Traveling Soldier

"Baby Club combo, no mayo," I told Keith,the chef, as I stuck the ticket in front of him. "Will do," he grunted as he made his way towards the fridge. "Who's that out there at the bus stop?" Kathlene asked at the cash register. "Looks like a soldier," I said, shrugging it off and putting up silver ware. "Well no duh... but he's been sitting out there looking at the diner for the past twenty minutes," she said. At that moment he walked into the diner and sat down at a booth. "That's one of your tables, go get him," she said. Kathlene and I have been working at Keith's Cafe Diner for almost a year now. She always was trying to set me up with people.

"Hi," I said with a smile as I fixed my bow and started to take his order. "Hi," he said, with a nice, deep voice. "Uh...can I take your order," I said, almost getting lost in his baby blue eyes. "Well...I was hoping you would sit down for a while and talk to me...I'm feeling a little low..." he said, eyeing the bow in my hair. "I'm off in an hour and I know where we can go," I said, smiling before I even realized what I was saying. "I'll be waiting. Until then I'll have one of those club sandwhiches and a vanilla coke," he said, setting the menu back in its holder. "Alright," I said smiling.

I brought him his vanilla coke and all he did was nod with a smile. I could feel his eyes on me as I helped out the regular customers like Mr. and Mrs. Handlebit. After I turned in my uniform and changed back into my denim dress, I walked back to his table where he was waiting for me. "Shall we go?" he asked. I rolled my eyes and headed out the door with him trailing behind me.

"So where are we going?" he said, walking with his hands clasped behind his back and his dog tags hitting his chest. "I thought we could go out to the pier and sit for a while," I murmured, looking at the ground. We made it to the pier just in time to see a little boy with his grandfather fishing. I could tell by the little boys grin that he had just snagged one. Probably little but I bet he felt like the biggest guy in the world.

"Where do you wanna sit?" I asked looking around. By the time I said that, he had already sat down on the edge and was pulling my hand down. "We can sit with our legs dangling over the water," he said. "What's your name?" I asked, sitting on my calves. He looked into the setting sun and replied, "Gabriel and before you ask, I turned eighteen two days ago." "Well then happy birthday, I'm June and I'm fifteen..." He just shook his head and smiled. "So what's wrong?" I pushed. "Well...as pretty as you are you probably have a boyfriend, but I don't care. I don't have anyone to send letters to when I go overseas so...would you mind if I sent one back here to you?" he said, toying with the seam on his army pants. I smiled and all I could say was, "Sure."

"Delilah!" I panted, running to my housemaid. She was wiping sweat off of her smooth chocolate forehead,"What honey?" "I met a boy, today," I said smiling. She stopped hanging clothes on the line abruptly and turned. "What?" she asked with a huge smile on her face. "He's a soldier. We're not dating but he wanted to write me letters," I told her. "Girl, I told you if you kept a smile on your face you'd win somebody," she said, whipping a towel playfully at me. I laughed and went inside while she laughed and shook her head.

**Delilah's picture on right**