Chapter 2

“Last chance for what?”

“Making the Olympics. There are older runners, but I’m pretty sure fallen arches and heel spurs will do me in not long after. I’m Gordon, by the way.”

Finally.

He extended his hand again, but took it back just as I was about to grasp it. “I guess we did that already.”

“Yeah. So…running?”

“Long distance. No hurdles. No sprints. I just go.”

“How long you been doing that?”

“Been running all my life. Been doing it for a purpose since high school.”

Well, there was a cryptic but meaningful proclamation. “July and London seems a long ways away,” I said, “when I just put up my Christmas decorations and it’s five degrees.”

“To me, it feels too frigging close. What do you have for desserts?”

“Hmm. This time of day…I got a couple pies in the oven, but they need to go another forty-five minutes or so.”

“I can wait. Unless you need the stool.”

Was that sarcasm? No one had come in since he’d sat down. “The lunch rush won’t be in for a while,” I assured him.

“Nice. Got anything like a doughnut or a cinnamon roll to tide me over.”

Damn! I knew marathons were long, but to eat like that and have that body, I figured this dude must run from New York to California and back every day. “I do,” I told him. “Both homemade.”

“Then bring me one of each.”

It suddenly dawned on me to wonder about money. Was Running Man planning on running out on the check? I chuckled inwardly at my brilliant pun.

“I know I’m racking up a pretty hefty bill, here. I promise not to run out on it.”

Whoa.

He chuckled, too. There was lettuce in his teeth.

Someone else finally came in, Annie and Clarence Cooper, an elderly couple who dropped by once a month or so on their way back from doctors’ appointments. I’d known them since I was a little boy. They’d been coming in long before I was born, in fact.

“Take table four,” I told them. “It’s closest to the radiator.”

I could no longer focus all of my attention on Gordon. I got him his morning pastries, and then tended to the Coopers. They always asked me what was new. My pat answer—“Not much.” Later, I served both them and Gordon warm apple pie, the Coopers’ on the house.

Gordon did pay his bill. The jackass gypped me on a tip, however. Five percent. That’s what it came out to, the dick. No, I decided. I like dick. He’s a…I tried to think of something I hated. He’s a pissant. I loathed those little, tiny things. The big ants I could deal with. The smelly, miniature kind bugged the hell out of me. Gordon was definitely one of them.

“Well, you’ve never seen him before,” my dad said, when I told him about Gordon, once the huge lunch crowd—Black Friday shoppers shopped no matter the weather—had all been served. “Chances are you’ll never see him again.”

I did see him again, every single day from the day after Thanksgiving through Christmas Eve. He made up for the lousy tip the next day, apologizing for getting “carried away” with the menu and not having enough cash left after paying. He gave me a forty percent gratuity I balked at, but finally accepted. After that, he put down twenty-five percent after every double meal. Weekdays, he showed up at precisely ten fifty-five. Saturday and Sunday, he came in closer to dinner, at five fifty-five. He had to be really anal, I figured, leaving the house at the same exact time every morning and evening to arrive at the diner precisely when he did. On December twenty-fourth, he brought by a poinsettia. I asked him if he’d run with it. “You know, protecting it from the bitter cold with your really hot body?”

I’d substituted “warm” for “really hot,” chicken that I was.

Gordon told me yes, but then he took it back and admitted he’d gotten it two stores down the sidewalk. He’d still walked in at five fifty-five on the dot, meaning the extra stop had been factored into his very precise schedule. He had definitely planned accordingly. I reminded him we were closed the next day, and I actually missed him as four of five Dons and I celebrated Christmas morning, and then just two of them—my brother and Dad—joined me at the cemetery to visit Mom.

Gordon and I had chatted quite a bit over the course of December. Though I wasn’t all that good at conversation, we had a little help from five ladies at a table. No, not in the diner, but on the TV. Hot Topics on The View can be a great jumping off point for getting to know someone. I learned Gordon’s opinions on pop culture, current events, sex, entertainment, religion, sex, child rearing, marriage, politics, and sex. The 2012 election came up a lot. He was definitely hoping Obama would get another four years in office. Beyond disagreeing with Mitt Romney’s politics, he said he also reminded him too much of his elementary school principal. “That guy was scary.”

“Spend a lot of time with him?” I teased.