“The service here, it’s kind of slow isn’t it?”

Hillary waited for Sam to say something. Though what she was really after was affirmation. In fact, the service wasn’t slow for everyone: just Sam and Hillary. How long they’d been there she couldn’t even guess and yet still not a word from a waiter or waitress. For them, it was lackadaisical. It was glacial. Moss had started to grow on them it moved at such a plodding pace ---

“Sam. The service. Slow?”

At best, she had hoped Sam might make a joke, maybe something about how he’d been to funerals with more pep in their step. He owed her some kind of confirmation that this diner was run by a bunch of one-legged tortoises. But at worst? At worst she expected a nod from him. Just enough to confirm that he had a heartbeat and two working ears.

The diner was all chrome and red pleather, a throwback to an era that maybe only ever existed in the movies and in weight-loss ads. The floor was subway tile black-and-white and the lights were halogen bright. Not counting the inattention afforded Sam and Hillary, the place was otherwise bustling; no more than a handful of the booths were empty. Back and forth, the white-aproned, paper-hatted waitstaff scurried. They were a young, ruddy-cheeked, and overworked bunch, that much was certain. But still, Hillary thought, they could bring us some damn water.

“Earth to Sam,” she said, a little more irritated each time she tried.

It was one thing to not hear somebody and it was another thing entirely to ignore them. This had to be the latter, and she was plenty fed up with it. The last few weeks had been rough enough. They just kept coming up empty-handed. Every stone they overturned had nothing but dirt underneath.

Stapleton, Wesley, and Little Mission back in Nevada. And their luck was no better once they got into Arizona. Nothing doing in Plymouth or Cordoba. They found no evidence to corroborate what was in the old Blue Book records and not a soul around, or alive, they could count as a witness. She wasn’t as down as she had been when they first started; the experience at the Mas Suenos Motel was enough to tide her over for a while. She’d resigned herself to the idea that they’d encounter duds, too. No way around that. Those were just the odds.

Being ignored by your mostly good-for-nothing ex-husband, especially when all that was called for was a polite laugh or a nod of the head, was enough to get Hillary’s teeth grinding, though. There he sat, his eyes darting back and forth around the diner like he was the next rat to be thrown in the gator pit at a roadside zoo.

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She was halfway to kicking him in the shins and yelling his name as loud as she could when, at long last, he leaned and whispered to her.

“Hil, they’re watching us.”

“It’s Hillary,” she started to say, though the last syllable got caught up in her throat once she realized it was true. No one set of eyes lingered on them too long, but by dint of sideways glances and barely concealed squints, Sam and Hillary were under careful observation. It was every person in the diner, too. Hillary was never quite swift enough to make direct eye contact. They would avert their glimpses. They would turn their heads. They would try to make it look like they were doing anything but the one thing they were doing. Watching.

Hillary turned back to Sam.

“For how long?”

He shook his head.

“That’s the thing, I don’t even know how long we’ve been here,” he gave one long glance back at the gallery of hungry eyes. “Truth is, I don’t remember coming into this place to begin with. Do you?”

The older couple, she with a perm and him wearing a rusty brown set of suspenders. The little boy, no older than six or seven, with a face full of freckles. The waitress with the long nails and the lilting voice. All of them were watching.

“Of course, I remember,” she said, a touch disdainfully. Hillary felt a little like the walls were closing in on her. She had never been claustrophobic. Then again, she had never been the center of attention for a whole damned diner. “We. We were just….we wanted to..”

Sam was right. It didn’t happen often but each time it hurt to admit it. Sam was right. She couldn’t remember stepping foot in the place. Not much of anything before or after that, either. The last thing she could remember with any kind of clarity was leaving the campsite outside of Cordoba some time before. It was dusty, there were plenty of ants and she was miffed about another day wasted.

After that….well, after that she could only recall that sinking feeling of waiting forever just to put in an order for drinks. And now Sam, pointing out they had become the local sideshow, there for everyone else’s enjoyment.

She would give it two more minutes. No, one more minute. One more minute for one of these kind, harried, lopsided, and sclerotic waiters or waitresses to come over, apologize, take their drink orders and then explain just what in the hell was going on. Scratch that. Thirty seconds.

And then it occurred to Hillary that she had to go. Now. The Fight or Flight roulette wheel had gone a spinning with the ball landing squarely on Flight.

She had to get up, out of the booth, and then out of the diner altogether. She couldn’t wait to explain it to Sam. He would have to catch up with her outside. The walls were not just closing in: they were closed. Shut. Sealed up. Hillary couldn’t speak, she couldn’t breathe and the edges of her vision were going blurry, as if all her strength and vitality had been sucked down the drains of all those peering pupils.

She leaped up with nothing by way of explanation or apology. She darted through the outstretched arms of waiters and patrons. She avoided pesky feet and legs left dangling in the aisle. She capered around plates of grilled cheese and tuna melts. If she weren’t the center of attention before, she had certainly become it in quick order. No bother. The door was close and she had to get out.

With what felt like the first breath she had taken in years, she exhaled and pushed at the cold steel of the door. She expected to feel the roiling burn of desert air. She expected to see the sun quietly burning away at our torpid ozone layer. She expected to feel sweet relief, release, and then quiet shame at the big deal she had made of nothing.

She did not expect to find herself immediately sitting back at the booth, staring back at Sam.