Charlie and Ruth liked to get to the
diner early on Sunday, the old Buick angled in to a parking spot
right in front of the diner's windows so that Charlie could ensure
nobody was stealing his old Buick, not that anyone would want to
steal that old boat of a car, Ruth always thought.
"Three eggs over easy,"
Charlie told the waitress when she tried to hand him a menu.
"Sausage. Toast, no butter. You new here?"
The waitress blushed, fingered the lace
at her collar. "Can you tell?"
"You're doing fine, sweetie."
Ruth hated the way her husband was so darn bossy all the time,
acting as if the entire world ought to know what exactly what Charlie
Browning wanted. She opened her menu and pretended to study it, even
though she, like Charlie, always ordered the same thing every day.
"Half a grapefruit, please." She smiled at the waitress,
noticed her name tag read Carolyne. She liked that spelling,
liked the way it was just a bit different. "With a maraschino
cherry, please." She regretted the second please. Charlie would
tell her she was groveling later, in the car while they were driving
home. "And two Belgian waffles, no whipped cream." She
folded the menu and gave it to Carolyne.
They waited in silence, watching the
holy-rollers, as Charlie called them, stream into the diner,
talking loudly and animatedly, all smiles and perfume.
"This here's our place,"
Charlie said, when Carolyne set his plate before him, after one of
the church-goers had received their breakfasts. "We come here
religiously." He picked up his fork and stabbed at his eggs as
if they were somehow to blame. He plucked the maraschino from Ruth's
grapefruit and put it in his mouth.
"I really wanted that."
"Whatever." Charlie cut his
sausage in half with the side of his fork.
Ruth decided then and there to order
what she wanted tomorrow: Grits. With a side of sausage gravy.
She smiled. Charlie would be angry.
Kelly Garriott Waite on Google+
Labels: Fiction, flash fiction, Trifecta Writing Challenge