Melba's

Melba’s

Spartacus Lawrence

It’s 1:00 a.m. on a Tuesday. The hazy glow of streetlights spreads across the leaf-covered sidewalks. In mid-October, the air holds the memory of summer, reluctant to release it. Warmer than it should be but part of the pattern that repeats annually. The traffic is nonexistent, and a gentle warm breeze rustles loose paper along the dry asphalt.

The blinking neon sign announces OPEN in the window of Melba’s Diner. The signage is dim even under the streetlights. The front door is propped open by a newspaper stand. The papers are free and regularly end up littering the space just outside the diner.

Marc stands out front, not quite ready to go in. His options are limited and this 24-hour diner appears to be the most inviting of the available options. Many of the other spots along the street are dark with the doors chained up. It’s not lost on him that he doesn’t know what kind of neighborhood this is and walking alone at this hour is probably not wise.

He steps up a single step, grabs a free newspaper and enters. He moves slowly with inspecting eyes. Inside a sign says Seat Yourself so he does just that. There is only one other patron and he’s sitting at the counter. He picks a table on the other side of the diner. It’s private and quiet. Both of which he’s looking for.

He opens the newspaper and starts reading, as a woman approaches the table. She’s wearing a checkered apron around her waist with bulging pockets filled with various supplies. She pulls out a pair of silverware rolled in a paper napkin and lays it on the table. A pencil behind her ear and a pad in her other hand.

“My name is Doris. I’ll be helping you this morning,” she says. “What can I get you to drink?”

“Ummm…,” he says. “I’ll have a black coffee.”

“You got it sweetheart. The menu is behind the condiments.”

Before stepping away, Doris gives Marc a once over. There is something about him that she can’t put her finger on. As she turns away, she’s shaking her head. She feels like she should know him. The thought keeps nagging her as she pours his coffee. She collects the creamer and returns to the table with his coffee.

She walks slowly, her mind trying to figure out if she knows him and how.

“Here’s your coffee and some creamer,” she says as she places both items on the table. “Are you ready to order?”

“Actually I’d like a few more minutes,” he says. “So many good choices.”

“Okay. Just wave me over when you’re ready.”

“Of course.”

Marc hasn’t looked at the menu yet. He folds the newspaper and sets it aside, before pulling the menu from behind the salt and pepper shakers. As he glances through it, he notices Doris is talking to the other patron — a regular, by the look of it, the two of them leaning in close the way old friends do. There’s a sweetness between them, nothing romantic, just the ease of people who’ve shared a hundred late nights.

“Hey, Joe,” Doris says. This is Joe — he gets off the evening shift at the lumber yard at midnight and lands at Melba’s most nights, still carrying the sawdust and the smell of an honest day. “The regular?” She already knows the answer — he gets the same thing every time he comes in. Western omelette, toasted English muffin, grape jelly. Coffee with two sugar cubes and a dash of cream, just a dash.

Marc’s eyes return to the menu. He’s stuck between the blueberry flapjacks and the breakfast burrito. He’s done this before — different diner, same two options. Flapjacks or the breakfast burrito. It’s always one or the other.

Marc gestures to Doris indicating he’s ready to order. She holds up a finger and keeps talking. He folds the menu and places it on the corner of the table and pulls the newspaper back open.

When she finally makes her way over, something has changed. Whatever passed between her and the man at the counter has followed her across the room.

She’s chewing gum this time. He can hear her jaw pop with each movement.

“What’ll you have?” she says. She blows a bubble and pops it with her finger.

“I have a question. I’m stuck between the blueberry flapjacks and the breakfast burrito. Which one is more popular?” he asks.

“Baby, if I were a mind reader, I’d be rich. Which one do you want?” Her mild manner has an edge that wasn’t there before. She taps the pencil point against the pad at the rhythm of the second hand of the clock on the wall. Her expression has transitioned from contentment to a growing sense of frustration.

Marc sits up straight and meets her eyes directly, the way you do when you realize you’ve just said the wrong thing. “I guess I’ll have the blueberry flapjacks,” he says, trying not to push his luck. “And could I get a refill on the coffee?”

She jots down the order quickly without looking at the pad, her eyes never leaving Marc. He wonders what was said at the other side of the diner.

“You bet,” Doris says as she leaves. Marc takes a glance to see her hang a slip of paper on the ticket wheel and spin it to face the kitchen. He’s done this enough times to know the difference between tired and something else. It’s the something else that makes his vision blur the print on the newspaper in front of him.

He runs the exchange back, looking for the place he stepped wrong. A careless word, a tone he didn’t catch in himself. He comes up empty. Whatever shifted, he can’t find his hand in it. He lets it go, or tries to — a waitress has a life like anyone’s, and sometimes it follows her to work. He knows the feeling. He’s been short with people for reasons that had nothing to do with them. Still, the difference is there, and he can’t quite shake it.

Doris stays behind the counter busying herself with folding silverware into napkins. She continues her chat with Joe, keeping her attention on him, and Marc swears he sees the formation of a smile.

She tilts her head and notices that Marc is looking her way. Her almost smile dissolves. She drops the bucket of silverware down atop the counter and the sound of the rattling echoes with sharpness. The sound makes Marc flinch.

Without asking, she tops off Marc’s mug. Her eyes never leave him. The intensity of the focus makes Marc uneasy. “You know, I have this weird feeling… I just have to ask… have we met before?” she says.

“I’m not from around here. I’m just in town for work. I… I don’t think we’ve met before,” he says. The question wrestles with him longer than it should.

“Hmmm…,” says Doris. “Okay. Your order will be up shortly.”

As she walks away, she fixes on something above the counter between the dining area and the kitchen. The wall has framed old-time movie posters. They are some of the classics like Casablanca and Gone with the Wind. The frames have accumulated dust and grease over time, neglected but still hanging.

“Hollywood,” Doris says to herself. Something about him won’t quiet. She doesn’t know what it is, only that it’s there.

She reaches for her purse, pulls out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, and heads outside for a quick smoke break. She takes a drag and exhales slowly. Her mind keeps circling the stranger at the table and coming back empty. The only thing that keeps surfacing is a fuzzy image of someone she loves and this man. In the image, a disagreement — tense, unresolved. What is it about him? Why don’t I trust him? She prides herself on her sense of character, but that sense is failing her now. She takes one last drag, drops it to the ground, and stubs it out with her foot before going back inside.

Inside, a bell is tapped and a ding springs to life in the empty diner. A gruff voice from behind the partition announces, “Doris, orders up.” A plate of hot flapjacks with two slices of bacon appear on the ledge, with the order ticket neatly tucked slightly underneath.

Doris grabs the plate and a container of blueberry syrup in one hand and the coffee pot in the other. She’s been a waitress for years, so she understands the finesse that goes into carrying as much as possible in the fewest number of trips. Her confidence shines as she crosses over to Marc’s table. Everything is balanced and she delivers the meal in a coordinated routine.

First, the plate on the table placed directly in front of Marc, then the syrup bottle and lastly the coffee to refill his mug. That hazy recognition is still with her, somewhere in the fog.

“What kind of syrup is this?” Marc asks. He pronounces syrup as SIR-up. For the first time, a spark ticks.

“It’s blueberry, just like your flapjacks,” she says. It isn’t that the feeling has resolved — her routine simply took over.

“Do you have maple syrup by chance?” Marc hopes he’s not pushing his luck asking for an alternative. He says syrup in that unique way a second time.

“We do. I’ll go grab it for you.”

At the waitress station, Doris replaces the coffee pot onto the warmer. She sorts through the syrup containers until she spots the one labeled MAPLE and takes it. She stops where she is, the maple syrup in her hand, her face doing something she isn’t aware of.

Joe looks up from his coffee. “What’s got you tickled, Doris?”

“I have a story to tell you. Give me a minute.”

Doris returns to Marc’s table and places the syrup down.

“Here’s the maple syrup,” she says. “I hope you enjoy your meal.”

Marc can’t help but notice the change in Doris. Once grumpy and now excitable. “What has brightened up your morning?”

“Oh, you won’t believe this and I hope you’ll forgive me. I’ve been awful to you all night and I couldn’t figure out why. It was the way you said syrup just now — around here we say it differently, but I’ve heard it said your way before. In a movie I absolutely love. There’s an actor in it, and I mean he is just a heartthrob — and there’s another actor in it who resembles you. That one does something unforgivable to my heartthrob. I think that’s what’s been setting me off all night. You remind me of him.”

The words are coming faster than Marc can track them.

“It was just a feeling. I get them all the time.” She is speaking with her hands, her left hand finding her chin, almost framing her face. The smile is wide, the widest Marc has seen from her all night.

Marc touches her arm softly. “Let’s go through it a little slower.” Her excitement is catching and Marc doesn’t realize until he’s already inside it.

“Take a deep breath,” he says. “Let’s do it together.”

They both breathe in and release in unison. Two more times. By the third, her shoulders drop.

“Okay, okay,” he says. “This movie with your heartthrob. Did the guy who looks like me kill your heartthrob?”

“Oh, yes, and then he did the widow dirty,” she says excitedly. “He tried to move in on her. He was just scum. That’s why I never forgave him.”

Marc releases her arm. “I think I understand what’s happening here.”

He pauses before he says the rest of it. She loved that movie, loved the man his character killed — he’s watched people decide they didn’t much like him once they placed the face, as if the line between the actor and the act were thinner than it should be. He weighs how she’ll take it, then decides to trust her with it.

“Anyway, I think I’m the man you’re remembering from that movie. But that’s all it was — a role. I’m nothing like that. I promise.” He says the last sentence with a forced smile.

“Oh, my goodness,” she says, dropping her hands to her side. “I feel so foolish.”

Her eyes scan the table and notice a couple pieces of trash. She scoops them up, and says as she’s leaving, “I’ll let you eat in peace. Again, I’m truly sorry for how I’ve treated you tonight.”

Walking towards the waste bin, she recalls the exchange in her head. She laughs again as she drops the trash where it belongs. Looking back to Marc, she shakes her head at the whole thing. No one is going to believe her when she tells this story in the future. She reconnects with Joe and they stay engaged in chat for several minutes.

She glances back to Marc and can tell he’s finished with his flapjacks. He’s got his newspaper open again, unsure what he’s reading but it seems to keep him engaged.

It’s still a few hours before the first signs of dawn. At Melba’s, pie is delivered every morning around 6 a.m. from a local bakery. She knows there are two slices left of apple pie. She walks over to the pie carousel and takes down the last two slices. One for Joe and the other as a peace offering for Marc. She picks up a can of whipped cream and sprays a dollop on each slice. She slides one across the counter and lifts the other before stepping away.

At Marc’s table she stops, her mouth open but words resist her. She picks up the soiled plate and replaces it with one with pie. “The pie’s on the house. I was wrong to treat you the way I did.”

“My wife is going to love this when I call her later. I tend to play the bad guy — that’s where I keep landing work. And getting recognized doesn’t happen to me much. So I’ll take it.”

“Would you mind if I took a selfie with you?” she asks. “I’ll need proof when I tell this story.”

“Sure,” he says as he stands up. For the first time he realizes that he’s much taller than she is. He scrunches to her level and she snaps a photo with her cell phone.

She turns to face Marc and extends her hands. “It was so nice to meet you, and thank you for understanding. I just couldn’t live with you leaving here mad at me.”

“I think we’ve both got a good story to tell now.” Marc leaves cash on the table to settle his bill, collects his things, and steps back out into the night.

On the sidewalk outside Melba’s, it’s still dark, the streetlights holding their hazy glow. The leaves still clutter the path. Marc walks it with a wide smile. It’s true that they had met — just not in the usual way. Yes, he’s been an actor long enough to get an occasional reaction. But it’s never turned into more than an “Aren’t you…?” The work landed. It landed hard enough that a stranger disliked him on sight, for something he only pretended to do. That’s the part worth keeping. The delight is better than the pie she gave him.