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Chapter 3
Andthiswas the reason Grace liked to plan things in advance.
After five minutes on the interstate, her gas tank indicator light turned on, mocking her with further evidence of her disordered frame of mind. She usually never let her gas gauge get lower than a quarter of a tank.
The rain came down harder. She flipped her windshield wipers to a faster speed and continued to the next off-ramp, where there was a gas station beside a truck stop.
A blinking neon sign readLou’s Diner. After filling her tank, she parked in front of the diner.
Pies Baked Fresh Every Day!proclaimed another sign in the window.
When was the last time she’d had pie? Maybe they even had—
Heartened, she picked up her book bag and hurried through the rain to the diner. The smells of coffee, fried food, and charred beef filled the air. Truckers and several couples occupied the plastic booths, and a few men sat at the counter.
Two waitresses bustled around pouring coffee and serving plates of food. A glass case displayed a tempting array of pies topped with curls of whipped cream and flaky-golden brown crusts. Grace’s mouth almost watered.
“Help yourself to a booth, hon.” A busty waitress with an orange-colored beehive hairdo waved her toward the main dining room. “I’ll be right over.”
Grace wiped the rain off her sweater and hair. She sat in an empty booth close to the counter so the waitress wouldn’t have to go far to bring her food.
“Still raining, huh?” The waitress, whose nametag read Nancy, strolled over with a coffee-pot and a mug. “Would you like regular or decaf?”
“Regular, please.”
“You okay, hon?” Nancy placed the mug on the table and peered at her through eyes fringed with thickly mascaraed lashes. “You look a little down.”
Grace smiled faintly. “I thought the psychic diner waitress archetype was a myth.”
Nancy chuckled and poured the coffee. “Nah, you just talk to and see enough folks passing through, you learn to read them pretty well.”
“It’s been a rough day.” Grace reached for a sugar packet. “Hope you don’t mind if I sit here awhile.”
“Be my guest.” Nancy set a laminated menu down in front of her. “Meatloaf special tonight. Dessert menu is by the salt and pepper shakers. I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”
Grace studied the meal offerings, then picked up the dessert menu. Even though she hadn’t had dinner, she was hungry for only one thing. She perused the dessert selection, skipping past the creamy silk and fluffy meringue pies to the last item on the list.
“Find something you want?” Nancy came back to the table, digging into her apron pocket for an order pad.
“Yes, but I think I’m just going to stick with dessert tonight.”
“My kind of girl.” Nancy grinned, displaying a large gap between her front teeth. “Chocolate brownie? Ice cream sundae?”
“Rhubarb pie.” Grace tapped her finger on the menu item. “I haven’t had rhubarb pie since…I don’t even know when.”
“Well, you’re in luck.” Nancy pointed her pencil toward the kitchen. “The gal who does our baking said she got some nice, fresh rhubarb yesterday. She brought one of her special double-crust rhubarb pies over this morning. You want a scoop of vanilla ice cream to go with it?”
“Nope, just a big slice of pie. There aren’t any strawberries or other fruit in it, are there?”
“Not a speck. Plain rhubarb.”
“Great. And a glass of whole milk, please. Nice and cold.”
“You got it, hon.” Nancy tore the sheet of paper off and dropped the pad into her pocket. “Back in a jiff.”
She headed to the counter, where the other waitress was pouring coffee and chatting with the truckers.
Grace dug into her book bag for her lesson planner. Her fingers touched her well-worn copy ofShakespeare’s Sonnets and Quotations. She thumbed through the pages, all of which contained penciled notes and underlined phrases.
