5.21

"Should we . . . ?" He's holding the menu like a wall and looking over it plaintively. She told the waiter that they had, in fact, been here before.
"Hm?"
"An appetizer, I think?" To go with their water+lemon price-saver special.
He orders nachos. ("There's only one . . ." "Yes, only one way we make nachos.") She orders a wrap, and he a burger. Both with fries.
I phase in and out of their conversation. It's inane, quotidian (a word I've stolen from the last thing I read, not ripped off the domepiece). It's safe. I'm not interested. When Vanilla Ice's opus Ice, Ice, Baby starts very quietly in the background, I cover for my involuntary "Haha yeah" by leaning away and remarking, as though to myself, "It's the nineties all over again."
When they need a box from the waiter, she sees him and makes a hand motion and a mouth noise that sounds like she choked off a call just as it thrust itself through her mind. They eventually get the box.
My waiter is earnest and kind as he explains why there's some unsolvable difficulty with the charge. The Internet is out or some such. A waitress with an attractive haircut is commiserating. She sighs and we all three laugh just a little. Our conversation is just as inane, just as quotidian (again, that stolen word). But we're in it, so it feels immediate, visceral.
I pick up my bag and walk five paces.
Wait. Did I get everything?
I turn around and hold my hands out as though the mere act of reaching will draw any lost belongings to me. My waiter has gone, but she's standing there. Her shirt says Certified Teaching Staff on the sleeve. She gives me a look like she would prefer I wasn't one of her employees if I'm incapable of remembering whether my phone is in my pocket after five steps. I close my open hands into dual thumbs-up, smile, and spin away.
"Have a good night!" she says.
A wave over my shoulder is all she gets, and then I'm out into the night. Maybe it's this place that makes me feel so commonplace. Maybe it's the weather. Every day has a gravity to it. Every day feels predetermined. It won't rain. It's likely to be sunny. There's a light wind from the west. People will drive their cars too much. And Tommy and Nicole will go back to work serving wraps and burgers and nachos to people who need boxes for their fries.