Page 3 of Good Days Bad Days

Greg

Ike’s Diner

Janesville, Wisconsin

“That might be the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” Mark Lucian says, a little louder than I’m comfortable with in the middle of Ike’s Diner. “Look. Look.”

“Would you knock it off?” I growl, staring at my empty coffee cup until the diner’s door chimes, signaling her impending exit. I refuse to try to get a better look at her, hoping to make Mark’s blatant drooling less obvious.

“Oh, man. You missed her.” He tosses his last sliver of bacon into his mouth and wipes his mustache with a napkin. “Well, your loss.”

I’d caught a brief glimpse of the pretty young lady when she first approached the counter before being seated several booths away from our table.

She was wearing a figure-hugging red dress and a hat that likely cost more than I make in a week.

Her medium-length hair had an unnatural platinum hue, root to curled ends.

She was out of Mark’s league and definitely out of mine.

“Don’t you get enough of gawking at women over at that place in Darien? Leave the hometown girls alone.”

Mark’s a real ladies’ man, who I personally know keeps a pack of nudie cards in his desk and visits the Vegas Club at least once a week.

I know he doesn’t think the same of me. I haven’t had a date in half a year.

At twenty-five, I’ve gotten to know all the eligible ladies in Janesville and watched most of them get married.

A lot of them have at least one or two in their brood now.

“That was no hometown girl. You’d know that if you’d looked when I told you to.

” Mark sniffs and tugs his belt up over his slim abdomen.

When I say Mark is a ladies’ man, I don’t mean that only he thinks of himself as one.

He picks up women easily at any bar we go to.

When I talk to women, especially beautiful ones, I get nervous and tongue-tied, my palms wet like I’ve dipped them in the Rock River.

“I don’t like ogling women.”

“I know. I remember you at the club. I was embarrassed for weeks at how you fell all over yourself around those gals. I don’t know what’s the matter with you . . .”

“What’s the matter with him?” Lucy, our regular waitress and Ike’s daughter, asks.

Her husband went to Vietnam a few years ago and didn’t come back.

It’s happening more and more lately, and when Mrs. Morris, my mother’s neighbor and best friend, called me last June, I knew as soon as I heard sobs in the background that my family had been touched by this same kind of tragedy.

“This man here is one of the last true gentlemen, unlike you, Mark Lucian.”

I dip my last bite of pancake in an amber pool of syrup, blushing.

Lucy is tall, blond, and constantly warding off Mark’s advances.

I have a particular softness for Lucy, knowing we share some of the same flavor of grief, and I’m easily irritated at Mark’s childish flirtations.

I think Mark has always been in love with Lucy.

I suspect he would’ve proposed as soon as it was socially acceptable after her loss, but he’s not the kind of man to ask a question he doesn’t already know the answer to.

It’s not that I have a romantic inclination toward the young widow, I just wish Mark would leave her alone if he isn’t going to go about things in a respectful manner.

“Hey, Luce, who was that woman that just walked out?” Mark asks as Lucy places the bill on the table and collects our empty plates. She shrugs, not seeming annoyed or jealous, which I’m assuming she would be if Mark had any chance with her.

“The fancy one from table three? No idea. Never seen her before. Must be passing through.”

“Huh, that’s what I thought.”

“I’m sure that’s not all you were thinking,” Lucy says, giving him a look filled with innuendo.

“Who, me?” he asks flirtatiously. “What? I’m not the gentlemanly type, too?”

“Not one tiny bit,” she quips and heads to the kitchen with our dishes. Mark watches her the entire way and then leans in.

“Maybe she’s on her way to the Playboy Club in Lake Geneva. That blond girl, I mean. I’m thinking of getting a club key. Wanna come? Heard it’s a happening place.”

“I don’t know,” I say feebly, reading the check and pulling out my wallet to pay my half of the bill. I toss a dollar on the table for Lucy’s tip. Mark searches his wallet and does the same.

“Can you settle up for me? I have a meeting with the new guy—Mr. Hollinger. Not sure what about. Unless he’s calling me in to fire me. I wouldn’t put it past that guy.”

“You’re not gonna get fired, Mark,” I reassure him, and I hope I’m right.

Mark hired me as a cameraman at WQRX TV four years ago when I was fresh out of college.

He’s an account executive now, one of the upper management people I normally would try to hide from by staying in the studio, but we’ve become friends.

I’m pretty sure if he gets fired, I’ll be next.

“You know we’d be lost without you. Mr. Hollinger will figure that out, too. ”

Donald Hollinger is the new station manager at WQRX. From what I’ve heard, he appears to be a pleasant enough man, even though no one seems to like him. I suppose that’s how things go when you’re the one making changes.

Until now, WQRX has been under the same management since it went on the airwaves in ’53.

With new management comes new staff, programming, and rules.

As long as I keep my job, I doubt much will change for me.

A cameraman goes where the director or producer tells him to, and there’s not much big news in southern Wisconsin these days.

Recently we had a news segment all about the size of old Mrs. Tiller’s greenhouse tomatoes and little Bobby Craig’s lemonade stand.

“Yeah. You assholes wouldn’t make it a day without me. Don’t forget it.” Mark claps a heavy hand on my shoulder. “When am I gonna get you to go out with me again, old man?” he asks as we move toward the exit.

“Soon.” I push his nagging off for another week at least.

“I’ll hold you to it.”

“You better.”

Mark leaves and I stand by the register. Lucy is nowhere to be seen. I could tap the little bell on the counter, but I don’t want to rush her. She already has so much to deal with. I can wait a few extra minutes.

The door chime rings again, signaling a new customer.

I fiddle with the bill and keep an eye on the kitchen, but there’s still no sign of life.

As I wait, determined to be patient, a small white hand dashes across me and taps the bell.

It’s a woman’s hand, ivory skin, long red nails and a gold watch at her wrist. She’s close enough that I can smell her expensive perfume through the grease-soaked diner air.

“I’m sorry to butt in, but I lost my keys and I have an interview in ten minutes.”

“No problem,” I say, facing the visitor. My mouth goes dry.

It’s the woman in the red dress that Mark declared Janesville’s version of Helen of Troy. I hate to admit it, but Mark was right. This woman is breathtaking, like a movie star—her lips carefully lined with red lipstick, lashes thick above her sky-blue eyes.

I try not to notice her figure, but even a glance reveals she’s well shaped, and her dress definitely highlights her feminine form. My neck is suddenly hot, and I wish I could loosen my tie and grab a little fresh air.

“You’re too sweet,” she says, and I can tell I’m blushing. “I searched the booth where I was sitting and retraced my steps so many times I think I have blisters.” Her voice is stronger than I expected, not light and wispy like Marilyn Monroe, whom she closely resembles.

“I can help, if you like,” I offer, fighting my nerves. Mark and I were the only two left in the diner after the lunch rush, and I’m worried Lucy forgot about us and took a smoke break with Leo, the cook. We might be waiting a while.

“Would you? Thank you so much,” she says with such overwhelming gratitude that I idiotically feel like a knight rushing in on his trusty steed to save the damsel in distress.

“What do they look like?”

She twists up her ruby red lips. “Metal, pointy, make a clanking sound when they crash together.”

“Of course,” I say, hiding my embarrassment by placing my bill on the counter with my payment.

“Only joking, hon. Two keys, one silver and one gold. The key chain is a small statue of the Eiffel Tower.”

Silent, I go to the booth where she ate her lunch and run my fingers around the edges of the vinyl seats, realizing after a few moments that she might wonder how I knew where she sat without asking.

Smooth, Greg. Smooth. I chastise myself, but if she notices, she doesn’t care. She rings the bell again and I consider going back to the kitchen to find Lucy myself.

“Wait! I see them!” the woman shouts. My head cracks on the underside of the table and I scramble to my feet, the stabbing pain dulling as the blood drains.

“I can’t reach. Could you?” she asks, leaning over the counter, kicking her heels up and reaching for a spot under the cash register where Lucy must’ve stashed the keys after cleaning the table.

I’m a gangly six foot five, and though I’ve always hated that my height makes it impossible to blend in with a crowd, it does have its strong points.

Without much effort, I reach my long arm to the little compartment behind the counter and snag the cluster of keys.

They make a quiet tinkling sound as I place them on the woman’s soft-looking palm.

“You’re my hero. Thank you so much,” she says, touching my sleeve ever so lightly, my head spinning at the simple motion.

“You’re welcome.” I overcome my tongue-tied nature temporarily.

“Well, thank you again. Have a good day.”

“You too,” I say with a nod, a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth.

I can hear Lucy and Leo talking in the back now, and the breeze pushes the faint scent of cigarette smoke through the swinging door. As Lucy returns from the kitchen, apologizing for making me wait, the woman in red pauses at the threshold like she’s overlooked something else.

“Hey there, hero guy,” she calls to get my attention, which hasn’t actually left her. Lucy raises her eyebrows at me as though she knows she missed something important. “I forgot to ask—what’s your name?”

“Greg,” I say back, adding, “Laramie.”

“Well, nice to meet you, Greg Laramie.”

“Nice to meet you, too . . .” I leave a space for her name, too nervous to ask outright. She doesn’t make me. A broad, enchanting smile spreads across her face.

“I’m Betty,” she says.

It’s the prettiest name I’ve ever heard. I know my cheeks must give away the effect she has on me.

“Nice to meet you, Betty.”

“You too, Greg.”

At that, she flits out of my day like a rare bird escaping its cage for the unwelcoming chill of the Midwest, and I’m left flushed and distracted, propped against the counter by one arm, wondering how any single human creature could move me so completely.

“Well, look at you, Greg Laramie. I’m impressed.” Lucy smirks at me, elbows on the counter.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, passing her my payment, finally. I’ll be late getting back to work.

“Sure you don’t.” The change plinks cheerfully as she drops the coins into the cash register.

“You don’t give yourself enough credit, Greg.

Break out of that shell a little and you’d be surprised what’d happen for you.

” She shoves the cash tray back in and sighs.

“Guess that’s why you’re behind the camera and not in front of it, huh?

Well, makes sense, but you’d make some girl really happy, Greg. I’m sure of it.”

I shrug and push my hands into my pants pockets. She wishes me a good day, and I walk outside into a revitalizing spring breeze that whips through my thin cotton shirt and tickles my scalp as it tangles in my hair.

As the door clinks shut behind me, a fancy red Corvette speeds down East Milwaukee in the opposite direction in a flash of color and exhaust. A slender white hand waves at me as the car revs past. I rush to return the gesture but can’t get my hand out of my pocket until she’s too far away to see my response.

By the time I run up the back stairwell to Studio C, I’m almost myself again, other than a smile that won’t go away. And though no one can see it, it’s there, behind the camera every time I think of the beautiful stranger who left me with only one of her names.