The man in the white ducks came over and drew a menu from behind a tarnished napkin holder. He slid it across the counter toward them. Bob opened it up and the two of them looked at it.
"Have you got any iced tea?" Bob asked.
The man shook his head. "No."
"Lemonade?" Jean asked.
The man shook his head. They looked at the menu again.
"What have you got that's cold?" Bob asked.
"Hi-Li Orange and Dr Pepper," said the man in a bored voice.
Bob cleared his throat.
"May we have some water before we order? We've been-"
The man turned away and walked back to the sink. He ran water into two cloudy glasses and brought them back. They spilled over onto the counter as he set them down. Jean picked up her glass and took a sip. She almost choked on the water it was so brackish and warm. She put down the glass.
"Can't you get it any cooler?" she asked.
"This is desert country, ma'am," he said. "We're lucky we get any water at all."
He was a man in his early fifties, his hair steel-gray and dry, parted in the middle. The backs of his hands were covered with tiny swirls of black hair, and on the small finger of his right hand there was a ring with a red stone in it. He stared at them with lifeless eyes and waited for their order.
"I'll have a fried egg sandwich on rye toast and-" Bob started.
"No toast," said the man.
"All right, plain rye then."
"No rye."
Bob looked up. "What kind of bread have you got?" he asked.
"White."
Bob shrugged. "White then. And a strawberry malted. How about you, honey?"
The man's flat gaze moved over to Jean.
"I don't know," she said. She looked up at the man. "I'll decide while you're making my husband's order."
The man looked at her a moment longer, then turned away and walked back to the stove. "This is awful," Jean said.
"I know, honey," Bob admitted, "but what can we do? We don't know how far it is to the next town."
Jean pushed away the cloudy glass and slid off the stool.
"I'm going to wash up," she said. "Maybe then I'll feel more like eating."
"Good idea," he said.
After a moment, he got off his stool, too, and walked to the front of the cafe where the two restrooms were.
His hand was on the doorknob when the man eating at the counter called, "Think it's locked, mister."
Bob pushed.
"No it isn't," he said and went in.
Jean came out of the washroom and walked back to her stool at the counter. Bob wasn't there. He must be washing up, too, she thought. The man who had been eating at the counter was gone.
The man in the white ducks left his small gas stove and came over.
"You want to order now?" he asked.
"What? Oh." She picked up the menu and looked at it for a moment. "I'll have the same thing, I guess."
The man went back to the stove and broke another egg on the edge of the black pan.
Jean listened to the sound of the eggs frying. She wished Bob would come back. It was unpleasant sitting there alone in the hot, dingy cafe.
Unconsciously she picked up the glass of water again and took a sip. She grimaced at the taste and put down the glass.
A minute passed. She noticed that the man in the back booth was looking at her. Her throat contracted and the fingers of her right hand began drumming slowly on the counter. She felt her stomach muscles drawing in. Her right hand twitched suddenly as a fly settled on it.
Then she heard the door to the men's washroom open, and she turned quickly with a sense of body-lightening relief.
She shuddered in the hot cafe.
It wasn't Bob.
She felt her heart throbbing unnaturally as she watched the man return to his place at the counter and pick up his unfinished sandwich. She averted her eyes as he glanced at her. Then, impulsively, she got off the stool and went back to the front of the cafe.
She pretended to look at a rack of sunfaded postcards, but her eyes kept moving to the brownish-yellow door with the word MEN painted on it.
Another minute passed. She saw that her hands were starting to shake. A long breath trembled her body as she looked in nervous impatience at the door.
She saw the man in the back booth push himself up and plod slowly down the length of the cafe. His cap was pushed to the back of his head and his high-topped shoes clomped heavily on the floor boards. Jean stood rigidly, holding a postcard in her hands as the man passed her. The washroom door opened and closed behind him.
Silence. Jean stood there staring at the door, trying to hold herself under control. Her throat moved again. She took a deep breath and put the postcard back in place.
"Here's your sandwich," the man at the counter called.
Jean started at the sound of his voice. She nodded once at him but stayed where she was.