Eggs

 I don't like my eggs made "low and slow". I like my eggs to taste like they are made in a diner. One of those real "greasy spoon" types. The typical americana-Edward Hopper-Pulp Fiction made real. Fried quick and fried fat.

The type of place that has been owned by the same family for generations. Where you or your aunt or your best friend got your first job. They've been giving people high cholesterol and clogged arteries for years, but no one ever complains. That place is a staple. The owners are real pillars of the community.

And they've got a son, he's the first in the family to go to college! A real academic, everyone tells him. They all know his name. When he comes home for Thanksgiving break, he's working in the kitchen, and everyone calls out to him. They want to know how he's doing. How is college life treating him? How's that big city? Got yourself a girl yet?

And he smiles because everyone here knows his name. He's happy because he finally has a place where no one knows him, where he's not just the "boy whose Dad owns the diner". His first semester is going great, he's keeping on top of his grades. And yes, he has met a girl, but he doesn't know where it's going quite yet, he doesn't want to jinx it. 

He finds a job in the city, somewhere not in a restaurant, something completely new. He has a whole new group of friends, they go out on the weekends. And the girl, yeah she's great. He doesn't know if she's the one, but hey, he's not ruling it out. 

Summer comes all to quickly, and he's back in the same small town, working back in a restaurant. And every day he gets the same question. "So, when you gonna take over this joint?" He plays it off, but it's never a joke. The same question was asked of his father. And his grandfather. It's a pillar of the community. If he doesn't take over, what's going to happen?

It's his senior year when he gets the call. His father's in the hospital: triple bypass and in an induced coma after the surgery. Guess all the years of diner food finally caught up to him. He rushes home. The room is full of flowers and get-well-soon cards, and teddy bears, but he's the only other person in the room with his bedridden father. The doctor only shakes her head when he asks about the chances of recovery.

He spends late nights in the windowless office of the diner, poring over the books. It's hemorrhaging money. Mortgages, and medical bills, and debt he never knew about crawls out of every corner of the diner. He asks again the likelihood of his father coming out of the coma. The doctor sits him down and clinically says, "I'm sorry. He's legally brain dead. There's nothing we can do for him now."

He asks her to pull the plug. He can't afford another expense. He flies back to the city to finish his last semester, then pack his small apartment up. He tells the girl, "I'm sorry, this is just how it's got to be." She tells him, "Says who."

He hangs his diploma on the wall of the windowless office to remind himself of the days he wasn't here. The diner opens at 6 a.m. and closes at 9 p.m. and he is there every single day. 

A girl starts coming around. The head waitress--she's as much a staple in this place as he is, in fact, he can't ever remember a time that she hasn't been here--tells him, "She's coming around here for you, y'know." He didn't know. But now that he does, he starts to notice her everywhere. At the grocery store, at church, and of course, at the diner. 

She was a few years behind him in school. She went to a community college, and works at the school. Their courtship is very brief. She asked him about marriage three months in, and the next day he bought a ring. They're married at the Lutheran church, and they honeymoon in Cabo, because that's where her best friend honeymooned. None of it is very romantic at all, but everyone is thrilled. They tell him, "We knew you would find someone eventually. Took you a bit, but you find a nice hometown girl. Your pa would be proud of the man you've become."

They argue about kids. She wants them, and he says that it would be too expensive. That the diner is still too volatile right now. She says, "That's all you ever think about! The diner this, the diner that!" That isn't true, but he'd never say that. He thinks about the girl, too. He googles her, after they got married, to see where she had landed. She is working at an art museum in the same city that they went to school. 

She wins in the end, and they end up having twins. One boy and one girl. She quits her job at the school to take care of them. They argue again. He works from dawn to dusk, they never take vacations, and the money isn't coming in. She tells him that maybe it's time to let the diner go, and he thinks of her. 

He tells her that he's got a conference in the city, something about small business owners. He drives twelve hours, leaving her at home with their two infants--the boy and the girl. He stays the night in a cheap motel, and burns his tongue on stale coffee. He knows it is unlikely he will see her, but he still goes to the museum anyway. Spends a whole day looking vibrant strokes across canvas. He's never seen something so alive in his life. 

She finds him in the section on the Baroque masters. He is standing too close to one of the paintings and she tells him to "Please step back sir." When she sees it is him, she drops the clipboard she is holding and says, "Oh my god, is it really you? How are you?" He smiles and says, "I like this one."

They get dinner together. He tells her about his wife and children. About the diner, and the small town. She listens patiently. She tells him about her job at the museum and that, no, she isn't seeing anyone right now. That, there had been someone, but, "It just didn't work out. You know how these things go." He didn't.

She brings him back to her apartment, and they have a drink together. She kicks her shoes off, and curls her legs up on the sofa. He kisses her, but he what he really means is that he is happy to be in a place that doesn't smell like fry grease. He falls asleep on the couch, and she calls the woman she had been seeing. Leaves a message: "I want to give this another try, if you're willing."

He leaves the next morning before she even wakes up. Leaves her a note that says, "Thank you.You were the first person to show me that the world had color."

He parks his car in front of the diner and unlocks it like he does every morning. Calls his accountant and says, "It's time to sell." Drives home to his wife and two babies. Tells her that maybe it's time for something new, to finally put his degree to use. 

The diner gets bought and turned into a luxury men's boutique. You can walk in and still smell the faint aroma of bacon grease. People stop him the street to complain. He smiles and says, "That's just the way it goes."

That's the way I like my eggs.