I spent all of Tuesday afternoon working on my bike. To my profound relief, it did only seem to have relatively superficial damage as Evelyn had already assured me, most of which I was able to repair, though my wrist made the work more challenging than usual. I hammered and smoothed out a couple dents to the fuel tank, sanded and meticulously touched up the scraped paint on the body, buffed out the scratches on the chrome exhaust as much as possible, and made a makeshift replacement side-mirror using the mirror from a makeup compact, a ruler, and some duct tape. It didn’t look pretty but it would work fine until I could make it to an auto parts store for a proper replacement. I labored until dusk, stopping only for bathroom breaks and to make a peanut butter sandwich with stale bread. By the time I was done, I was drenched in sweat, dirt, grease, and crumbs.
In the dimming light of the sunset, I wiped my hands on a dirty towel, admiring my handiwork. Apart from the MacGyver-style mirror, the bike almost looked as if it hadn’t been in an accident nearly a week before. I turned the key in the ignition and revved the engine. It roared to life, without sputtering or protest.
I’m not sure when or how I learned to drive in my previous life, but in this life, it was surprisingly easy to get the hang of riding. Shortly after Evelyn had gifted me her late husband’s bike, I had picked up a copy of Motorcycles for Morons at the town library and, after stalling the bike twice and dropping it once (maybe twice), it was fairly smooth sailing from there. Now, after two years, it had simply become second nature for me. As for repairing it – that had taken a bit more trial and error over the years.
I smiled, rather satisfied with myself, then shut off the engine and walked the bike back over to its place beside the pile of logs I kept stacked on the side of the house. There, I reached down to pick up my helmet from the grass. I had buffed out the dent and scratches etched in the side but left the paint unretouched – I would need to hunt down that specific shade of army green at the hardware store. I looped it by the strap over the handlebars before walking back to the front of the house, taking one last look at the sky to the west. There must have been smoke in the air because the sunset was a dazzling array of gold, pink, and orange, bathing the nearby hills in bright rosy alpenglow. Slivers of crepuscular rays shone between fluffy rolling clouds, creating a patchwork of light and shadow on the hills below. I smiled tightly. I may not have known how I had found my way to Colorado, whether I had been born there or eventually chose to move there, but the dazzling evening skies often made me grateful to live there regardless.
Inside the darkening cabin, I grabbed a gallon jug of water from the kitchen counter and gulped directly from it. Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I crinkled my nose at the dirty bandages wrapped around my wrist and began unraveling them as I walked to the bathroom. I dropped them in the trash and then took a match from the medicine cabinet to light a small kerosene lantern sitting on the sink. I hesitated for a moment, then struck it against the side of the matchbox, wincing as it ignited to a perfectly ordinary flame. You are being ridiculous, I chided myself, forcing my trembling hand to light the lantern. It too glowed ablaze in a perfectly ordinary way. When the flame didn’t explode in wild, white-hot forks of fire as the fireplace had, I relaxed slightly and carefully set the lantern on the floor at the far end of the bathtub. It cast a warm orange glow across the bathroom’s white-tiled walls.
I then stripped off my filthy clothes while the deep bathtub filled with cold water. One thing I was not quite ready to do was mess with that fireplace again, so I resigned myself to taking another ice-cold bath instead of first heating the water by the lukewarm bucketful. When the tub was nearly full, I twisted the faucet shut, took a moment to prepare myself, and then slunk down into the freezing bath, gasping at the onslaught of cold against my skin. My teeth started chattering before I was halfway in.
Just imagine it’s a nice, warm bath, I said to myself soothingly, pinching my eyes shut. The water is hot and luxurious; it’s so warm that it’s steaming and fogging up the window and mirror… I smiled, envisioning just that, and after a few moments I could almost feel the water warming up… except, I suddenly realized… the water was warming up. My eyes shot open. The bathwater – which was cold well water that came from the cold ground, pumped into cold pipes that emptied into my cold cast iron bathtub – the bathwater that just moments ago was freezing… was now hot. Steaming, though thankfully not scaldingly, hot.
My eyes widened in disbelief. My first, very pressing instinct, was to immediately leap out of that bathtub and run naked from my house. But my second, more reasonable thought was, I can’t remember the last time I took a hot bath. So, still questioning my own sanity, I allowed myself to sink deeper into the tub and let the luxurious hot water soak over my tight, knotted shoulders. I cautiously waved my left hand back and forth in the water, testing to see if it was heating up further – being boiled alive was most definitely not on the evening’s agenda – but the water seemed to be holding constant at a rather perfect temperature.
And so, I did what any sweaty, grimy, slightly-damaged person who had been laboriously hunched over a bike for six hours would do: I sat in that hot bath for over an hour, unabashedly enjoying every relaxing, therapeutic minute of it.
***
Wednesday morning I awoke early, firmly resolved to reestablish some much-needed normalcy back into my life. Standing outside the house, my right wrist newly-wrapped with fresh bandages, I tied my long hair back in a low ponytail, checked that my helmet was adjusted snugly, and took off on my bike, headed straight for the restaurant.
I’d been feeling terrible about missing so many days of work; Gina was the only reason I had any money – or a job – to begin with. Three years ago, when I realized I couldn’t continue mooching off my neighbor or forage for mushrooms in the forest, I finally conceded that it was time to get a job. Not an easy task when you don’t have a last name. So, initially – very cautiously – I began taking on odd jobs in the neighborhoods close to town; raking, shoveling, cleaning out gutters, and so on. One of the houses belonged to Gina. After a few weeks of doing various chores and housework for her while she spent fourteen-hour days at the restaurant, she eventually offered me a job there, first as an extra hand in the kitchen, and then as a waitress. She asked reassuringly few questions and paid me in cash. I liked the job fine and was more than happy to work as many days as I could. Particularly after a week of bizarre events and obligatory captivity in my own oppressive house, I was desperate to get back to work. I felt as though both my wallet and my sanity depended on it.
It was a chilly but uneventful twenty-minute ride into town, with very few cars on the road – to my relief. I wasn’t necessarily afraid to get back on my bike after the accident, but I wasn’t quite ready to face rush-hour traffic, either. I parked on the sidewalk just outside the large front window of the diner and took off my helmet, shaking out my hair from the elastic hairband. I glanced at my watch – a few minutes before six.
I pushed through the door and the bell dinged, summoning Gina from the kitchen. She was a large woman in her late forties, with shoulder-length, gray-streaked brown hair that she always wore pulled back in a messy bun. Ever the straight-shooter with a mouth like a sailor, she was tough, but her customers, and I, adored her. This morning she was wearing a canary-yellow shirt underneath a flour-dusted white apron, her signature blue pen tucked behind her ear and a dish towel slung hastily over her shoulder.
“Aspen!” she exclaimed, “Your neighbor told me not to expect you for another week! You doin’ okay, honey? We were all worried about you.” She gave me a tight hug. I winced slightly.
“I’m still having a bit of trouble with my wrist,” I answered honestly, “but I’d really like to come back to work and help however I can, if you need me?”
She laughed. “Sweetheart, I would take you with two broken arms. This place just isn’t the same without you. Just do whatever you can, and don’t overwork yourself.” She looked me over a bit more carefully then and I shifted self-consciously. “Evelyn, is that her name? She told me you had a nasty fall on your wrist. Looks like you nicked your face a bit, too. You alright?”
I mumbled some vague response as I followed Gina back into the kitchen, hanging my jacket and red backpack on the coat hooks by her office. I pulled my apron from my pack and tied it around my waist, then pulled my hair up into a messy knot, blowing loose black strands of hair from my face. Horace, the cook, waved a batter-covered spatula from behind the stove.
“I thought I’d never see that pretty face again!” he called, winking playfully.
I blushed and waved back, already beginning to forget the oddities from the last week. I fell right into helping Gina mix together some batter for buttermilk biscuits, then whipped up a bowl of fresh cinnamon-honey butter. When we finished, she gave me two steaming biscuits from the oven, slathered with butter. I ate them greedily, then helped her set up the front of the restaurant, placing fresh pink carnations on each tabletop and wiping down menus and chairs with a clean rag and a bottle of Windex.
“I’ve been havin’ my niece, Dana, pop in and help this week during the busy times,” Gina mentioned while writing the day’s breakfast specials on the board: Biscuits and Gravy, Pineapple Upside-Down Flapjacks, and Gina’s “X-tra Spicy” 3-pepper Omelet. “Luckily it hasn’t been that busy because that child has broken more plates and spilled more coffee in a week than I ever thought possible.”
“I’m really sorry about that,” I said, feeling a pang of guilt for being away for so long.
“Sorry?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at me. “You haven’t missed a day of work in nearly three years. And here you are, back a week early, with a sprained arm. No honey, nothin’ to be sorry about. I’m just glad I’ll have fewer plates to replace going forward. You remember what I said and take it easy today. Head home early if you need, I’ll still pay you for the whole day. Oh, that reminds me.” She stood up, straightening the chalkboard next to the front door, “I owe you some cash from the week before last. I went ahead and added a little extra, knowin’ you might be hurtin’ for some money after your accident.”
I tried to protest but she waved me away dismissively as she headed to her office in the back of the restaurant. Still, I felt a huge relief, knowing I would have some cash in-hand again. I looked at my watch, 6:59 a.m., then headed to the front door where I flipped the sign on the door from CLOSED to OPEN, ready for the early-morning breakfast rush. Gina’s was well-known around town and even Wednesday mornings pulled in an impressive crowd. The first couple hours of the day were a little stressful; I wasn’t able to carry a tray with my right hand so I had to make more trips than usual, and some of the heavier plates needed to be carried out by Gina, though she seemed all too happy to help. I caught a few eye-rolls and exasperated sighs when food took longer than usual to make it to the table. My regulars were happy to see me, though, and were more than patient. They were also far more generous than usual.
Might be from pity, I thought dryly, futilely trying to scrub a customer’s spilled side of hollandaise sauce from the front of my white button-up shirt.
One regular customer, a slightly eccentric old man and avid reciter of off-color jokes named Harold (who once incurred my stony silence for two weeks after trying to pinch my bottom), left me $20 on a $10 tab. When I came back to give him his change, he just winked at me and nudged my hand away. Chuckling, I shook my head as I watched his brown and yellow plaid jacket leave the restaurant, knowing he’d be back for his usual plate of poached eggs and a single buckwheat pancake tomorrow morning.
“Hello? Sweetheart?” A guy at the next booth over was waving his hand at me. I’d seen him in the restaurant a few times before. He’d left me his number a couple times, but it always ended up crumpled in the garbage.
I gritted my teeth as I turned to face him. “Yes?”
“I asked for orange juice like a half hour ago,” he remarked, smirking. His two buddies across the booth were snickering.
“I’m sorry about that – I’ll go grab you some,” I answered, suddenly remembering that another table had asked for the same thing ten minutes ago.
“Naw, don’t worry about it. We’re heading out in a minute anyway. Actually, I wanted to ask you if you were up for doing something later? Maybe grab a beer or something?”
I regarded him warily. He was an oaf, but I had to admit he was a good-looking oaf.
“Are you uh, old enough to drink…?” he asked, his swagger quickly dissipating. His friends were practically squirming as they tried not to laugh.
“I’m twenty-two,” I lied. Well, almost twenty-three, since the birthday I had conveniently chosen for myself was coming up next week. I briefly wondered if I had made myself too old.
“Great! So-o, what do you say? Wanna grab a drink? Shoot some pool? I can pick you up at your place. Do you live around here?”
I forced back a sigh. Nope, I live twenty minutes outside of town, alone and without a working furnace, a squatter in a mountain hut that isn’t mine. I had grown to hate these kinds of persistent lines of questioning at the restaurant. They were what had made me dread small talk in general.
“Sorry, I can’t,” I replied briskly. “Let me go get you your check.”
I walked away hurriedly as his friends burst out laughing.
“Dude, burn!”
My face felt hot as I quickly printed out their ticket at the cash register. What else could I have said?
Eyes down, I dropped their check at the table and quickly hurried off without another word, heading back to the kitchen to grab a beverage for my other juice-bereft customer.
The rest of the shift was much slower after the breakfast crowd dispersed. In-between refilling coffee or rolling silverware, I read the next chapter of An Overview of Medieval Europe to prepare for that evening’s class. Gina had returned to her office in the back to make some phone calls, so I was manning the front on my own. As I leaned over the host stand, skimming the section on William the Conqueror, the bell chimed from the top of the door. I looked up from the page as a middle-aged man in a brown hat and overcoat entered the restaurant, then set the book down, quickly gathering a menu and reaching into the wicker basket I had just filled to pull out some clean napkin-wrapped silverware.
“Will anyone else be joining you this afternoon, sir?” I asked.
“No, just me.” He replied curtly.
He didn’t say anything as I led him to a corner booth at the far end of the dining area. Once he sat down, I set the menu and silverware down in front of him as he removed his hat, carefully placing it beside him in the booth. He had thinning hair and wore metal-rimmed glasses that sat high on the narrow bridge of his nose.
“Could I get you something to drink?” I offered.
“Coffee. Black. I don’t need any food, thank you.” He slid the menu towards me, then reached into his pocket to retrieve a small book, not making eye contact with me during any of the interaction.
I nodded stiffly, taking the menu from the table. I returned a moment later with his cup of black coffee and the check. He took the coffee without looking up from his book and I shrugged as I walked away, perfectly happy to avoid small-talk. For the last hour of my shift I only had two tables, a nice elderly couple that usually came in for a late lunch together, and the churlish man at the booth, who took tiny sips of his black coffee as he read his book, dismissively waving away refills. A few times I thought I saw him staring at me over the top of his book, but I brushed it off. I was used to the occasional odd customer.
At 2:45 p.m., side-work done and all tabs collected, save for Mr. Friendly’s pending dollar-thirty-nine, Gina sent me home. I thanked her profusely for her help that day, she winked and thanked me for returning early and not shattering a pile of dishes. Then I stuffed my apron back in my bag, and deposited the wad of cash from last week’s wages and today’s tips into my jacket pocket. As I waved goodbye to Gina and Horace and headed out the front door, I again felt the man’s eyes on the back of my neck and I bristled, in part from discomfort but mostly from annoyance. I didn’t give him the satisfaction of looking back as I slung my bag over my shoulder and headed out the door.
It was only when I pulled away on my motorcycle that I noticed the brown Corolla with a mismatched red hood parked on the far side of the restaurant.