JOES DINER - - Chapter 4

The new Highway 80 put the Diner out of Business - -

 

After four more weeks Joe was up and around and I could see my time was almost over for which I was glad.

My grades were suffering because of having little time to study and I had absolutely no social life.

The young waitress, Abagail had greatly improved and could now hold her own with the crude patrons that ate there. She was off at seven having come on at eleven.  I only mention this because it was an odd shift. Things really slowed down after seven o’clock and I could handle most everything after that.

Joe said he was up to coming back and handling the cooking again so I told him I would like to be relieved of my duties if he was ready to take over. He said with Missy’s help he would be okay so that was it for this session.

Strange as it seems I had very little contact with Missy for her shift was over a short time after I came on.

To celebrate I took Abby out for an evening for she had done a good job and I appreciated her efforts.  We had become friendlier after the issue with the motorcycle gang.  From then on she knew she could depend on me to watch her back.

That more or less ended my relationship with the diner except on occasion seeing someone who worked there.

Upon leaving no one thanked me for filling in while Joe was sick. In fact Abby was the only one who said goodbye to me.

As I left I advised her to get out of there for I could see it was going from bad to worse. The people Missy was hanging out with were trouble waiting to happen.

Skipping forward some, highway 80 opened and this reduced the diner business to locals only. About half of the diner’s business was from people traveling on Rte. 66 which was now down to a few cars with people who were lost and trying to find Rte. 80.  

With Joe not doing well once again the burden was placed on Missy.  She began to take up with the wrong crowd who pretty much took the diner over.

Every so often there were raids by the D.E.A. and missy had been hauled down to the jail on many occasions. She finally had to spend time in the county jail and the diner was closed up.

Joe and Jenny ended up being cared for by the county which was sad but at least they were out of a bad situation.

Missy had joined in with the drug dealers and had aged fast.  Soon men will not want to have anything to do with her and she will be on the streets.

The diner had moved on and so had I.

~ ~ ~

I moved to the large city where the college I was attending was located and made it to my last year.

I by chance came across Abby and found she was a freshman at the same school I was attending. She filled me in on what was going on with the diner before she took my advice and left.

It was pretty much as I had heard and now it was closed. Her folks had moved to the city where I was and I renewed acquaintances with them.

I had decided to get my teaching credentials upon graduating and start teaching English so I became a teacher’s aide the last few months before getting my degree and was offered a position upon graduating.

Seemly my life was destined to be a dull existence. I mingled among the academia and was accepted there but I felt I had to have a bit more excitement in my life.

I discussed this with the dean and he suggested I sign up for the outreach program the college had in some other nations.  After some thought, I agreed to do that.

Shortly after that I was flying to a major city in China. Upon arriving I thought this might be more than I bargained for.

I agreed to work there for one year which was twelve months not nine as in the states.

By the end of the year with the help of a translator I managed to get my classes to be able to converse in English and by then I could understand enough Chinese to get by.

During the year I kept in contact with Abby and I found that you could do a lot of courting by mail.

I decided to continue my teaching for another year which was Abby’s final year in psychology. She wanted to be a counselor so she took several related courses along with her major to prepare her for the future.

During my first year teaching in China I managed to get my masters and was now working on my doctorate. Teaching in this country made it easy for subject matter and was of interest to the board of directors.

Toward the end of the year I got up enough nerve to ask Abby to marry me upon my return to the states. She said we could discuss it when I returned.

I didn’t know if that was her way of saying no or if she really wanted to have a frank discussion about it. On the flight home I realized I had only kissed her once or twice. Once for sure when I left for China and I wasn’t sure about another time.

Perhaps a paper romance wasn’t enough for her. It satisfied me but I wasn’t sure about her. She flew to San Francisco to meet me so we could spend some time together before returning home. She had got us a room with two beds and it overlooked the bay and Alcatraz.

I asked her if we should have two rooms and she said, “No, it’s not necessary.”

This left me with thoughts I never expected to have. One of which was I wondered how liberated she had become.

I concluded what has happened, happened, and what happens, happens.

 The next week was filled with sightseeing and a lot of talking. I decided to get right to it and started to kiss her at every opportunity. At first she was a little standoffish but that didn’t last long. As the days went by the decision was made to be married… soon.

It was time to return to our home city and she said we will fly to Las Vegas and spend a couple of days after getting married there and then on to home.

 

The time at Vegas was much too short even though we stayed three extra days but I figured we could make up for it when we arrived home.

Arriving home we were met by Abby’s family.  We spent the evening answering questions about the last two years and how our courtship had progressed long distance.

We said it was different due to the fact we could say the things we wanted to without being interrupted or intimidated. We discussed some intimate things in our letters and I wondered how that would play out when we met.

By the time our last letters came we found that we had moved on beyond any intimate content and acted as if it never happened.

The one drawback had been I was never much of a poet so I had to make plain language do but it eventually got the message over and demonstrating in person what I had wrote about finalized our romance.

Since I didn’t have a picture with me and she was reluctant to send me one I had to use the image of her in my mind when I composed my messages to her.  Neither of us wanted to be too forward in what we put on paper and would only respond to what the other had just written so everything moved slowly.

Toward the end I decided to risk it and ask her to become my wife. Even then she was hesitant to say yes but from the way she acted in San Francisco I think her mind was made up.

To tell the truth it was like meeting a stranger for a couple of minutes after being apart for over two years. But I wanted to kiss her and when I did that was all it took to break down any reservations either of us may have had.

After our - - - I do’s” in Vegas I discovered something I never suspected and that was I had married a very passionate woman.

More passion than I thought she was capable of and I think she even surprised herself…

To be Continued