“Don’t.”
Behind the counter, a seventeen-year-old is washing glasses and setting them to dry on a cloth by the mirror. Her back is to the room, but from as she washes, dries, sets a glass upside down, and them repeats, her eyes go up and to the left and follow guests as they enter and leave. Her friend is waiting tables. It is mid-morning, and it is July, when the trees have set their fruit, but haven’t yet added blush to the apples, or sweet to the grapes.
On two stools at the counter, side by side, sit a young woman and a boy. In front of each is a glass of water with no ice, a place setting of flatware which has lost its gloss, two small squares of napkin, and a plastic combines salt-and-pepper. The boy is four or maybe five. He has taken his napkin and begun to shred it like unformed snowflakes. He tears one small circle or square after another until he has a small pile of them. He takes them all in his right palm and stares at them from up close. With a finger of his other hand he tests the pile for softness. He makes a stick figure of his fingers and he himself jumps into the snowpile, kicking some flakes into the air. He looks again. There is nothing to be done. So he fills his lungs like the picture of the North Wind, purses his lips, pushes out his cheeks, and BLOWS.
That’s when the mother speaks, and fusses with the few flakes which landed on the counter and in the water glasses. In the mirror, the corners of the dishwasher’s eyes stretch into laugh lines.
“Two easy, two sunny, rye white joe and OJ!” The girl finishes a glass and walks toward the grill, pausing at the woman and the boy to tell them their order would be right up. She is writing on a pad. She writes: 2E/R 2S/W. At the top of the page she writes the number seven and circles it. She clips it into a metal bar near the chef’s right shoulder and, as she turns, bumps her hip into his leg, sending him slightly off balance. She looks over her shoulder with a smile as she walks away.
“I said don’t do that!” The young woman takes another napkin away from the boy and gives him a pen. “Here.” In a little flurry she digs in her purse to find a pad of paper. “Here, draw something!” And to the counter girl, “Miss, we’re kind of in a hurry?”
After a few minutes’ wait the meal is delivered. The to eat in silence. The woman pays in silence. They leave the diner in silence.
When she begins to clean up, she finds a small pile of napkin scraps under the edge of the boy’s plate. Next to it, a surprisingly fine drawing of a cloud with a person’s face, puffed cheeks, pursed lips, and the name of a boy, blown on a gust of wind.