“Table or bar?”
Lori smiled back at the waitress. “I think my friends are already here,” she said, and stepped past her, from the foyer into the diner proper. She headed to the right, past the empty bar and the plastic display case of apple and coconut creme pies, towards a tall, lean blonde in a faded orange miner's jumpsuit who was sprawled on a chair at the end of a booth, tilting it backwards into the aisle, her arms dangling.
Four more women were in the booth, three young, and one perhaps not, who was just wrapping up a story with a few glissandos and an emphatic toss of her head. Their food was already in front of them. Lori slid into the booth next to the older woman and set her bookbag on the seat between them. The woman gave her a nod and a smile. Her ruffled lace blouse and dark curled hair made the diner’s stainless steel and neon seem almost modern.
“Am I late?” Lori asked.
“Not late enough,” a woman across the table said. She had cropped hair and wore a denim jacket with rolled-up sleeves. “One more minute and you could have missed another of Rhonda’s tragic tales.”
“Well, I ask you,” the woman next to Lori said, “what kind of a lady does he take me for? And on a first date!”
“The kind who lives in a trailer park and chain-smokes Virginia Slims?” the blonde suggested.
“A lady is defined by how she lives, Allie Jean. Not by where she lives.”
“Oh, you mean, like by not havin’ a job.”
Rhonda said nothing.
“Or is it just not havin’ certain jobs?”
“I wouldn’t presume to judge your choice of work,” Rhonda said.
Allie Jean snorted. “You’re about the only one in Carbondale, then. Every miner’s wife in town thinks it must be because I’m after her man.” She rocked forward on her chair and propped her elbows on her knees. “I’m just saying, all your do’s and don’ts won’t do you a damn bit of good. In the end, a lady's just a gal with money.”
“Hear that, Rhonda?” the woman in the denim jacket said. “I’m as much of a lady as you are!”
Rhonda raised her eyes to the ceiling. “Heaven help us.”
The waitress came by to take Lori’s order, and asked the others about dessert.
Rhonda demurred. “I simply couldn’t. A girl must be oh-so-careful about her figure after ... thirty.”
“Me!” said the woman across from Rhonda. Crumbs from her hamburger dotted the pink “I heart party boys” t-shirt that strained to contain her. “A banana sundae with hot fudge! And peanuts!”
“Really, Patty,” Rhonda said. “There are things in this world even better than a banana sundae that you may be denying yourself.”
“I know what you’re trying to say. You’re saying I’m too fat.” She turned back to the waitress. “Banana sundae!”
“Lemme put it this way, Patty,” Allie Jean said. “You’re too goddamn fat.”
“Am not. Lori, am I too fat?”
"You could stand to lose a few pounds."
The woman in denim snorted a mouthful of Pepsi. "A few? Lori, how many is a few?"
"I don't see what—"
"How many?"
"Well, the standard interpretation is two or three. But in some contexts—"
"Two or three? No, we need a whole different kind of word. Like, when there's a pond full of geese, you call it a flock of geese. What do you call a bunch of elephants?"
"A herd. Wait, why am I helping you?"
"You've gotta lose a herd of pounds, Patty! Elephant pounds. They're heavier than ordinary pounds. Oh, don’t start crying. Grow up."
“Sandy, do you know the meaning of the word irony?” Lori asked.
“Nope! Ironic, isn’t it?”
Patty had screwed up her face a little, but was not crying. The woman directly across from Lori placed one hand on Patty's shoulder. "I'm sure you'll find some sweet man who loves you just the way you are, Patty."
Allie Jean stabbed her fork in the air towards her. "Oh no you don't! You are not allowed to give her advice on men!" She jabbed her fork into her brisket and resumed eating as if the table had not suddenly fallen silent.
"Bob and I are doing better,” the first woman said softly. “He promised me he's going to take me on a trip to Orlando. We're going to ride on one of those swamp boats with the big fans, and there'll be alligators, and herons, and snowy egrets."
The other women glanced at each other.
"Flora, maybe you should open a special account to save up for that trip," Lori said. "You could take a little money every week, and put it in that account, until you had enough for the trip. It would make it a kind of game!"
"Bob ... doesn't think separate accounts are a good idea."
"Seeing as you might spend it on something other than liquor," Allie Jean added.
Flora folded her hands together and looked down at them. "Bob's under a lot of stress now."
"So am I!" Allie Jean leaned her chair back and raised her arm, waving to the waitress. "Waitress! Bring us a bottle of your cheapest whiskey. You got some stressed-out ladies over here."
"AJ!” Lori gave the waitress a strained smile and waved her off. “We have to tip her 20% now."
“Just let me kill him for you,” Sandy said. “I mean it.”
“Flora, darling,” Rhonda said, “if ever you need to have a little.. personal space for a while, my door is open to you. Any time of day or night. No questions asked.”
“We’re fine. Everything is fine,” Flora said without raising her eyes. She picked up a menu and began studying the entrees, although she had already nearly finished her salad.
“Well,” Lori said, then looked around as if expecting someone to speak. No one did, so she continued. "I’m pretty excited. I just applied to the University of Pittsburgh!"
"Ooh! Just like last year!" Patty said.
"Not just like last year. This year is different."
Sandy rolled her eyes. "Every year is different."
Allie Jean shook her head slowly. “Sugar. We been over this. You need thirty thousand a year to go to that fancy university full-time and eat and sleep too. And the government won’t loan you more than ten thousand. And you ain’t got no twenty thousand. Now, SCC just down the road in Scranton has lots of evening classes. Fine teachers, I hear."
Lori sighed. "Their library is a basement with no windows. And the books are on steel shelves."
"Lori!” Sandy said. “What you just said is—expanding my mind."
Lori blinked. "It ... is?"
"Yeah! I thought there was nothing in the world I could care less about than a roomful of old books. But there is! What kind of shelves they're on."
"Books should be on wooden shelves," Lori said. "Books on steel shelves are like—like books written in sans serif fonts."
Sandy put her hands to her head as if in pain. "Whoa! I don't know how much more expanding my mind can take."
“Our little scholar does not belong in a community college,” Rhonda said. “She belongs in a university. Sitting on a high-backed red velvet chair, in a room with tall oak bookcases and chandeliers, while a circle of older gentlemen in tweed jackets with leather elbow patches admire her brilliance, every so often taking their pipes out of their mouths to say, ‘Quite so, Miss Faust!’”
“Well, for now, it’s the Carbondale Public Library for me.”
“Nobody should study that much, Lori,” Sandy said. “You practically live in that library when you’re not working.”
“I don’t just study. Sometimes I ... write.”
“Yeah?” Allie Jean asked. “Write what?”
Lori looked down at the bookbag on the bench beside her. “Oh, stories, mostly.”
“Stories?" Sandy asked. She stood up and leaned over the table. "And they’re in ... this bag?” she said as she grabbed it by the strap and hoisted it over to her side of the table.
“Hey!”
Sandy quickly unzipped the bag and reached inside. She pulled out a sheaf of papers and began reading the first page: “‘Dear Princess—’ Aw, Lori’s friends with a princess!”
“Give that back!” Lori leaned across the table, reaching for the papers.
Sandy stepped back from the table, holding the papers out of reach. “Wait, it gets better! It’s a story about talking ponies!”
Flora handed Lori’s bag back to her. “I like ponies,” she said.
“Talking magical ponies!”
“Actually," Lori said, "only about a third of the ponies fit the Western archetype of magicians.”
“Oh, I’m glad you explained that. Because I thought all the talking ponies were magic. And that would be like something a little girl would write.”
“Sandy,” Allie Jean said without looking up, “remind me why we don’t drown you in the river.”
Sandy sat back down and set the sheets of paper down in front of her plate. “Because without me to hijack the conversation, you’d have to listen to Lori explain what irony is. And then listen to Rhonda explain why ladies don’t do it.”
Allie Jean nodded. “Fair enough.”
Now that the papers were within her reach and undefended, Lori only looked at them, then back up at Sandy.
“You aren’t going to ... finish reading?”
“Why bother?” Sandy asked, picking up her sandwich again. “I already have enough material to make fun of you for weeks. Months!”
“Lori,” Flora asked, placing one hand on the stack of papers. “May I read one of your pony stories?”
Lori blushed. “Certainly, Flora. But they’re just little things I write.”
Flora picked up the top dozen or so sheets and began to read.
“What I can’t get over,” Sandy said between bites, “is that all this time I thought Lori was thinking deep thoughts, reading ancient dead-guy stuff, and she was writing stories about magical ponies. You’re sorta losing my respect here, Lor.”
Lori smiled a little. “I didn’t know you respected ancient dead-guy stuff, Sandy.”
Sandy swallowed and stopped eating for a moment. “Naw. You’re right. Never mind.”
“It shows she has a sensitive and artistic nature,” Rhonda said.
“This story is about us,” Flora said.
Patty leaned over to look. “Us? Where?” Flora handed her the first few pages.
“What do you mean?” Rhonda asked. “Am I in that story?”
“Actually, all of my stories are about us.”
“You can’t just go about writing stories about other people. I have a reputation! I have ... dignity! Let me see those stories.”
“They’re just stories, Rhonda! I’ve never shown them to anybody.”
“This isn’t about us, sillies," Patty said. "It’s about ponies!”
“Don’t you ‘just stories’ me! Do you know how many decent ladies have been cast out from society because of things that were ‘just stories’? God, now I need a cigarette.”
“Aw, sugar, you afraid they’re gonna throw you outta the diner? Take away your Sam’s club card?”
“Hush, you cavewoman! I am serious. Lori, I demand that you show me these stories.”
“Okee-dokee-loki!” Patty said, handing the sheets still on the table to Rhonda. “That’s a thing the pink pony says. She’s funny. I’m going to say it every day from now on!”
Rhonda snatched the pages and held them up in front of herself, holding them taut between both hands as she read.
The waitress came with Lori’s meal and Patty’s banana hot-fudge sundae. “Thanks!” Patty said. She began digging into it with a spoon while reading a page held in her left hand.
“All right, gimme one of them stories too, then,” Allie Jean said eventually. “If they can keep Rhonda quiet, they must be something.”
Lori opened her bookbag and searched through it, finally pulling out a notebook, flipping through it, then handing it to Allie Jean while holding it open to one page. “You might like this one,” she said. “How about you, Sandy? You’re the only one not reading.”
“Depends. Have they all got words in them?”
“Um ... yes?”
“Then no thanks.”
“Sandy!”
Sandy grinned. “A lady’s got to uphold her reputation.”
“Hey, Lori,” Allie Jean said, scanning the first page. “Wasn’t your mom’s name Celeste?”
Lori nodded. “I didn’t have a lot of friends growing up. It worried her. Sometimes I wish I could tell her about you guys. So I write her a story.”
“Uh-huh,” Allie Jean said. “Well, I’ve heard crazier. And you made your cat ... a dragon?”
“Ohh!” Patty nearly shrieked. “I get it! I’m the pink pony! Is that right, Lori?”
“Yes, Patty. You’re the pink pony.”
“Hooray!”
Flora had been reading quietly all the while. She handed the rest of her story’s pages to Patty, before making Sandy get up so she could slide out of the booth and walk around the table, where she slid in next to Lori.
“I guess it's pretty silly, huh?” Lori said.
Flora turned and wrapped her arms around Lori tightly, closing her eyes for a few moments. Then she got up from the table and ran out the door.
Allie Jean glanced up from the notebook and at the table. “Bitch left without paying.”
Rhonda withdrew a ten-dollar bill from her handbag, threw it down in the center of the table, and glared at Allie Jean as if daring her to say something. Then she pulled a handkerchief from her handbag and dabbed at her eyes with it. Sandy pulled a ten out from her wallet, dropped that on the table, and hurried off outside after Flora.
“Rhonda,” Patty said. “Is that a sad story? Would you like some of my sundae?”
“It’s a very nice story. Forgive me, Lori. You are far kinder than this faded flower deserves.”
“Oh, Rhonda. You should always be able to rely on the kindness of friends.”
Allie Jean laid her pages on the table. “I’m gonna have to agree with Rhonda for once. Lori ... this ain’t us. I ain’t some spirit of honesty. I’m just a gal with a big mouth.”
“Maybe you’re too hard on yourself,” Lori said.
“Maybe you’re makin’ silk purses outta sows’ ears. We ain’t kind to ya. I got a mean streak. Don’t go so easy on me. I’d rather you said something bad.”
“It’s just a streak,” Lori said. “It doesn’t go all the way down.”
“Says you,” Allie Jean said. She threw some bills on the table, then pushed her chair back as she stood up. “I got the night shift again. Gotta be down below in half an hour an’ shovel the belt line.” She squeezed Lori’s shoulder. “Lori, honey, you are hopeless. Sweet, though.” She took a few steps towards the exit, then paused. “Also. I don’t talk a bit like that.” She stepped out into the foyer, and they heard the door’s small bell tinkle as she left.
Lori watched Rhonda read the rest of whichever story had been on the top of her stack of papers, while listening to the clink of Patty’s spoon on the steel dish.
Patty had already finished, settled up, and left after a brief goodbye when Rhonda finally stacked the pages neatly and tapped the stack on the table to square up its edges. She held the pages close to her chest as if reluctant to part with them.
“Would you like to keep those until you can finish them, Rhonda?”
Rhonda nodded and smiled slightly. “Lord knows, we need all the magic we can get these days.” She stood up and left the diner, walking slow and standing up very straight with that slight smile still on her face.
Lori gathered up the bills lying about the table, pulled a pen from her pocket, wrote them all down on one napkin in a neat column, and added them up. Under that, she added a twenty percent tip. Then she counted all the bills and added some coins to the pile of money. Having done that, she took the notepad Allie Jean had left on the table, and turned to the first blank page, near the middle.
“Dear Princess Celestia,” she wrote.
