That One Summer

July 15, 2011 - Still There Too

Dear Diary,

My life this summer has quickly gotten into a rhythm.

I wake up at 10 and head to the hotel by 11. I help set up for lunch, ride the rush, then by 2 when things die down, I dust the rooms while Claudia watches TV. All the while I'm thinking about 3 o clock, when I'll wander over to the front counter and talk to Calvin.

I'm trying not to look forward to it too much, trying to restrain myself from getting my hopes up. I guess I know the truth: it's the highlight of my day. Bantering and bickering until we both burst out laughing. Wondering if I had just seen him looking at me from across the restaurant while I was taking an order.

It's all such a rush.

He pretends he wants to focus on his magazine while I ramble on about something annoying Darla was doing, or how irritating that guy at table 2 was when he kept asking for steel cut oats instead of quick oats, and he wouldn't take "we don't have those" for an answer. Sometimes after I would say something he would give me that look, like he recognized me. It was so weird, and it would disappear just as fast as it came.

He'd send me home around 3:30, and I'd go to the theatre and watch movies with Leonard and Steve. If it was a movie they classified as a "classic" we'd eat popcorn and chocolate and candy. If they deemed it unworthy, just popcorn. I was learning a lot about movies as they talked through the entire thing but always shushed me when I tried to add any comments of my own. They had so many tidbits and facts about everything we watched; every actor, every line, and they never got sick of doing this every week day for the 3:30 matinee.

And neither did I.

"Did my dad come to this theatre a lot?" I finally got the nerve to ask this afternoon.

Leonard and Steve looked at each other before answering.

"He sure did." Steve said. "When your dad was young, there used to be a school here in Bear Paw."

"Really?"

"Oh yeah. All the kids, they'd all come to the theatre right after classes. That was, oh, 25 years ago or something like that."

"Then the school shut down and this place was filled with nothing but grumpy old people." Leonard said.

"You're a grumpy old person." Steve laughed.

Every time I'd ask about him, I'd get a little something before the conversation would lead somewhere else. But I'd keep coming back to the theatre every day just to hear something about him. Anything. Something more than just the pale skin and dark eyes that looked back at me in the one photograph my grandpa sent me when I was young. I wanted to know what was behind his small smirk.

"Why do you keep hanging out with Leonard and Steve?" Calvin asked after I snuck back into the restaurant to help with the dinner rush.

"Something wrong with them?"

"They just don't seem like your type of company."

"And what's my type of company?"

"I don't know, people your age? You seemed so above everyone when you got here. Or you seemed to think that you were. Shocking that you chose a couple old guys as your friends."

"You assumed that about me when I first got here." And he was right of course, I did think that. But I wouldn't tell him that. "I didn't have a choice about coming here, that's all it was."

"What do you do with them?"

"With who?"

"Leonard and Steve."

"We watch movies. They know everything about every move, it's amazing. You should come some time." I add.

"Really?"

"What?"

"Are you inviting me?"

"Sure. Why not?"

"I would, but who'd watch the restaurant."

"True. But you deserve a break. I can't believe grandpa makes you work every day from who knows when until the restaurant closes late at night."

"He opens the place himself."

"Really?"

"Usually. I only fill in for him if he can't. Didn't you notice he was gone in the mornings?"

"I sleep late. Besides we're avoiding each other right now."

"Why?" He asks.

I wonder if I should bring it up, I don't want to start up the same argument we've had too many times, but I'm very curious to see what his reaction would be. Maybe he knows something about the journal Grandpa took.

"He took something from me."

"What?" He looks truly surprised. "That can't be. Pat wouldn't do that."

"You're always on his side." I roll my eyes.

"Let's not fight about this again." He  mimics my thoughts.

"Fine."

"What do you think he took?" He can't help not dropping it.

"I thought we weren't going to fight about this?"

"Were not fighting. We're talking. What'd he take?"

"It's just this book."

"Book?"

"It was a journal." I see Calvin stop moving out of the corner of my eye, but I continue counting the money in front of me. "It was in my room on the book shelf. I hardly got to look at it, but it seemed like it belonged to someone who used to live there or something. A kid. And my grandpa is being so secretive about it, and then he takes the book and acts like he doesn't know what I'm talking about. He's being a freak."

"Hey." He says so sternly I nearly throw the money I'm holding. "Just..." he changes his tone the. Trails off.

"What?"

"Well if he doesn't want you to look at it I'm sure there's a reason."

"What reason?" But any information he might have been willing to share gets sucked back in and he's a closed book again.

"I knew you were going to side with him. See, I told you."

"Jane."

"I should go."

"You're right, we shouldn't have talked about it."

I'm already starting toward the door.

"Jane!" His eyes look more frightened than I expected when I turn back to look at him. "I'm not on his side."

My expression says that he obviously is, as always. Walking towards me with my apron in hand, he pushes it toward me until it touches my stomach.

"Let's end one night with you not slamming this on the counter." I'm failing not to smile at that. "Can you stay please?" He asks, joining my smile.

It was his fourth smile. Genuine, friendly... dangerously cute. It's the smile that makes me feel like I need to quickly look away because my feelings must be all over my face.

"You can be so annoying sometimes." I'm unable to let him get away with not being on my side again, but this only makes him try to stifle a laugh.

He pulls his smile between his teeth, nodding in agreement, apron still extended toward me. I take it from his hand, and continue counting money silently behind the counter while he picks up his magazine. I look up as I always do to catch his unscanning eyes on the page, and see his smile is still there too.