Speechless(76)

                “Chelsea doesn’t talk,” she says. She looks at me. “You want a                     Coke?”

                I nod, and Lou grins again, even wider this time. “I’ll be                     right back,” she says.

                After Lou has walked away, Asha explains that she’s Dex’s                     girlfriend. “She waits tables, but she’s basically a comanager. She and Dex have                     been together forever,” she tells me. “They’re, like, made for each other. It’s                     ridiculous.”

                When Dex comes in later, he goes straight to Lou, kisses the                     top of her head and smoothes a hand down the back of her old-fashioned gingham                     dress, which she paired with black fishnets and neon-green high-tops, a                     combination that sounds crazy in theory but one she manages to pull off with                     flair.

                I really like this. Sitting in the middle of this frenzy of                     activity, watching everyone run the diner. Dex heads up the register, ringing up                     customers and taking order slips from Asha and Lou, attaching them to the ticket                     rack and sliding it toward Sam and Andy. Sam and Andy work in tandem, passing                     cooking utensils back and forth, trading off on orders. Everyone has their duty                     to make things work smoothly.

                And even just sitting there, it’s like I’m somehow part of it,                     even though I’m not, really. I’m just an observer.





                                      day six

                I haven’t been ice skating since Beth Murkowski’s                     birthday party in the fourth grade, and I’m not sure that even counts since it                     was on the pond in her backyard and I had to borrow her sister’s pair of skates                     that were three sizes too big. Needless to say, that experience ended in many                     bruises and tears. I’m skeptical of my ability to get through this without                     inflicting some horrible injury on myself or innocent bystanders, but Asha                     assures me on the car ride over I’ll be fine.

                “It’s not that hard,” she says. “One foot in front of the                     other!”

                Yeah, easy for her to say. She clearly has experience, if the                     pair of beat-up baby-blue skates resting in her lap is any indication.