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“No, actually,” I laugh and eat a bite of my pancakes. “It’s called Joe’s Body Shop. It was right next to a place called Hudson Armory and Tactical.”
“Nice. At least someone in this town has a creative spark.” Miranda tears her bacon into bits and mixes them with her grits. I’ve never had grits until this morning, and mixed with salt and butter, (and probably bacon, had I thought to do that) they are totally delicious.
The diner is packed today, so much so that it almost looks like a completely different restaurant from the one we visited last night for dinner. We had to sit at the bar because all the tables are taken. The bar stretches across the length of the restaurant, minus the end where a swinging door allows employees to come and go from the kitchen. Our plates sit on a wooden countertop coated with half an inch of clear resin. Sandwiched between the wood and the resin are dozens of old photographs, movie ticket stubs, autographed scraps of paper and other old fashioned mementos. There’s even a feather from an Indian headdress buried by Miranda’s orange juice.
The walls are made with reclaimed wood from barns or fences and they’re decorated with all kinds of photos and western memorabilia. I feel like I could eat here a dozen times and still not see everything there is to see.
“I wish Elizabeth was here. I wanted to see if she’s okay.” Miranda frowns thoughtfully as she scopes out another waitress in the crowd and I can tell she’s thinking about asking her for Elizabeth’s whereabouts. Elizabeth’s boyfriend may have broken Miranda’s nose last night, but hopefully he didn’t also break hers.
“I’m sure she’s fine,” I say to reassure the both of us. Last night I had more important things to worry about than a small town waitress and her roid-raging boyfriend. Last night, I figured I would never see her again. Now I’m almost certain I will.
The warm August air is beautiful, and the walk from the diner back to the inn isn’t so much exercise as it is peaceful. Miranda’s enjoying it too, I think. After our long talk last night, that invisible shield of awkwardness has been dropped between us. We’re acting like the blood relatives we are. Well, not the way Maggie and I interact, but the way two relatives should act around each other.
“I can’t believe I forgot to pack proper shoes,” Miranda says as she trudges along the broken asphalt road in a pair of my black flats. “I would kill to have my Converse right now.”
“And I would kill to have you stop kicking those rocks in my eighty dollar shoes.”
“Must be nice to be so rich,” she says, absentmindedly kicking yet another rock. Yeah, okay. She can just have those shoes now.
“It is nice,” I say, ignoring her eye roll. “But this is nicer.” I stop in the middle of the road. My arms spread out and up, taking in the sun’s warmth and the wind’s gentle chill and the smell. Oh, god, the smell of fresh country air. “A girl could get used to this place.”
Miranda nods. “And a baby could totally grow up here.”
I don’t say anything because I don’t want the truth to interfere with my beautiful, quiet moment in nature. Miranda can let her imagination roam for now. She can think she’s getting out easy by running away from home and raising a child in some new and fascinating small town. But the truth is that she can’t. She will have to go home and be with her mother and face her life the responsible way. You can’t just pack up and run away from all your problems.
I don’t tell her any of that even though running away is exactly what we’re doing.
We’re greeted at the entrance to the inn by a tall plain woman with long brown hair in a braid that trails down her back. She’s wearing a simple navy blue knit dress with wooden buttons. It reminds me of the kind of clothing you see in thrift stores, the stuff that no one would ever buy.
“Welcome to Salt Gap Inn, ladies. May I help you today?” Her voice is throaty like she smokes a pack a day. She folds her hands in front of her on the counter and awaits our response.
“Are you Sherry Singleton?” I ask, remembering the scrawly old lady hand writing on the note left for us last night.
“Yes ma’am, I am. Owner and manager.”
“I’m Robin Carter, I checked in last night,” I say, digging in my purse and pulling out my wallet. “Actually, I never got to check in, so I should do that now.”
“Oh, yes! Of course.” She turns around and flips through an old filing cabinet, pulling out a card. I can’t believe this town hasn’t heard of using this fancy thing called a computer to check in guests.
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t here to meet you last night,” she says, taking a pen out from behind her ear and writing the name Robin Carter in neat upper case letters on the card. “It’s this damned weather, I tell you. It makes my joints all stiff and wouldn’t you know it, I can’t even get up out of my chair if I sit still too long!”
I smile politely and nod, like I understand the complications of weather and arthritis. She slides the card over to me and I sign it at the bottom. It’s basically an index card, preprinted with spaces for the dates and a little spot to check each calendar day I plan on staying. “I don’t know how long we’ll need to stay. Can I pay for three days and take it from there?”
“Of course, dear.” She waves away my hand when I try to hand her my debit card. “I won’t need any payment from you.”
“Huh?” I ask, my mouth open as I look at my rejected debit card. There’s no way southern hospitality is this nice.
“Thomas Hernandez came by this morning, said he was paying for your stay.”
“Who?” I ask, mentally scanning through every Hernandez I know and wondering how anyone from back home would know where I’m even at, much less offer to pay my bill.
“Marcus Hernandez’s father. Like I said, he came by this morning and he said his son owed you an accommodation since he made your stay longer than you expected.” Miranda and I exchange glances and for the first ti
me, Sherry seems to notice the gross abnormality in the middle of Miranda’s face. “Goodness, child! What happened to you?”
“Door hit me in the face,” she says with a smile. Sherry’s brow deepens in that same way my grandfather’s did when he was worrying about me. Miranda’s face was a total accident, but regardless, I don’t feel like talking about it now. A huge part of me feels one hundred percent responsible for the damage inflicted upon her, even if she is legally an adult.
“That’s insanely nice of Mr. Hernandez, he didn’t have to do that,” I say, bringing the conversation away from my niece and back to the situation. The one time in my life I actually have extra cash to blow, I don’t even get to spend it. The moral and ethical side of me wants to argue and demand that I pay for my own room, but the other moral and other ethical side of me thinks it’s actually fair that the man pay for the damage his son caused. Had my car not been smashed, we would never have stayed in this tiny crap hole of a town.
