Diner (short story)

Luckily I wore black jeans, because under the table, blood is gushing from the knuckle of my left thumb. I went too far picking my cuticles. I flip my hand and press it on my thigh to attempt to clot it up before Sonja notices. I keep the throbbing hand under the table while flipping through the menu with my right.

Diners. I’ve always wanted to like them. The movies make them feel romantic: red booths, checkered floors, couples sharing a milkshake and shy, fleeting glances. The jukebox spins something warm and the coffee flows endlessly. There’s an old regular at the bar with his morning paper and a plate of ‘the usual.’ A pie of the day sits irresistibly in a glass case behind the counter. The low chatter and clanking of dishes lulls patrons into a state of stay a while, you got no where to be.

I want to be in that state. I can do this. My thighs stick to the vinyl booth and I try to focus on what Sonja is saying across from me. Something about a gallery walk next weekend. I nod along, the sizzling of the grease in the deep fryer and butter on the skillet interrupting her to remind me that those oils alone add upwards of 100 calories and about 12 grams of fat to a meal. A boiled potato is only around 100 calories, but a plate of fries is a whopping 300.

“Tristen is showing for the first time so it would mean the world to him. Oh, and there’ll be free wine!” Her voice is drowned out by the all-caps headings of the thick menu. BREAKFAST SPECIALS OFF THE GRIDDLE HOT SANDWICHES COLD SANDWICHES.

“Oh no way, I didn’t know Tristen was an artist,” I manage. CLUBS SPECIALTIES KIDS MENU SIDE ORDERS.

“Duh! He’s a painting major. I thought you knew that! Anyway, do you want to come? We can get ready at my place before.” PASTRIES BURGERS OMELETS SALADS.

I nod and smile at her. My eyes feel vacant. What do I order?

I lean back in the booth to steal a glance at the oozing thumb in my lap. It’s still bleeding. I pull it up to my mouth as subtly as I can and wrap my lips around the knuckle, hoping a quick suck will serve as a better tourniquet than my pants. I’m still sucking and looking down at the menu, hardly taking in any of the six hundred options, when I hear the dreaded question.

“Are you girls ready, or should I give you a few more minutes?” The frizzy haired waiter is at the end of the table, pulling her notepad and a pen out of her apron. I look at Sonja, who, to my utter dismay, is giving me the yeah-I-know-what-I-want-if-you-do nod. The nod that I have never been capable of giving genuinely. So I fake it and nod back.

“You go first,” I nudge, giving myself approximately 45 seconds. If I’m lucky and Sonja forgets the options and has to denote how she likes her eggs, white, wheat or rye toast, and hash browns or coleslaw, I could have up to 60 seconds. But either way, I have to make a decision fast.

Pancakes. I’ll do blueberry pancakes. They’re a diner classic so they won’t taste bad, that’s for sure. Mom used to make Dad and I blueberry pancakes on the weekends when I was little. She wouldn’t have any, of course. The last time she made them I must have been younger than six, because Dad was still there. I remember my little hands getting sticky from the syrup, smiling ear to ear as I indulged in the fluffy goodness without a care in the world. Today, I’ll allow myself about a teaspoon of syrup on top because pancakes are sad without syrup. But no butter. They’re already cooked in mounds of butter. Too much butter. Those extra hundreds of empty calories and fat. I can’t do pancakes.

Eggs and toast, could be safe. But they’re charging $9 because it comes with hash browns. I definitely don’t need bread and potatoes. Two carbs before 10am? No way. I think about a sandwich, but most sandwiches come with mayo or sauces, which are throwing calories down the drain. I’d have to ask for no bacon, which might raise questions. And what if it ends up being one of those huge sandwiches with a third slice of bread in the middle and I know it’s too much but I can’t stop eating and before I know it I’ve eaten three slices of bread and the whole sandwich, and fries?! I can’t risk it.

I look up and around briefly, like I’m coming up for air. Two skinny runners are intently chewing at the booth across from me, munching on well deserved post-run burgers and a Belgian waffle to share on a plate between them. Commands and smoke pipe up from the kitchen. The ding of the bell indicates that someone’s food is ready. The cashier holds the landline to her ear while notating an order to go. The teenage bus boy scurries by and dishes clink and clatter in the big black tub.

I’m running out of time and a boiling frustration starts to travel up from my empty stomach into my throat. I need to scream, I need to cry. But I can’t, not now, so I swallow and scan the salads. Dad would order salad at the Metro Diner whenever Mom made him diet. He’d complain about it the whole time. How lame is it to get a salad at a diner? He’d sulk. If Mom went to the bathroom, he’d sneak fries from my plate and I’d giggle. I’d always get grilled cheese and french fries back then. I can’t imagine putting that in my body today.

Focus on the menu. A salad won’t be tasty on its own; the most interesting ingredient will be an olive or a banana pepper, so it’ll no doubt be smothered in a fatty, sugary salad dressing to hide its depressiveness. I could ask for dressing on the side, but if I don’t put it on Sonja will think I’m crazy. She’d already think I was crazy for ordering a salad in the first place. No to a salad.

Mom used to order cantaloupe with cottage cheese. She’d kept taking me to the Metro Diner every Friday before ballet down the street, even after Dad was gone. She said I could get anything I wanted, but I knew better. The French toast would make me look fat in my leotard. The omelets have three eggs, not two. A muffin is not practical: 500 calories, 600 if I add butter and jam, and more like 8 or 900 if you add in all the snacking I’d do later, after it wouldn’t put a dent in my hunger. That’s almost half of a grown man’s suggested daily caloric intake in a baked good I’d devour in seconds.

One time with Mom I thought about getting the yogurt parfait, but after she made her if you really want it face and I asked what was wrong with the yogurt parfait, she reminded me that granola was practically all sugar, and that most places used full fat yogurt. I asked her, well what about the cottage cheese, isn’t that full fat? And she got defensive and said that the protein content was higher. But then she didn’t order cottage cheese. And she ordered second, after me. I didn’t change my order because I was scared it would make me look obsessive, like she is. The waiter asked about sixteen times if she was sure she didn’t want anything else, and she replied sixteen times back she was sure. Then she picked at a sad half of a cantaloupe on its white plate before her, while I guiltily ate mine with full fat cottage cheese.

I lift my head up from the menu to find Sonja and the waiter blinking at me expectantly. I don’t know how long I was spaced out for. The panic has taken me prisoner, and I realize every muscle in my body is tense. I wriggle in the booth and my thighs sound like they’re ripping off the vinyl. I clear my throat.

“You know what, I’ll just do a black coffee.” I close the laminated pages and hand the waitress my menu. I look at Sonja, “I’m actually not hungry,” I say. She shrugs. I accidentally start mindlessly ripping at the already bloodied knuckle on my left thumb. My stomach grumbles.