Golden Greaser

- 8 -

     Waiting. 

     Always waiting. 

     The drive of determination was back, pulsing through each and every fiber in my body. It made my brain buzz and my thought dancing, jumping with liveliness. 

     I suddenly catch myself glancing out the window, looking to see if the rusted pickup was still sitting there. It was. 

   Get yourself together, Diana. 

     My foot clicks nervously against the linoleum floor beneath me. It bounced my hand against my jaw, making my teeth clack against one another. But I barely felt it. 

     I watch the front desk, wishing some nurse in bright blue scrubs would ask how she could help me. 

    The space remained vacant. It had been vacant for the past ten minutes. 

   Come on, come on, come on.

     My impatience was growing, accelerating the blood already flying through my eardrums. My feet begin to absentmindedly beat the floor faster, echoing through the almost empty waiting room. 

    Gah, how long does it take? 

     I glance at the clock quietly dispersing the air through its trademark tick, tick, tick. 12:09. 

     I always thought it was crazy how you can hear a clock the loudest when time is slipping away from you.

    It seemed to scream at you, screams of the quiet, soft, and almost inaudible chirps eating away at the hour. It would drive you mad, sitting in a room and just waiting. Simple, right? 

     Wrong. 

     Very wrong. 

     They better hurry this circus along, because I may have missed school but I'm not missing work.

     I've already built up enough hate at the Diner, I'm not sure I would still have my job if I missed. And my job was the only thing that was holding these threadbare rags together. 

    Please hurry. Please. 

     I begin to feel the anger simmering in my stomach, if I didn't see some type of person sitting in that seat in the next five minutes, simmering would turn into an inferno. 

     My eye catches movement of the rusted pickup, the driver's side opening and Darrel steps out, heading towards the door of the office. 

    The bell dings as the door opens, revealing the brawn of a man that had driven me here. 

   "I kept watching to see if you'd gotten anybody, but you just kept on sittin' here." He says, putting his hands in his jean pockets. 

    "Nobody there." I scoff, pointing to the empty front desk. 

    "Yeah, I got that." He retorts, sitting in the chair beside me. 

     I run my hands through my hair, releasing all the oxygen from my lungs. 

    Why can't something work out for me. Just this once.

      We start to talk small talk, about the weather and about some news he'd heard. I think he could tell I was on edge and was trying to help by talking about something other than killing whoever appeared first behind that counter.

     I take a deep breath, anger beginning to nag at my feet.    

     Okay. That's it.