dipped into a frown.

“Yes— no,” he breathed out, exasperated.

“Birthday?” Marta prompted again.

Marta waited.

“Well, which is it?”

Marta pulled her coat a bit tighter; getting information out of this man was going to require considerably more work than she budgeted for.

While she waited, she looked him over. His clothes weren’t remarkable, but his shoes were. Marta could tell a lot about a man by his shoes. Dark brown leather, beautifully made and worn enough to have belonged to him for years. She didn’t know the brand, but she knew expensive when she saw it.

Finally, he sighed.

“Yes. For what it’s worth, it was…” he paused. “Is my birthday.”

Two more cars pulled in. Their occupants climbed out, stretching stiff legs before heading toward the restrooms.

Marta looked back at the cake.

“Are you expect—”

“No.”

She blinked.

“I just stopped here to get rid of this cake.”

Marta studied it. A fisherman decorated the top, expertly hauling a leaping fish from the water. It was one of those edible pictures cake makers could put on almost anything nowadays.

“Why?”

“Because I stole it.”

“Oh.”

For once, Marta couldn’t think of anything else to say.

He shook his head.

Marta looked at him.

“My kids.” His voice was deep and gravelly, Marta noticed, the kind that would have made a good radio announcer. “They decided to surprise me for my seventy-fifth birthday.”

He waved a hand over the cake.

“Balloons. Posters. God-awful music. They even put together a slideshow of my life.”

He shook his head.

“Everybody stood around talking about everything I’d done as if I were some kind of historical exhibit.”

Marta looked at him.

“So, I left.”

“You just walked out? Left the party and everybody?”

“Yep,” he bobbed his head, looking down at the cake again.

Marta looked at the enormous cake.

“With the cake?”

“Apparently.”

“Well, that’s a bit dramatic,” she said. “Or maybe you just really like cake.”

She finally set her purse down beside her.

“Well, there were a few parties in my day when I felt like doing the same thing. So I get it.”

“I just got angry.” He waved a hand toward the cake. “They asked me what I wanted, then ignored everything I told them.”

He pointed at the fisherman.

“I don’t even fish.”

“They keep hoping I’ll take it up when I retire, I guess. Every year it’s the same thing.”

“Ah, kids,” Marta said, as if those two words explained everything.

“So, what did you want to do?”

“What?”

“You said they ignored what you really wanted.”

He was quiet for a moment.

Then he let out a long breath.

“I want to learn to fly.”

Marta looked at him in earnest now.

“An airplane?”

“That’s generally what people fly.”

“I’ve always wanted to learn,” he added. “Life just kept getting in the way.”

Marta considered this, noting the honesty in his expression.

“Is seventy-five too old for that?”

“See?” He glared at her, pointing a finger. “You sound just like my daughter.”

“Well, my kids don’t want me driving any further than the local market,” Marta admitted.

“Why?”

She looked away.

“Because I’m seventy-eight.”

Those caterpillars rose.

“And you didn’t hear that,” she said severely, pointing a finger at him.

A shrill ringtone sounded from somewhere inside his jacket. Almost immediately, Marta’s phone began ringing from her purse.

They looked at each other.

Neither reached for a phone.

Slowly, matching smiles spread across their faces.

Arthur reached across the table.

“Name's Arthur.”

Marta shook his hand. “Marta.”

Her smile had turned conspiratorial.

She looked at the cake.

“You have a knife?”

“No.”

“You stole the cake without taking a knife?”

“I wasn’t planning the crime.”

Marta shook her head sadly. “Not an Eagle Scout.”

“No.”

She opened her purse. Her phone started ringing again, but she ignored it and pulled out a knife wrapped carefully in an embroidered handkerchief.

Arthur stared at it.

His caterpillars went up, then down.

“You carry a knife?”

“Of course I carry a knife.” Marta unwrapped it with a bit of theatrical flair. “I earned my Curved Bar.”

“Your what?”

“Girl Scouts. Highest rank you could earn.”

Arthur eyed the knife. “So, like an Eagle Scout?”

Marta gave him a look. “No. Like Curved Bar.”

She pointed the knife towards the cake. "Now, are we going to eat this thing or leave it here for the ants?”

Arthur’s phone began ringing again. He silenced it, setting it face down on the table, and pushed the cake towards Marta.

She cut two generous corner pieces, then reached into her purse and produced a folded wad of brown paper napkins.

“Compliments of Starbucks.” She winked and slid his piece across to him.

Arthur looked at it.

“What, no forks in that bag of yours?”

“A better cake thief would have thought of that ahead of time.” Marta licked frosting from one finger. “Possibly brought something to drink, too.”

Arthur grinned and took a bite.

“So where are you headed? I don’t see a local market anywhere around here.”

Marta closed her eyes, apparently giving the cake her full attention. She carefully licked the frosting from another finger before answering.

“Somewhere.”

“Somewhere?”

“That’s right.”

Arthur spread his hands. “I confess to stealing my own birthday cake. You pulled a knife on me and claimed mysterious Girl Scout credentials. I think I’ve earned something better than somewhere.”

Marta pursed her lips and dabbed them with a brown paper napkin.

“Somewhere north.”

Arthur waited, his caterpillars slightly raised.

Marta took another bite of cake.

He kept waiting.

She sighed.

“Portland.”

“Alone?”

Marta’s eyes narrowed.

“Now you sound like my daughter. Don’t even start!”

“Start what?”

“Whatever you’re about to say.”

Arthur gave her a sideways grin. “I was going to say it’s a long drive.”

“That’s what they all tell me,” she agreed.

“Aha.”

Marta frowned. “Aha, what?”

Arthur took another bite of cake. “Nothing.”

She studied him for a moment.

“I might get a tattoo there.”

Arthur stopped chewing.

Marta waited.

His caterpillars rose.

“What?” she glared at him.

“Nothing.”

“You have that look.”

“What look?”

“One that says, ‘At your age?’”

“I didn’t say anything,” Arthur protested.

“Your eyebrows did.”

Arthur tried unsuccessfully to suppress a grin.

Marta dabbed at her mouth with a napkin.

“I’ve wanted one for more than forty years.”

That wiped the grin from his face.

“Forty years?”

“Give or take.”

Arthur considered her for a moment.

“Where are you going to get it?”

Marta slowly narrowed her eyes.

“That is considerably more personal than I’m prepared to discuss with a common cake thief.”

Arthur blinked. Then he laughed. “Ah, you wound me.”

Marta tried to maintain her dignity for a few seconds before she started laughing too.

Cars came and went around them.

“I actually have a thermos of decaf in the car,” Arthur said. “Would you care for some?”

Marta watched him untangle himself from the picnic table and make his way towards an older, well-kept car.

He returned with the thermos and two mismatched cups, then carefully poured coffee for them both.

“So,” he said, settling himself back onto the bench. “What tattoo are you getting?”

Marta took a sip and nodded her pleasure.

“I haven’t entirely decided.”

“On the tattoo?”

“On whether I’m getting it.”

Arthur stopped with his cup halfway to his mouth.

“You’ve got another hundred miles to go for something you might not even do?”

“You stole the cake from your own birthday party, with no forks.”

“Fair point.”

Marta stared into her coffee.

“If you really want to know, this is my third attempt. I’ve already turned around twice.”

Arthur said nothing.

“I loved my husband. I love my kids; I wouldn’t trade any of them.” She rubbed one thumb along the rim of her cup. “But somewhere along the way, I got awfully good at putting what everyone else wanted ahead of what I wanted.”

She gave a small shrug.

“Forty years is a long time to want something as silly as a tattoo.”

“It doesn’t sound silly when you put it that way.”

“Well, it is a little silly.” Marta smiled. “That may be part of why I want it.”

She took another sip of coffee.

“I just thought if I finally did this one thing because I wanted to do it, every time I looked at it, I’d remember I still get a say.”

“Aha,” Arthur said.

“Aha, what?”

“That’s going to limit where you can put this tattoo if you intend to look at it every day.”

Marta gave him a look.

He winked.

“Well, if we’re being honest…” Arthur turned his coffee cup between his hands. “I’ve researched flying lessons.”

Marta waited.

“I drove out to the airport once. Sat in the parking lot and watched the planes for a while.”

“And?”

“And I drove home.”

Marta smiled.

“I went back another time,” he continued. “Actually made it through the door that time. Came home with a pamphlet.”

“But no airplane?”

“No airplane.”

“Aha,” Marta said.

Arthur looked at her. “Aha, what?”

Marta glanced around at the picnic tables, the passing cars, and what remained of the stolen birthday cake.

“Outside of the obvious, maybe this is what rest stops are for.”

Arthur considered that, those caterpillars resting evenly over his eyes.

“Cake?”

Marta smiled. “That too.”

Just then Marta’s phone rang again, and Arthur’s began buzzing across the tabletop.

They looked at their phones.

“Nope,” they said together, reaching to silence them.

Marta took another sip of coffee.

“I might get a salamander.”

Arthur looked at her.

“On my ankle,” she added. “That way I can hide it under my compression sock if I need to.”

Arthur laughed.

“All right then, I might sign up for one of those introductory flights. Discovery flight, I think they call it.”

“Might?”

Arthur pointed his cake at her. “You said might first.”

“Fair enough,” Marta laughed.

 He took another bite. “For the record, I think you should get the tattoo.”

“For the record, I don’t need your permission.”

“You can be very difficult.”

Marta lifted her chin. “I’m a Curved Bar.”

Clouds drifted across the weak afternoon sun, and the air turned colder.

Arthur looked towards the parking lot.

“Well, Portland isn’t getting any closer. You’d better get moving if you don’t want to be looking for a motel after dark.”

Marta sighed and reached for her knife.

Instead of putting it away, she began cutting directly through the center of the cake, taking part of the fishing line and most of the fish with it.

Arthur watched.

“That’s a pretty big piece.”

“You were going to throw it away.”

“I’ve reconsidered.”

“Too late.”

Marta wrapped the enormous piece in several brown napkins and tucked the knife back into its embroidered handkerchief.

She gathered her purse and cake and worked her way out from behind the picnic table.

“I’ll think of you whenever I look at my salamander,” she said, smiling.

Arthur stood. “Assuming you get it.” One caterpillar went up and the other down.

Marta gave him a look.

“Assuming you fly.”

He smiled.

She started toward her car.

“Cake hoarder,” Arthur called after her.

Marta turned around.

“Bring forks next time.”

“Bossy woman.”

She kept walking. “Curved Bar,” she called back over her shoulder.

The words floated back to him in the cold breeze.

Marta climbed into her car and pulled onto the highway.

In the rearview mirror, Arthur was still standing beside the picnic table, one hand raised.

She raised hers.

Then the rest stop disappeared behind her.