The Corner Booth
By Ryan Bausch
She was late, like always, but I passed the time by looking around the diner, comparing it to how it was when we first started coming here. It seemed nicer back then, seemed more polished, cleaner, new. But now it was a dump, and maybe it always was.
I reached down into the seat next to me and pulled out my folder, setting it down on the table. I noticed the table had faded over the years into a dull gray, covered in layers of filth that made it a mosaic of syrup stains and specs of artificial sweetener. All of it was sticky too: the table, the floor, the seats, even the air, all of it, gripping and pulling at my skin like a human-sized glue board. The only things that didn’t stick were the ceiling tiles, which were shattered and scattered all over the ground, a “Caution: Wet Floor” sign keeping customers from the bulk of the mess.
To pass the time, I pried stuffing loose from where it was burrowed beneath the gashes in the seat cushions, occasionally glancing at the artificial view that was painted onto the backs of the plywood planks that replaced most of the windows.
She walked through the front door just as the waiter brought out my plate of scrambled eggs and a second refill on my coffee.
“And for you?” he asked.
“Huh?”
The waiter gestured with his notepad and pen, his eyes nodding to the menu on the table.
“Oh. Um, just a water is fine,” she said, sitting down and immediately rummaging through her purse.
“Bring her some eggs,” I said.
“How do you—”
“Scrambled,” I said, cutting him off.
“Sunny side up,” she corrected, still not looking up.
Her hands and her eyes were lost in her purse when the waiter returned. I slid my pen across the table, since I knew this was what she was looking for, placing it in a glob of syrup. I hoped she’d take it and that it’d stick to her hand, forcing her to carry that part of me with her for the rest of the day, but she never even looked at it. Instead, she pulled one out from the bottom of her purse.
She reached over to my side of the table and peeled the folder from the syrup and sugar-coated tabletop. She brought it in front of her, squinting as she sifted through the pages inside, her fingers quick and impatient.
“You know, you don’t always have to do that,” she said, pausing her search to scowl at me.
“Do what?” I asked, shoveling a fork full of eggs into my mouth.
She rolled her eyes and sighed.
“No, what? I’m listening.” I wiped my mouth with a napkin, “What—”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about. I’m fully capable—” she started.
“Oh, give me a break.”
“See this is exactly what I—” she stopped herself. “You know what, never mind. Forget I said anything. That’s what you’re best at after all.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, setting down my fork to give her my full attention.
She didn’t respond, instead she turned her eyes back to the folder. I wasn’t worth the time and effort it took to argue anymore, all she seemed to care about was finding what she was looking for, that one page that she thought would remedy everything.
I couldn’t help but think about how things had changed, not just with us, but with the diner. Not so long ago, we’d sit next to each other in this corner booth, eating the scrambled eggs I’d order us from the same plate. She always drenched her side of the plate in ketchup, laughing at the sounds coming from the bottle as she squeezed it. Every time a stray droplet would splatter onto the table, it was like we both moved with one hand, one frame of mind, to wipe it clean, the possibility of a stain disappearing into our napkin.
I’m pretty sure the diner was nicer back then. It couldn’t have been this messy. Maybe the ceiling tiles were swept under the doormat, maybe these tabletop mosaics were masked by a tablecloth, and maybe, just maybe, the sunlight beamed through the holes in the plywood windows and dried the floor. Or maybe everything was exactly the same as it is now, and we just couldn’t see it.
She never asked for sunny side up back then, I’m almost sure of that.
I knew she’d found the page when a smile crawled across her face, looking like an omelet after it’s been folded in half. It’s the first time I’d seen it in a while. It looked almost foreign on her face. She picked up her pen, signed the bottom of the page like it was nothing, and slid the folder over to me. It stalled in a puddle of syrup somewhere near the center of the table and she stopped pushing at the first sign of resistance.
I pried it from the table, feeling as if it was a scab peeled from my skin, syrup leaking from the source. The top of the page read Original Petition for Divorce, and the bottom of the page had her name, signed through the dotted line rather than on top of it. I grabbed my pen from her side of the table, my fingers becoming sticky as I glanced down at the blank space my name was meant to fill. I soon realized I was staring at it, that I couldn’t take my eyes off the line, couldn’t bring my pen to fill the void. I’d suddenly forgotten how to spell my name.
* * * * *
S-h-a-w-n
“Oh,” she screamed over the music, looking down at the freshly inked name I’d written on her hand. “Shawn, I thought you said Don! Shawn is much sexier!” She laughed until her mouth settled into a smile.
We began dancing, downing shots, and screaming small talk in between our swallows, until closing time came around.
"Do you want to get out of here and go somewhere?” I asked, half-yelling to make myself heard. “This place is about to close.”
“I don’t know,” she said, her smile growing wider. “I don’t normally go home with strangers I meet in a bar.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” I said, shaking my head.
“Oh no, I know. I’m just giving you a hard time. Plus, you’re not a stranger anyways,” she said, laughing as she pointed to her palm. “You’re Shawn.”
“Are you hungry?” I asked.
“Always.”
“Let’s get something to eat?”
“Okay, you ever been to Donna’s?”
“Where?”
“Donna’s. Donna’s Diner. It’s literally right across the street,” she said, pointing her thumb behind her.
“Is it any good?”
“Nope,” she said, turning towards the door and smiling back at me from over her shoulder. “But it’s open.”
After we left the bar, I carried her on my back, the extra weight keeping me grounded as I sprinted across the street to avoid the approaching cars. She laughed in my ear as the cars honked, screeched, and swerved around us. Her breath was warm on my neck and sent a heatwave down my spine, a much-needed remedy for the numbness of December weather.
I set her down just as we stepped through the glass doors, a bell ringing to signify our arrival. We walked over to the corner booth, and slid in next to each other, sitting so close that I was sure she could feel my legs nervously shaking through the seat.
Looking around, I noticed the diner was perfect: the tables were white and polished to the point where you could look into one and drown in your own pores, the floor tiles were glossy, as if they had just been mopped, yet there was no slipping or sliding, and the ceiling tiles were exactly where they were supposed to be, the ceiling.
The waiter came to us with menus and a coffee pot in hand. He set the menus down and glided them across the table before filling the empty mugs in front of us up to the brim.
“That’s enough,” I said as coffee began spilling down the sides of my mug.
As he walked away, I grabbed a handful of napkins from the end of the table and began wiping my mug clean, lifting it up to wipe the coffee that had pooled beneath it. I once again reached over this stranger I’d carried on my back from the bar and noticed she was smiling at me.
“What?” I asked, my hand frozen in the air.
“Nothing,” she said, still smiling at me.
I suddenly became self-conscious of my cleaning and pulled my hands away, hiding them on my lap beneath the table.
“What’s good here?” I asked after a long silence.
“I guess the eggs are alright,” she said, resting her cheek in her cupped hand, my inked name touching her face.
“Just alright?”
“Yeah, just alright,” she laughed.
“Is that what you’re going to get?” I asked.
“It’s what I always get.”
When the waiter returned, I slid the menus to the edge of the table and looked up at him.
“I think we’re ready,” I said.
He pulled out his notepad and pen, nodding for me to start.
“Can we get a plate of eggs? Just one big one.”
He scribbled the order while he asked:
“How do you want those?”
“Scrambled,” I said, turning my attention back to my lovely stranger.
We began playing “I Spy” while we waited for our food. When it was my turn, I looked around the diner for something that might stump her.
As my eyes scanned the room, I noticed it was mostly empty. There was only one other person there, a drunk man in a bright red hat that laid with his arms sprawled out on the table, snoring into his pancakes. I turned my eyes to the various ferns that decorated the diner. They were all deep green and had droplets of water rolling down the leaves as one of the waiters came and sprayed them. The green plants and the red hat were the only things that gave color to the black and white checkered room, so these would be too easy to spot.
I turned my eyes to the windows and found what I had been looking for. There was a small, thin stress crack that ran down part of the window directly across from us. A flaw so small I’d almost overlooked it myself, so I didn’t expect her to catch it.
“I spy with my little eye,” I said. “Something broken.”
“Something broken?”
“Yup.”
She squinted her eyes and began scanning the room. Her eyes passed over the window two times before turning back to me:
“This one’s too hard, give me another.”
“Nope,” I said.
She playfully sighed, crossed her arms over her chest, and began rescanning the diner. Her eyes followed the same course mine had taken just a few moments before. They scanned the checkered floor tiles, the red hat, and the watered ferns until they made their way back to the windows, this time going over them slowly.
“Oh,” she said, pointing to the cracked window in front of us. “There, that window has a crack in it. You see it?”
“Yeah, that was it.”
She scooted in closer to me, her thighs pressing up against mine and her coffee-stained breath swimming through my nostrils.
“See, I told you I was a pro at this. My turn, I spy with my little eye,” she said, rolling her head in every direction in an attempt to throw me off. “Something soon to be empty.”
I looked around the room, watching the drunk man rise from his seat and begin making his way to the bathroom.
“Him,” I said, pointing his direction.
“Nope.”
“Your coffee?”
“Nope, already empty.”
“Then I don’t know.”
The waiter interrupted us by setting the plate of scrambled eggs in between us. Each piece was golden brown, like little chunks of pyrite, and smelt slightly burnt.
“Oh,” I said. “Our eggs.”
“Bingo,” she said, reaching over me to grab a fork from the end of the table. She took a bite and the rubbery texture made it sound like she was chewing gum. Her nose crinkled as she continued to chew and once again reached over me, this time grabbing the ketchup. She squeezed it over her half of the plate, the bottle squeaking and squelching throughout the empty diner. She couldn’t contain her laughter and leaned up against me for support as her face reddened. Her laugh was silent, and the only sounds came from her frequent gasps for air.
“What are you doing?” I asked, looking down at her. Her face looked like a tomato and little tears squirted out of her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.
“Did you hear that?” She managed to say after many failed attempts interrupted by laughter.
“Hear what?”
She squeezed the bottle again, her amusement doubling.
“You’re a child,” I said, catching her laughter like a cold.
“There it is,” she said, smiling up at me. “Finally.”
“What?” I asked, still laughing.
“Your laugh. I’ve been waiting to hear it all night. I knew I’d get it out of you eventually.” She reached up and touched my face with her inked hand. “I think I like you a lot more when you’re smiling.”
“I—"
We were interrupted when the waiter returned to refill our coffees. After he left, we continued to sit there, sipping from our mugs, sitting closer together now than before. Her leg was pressed up against mine, which was no longer shaking, and her shoulder was braced up against my arm, placing a comfortable weight onto my body. We just sat there, perfectly in sync, sharing the same slow pace of our breathing as if it were a single plate of scrambled eggs.
After this brief pause we used to catch our breath from the interrogation, she turned to me and asked:
“What’s your last name?”
I took her hand, the same hand I’d written my first name on at the bar, the same hand that my name had stuck to for the entire night, and added my last name to her palm. She studied each letter as I wrote it, each one seeming to make her smile grow wider. After a minute or so, I reached out again to wipe her hand clean.
“Don’t,” she said, pulling her hand away and guarding it from me with her other hand.
“What? Don’t you want me to wipe that off?”
“No,” she said, looking away from me and back at her hand. “No, I think I’ll keep it.”
* * * * *
My hand shook as I wrote each letter. Her eyes watched me closely, following the path of my pen as each letter was inked onto the page, adding enough pressure that I felt as if I were carving my name into the table, claiming this corner booth forever.
“Ok,” she said when I finally finished. “So, do I take this to my guy or do you take it to yours?”
I slid the folder over to her, pushing through the syrup at the center until it was right in front of her.
“You take it.”
She took the folder, took my name, and shoved it into her purse. I hoped she’d lose it somewhere at the bottom, that she’d show up to her lawyer and not be able to find it. But I knew she’d stand there, searching until she found it, search for days if she had to. The folder was half-sticking out of her purse as she stood up and walked towards the door. She paused after only a few steps.
“Thank you for doing this, Shawn,” she said looking back at me from over her shoulder.
I pressed my lips together and nodded.
She walked away as I turned my attention to the empty coffee mug in front of me. Soon, the sound of a bell ringing echoed throughout the diner as she walked out. My eyes followed the sound as if I could see it bouncing off the walls. As my eyes went around the room, I noticed it was completely empty.
I was alone.
I began studying the room, searing a clear image into my mind, one that I’d be sure of years down the line. My eyes glided along the walls, following a course as if they were on autopilot, moving from the walls, to the tables, to the yellowed plants, to the windows.
My eyes were caught on the window directly across from the booth for what seemed like hours, as if they were glued to it with syrup. There was still a crack there, but it was bigger now. It was zig-zagged and sharp, it was stretching, expanding, reaching out towards the corners of the window frame, reaching out towards the booth, seemingly ready to take me and the rest of the diner down with it.
Ryan Bausch is a writer from Southern California. His work has previously been featured in journals such as Byzantium, 30North, and Mosaic.
