The Never-Open Desert Diner (15 page)

“Yes,” I said, “it does. I figured I was a witness. Glad to oblige.”

“You're angry.”

“No, I'm not,” I said, honestly, I hoped. “Is there really a husband out looking for you?”

“Sort of.”

“Sort of? Either there is or there isn't. And don't worry, whether there is or isn't doesn't change anything.”

Now it was her turn. With a sly smile she repeated, “Change anything?”

Walt had finished cleaning up. He returned for Claire's bowl and spoon. “Change what?”

Neither of us acted as if we had heard him.

“You can take the rest of that ice cream with you,” Walt said. He hadn't meant it exactly as a suggestion. It was an offer more in the vein of
Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out with your damn ice cream
.

I suggested he keep it, though the word I was thinking of involved shoving rather than keeping. “If Claire wants more, she can come back to the diner. Your freezer works, doesn't it?”

Even the vaguest of hints that anything to do with the diner or Walt Butterfield might not be in perfect twenty-four-hour working order would never be taken kindly.

Walt bent down. He was so close to me I could smell his breath. “What do you mean by that?”

He was determined to use up my meager store of self-control. Claire's head swiveled between us.

“Nothing,” I said. “Nothing at all. If Claire wants ice cream, she can come over and visit. That's all.”

That wasn't all for Walt. Fortunately he decided to let it end there. I thanked him for dinner and nodded at Claire. He made me wait until he was ready to move out of my way so I could scoot out of the booth.

Walt grumbled a thank-you. He left with the bowl and spoon, and the carton of ice cream.

Claire whispered, “Walk me home?”

The invitation struck me funny. I stifled a laugh at the idea of telling or even suggesting to Walt that I might walk Claire home. “Are you crazy?”

“I need to talk to you.” She glanced at the kitchen. “But I know what you mean.”

“I'd like to have a brief talk with you,” I said. “The sooner the better.”

“I know you have a lot of questions.”

“No, Claire,” I said, “I don't. I have a few options for you.”

“I'll wait for you at the house.” She looked sideways toward the kitchen again and lowered her voice. “If you'll let me, I can tell you the answers to the questions you don't want to ask.”

“It's six miles,” I said. “That's a hell of a walk.”

“It's six miles to you,” she said. “For me it's less than a mile. There's another entrance to Desert Home just across the highway. To keep things civil, maybe you'd better drive the usual way. It's up to you.”

I hadn't seen another entrance to anywhere across from the diner. Maybe it had been obscured by time like the other entrance. More likely, I just hadn't noticed. Like everyone else, I never looked anywhere but at the diner.

Claire called out to Walt. “See you tomorrow.”

He walked quickly from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a towel, and brushed by me like I was stale air. “Let me walk you home.”

I wasn't a man for praying. I prayed Walt didn't see the little smile in Claire's eyes. “I'll be fine,” she assured him. “I need a walk alone in the desert. Okay?”

Walt agreed, though his heart wasn't in it. “Maybe Ben and I will have a quick cup of coffee.”

“You do that,” she said. She gave Walt a hug and stood on her toes to kiss his cheek.

Walt and I stood in the open doorway of the diner and watched her cross the dark highway into the desert. I stood behind him thinking the last thing I wanted was a cup of coffee. When she was safely out of sight and earshot, I said, “I think I'll pass on the coffee, Walt. It's late and I'm tired.”

He closed the door. He was polite enough to let me finish talking.

I
f Walt had wanted to be especially polite, he might have softened me up with a little left jab or a rabbit punch to the gut. Walt Butterfield wasn't much for pleasantries. He led with all of his best, a right fist launched as if it had come out of a missile silo. He intended every knuckle to connect with every part of my face from my chin to my forehead. The pain radiated from my nose through my jaw. The damage might have been worse if some instinct in me hadn't half expected it. My head was turned to the side an inch before the punch landed, or my nose would have been as flat as last week's roadkill.

He was ready with another swing. He glanced down at the floor. That was where he expected me to be. He was momentarily annoyed to see me in front of him, wobbling but still upright. He bounced a left off my shoulder. This bought him the time he needed to bring his right elbow up under my jaw. A left reappeared out of nowhere and tagged me on my right ear. The earlobe popped like a water balloon full of blood. I went down so fast I didn't even stagger.

Walt stood over me. His fists quivered at his sides. He kicked me three times with the steel-toed tip of a motorcycle boot. A little too hard for my taste.

“She's not for you,” he said, before placing a fourth and even harder kick, this one aimed for my left kidney.

The ear I could hear out of was ringing. I heard him loud and clear. He almost had a grin on his face. The exertion released beads of sweat that plastered some strands of white hair to his forehead. “Did you hear me?”

I mumbled incoherently and tried gamely to raise myself up on my elbows, failed, and fell back down. Walt hunched over me with his face just inches from mine, or what was left of it. He began to ask me again if I understood. I snapped my head up into his mouth. The impact loosened his teeth and tore part of his upper lip into a jagged flap. It was his turn to land on his ass.

I stood up and spit blood on his perfect floor. I liked to think I jumped to my feet. The truth is, I rolled like an amputee turtle.

“I didn't quite get that, Walt,” I said. “Tell me again.”

Walt almost did jump to his feet. It was demoralizing. He began to throw wild punches one after another. They were easy to deflect, though at great expense to the bones in my arms. I calmly and charitably asked him if he'd like to take a little rest. It had the effect I wanted. The next flurry of punches sapped his strength. He had trouble holding his fists up. The motorcycle boots he wore were spit-shined. I had a good look at the right one when he surprised me with a kick at my groin. It was only a surprise because I thought he'd have tried it sooner. I pivoted. All he got was leg.

At that point I could have just pushed him over like a cheap toy. I didn't want to do that to him. I made a big mistake. I did nothing. With his last ounce of strength he brought the heel of his right boot down on my left foot. I saw it coming out of my one good eye. I was too late. I thought I could hear my toes breaking like dry chicken bones. I returned the favor by driving my heel onto Walt's right instep, where his boots provided the least protection. The reflex bent him forward, head down, just as my aching right fist came up to meet his chin. His dentures flew out of his mouth and skittered across the floor. I thought he was tracking them as they went. It turned out to be his eyes rolling back in his head. Walt was down. I hoped out.

I wasn't going to make the same mistake he'd made with me. I kept my distance. Walt was out for less than a minute. The dirt he had knocked off and out of me combined with our blood to make a dark, slippery mud on the linoleum floor. I waited and listened. His breathing was steady and not labored. I resisted the urge to go check on him.

His face looked shrunken without his teeth. Somehow, though, even without Claire in the room, he looked younger and almost happy with his gray tongue lolling out the side of his mouth. I would have bet Walt looked better on his back than I did standing.

His eyes snapped open. He got himself upright. For a long minute he stared at me as if he couldn't quite believe what had just happened. Truth be told, it could have gone either way. I sat down on one of the stools and propped an elbow on the counter to keep from falling off. One of us needed to say something. I knew it wouldn't be Walt.

“She's not your daughter,” I said.

Walt took a slow inventory and made sure he was still in working order. He felt his face and stretched his neck as if the previous few minutes had involved nothing more strenuous than a morning shave. When he bent over to retrieve his dentures, he turned his head away before slipping them inside his mouth. It was an odd bit of vanity. He was a vain man. Over the years I'd known him he seemed to grow more vain. It wasn't a garden-variety vanity. Walt's vanity was constant and intense as a coal-fired furnace, fueled by sheer willpower to vanquish change. He was determined to keep not only himself but the diner as it always had been
—
as it was when Bernice was alive.

“No,” he answered. “She's not my daughter. But she's as much of her mother as I will ever have again. Good night.”

Walt flipped the switches for the overheads and walked into the kitchen without the smallest hitch in his giddyap. The kitchen lights went out. The door of his apartment shut. I sat in the dark diner. At the far end of the room the neon of the jukebox still buzzed, spelling out the words
Today's Hit Parade
in pink and purple.

The longer I sat on the stool the more I began to hurt and the less I felt like moving. The headlights of a single car swept over the drawn blinds. Claire had said it was less than a mile from the diner to her house. There didn't seem to be much purpose in the ruse of driving my truck. The kicks and punches I had taken were working their magic. I had some doubt that I would be able to get up into the cab and still more doubt that I could move my arms and legs well enough to drive.

It didn't seem urgent to tell Claire about Josh, though it did seem important. There was a clock running on his adventure. I was also morbidly curious to see if I could walk that far. Maybe Josh and I would both end up sleeping in the desert. The way things had turned out, I was certain his night would be the more comfortable.

D
irectly across 117 were two dirt mounds. Between them was an opening that appeared as if it had once been a road, though time and wind had reduced it to a wide trail. Given the size of Desert Home, it made sense that there would be more than one entrance. A long time ago it might have been more than a trail, and it might have accommodated a large vehicle. Now it only allowed for a small car.

The other side of the mounds opened onto a trail that eventually became a winding lane that descended onto the desert floor. Ahead I could see the lights of Claire's house blinking yellow in the distance. In a desert night a light always seemed closer than it actually was. Sad experience had taught me a light in the desert was like a mirage, impossible to judge and dangerous to rely upon, often withering into nothing as you approached, desperate for warmth and protection.

I dragged myself along. Claire's light stayed constant. I attempted to be honest with myself about why it was so important to see her so late at night. Walt had seen to it that I felt every one of his objections on my body. Not far from the house I tripped and fell. A short side path led off into a hillside. At the top I could see the silhouette of a low cyclone fence surrounding a rough cactus garden. I lay on the ground willing myself to get up.

“I see you've found it.” Claire was standing above me, her round face hidden in shadow.

“Found what?”

“My mother's grave. Walt tends to it almost every day. Seems like a strange place to take a nap. Are you that tired?”

“Yes,” I answered, still on my back, “I am. There's something so restful about a cemetery, don't you think?”

Claire extended her hand. She helped me to my feet. “I saw you fall. I've done it a couple times myself. Walt put in some stone steps here that lead up to her grave. They're hard to see at night, even if there's a moon.”

Claire didn't let go of my arm. I was happy to leave it right where it was. “Walt owns all this, doesn't he?”

“He does,” she answered. “They planned it together. My mom took night classes when she wasn't working in the diner. She designed everything you see. She even built some of it with her own hands.” Claire turned and looked out over the Desert Home I could only imagine. “The watershed reservoir, the streets, all the solar power. Even how the streets were laid out. A few things didn't even exist. She invented them way ahead of their time. She designed the model house I'm living in. It's where they were going to retire. She was an amazing woman. Walt was so proud of her.”

Though Desert Home had come to nothing, Walt wasn't the only person who was proud of Bernice and what she had accomplished in her all-too-brief life. Claire's pride in her mother was contagious. That pride was all the more heartbreaking as we stood surrounded by what was left of Bernice's plans and the long-ago events that ended those plans.

Claire started us toward the house. There wasn't a muscle or bone in my body that didn't ache. My back and legs moved with all the freedom of Dorothy's Tin Man after the rain shower. Claire noticed and wrapped her arm in mine for more support. Like any other red-blooded American male leaning on a small, beautiful woman, I gladly let her.

“You must have really taken a tumble,” she said. “Do you think you broke anything?”

“Everything,” I said, and placed my arm around her waist.

It wasn't until we got inside the house that she got a good look at me. From her expression she might have been considering burying me next to her mother. “That must have been a terrible fall!”

“It was,” I assured her. “I must have hit my head on a rock.”

Claire gently caressed the side of my face with the back of her hand. I winced.

“Just out of curiosity,” she said, “was it a seventy-nine-year-old rock?”

It hurt to smile. “As a matter of fact,” I said, “it was. Some rocks only get harder with age.”

Claire sat me down in the metal chair, the only chair, and went about expertly cleaning my wounds with water and antiseptic. “I was afraid of this,” she said. “Walt is not so different in person than in his letters. Just two letters. One word each.”

She had first contacted Walt when she was eighteen. That was the earliest she was legally allowed to examine her adoption records. Her mother's name was there. No father. Walter Butterfield was listed as her mother's next of kin. There were two Walter Butterfields in Utah at the time. She had written to both asking if they were related to Bernice Butterfield. She received two answers. One was an attempt to sell her some Amway products. The second letter simply said,
Yes
. She wrote back and asked if he knew her father. Two years later she got an answer.
No.

Claire suggested we move outside to the porch. “It's such a beautiful night. I'll bring a blanket.”

I hesitated in the chair. “I might need your assistance, ma'am,” I said in my most injured but brave voice.

“I bet Walt wouldn't need any assistance.”

“Yes,” I answered, “he would.” It occurred to me that at that moment Walt was sleeping like a healthy toddler who had been allowed to play past his bedtime. “He just wouldn't ask for it. I'm not proud, just needy. How about some understanding?” I joked. “You do realize a seventy-nine-year-old man just kicked the shit out of me?”

Claire sighed. “You're right. The best way to deal with that humiliation is to whine to a woman.”

“I'm glad you understand,” I said.

We sat on the front porch. She covered us with an old quilt. I wondered if maybe her mother had made it. I recalled the old red blanket that my own mother had wrapped around me when she abandoned me on the reservation. It seemed as good a time as any to tell her about Josh. She listened the same way Walt did. When I'd finished she asked, “You lost him in the desert?”

I nodded.

“I'm surprised it took them as long as it has.”

“Them?” I said. “You mean your husband, don't you? Or you mean the people he hired to find you?”

She didn't answer. In the long silence I dozed off.

My head was in Claire's lap when I woke. The quilt was damp with dew. She had draped it over her shoulder and my chest. She was asleep with her back against the door, her head tilted uncomfortably to one side. It was cold. I would have been happy to spend the rest of my life exactly where I was and then spend eternity boring every soul I met about how good it felt.

I willed myself to move and bundled Claire up as best I could in the quilt without waking her. I'd done what I'd come to do. I had been rewarded beyond my dreams
—
small, common dreams that they were. Judging from the sky, I guessed the time to be around five, give or take. What Claire did now and when she did it was up to her.

I knelt near her and watched her sleep for longer than I should have but not as long as I wanted. This was good-bye. Walt would, if I was lucky, give me updates every few years. They seemed so close now it was unimaginable that they wouldn't stay in touch. Walt, of course, was right. Claire wasn't really for me. I didn't know about Dennis, the musician husband. Maybe she wasn't for him either. She was, for however long in whatever way possible, for Walt, and in some minor way I couldn't think about, for me, too. Knowing better and not caring, I kissed Claire on her forehead. I began the long walk up the slope to the entrance arch of Desert Home.

Halfway to the top I heard Claire call out, “Ben!” Her voice was strong and carried in the crisp early-morning air.

I kept going, not looking back.

She shouted my name again, and again. Under the arch I turned. She was running up the slope through the half darkness, unsteady in her new cowboy boots, her black hair loose and wild, catching the first rays of the desert sunrise. She stumbled the last few steps. I caught her just as she began to fall. Breathlessly, she said, “You're going the wrong way. You left your truck at Walt's.”

I kissed her. I went on kissing her as the sun began to rise in earnest over the mesa. My hands reached beneath Claire's skirt and I raised her to my hips and buried my sore face in the dense hair around her neck. She wrapped her bare legs around me and tore open my denim work shirt. She kissed my chest. I carried her that way, kissing my lips and my chest, down the slope to the house, my hands cupped beneath her skirt, pressing against her warm skin. The heels of her new cowboy boots dug into the small of my back. She removed her blouse as we approached the house and let it drop in the sandy street. A moment later her bra dangled from one finger before it, too, fell to the ground.

I eased her down on the quilt as my mouth found her breasts. She put both hands against my bare chest and lightly pushed me away. “Wait a minute, Ben. What about your rule? This isn't ice cream.”

She was right. I groaned and tried to roll away from her. She held me fast around the neck. My rule had gotten lost, as a man's rules sometimes do, on their journey between his brain and his pants. I hadn't broken the rule yet.

I said, “Right now all I can think about is the exception.”

She kissed me. “I'm the exception?”

I returned her kiss. “You're both,” I said.

At first my answer seemed to confuse her. She laughed. She touched my lips with her fingers and searched my face. “Ben Jones, who
are
you?”

It wasn't a question I could answer.

Claire threw her head back and shouted, “Damn! Damn! Damn!” Her words echoed across the empty streets of Desert Home.

We made love on the porch in the cold. Afterward we lay naked and sweating, tangled together beneath the dawn.