Dan Harris looked out of his window on a clear Thursday summer morning. May is always a fickle month in Missouri, so he took a look at his thermometer: it was 70 degrees at 8:00AM, so the day promised to be on the warm side after the previous night's storms. Glancing across the little trailer park, he saw his buddy Alan's fan swirling inside the screen window of his tiny trailer, and there were signs someone had moved into the third trailer across the way. There was no car in the parking space, and a couple of new flower pots rested by the front steps. Dan took this has a hopeful sign: maybe the new tenants weren't going to be cooking Meth like the last ones did.
He put on his little coffee pot and turned on Good Morning America. There wasn't anything he was particularly interested in watching, other than the weather, so he sat and watched the hummingbirds at his feeder while Diane Sawyer and Robin Roberts kept him company. Picking up his wallet, he counted the bills and made sure he could afford his weekly indulgence: the big breakfast at Josie's Diner in town. Between his service pension and driving the OATS bus 6 days a week, he was able to pay his bills with a little to spare; even though he was 68, he still put money aside for his retirement, or rather, for the day he'd be completely unable to work.
Glancing out the window, he saw his little garden was in good shape, so there was no need to weed that day. Three tomatoes presented themselves ripe for picking, so he made a mental note to get them before a furry poacher could. A farm boy, he never liked the taste of canned or frozen vegetables unless he could can them himself, and when something was in season he was always ready to stock up and preserve.
Good Morning America transmuted into Rachel Ray, so he went down the little hallway to his bathroom to shower and shave. His trailer wasn't large, but neither was he: shorter than average with a grey crew cut, his eyes were bright blue and bright, his face weathered by time and the elements, his body lean. His metabolism burned calories at a pace that his service buddies marveled at, but he rarely ate much even though he mostly ate fresh food and drank occasionally.
Dan put on a plaid shirt and overalls, with his sole fashion statement being a pair of well shined cowboy boots. As he moved toward the door, he flipped off the TV and grabbed a Massey Ferguson cap from his little hatrack, letting the door swing mostly shut behind him. His little trailer park was 10 miles from town, far off the main road, so he never locked his door. Anyone who found there way there would find little of value to steal, and its seclusion made locks irrelevant anyway.
His 12 year old truck, lovingly maintained, roared to life and he started his winding way toward town. The sun made the freshly greened trees shine in the light as the track wound between them. A deer was grazing by the side of the road; Dan honked his horn to encourage it to move aside for him to pass. Occasionally, a fluting bird call floated in through his open driver's window. Life was bright and beautiful.
Josie's Diner was a local institution, and when Dan arrived around 9:30, the morning crowd was finishing up their food and coffee. A group of local men waved as Dan came in and greeted him. He nodded at them and took his normal booth in the back corner of the restaurant. Josie peeked out from the kitchen and smiled hello before ducking back.
A new waitress bustled from the kitchen. She was average height and build for a woman in her late 40's. Leaning over, she greeted him with a friendly smile and beaming eyes: "Hi, honey. You want coffee this mornin?" Dan startled at the familiar voice before he nodded and she returned to fill a cup for him.
He was astounded; she looked like one of his favorite actresses from the '70s. Brenda Keans was a second lead on his favorite sitcom: a sharp shapely brunette who both made him laugh and stirred his manhood. This woman could have been her twin, although the hair was now grey and around 15 pounds had accrued to her already wide frame. Her voice was a fourth lower than he knew it, but it was still the same rich voice he remembered from 30 years earlier.
She returned with the coffee and set it down in front of him. "Cream and sugar's right here on your table. You need a menu?"
"Naw," he said, shaking his head. "Want th' Farmer's breakfast, eggs over easy, biscuits 'n gravy, hash browns an' tomato juice." She nodded and turned to go before he touched her arm. "Hey, miss. What happened to Sandy?"
"Oh, her dad's sick and she had to go back to St. Louis to take care of him. Won't be back for a long time." The waitress was a perfect match for Brenda Keans: the same little smile, the same glint in her eye, the same grace moved her body across the room. Dan sat looking at her intently until she got uncomfortable. She broke his gaze and asked; "You a regular around here?"
"Yeah, since I came down here 12 years ago." His eyes were fixed on her, trying to decide if she was related to the forgotten actress.
She looked at him quizzically. "I'll put your order right in, honey. You let me know if you want some more coffee."
The rest of the meal was a daze to him. He watched her every moment she was in the dining room: as she poured coffee for the men's group, as she wound paper napkins around sets of silverware and refilled catsup bottles. She ignored him except for furtive glances until his food was ready, then served it with a bright smile.
As he ate his breakfast, he looked at his neighbors across the way. They took no notice of the new waitress other than needed. His thoughts went back and forth, and he whispered to himself under this breath: "No, it can't be her, they'd recognize her. But it's got to be her, she's got that mole next to her eye and those dimples are like no other. Can't believe those guys don't know who this is. Guess it's not her. But it has to be."
Finishing his meal, he paid her at the register, pausing to leave a huge tip before he left the place. As he continued his day off routine of stopping at the hardware and the garden store, her face stuck in his mind all morning and all the way back home. Her smile peeked at him as he went down the trail from his trailer to the little lake behind his house he called Peachtree Lake.
He skipped stones on the placid water, and he tried to let his mind wander from his preoccupation. "There's no guarantee you'll see her again," he said out loud, "Josie takes girls on for a day or two as they're working their way cross country. Maybe this gal's just here for a day or two. It was nice to see her, but that's gotta be it." Hope melted in the early spring afternoon, to the acquiescence of the status quo he had learned to live with.
As he was returning to his trailer, an old van puttered down the track and parked. He stopped before emerging from the treeline to see what his new neighbor looked like, and was astounded to see the waitress from Josie's emerge with a bag of groceries in her arms. Frozen in place, he watched her unlock her trailer and go inside, coming out immediately to unload several dirty filled pots from the back. Inside his mind, he was kicking himself for not helping her, but he was afraid to move let he trip over himself like a moonstruck teenager.
After she was obviously finished with her task, he gathered up the courage to dart inside his trailer. He sat in his chair and watched her trailer out his window for several minutes before his body got restless. Looking out the window, he remembered the three tomatoes on his vine ready for picking: he hurried out his door to pluck them and back lest she catch him outside.
The temperature was around 80, and Dan was sweating in his little living room. His heart was racing, and decided to lay down to settle himself. Taking off his overalls and shirt, he lay on his bed in his underwear, his shorts tenting with thoughts of the waitress. He was too stirred up to sleep, so he started stroking himself to relieve the tension, but a fulfilled fantasy the night before kept him from getting fully aroused. After a few moments, he gave up and sweated on the bed.
A few moments later as he lay frustrated, there was a knock at his door. He bolted from the bed and put his clothes back on, shouting: "Be right there." He got to the door to find his new neighbor, the waitress from Josie's, standing there in a silver and black halter top, black shorts and barefoot.
"Hi, I'm you new neighbor--oh, we've met already, haven't we?"
"Yeah. M'name's Dan. Come in, please ma'am."
"Okay, thanks. My name's Brenda."
He stepped back into the room to let her enter. She followed him cautiously, looking around, and noticed he was trembling. "Nice little place you have here, Dan. Very neat, you take care of it well. Oh, please don't be nervous, I won't bite. Let's just get acquainted now we're neighbors."
She took a seat at the end of a small table next to his little kitchen, which occupied the area next to the door. He sat at the other end of the table. "Can I get you somethin', Brenda?" he said at last, "Coffee, water, iced tea?"
"Iced tea would be nice if you have it."
"I make sun tea all th' time. Sugar? Sweetner?"
"No, I'm as sweet as I need to be and more. Diabetes"
He chuckled as he went to the counter in the kitchen: he got out 2 glasses, loaded them with ice, and poured them full. Taking her glass, she rubbed it across her head and closed her eyes. "I forgot how hot and sticky this part of the country gets. Guess I'll have to get used to it again."
"Where you from?"
"Fort Smith, Arkansas. Went to school in Fayetteville, then to the West Coast for a while."
"L. A.?"
