"Well, hell. My third wife was that way."
That was the phrase that initially caught my attention. Two men sitting in a booth across from each other; the kind of booth that you used to see in the old Dairy Queens; orange Formica. One of the men was sucking the bottom out of a sweet tea, twisting his wedding ring on his finger while the other one talked around his cigarette and sipped black coffee. Neither man appeared to have shaven in the last few days. Their hands were calloused; rough like a rusty pair of pliers. I wondered how many wives he had parted ways with and if he had one waiting at home for him now.
Between their Formica booth and mine sat two women; one was in her twenties and the other old enough to be her mother though had they not been in my line of sight their conversation would not have indicated any difference in age. Their voices were low and they spoke in abbreviated sentence structure masking the content, fueling my interest, and frustrating my efforts to booth hustle on their conversation to know how they concluded.
The waitress was kind. She called me sweetie in a manner that seemed acceptable and flattering. I watched her motor swiftly through the diner like an obstacle course that she had mastered many years ago. Her hair was cheap blonde and her fingers appeared to have stains from a lifetime of shelling purple hull peas. Her smile was sincere and her eyes were honest.
She poured me a cup of coffee and asked for my order efficiently and friendly. I could smell that she had recently had a cigarette. She fit a profile that said 'I've had a hard but genuine life.' I couldn't help but speculate on how she got here. Broken home? Failed marriage or marriages? She speaks intelligently but still I wonder if she finished high school. I decide she lives in a small trailer house; one from the era of being called trailer houses. It's probably aged and stained with nicotine from many heartfelt girlfriend coffee drinking conversations around the kitchen table and an ashtray.
I expect that she has a box of family treasures slid under her bed. A box that includes a handkerchief her granddaddy carried in the bib of his overalls. She might have a piece of silk from a christening gown or wedding dress wrapped around a silver jewelry box containing a few wheat pennies and a buckeye. She likely has a souvenir from a family devastation; a board or piece of wallpaper from the family home that was destroyed by a tornado in the early summer of the mid 50's; a quilt that swaddled a child. I decide that she is a traditionalist, maybe even typical of her generation but she is someone's best friend and good neighbor. She may be someone's idea of a failure.
I think her name is Ruby. She's independent and loyal. She probably doesn't go to church as often as she was raised to but knows her soul is secure and her God is still on the throne.
While my imagination is running wild I decide she has a relaxed and easy relationship with a man that she has known her whole life. She loves him but she's not interested in marrying him or even living with him. They have a lot of freedom in a relationship designed to combat loneliness and the pressure to date. They have a different expectation of happiness than any generation since.
All of these conclusions I have made and I haven't even received my ham and cheese omelet yet.
The mother daughter booth continued with questions like, 'do you think she will?' And vague answers like,' you know what she did last time.' The content was disguised but I determined it was the actions and habits of a mutual friend that they met here to hash through. My imagination could have shredded this down to a harlequin novel or tabloid trash. They did not possess the same qualities and genuineness of Ruby.
I now have my omelet in front of me and feel confident in my appraisal of their characters. After a half of a cup of strong coffee and a bite of cheesy omelet I can deduce that these ladies would never be friends of Ruby; she surely won't call them sweetie. That is a name only for me and the guy with the cigarette.
Half way through my plate of late night breakfast I decided we all arrived at Debbi's Highway Diner the same way. We didn't set out to be here but it wasn't by accident either.
Myself, I was headed back from working in Kansas a few days. I had too much windshield time, been in the hotels in for days, met with customers that were not satisfied with workflow. I was physically, emotionally, and intellectually drained but I had many miles and many hours left to travel before I could fall face first into home.
The skies began to darken just beyond the hills of Southeast Oklahoma. The blue became chalky gray and I began to see the rickrack of lightening decorate the horizon. It wasn't long before I saw the storm in my rearview mirrors, my left and my right and dead ahead. That's how I ended up at the highway diner in Okmulgee, Oklahoma that night.
Perhaps it was a storm of life that landed Ruby here too. Maybe a detour from a rough week or she was tried and just needed to slow down for a bit.
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