Chapter 17

It was around lunchtime and Ed was driving when they crossed into Arkansas. The ‘Welcome to Arkansas’ sign flashed by with both occupants of the car shouting, “Goodbye to Oklahoma! Hello To Arkansas!”

The noise of a motorcycle, still using a gasoline engine, caught their attention. A guy in his early thirties passed them for the fourth time on his antique Harley Davidson motorcycle. While Fusion Engines were available for motorcycles, very few serious bikers used those engines. It was widely accepted among bikers that the loud engines made riding safer as drivers might not see them, but would hear them.

Watching the guy pass them, Nora said, “How is it that when I drive, we pass him and when you drive, he passes us?”

“It might be that I don’t speed.” Ed looked over at Nora with a smile that suggested he was more than prepared for the argument that his words would trigger.

“I don’t speed!”

“The speed limit here is sixty-five and you go seventy-two.”

“That’s not speeding. The cops expect you to go a little over the advertised speed limit,” replied Nora. She sat back waiting to hear his counter argument.

Chuckling, Ed said, “I get it. Speeding isn’t speeding unless you’re speeding.”

“Right,” she replied before a confused look crossed her face. She was going to have to think about that for a while.

It was well after lunchtime that they decided to stop for lunch. Bored with watching the road go past, Nora was ready for a break. The question was what she could find to do, but that wasn’t really a problem. Her car was filled with the latest and greatest gadgets, including a heads-up display that could connect to highway information servers that provided restaurant, hotel, and tourist attraction information in addition to updated road information.

She reached over to the dashboard and started pushing buttons. The heads up display came on startling Ed, as he found himself looking through a map at the road in front of him. Nora started executing queries about interesting places to stop and eat. After examining the display for several minutes, she said, “There’s a diner up ahead that is one of the few art deco buildings along this route. What do you say to eating there?”

He shrugged his shoulders as he debated how to answer the question. Although he didn’t really care where he ate, he did hope that the food would be good. Ed asked, “What kind of menu?”

“There’s not much information about the place, but I imagine it’s a typical diner.”

“Anything better?” asked Ed figuring that it was another greasy spoon. He wasn’t sure if he was up to eating a greasy hamburger and fries again. Maybe they might have something a little different on the menu.

“Not really. A lot of chain places, but I’m really tired of eating at them,” replied Nora.

“Okay.”

Ed drove as the navigation system fed him directions on how to reach the diner. Once he saw the place, it was impossible to miss. The building itself looked like a massive railroad car covered with chrome. There were no hard edges, the corners of the building were rounded. It didn’t look that bad on the outside, but the place had definitely seen better times. Of course, few buildings after fifty years or more, didn’t look a little worn.

In front of the building was a huge sign with the name of the restaurant in five-foot tall letters. Surrounding the letters were neon tubes, that at night would spell out the name. The base of the sign was a stack of columns that got increasing larger. Around each column was a band of neon tubes. He wondered if the neon lights still functioned. If so, at night it would look like a series of rings that increased in diameter the higher up each ring was with the name of the diner floating above it.

As Ed pulled into the parking lot, Nora exclaimed, “He’s here!”

“Who’s here?” asked Ed, confused at the comment and unable to look around while he was busy navigating the parking lot.

“The guy on the motorcycle,” said Nora as she pointed to the Harley parked in front of the diner.

“Do you have a thing for that guy?”

Looking over at Ed, she answered, “No silly. He just looks so interesting, almost like a Hollywood presentation of a biker guy. The leather jacket, blue jeans, and boots give him a real biker look.”

Ed teased her by saying, “You like him because he looks slightly dangerous. He’s got a belly that just hangs over his belt buckle. It lets you know he likes to drink beer and not wine. That scraggly beard of his makes you think that he can’t be bothered to shave.”

The pair of them went inside the diner, through a door that gave the appearance that you were stepping into a train. The required round stools ran along the speckled Formica counter. The floor was covered with black and white tiles arranged in a checker board pattern. Three booths were opposite the counter, the seats covered with green fake leather.

Since it was well after lunchtime, the place was nearly deserted. There was an elderly couple seated in one of the booths. From their gestures, it looked as though they were discussing the architecture of the room while waiting for their food to be delivered. Ed wondered if the couple was going around the country looking at architecture that had been common when they were younger. It made him think that it would be a nice way to spend a retirement.

The only other client in the diner was the motorcyclist. He was seated at the counter talking with the waitress. From the nature of their body language it appeared as though the two knew each other. The waitress stood at the counter, relaxed with her weight supported on one leg. She would shift to support herself with the other leg on occasions in the manner practiced by people who stood all day. Her right hand kept going up to her head to tuck in a stray hair here and there.

Nora headed straight for the counter and sat down a couple of stools away from the biker. She turned so that she was facing him and the waitress. Without giving the waitress a second glance, she turned her attention to the biker. From the nature of their conversation, Nora could tell that he had only been there about five minutes.

When Ed joined her, he parked his body on the stool between her and the biker. An empty stool remained between the two men. Nora leaned forward and, whispering into his ear, asked, “Trying to protect me from the nasty biker?”

He turned to her and whispered back, “When you look at me, you can watch him all you want.”

Nora leaned back and laughed as she realized that he was right. If he had sat on the other side, she’d have to turn her back to him to look at the biker. She said, “Oh, Ed. You are my hero.”

Laughing, Ed shook his head at the characterization of being a hero and looked around the diner. The ceiling was covered with chrome, but it had been a long time since the chrome had been polished. It made the place look dirtier than it actually was. Behind the counter was a window that connected the dining area with the kitchen. A stainless steel wheel with clips for holding orders was hanging down from the center of the upper part of the window. Below the wheel was a shelf where the cook set the plates once he had filled an order. Small heat lamps hung down to keep the food warm.

The Formica counter had a small stainless steel rail that ran across the back. Built into the rail were menu holders, with small menus sticking up. In front of the menus were the condiments, sugar, catsup, mustard, salt, and pepper. Ed reached over to the menu holder and pulled out two of them, handing one to Nora. Opening it, he saw that the food was typical diner fare including the standard Chef Salad. He didn’t want a salad, so that left him with the burger.

The waitress looked over at Ed and Nora, not happy about having to interrupt her conversation with the biker. It was clear by the expression on his face that he didn’t want the conversation to be interrupted as well. The expression on the face of the waitress underwent a succession of changes. First she showed irritation. After a few seconds, she looked like she should recognize Nora, but couldn’t. A few more seconds passed, when she believed that she had realized the identity of Nora, but didn’t quite believe it. Then, she looked like she just had to know the truth. She called over, “Are you Nora Turner?”

“Yes, I am.” Nora nodded as she answered. She had seen that same succession of looks come over people before. The question was what would happen next. Would it be an exclamation that they loved all her movies? Would it be a complement about her appearance? Would it be questions about what she was doing there? Other possibilities included requests for autographs, pictures, or even lots of physical touching.

Contrary to what Nora was expecting, the waitress turned to the biker and said, “Hey, Jack. That’s Nora Turner, the movie star.”

Jack, the biker, turned to look at Ed and Nora for a second. Recognizing them, he said, “Cool. Hey, you’re the folks that were in the Silver BMW.”

Ed appreciated the low-key response to Nora’s presence. So far this trip, he had watched on more than one occasion when she had almost been dragged away, as excited fans wanted her to meet their friends. He answered, “Yeah. We recognized your bike when we pulled in.”

The waitress hit Jack on the arm and said, “Hey, Jack. If she weren’t with this guy, maybe she’d go out with you.”

Jack leaned back and laughed. His was the kind of laugh that one might characterize as a guffaw, loud and boisterous without the least embarrassment that he might be noticed. Looking over at the waitress, he said, “She’s not my type and I’m probably not her type.”

Surprised by their reaction to her, Nora was curious why they were so laid back. His answer shocked her and her pride demanded to know why he had discounted her so quickly. Nora leaned forward and asked, “What is your type?”

As she hit the biker on the jaw in slow motion with a fist, the waitress answered, “Women that cheat on him.”

With a chuckle, Jack leaned back flailing his arms as if he had been actually been hit. Recovering he answered, “Nah. I like women like Karen, here.”

There was more than a little truth in his words. Curious if there were feelings in the other direction, Ed asked, “So Karen, what is your type of man?”

Acting as if he were shooting her with a miniature bow, Jack answered, “Men that cheat on her.”

Karen put her hands over her heart as if she were mortally wounded. From watching her, both the fake blow and the fake arrow to the heart were long standing jokes between the two. Gesturing at the biker with a thumb, she answered, “Nah. I like men like Jack.”

Again there was more than a little truth in her words. Rather than follow up on the hints given by the way they talked, Ed said, “Sounds to me like you two go back a ways.”

Jack said, “Yeah. Whenever someone cheats on one of us, we go to the other one and tell our tale of woe. After a couple of hours of ridicule and beer, we go our separate ways.”

Acting as if she was mentally counting the with assistance of her fingers, Karen said, “Let’s see. It’s been nine boyfriends for me, eight girlfriends for you. If this keeps up, I’m going to run out of fingers.”

With a real sadness in his voice, Jack said, “Nine girlfriends for me. I caught Joy with Ben last night.”

“Ah, shit. You must really be feeling down. Let me take their order and we’ll talk,” replied Karen with a gesture of her head towards Ed and Nora.

Ed watched the exchange with interest. As far as Karen was concerned, the problem with Jack was more important than meeting a movie star. Ed liked that. Both of these people cared for each other, but they didn’t see the other as a possible partner. Karen moved over to them and asked, “What do you want?”

Nora replied, “Chef’s salad with Italian Dressing.”

From the lack of greasy smell in the air, it was possible that the food here wasn’t that bad. Fearing that he was going to regret his order, Ed said, “I’ll take a burger well-done, french-fries, and a glass of iced tea.”

“Sweet or unsweet?”

“Unsweet, please,” answered Ed. He liked a little sugar in his tea, but not as much as they normally put in sweet tea. The secret to making proper sweet tea was to add more sugar than was dissolvable into the tea while it was still hot. When it cooled down, the tea became super-saturated with sugar. That was too much sugar for his taste.

“Honey, what would you like to drink?” asked Karen.

Ed had noticed a number of waitresses over the past few days often called Nora honey when asking questions. If it wasn’t honey, it was darling or sugar. He hadn’t noticed women doing that until this trip and wondered if it was a regional thing. He wasn’t paying attention when Nora answered, “I’ll take an iced tea. Unsweet.”

Karen turned to the window and hung the order on the wheel. With a negligent touch, she spun it for cook behind the window. A second touch stopped the wheel with the order where the cook could see it. The cook grabbed the order and examined it for a minute before replacing it on the wheel. Ed was only able to catch a slight glimpse of the cook.

While Karen prepared two iced teas, Ed turned to Jack and asked, “So how long have you known each other?”

A wide grin spread across his face as Jack recalled all of their years together. They had grown up as neighbors, gone to school together, and rode bikes with the same group of people. He answered, “Since we were kids. Karen was the girl next door.”

Karen turned back to them and added, “We’ve been best buds forever!”

While their food was getting prepared, Ed listened to the couple talk. The discussion was interrupted once when the ringing of a bell indicated that she had to deliver food to the couple sitting at the table. She didn’t take long to pick up the food and carry it over to the table. Ed tried to examine the order, but she was moving too fast. When she came back, the friends picked up the conversation as if it hadn’t been interrupted.

Karen wasn’t a small woman and looked like she could take care of herself with the roughest crowd. It was clear that she was perfectly comfortable on the back of a large bike. He noticed a tattoo of a motorcycle logo on her arm that peeked out from under her waitress outfit. She was definitely a biker. When she mentioned getting out her bike after she got off work so they could go for a ride, Ed knew that Jack and Karen were kindred spirits. From the things that they said, he was able to determine that they had never dated each other.