Carly 2

When I walked into the viewing room, Cherry was surrounded by her usual coterie and already in high drama, exclaiming (in hushed tones, of course) to some woman I’d never seen before.  Cherry always had epitomized everything I hated about being female, embracing with determined abandon the look, feel, and sounds of the forced and fabricated versions of femininity that had permeated our childhood.  I was glad I’d brought Fred along.  Since this was all about Cherry’s husband’s family, I could more easily keep my distance, but that was easier to do in a pair than alone.

I glanced around the room, not seeing anyone else from the Randall family that I recognized.  There weren’t even many people there yet and, except for the two guys by the coffin, they were dispersed throughout the room, like magnets aiming at each other with opposite poles.

Taking Fred’s hand, I guided him toward the casket, following custom.  It was odd to find myself comforted by the path of least resistance, but somehow death is like that.  It’s one thing to push back, negotiate, rebel against life.  But death doesn’t work like that, and for the moment I was content to leave the rituals around death unquestioned as well.

Carly 1

The teenagers burst out laughing again, and I could feel the twist low down, buried in my abdomen.  It wasn’t likely they were laughing at me, not at all really.  And yet…I almost wished they were.  It was a measure of how unhappy I’d become: I’d rather have the mockery of an audience, laughing and pointing fingers at my plight, than this feeling of sitting here just disappearing.

The trouble was, I had absolutely zero motivation to join in the conversation.  Charlie, Greg, Blackie, and Dan had surrounded me as they gathered their chairs around, taking over three different tables in their usual territorial stakeout.  At breakfast and lunch, the diner was open to other customers only by their good graces.

It could have been worse.  At least these guys tried.  But at best their own efforts to include me confused them, and in Greg’s case at least the resentment lingered and gathered, accumulating around innocuous comments and moments so that nothing was easy.  In my day, it was the diner time that was the work – all the noise and activity of the site was my sustenance.

Madeline 1

I walked in.  It was 6:35, and lots of people were having breakfast – work day.  That’s why I was there.  I was looking for a particular man, who might have information about the Randall case.  I admit, I was hungry, too.

It was one of those seat-yourself diners, so I did.  First I took a good look around the place, to see if there were any guys there who fit the description.  Noticed the cowboy in the corner right away – odd to see a cowboy here.  He looked like the real thing, too, not a Village People clone, dust clinging to his shirt, calloused hands, wrinkled sun-hardened skin, tired eyes.  Not my guy, though.  At least, not my guy for the case.  Then there was the table of rowdy construction workers, all men except for one lone, quiet woman in the middle.  A couple of businessmen in suites – probably salesmen.  Why did I think that?  I don’t know.  But I did.  Then a couple of guys with their laptops open, typing away, sitting at the same table but not even looking at each other.  One spoke; the other smiled.  They didn’t look at each other, didn’t stop typing.  Then a table with one woman, quietly reading the paper and drinking coffee, twisting her wedding ring around her finger.  At the counter, a bunch of guys in suits, all with coffee.  And another table with some teenagers – at least, they looked like teenagers to me.  Might have been older.  Five of them, two guys and three girls, laughing a lot.  They looked like they might have been up all night – eyes a little red-rimmed, their energy just a bit too edgy and high for 6:30.  Well, 6:40 now.

I didn’t see my guy – maybe it was too early for him.  So I chose an empty booth and sat down, pulling out my iPad.