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Last Great American Dynasty ✷ Chapter Seven
The ache for autumn was finally satisfied when October rolled around and the humid air turned crisp overnight. The leaves would not be green for long; it wouldn't be too long now before they died again, just as they had every single year, and brought along the vanilla-sugar-scented early-fall haze.
On that cold October morning, Luke's Diner had been brimming with life: coffee sipped on by joyful women with pinned up hair; men conversing loudly around the tables, hands waving around as they argue over Football teams and their wife's; teenagers by the clear window ordering sodas just to sit and ignore their drinks and little boys yet to develop table manners chewing loudly with their mouths open and sweet mothers scolding them fondly.
The seasonal burst of life dawned upon the town every year, beginning in September and stretching until late-January.
Kitty Lovelace sat alone at the counter, where a couple of girls were sharing fries, laughing loudly and smiling superficially. She had her homework balancing on the bare skin of her thighs and three textbooks on the counter but she was having a hard time focusing on the words, and there was a bowl of strawberries with sugar in a porcelain plate besides a mug of coffee and marshmallows on the table in front of her. She looked so authentic in comparison to all the others, Jess Mariano observed. As a matter of fact, he noticed her every damn time she came in.
He knew many superficial things about her like how she often took up shifts herself even though she couldn't possibly need the money—he heard her once tell her friend, Teddy, that it was more about the concept than the riches. She wanted to be more independent to the eyes of the same folks he avoided, he guessed everyone had their own preoccupation.
He also could count on the fingers of his hands all the superficial information, useless things, people spoke of her, like how her favorite color was pink and how she was a madwoman at tennis. How she never wore the same thing twice and hoped to one day take over the family business. How well she could handle her liquor and how easy it was for her to coax people into keeping her company whenever she was lonely, (those he learned was true a few weeks ago).
In the few months of him being in town, however, Jess has gathered information on her that he supposed not many people knew, or even any at all. For instance, she had a deadbeat dad who unfortunately wanted to take her away. She had begun to slide cigarettes after her mother mentioned that she found it elegant, but cursed herself for doing so every time she sat alone. Last week, on the first of October, Jess stumbled across her devouring a plate of strawberries by the table next to the window before anyone had entered the doors of the diner. "For good luck!" She toasted, then didn't speak to him for another three days.
