The View From the Back Corner
The street traffic outside moved in a steady blur, buses and cars streaming just beyond the parallel-parked cars that lined the curb. The pedestrians came less often, in occasional ones and twos, appearing at one edge of the window and visible for only a few seconds before disappearing at the other edge. All of the sounds—the low rumble of buses, the whine of cars, the tap-tap-tap of passing feet—were muffled behind the thick plate glass. The entryway stood at the far end of the room, with most of the customers clustering at the front booths and counter stools, with a comfortable distance from the single table in the back corner.
Maude enjoyed sitting here, with the street window to her left and the pop machine at her back. When the Sun-Times was finished and tossed away for another day, she could simply sit and gaze, toward the street or the front door, until she no longer felt like doing so and her focus would turn inward, to her day, her apartment, her past and present.
It was fine, almost pleasant, to sit here. Certainly better than working at the office, or sitting alone in her apartment, the rear-unit studio off the alley that never smelled quite right. Sometimes like ammonia, sometimes like gasoline fumes. Sleeping there was alright, but anything more than that would become unpleasant. Here, at Eddie’s Diner, it was pleasant as long as she was left alone. Few customers made their way back to her corner, and the waitress only came to refill her coffee, bringing a fresh saucer each time to keep track for the bill. Eddie’s didn’t offer a bottomless cup, but the coffee was cheap enough to drink all evening long. Even Eddie Feldman himself rarely came back there, other than to haul a case of beer out of the nook he used for storage. Instead he would wave from the cash register in front, or merely smile.
The bell on the front door jangled, and she looked up from habit more than interest, and in walked a lanky teenager. She saw his goofy smile and tensed after he passed several empty tables, as she realized that he was coming toward her. Slowly and quietly she lowered her left hand and set the cigarette in the ashtray, and almost by instinct, lowered her hand further until it was hidden below the edge of the table. She had been doing this for so long that it had become almost automatic. As long as others in the diner and elsewhere were far enough away, she could hold a cigarette or anything else, but not when they came closer. And the teenager with the goofy smile was coming closer, she guessed, to grab a pop from the machine behind her. Most customers got pops from the fountain at the counter, but a few came to the back, and cocky guys like this one—now only ten feet away—would sometimes hit on her. Smile, make a come-on in the few seconds it took to get a bottle from the machine, then laugh or utter Bitch or something worse when she shook her head or just ignored them.
She raised the coffee cup to her lips and looked at his pale, hairless face, and as their eyes connected she saw the same cocky recognition in his gaze she had seen so many times before. As if on cue, his smile widened as he passed her and stopped, stuck his quarter in the machine and opened the narrow door as the coin clattered unseen into the metal box inside. He pulled out a bottle and pried off the cap on the opener, and turned back toward her. Her gaze was now straight ahead, toward the cash register.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he said, in a voice that she thought sounded twenty years beyond his age. “I hope you haven’t been waiting too long for me.”
She smirked, still looking straight ahead. He was smoother than most, despite his age. Maybe being seventeen and hitting on a forty-year-old woman was so easy that it gave him confidence, with so little being at stake. He must have figured she would say No right away, or be desperate enough to say Yes to any suggestion that came along.
“Cause I know you’ve been waiting.”
The smirk left her face as she decided there was too much insinuation, too much expectation in his tone. She continue to stare straight ahead, her face now tightening. Maybe she would have taken him back to her rear-unit apartment, given him a ride or whatever the word was, if he hadn’t thought it would be so easy. Not that she had ever done anything like that, but she could have, she told herself. She shook her head, and he laughed and said, “See you around, then,” as he ambled back down the aisle, past the booths and the counter, and out the front door.
She lifted her hand from beneath the table and grasped the cigarette, still smoldering, and lifted it to her lips, feeling the soothing relief as the smoke billowed past her lips and deep into her lungs. Maybe the rest of the night would be quiet.