Regrets

G. I. Blues

1976

Barney arrived at the diner ten minutes after leaving his apartment, allowing him to be five minutes early. He sat on his parked motorcycle for a minute or so before a familiar car drove into the parking lot. As that car stopped in a spot, two other familiar cars drove into the parking lot and into two open spots, separated by painted white lines. He let out a heavy breath as he got up from his seat on the leather lining and began to walk toward the group of people he was related to, mostly by blood.

The small group of family members all shared greetings as they walked into and through the front door of the diner. They all sat together at a large booth in a back corner of the diner. Barney was secretly happy that the diner was pretty uninhabited; that way, if anyone in his family reacted to his "career decision" in a rambunctious way, there wouldn't be too many people around to see any scene that might occur in the very near future.

After the waitress took the order of each family member, Barney had decided to finally break his news to his family.

"So," Mrs. Ross began in her Italian accent, "Why'd you want to meet us all here, Barney?"

Barney took a deep breath. "I decided to get a job and cause of what it is, I just wanted to run it by you guys," he answered.

"Ok, so what's the job?" Beatrice asked.

He hesitated. "It's technically working with the military and the government."

"Ok," Brandon acknowledged, "So, you gonna tell us the job or not?"

-/-/-

Alexandra finished building a few pieces of furniture within two hours- with help from her older brother. It was the last few pieces of her new furniture, which was a table and four chairs that went along with it. It was the last bit of furniture that had to be built or set up, so they all left it for the morning- even though they were all going out for breakfast.

The four had all slept at Alexandra's new apartment after a long day of packing and unpacking and building a painting and cleaning. The next morning, they decided that they would go out for breakfast before the three all went back to New York. Though this was the original plan, they all felt that they'd end up walking around the city like tourists for a couple hours before the three actually ended up leaving to go home to New York.

The group all got to a café in the heart of historic Philadelphia. It was an older café that had been there since the early nineteen-hundreds, and was loved by people all over the city, both the residents and visitors. It was also popular with those in the surrounding cities. They only used signs for advertisement- and even then, not a large amount of signs- and using word of mouth, and its reputation that had grown over the years.

"I still can't believe I won't be able to see you every day anymore," Raquel said once their breakfast was ordered.

"I know," Alexandra greed, "I mean, I know it'll be weird not seeing you guys every day."

"We can still come at least once or twice a month," David suggested, "You know, we come here once a month, you come up to New York once a month."

"That could work," John nodded, "Then you could visit your big brother, too."

Alexandra nodded in agreement. "It'd definitely be worth the two and a half hour drive to get there, then another two and a half hours to get back."

Raquel groaned in slight annoyance. "That's too far away to be from my best friend."

"That's why Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone."

John shook his head. "Actually, it was a guy from Italy named Antonio Meucci, but he couldn't afford to renew his caveat while in Italy, so he never got credit for it."