Day 2 - The Ashby Diner
Clara answered on the first ring.
“Define ran into.” Naomi said.
Clara pulled out of the Morrow Hardware parking lot with her phone connected to the rental car’s speakers.
“It's a fairly established phrase.”
“Did you see him from across the street?”
“No.”
“Did you speak?”
“Yes.”
“Oh my gosh.”
“Naomi.”
“Did he recognize you?”
Clara glanced in the rearview mirror.
“I am not seventy.”
“That wasn't what I meant.”
“I know.”
“Was it weird?”
“Yes.”
“How weird?”
Clara considered.
“Hearing-your-own-name-in-a-voice-you-haven't-heard-in-twenty-four-years weird.”
Naomi was quiet.
“That is very specific.”
“It was very specific.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“What does he look like?”
Clara sighed.
“I knew this was coming.”
“You called me.”
“I texted you.”
“You texted something that legally required a phone call.”
Clara turned onto Main Street.
Holloway passed outside the window in variations of memory.
The pharmacy was now a yoga studio.
The old video store had become a bakery.
The bank still looked like a bank, which somehow felt smug.
“Older,” she said.
Naomi snorted.
“Excellent reporting. You really are an editor.”
“He looks good.”
There.
Said.
“Good how?”
“Naomi.”
“I'm collecting data.”
“Gray at his temples. Still tall. Looks like someone who works with his hands.”
A pause.
“Oh no.”
“What?”
“You noticed his hands.”
“I noticed his occupation.”
“You noticed his occupation while standing in the furnace filter aisle.”
Clara smiled despite herself.
“He makes furniture.”
“I know what he does.”
Clara frowned.
“You know?”
“Clara. I have the internet.”
“You've looked him up?”
“Of course I've looked him up.”
“When?”
“Several times.”
“Why?”
“Because apparently one of us needed to maintain continuity.”
Clara laughed.
“That is unhinged.”
“You're welcome.”
She stopped at a red light.
“Did you know he worked on my Dad's house?”
That silenced Naomi.
“No.”
“He did.”
“What kind of work?”
“I don't know yet. He said furniture. Repairs.”
“Huh.”
“Exactly.”
The light changed.
Clara drove another block before Naomi said, “How are you really?”
There it was again.
The question she'd been successfully dodging since yesterday.
“Fine.”
“Clara.”
“I don't know.”
That was more honest.
“I found the box, and then I found the postcards, and then an hour later he's standing behind me in a hardware store like someone ordered a very aggressive metaphor.”
Naomi laughed softly.
“That's better.”
“What is?”
“You sounding like you.”
Clara didn't answer.
Naomi had known her since sophomore year of college, which meant she possessed the irritating ability to identify Clara's emotional state from punctuation.
“Go back to the house,” Naomi said. “Eat actual food. Don't make any decisions about your life.”
“I wasn't planning to.”
“Good. Also don't Google him.”
Clara smiled.
“You just admitted you've done that for me.”
“That was research. If you do it now, it's emotional self-harm.”
“Noted.”
“And Clara?”
“Yeah?”
“Finding the postcards doesn't mean anything has to happen.”
“I know.”
“Seeing Jack doesn't mean anything has to happen.”
“I know.”
“You are allowed to just feel weird.”
Clara exhaled.
“That I can do.”
Back at the house, she left the hardware bags by the stairs and went directly to the dining room.
The postcards were exactly where she'd left them.
She stood over the table for a moment.
Then pulled out the chair.
She chose the first one.
Christmas 1998.
The Ashby.
The diner was still there.
At least she thought it was.
She had driven past too quickly yesterday to notice.
For some reason, that mattered.
Clara turned the postcard over and read Jack's message again.
Four cups of coffee.
The pie.
Gravity.
And suddenly she wasn't in her father's dining room anymore.
She was nineteen.
The snow started at six.
By seven, Holloway was under a winter storm warning.
By eight, half the town had decided this was a personal attack.
The Ashby Diner filled with stranded shoppers, college students home for break, families who had underestimated the forecast, and several elderly men who would apparently rather perish in a blizzard than miss Friday meatloaf.
Clara had stopped only because the highway entrance was backed up.
She was supposed to be heading to Madison to meet friends.
Instead, she ended up in a vinyl booth with her coat still on, watching snow erase the parking lot.
“Road's closing,” someone announced from near the counter.
Groans moved through the room.
Clara stared out the window.
“Great.”
“Could be worse.”
Clara looked back over her shoulder.
Jack Mercer stood beside the booth holding a coffee mug.
She knew who he was.
Everybody in Holloway knew everybody at least enough to classify them.
Jack had been one year ahead of her in high school.
Quiet.
Good at art.
Played baseball badly but enthusiastically.
Worked summers at Mercer's Nursery before the family sold it.
They'd spoken before.
Probably.
Nothing she could remember.
“I'm sorry?” Clara said.
Jack gestured toward the window.
“Could be freezing rain.”
She stared at him.
“That is an aggressively Midwestern interpretation of optimism.”
He smiled.
“Mind if I sit?”
She looked around.
Every booth was full.
“Apparently not.”
Jack slid into the seat opposite her.
“Thanks.”
Clara picked up her coffee.
“Are you stranded too?”
“Depends how committed you are to the word stranded.”
“You can't leave.”
“I wasn't planning to.”
“Then you're not stranded.”
“Exactly.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“You came here on purpose?”
“My sister's working.”
He nodded toward the counter, where a waitress with the same dark hair was carrying three plates.
“I'm waiting until she gets off.”
Clara glanced at him.
“That is either very sweet or deeply codependent.”
“She's my ride.”
“Less sweet.”
“I was worried you'd think too highly of me.”
And there it was.
The first surprise.
Jack Mercer was funny.
Not performative funny.
Not loud.
Dry.
Clara liked dry.
“So where were you trying to go?” he asked.
“Madison.”
“Tonight?”
“That was the plan.”
“Bold.”
“I had a reservation.”
“Ah.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing.”
“It meant something.”
“It meant I'm impressed by your belief that weather respects reservations.”
Clara laughed.
“I'm learning.”
The waitress arrived.
“Jack, move your elbow.”
He moved it.
She set down a plate of pie in front of him.
“Apple.”
“I didn't order pie.”
“You've been here three hours.”
“That's not how ordering works.”
“It is tonight.”
She turned to Clara.
“You want one?”
Clara glanced at the pie.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
The waitress disappeared.
Clara watched her go.
“Your sister?”
“Lucy.”
“She seems warm.”
“She loves me.”
“Is that what that looks like?”
“Mostly.”
The pie arrived.
So did another coffee.
Then another.
By ten, Clara had consumed four cups of coffee and then momentarily dozed off with her head leaned against the booth’s window.
Jack woke her.
“You’re impressive.”
She blinked.
“What?”
“Four coffees and still fell asleep.”
Clara sat up.
And somehow the diner had begun to empty.
The road officially closed.
Parents gathered children.
Some called a motel.
The elderly men finished their meatloaf and left anyway, proving nothing.
By ten thirty, the storm had become quieter.
Not less severe.
Just steadier.
Clara and Jack were still talking.
College.
Teachers they both hated.
Books.
Movies.
The fact that Jack wanted to build furniture.
Not “work in furniture.”
Build it.
Clara had never met anyone their age who could answer the question what do you want to do? with something that specific.
“You mean like cabinets?” she asked.
Jack looked offended.
“No.”
She laughed.
“What's wrong with cabinets?”
“Nothing. That's not what I mean.”
“Then what do you mean?”
He leaned back.
“Tables. Chairs. Desks. Things people keep.”
“That sounds expensive.”
“It can be.”
“Do people still buy handmade furniture?”
“Some do.”
“Why?”
Jack shrugged.
“Same reason people buy books when libraries exist.”
Clara looked at him.
“That's not remotely the same thing.”
“It is a little.”
“No.”
“Okay.”
“You gave up fast.”
“I don't actually need you to agree.”
Second surprise.
She liked that too.
“What about you?” he asked.
“What about me?”
“What are you going to do?”
Clara looked toward the window.
Snow pressed against the glass.
“Leave.”
Jack laughed.
“No, I mean for work.”
“So do I.”
“You hate it here that much?”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
She corrected herself.
“I don't hate Holloway.”
“Very generous.”
“I just don't want to spend my whole life here.”
Jack nodded.
No defensiveness.
No hometown speech.
“Where, then?”
“I don't know yet.”
“That seems inconvenient.”
“It is.”
She smiled.
“Chicago maybe. New York. Somewhere big.”
“What do you want to do there?”
That question was harder.
Clara stirred her coffee.
“Something creative.”
Jack waited.
“That's vague,” she said.
“I didn't say anything.”
“You were thinking it.”
“I was.”
She sighed.
“I like magazines.”
“Reading them?”
“Making them.”
He leaned forward slightly.
“Okay.”
“I've been thinking about editorial work. Design. Culture. Maybe interiors.”
“You want to tell people what couches to buy?”
She pointed at him.
“That's exactly the kind of thing that gets you removed from the booth.”
He smiled.
“What would it be, then?”
Clara considered.
“Stories about how people live.”
Jack looked at her for a second.
“That's better.”
Something about the way he said it made her feel unexpectedly seen.
Not praised.
Understood.
That was rarer.
The waitress began stacking chairs on empty tables.
Lucy.
She called across the room.
“You two know we're closing, right?”
Jack checked the clock.
It was nearly midnight.
Clara stared.
“How did that happen?”
Jack looked out the window.
“Coffee.”
“Four cups of it, apparently.”
“That's irresponsible.”
“You've had at least as much.”
“I have nowhere to be.”
“Neither do I anymore.”
He smiled.
They helped stack chairs.
Lucy found Clara a motel room two blocks away after discovering the Bennett house was on the opposite side of town and roads were still bad.
“No chance,” Lucy said. “You're staying there.”
“I can drive.”
“You cannot.”
“I have snow tires.”
“You have confidence. Different product.”
Jack made a choking sound that might have been a laugh.
Clara glared at him.
Twenty minutes later, the three of them stepped into the parking lot.
The storm had eased.
Snow covered everything.
Cars.
Signs.
Curbs.
The entire town had softened around the edges.
Lucy went to start the car.
Clara carried the leftover piece of pie the waitress had insisted she take.
Jack walked beside her.
“You really think you're leaving?” he asked.
“Holloway?”
“Eventually.”
“Absolutely.”
“Why?”
She looked at him.
“Because I want to know who I am somewhere nobody already knows me.”
Jack went quiet.
Clara immediately felt ridiculous.
“That sounded dramatic.”
“No.”
“It did.”
“A little.”
She smiled.
“Thank you.”
“I get it.”
She stopped.
“You do?”
“Sure.”
“You don't want to leave.”
“That doesn't mean I don't understand why you do.”
Third surprise.
A big one.
Clara looked at him.
Snow had collected in his hair.
He didn't seem to notice.
“You're very confusing, Mercer.”
“I hear that a lot.”
“No you don't.”
“No.”
She laughed.
And that was when she dropped the pie.
The paper plate tipped.
One quick slide.
Apple filling landed facedown in the snow.
Clara stared.
Jack stared.
A perfect three-second silence.
Then Clara said:
“Gravity's getting aggressive.”
Jack laughed.
Not politely.
Not because she had said something especially clever.
He laughed like it had caught him completely off guard.
He bent forward, one hand against the car.
Clara started laughing too.
The harder he laughed, the worse she got.
Lucy leaned out the driver's window.
“Should I leave you both here?”
Neither answered.
Eventually Jack straightened.
His face was red from cold and laughter.
“That's the dumbest thing you've said all night.”
“I'm tired.”
“You drank four cups of coffee.”
“Clearly ineffective.”
Lucy honked.
Jack opened the passenger door.
Clara climbed into the back.
As they pulled out of the lot, she looked through the rear window.
The piece of pie sat upside down in the snow beneath the Ashby sign.
She wondered why she noticed it.
Two days later, a postcard arrived at the Bennett house.
Her father had placed it beside her cereal bowl.
“Boyfriend?” he'd asked.
Clara picked it up.
“No.”
Henry took a sip of coffee.
“Shame.”
“Dad.”
“Just observing.”
She turned it over.
Jack's handwriting.
This Christmas, I want to remember...
Clara read it twice.
Then again.
That afternoon, she drove to the Ashby.
A rotating postcard rack stood beside the register.
Twenty-five cents.
She bought one.
The front showed a photograph of Holloway's Main Street in summer.
Completely wrong for Christmas.
Perfect.
On the back she wrote:
Jack—
This Christmas, I want to remember that you compared handmade furniture to books and somehow still believe you won that argument.
You didn't.
—C
She mailed it the same day.
Neither of them ever formally decided this was something they would do again.
The next Christmas, they did.
And then the next.
Clara lowered the postcard.
She had forgotten that Jack made the first move.
Not romantically.
Not exactly.
He had simply taken an ordinary night and said:
I want to remember this.
Maybe that had been the beginning of everything.
She looked toward the kitchen.
Her father's house felt different today.
Less like a project.
More dangerous than that.
A place where things could come back.
Her phone sat on the table.
No messages.
Of course not.
She had seen Jack yesterday.
There was no reason he should contact her.
He wouldn’t even know her number.
Clara reached for the second postcard.
Stopped.
One day at a time.
She smiled at herself.
Apparently that mattered now.
She returned the Ashby card to the top of the stack.
Then noticed something underneath the diner receipt she'd missed yesterday.
A second slip of paper.
Much smaller.
A receipt from Dixon Drug & Variety.
Dated:
December 19, 1999
Among the items:
MINI TREE — $12.99
GLASS ORNAMENT — $0.99
GLASS ORNAMENT — $0.99
STRING LIGHTS — $2.49
CANDY CANES —$1.49
Clara looked at the crooked gold-star ornament still sitting in the box.
“Oh,” she said.
She remembered that Christmas too.
And this time the memory made her smile before it hurt.
Tomorrow:
FOUR CUPS OF COFFEE
A receipt can prove what you ordered.
It cannot prove what you were afraid of.
And Clara is beginning to suspect that Jack remembers the nineteen-year-old version of her very differently than she does.