Memories

Friday night’s never changed at the Rhyer’s 24/7 Diner. Clara sat in their usual spot. The old booth with a rip in the corner of the upholstery. A picture of a boy throwing a bone to his dog resided on the wall. Taking a sip of her warm tea, Clara couldn’t grasp the cup for very long. Arthritis was never fun to live with.

A waiter came over to the two young ladies who were at the table opposite her. Back in the day, the waiters served meals on rollerblades. Kate laughed the first time she saw waiters skating around inside. It was a spectacle because their parents never let them skate in the house.

Today was a very special day. Born on the same day, just by an hour, Kate’s mother felt her newborn kick while having breakfast in this diner with Clara’s mother. It was a story to tell when they both ended up in labor for eight hours.

“Wow, this place is so big!” Kate exclaimed, hopping up and down once they entered the diner. Everything looked big from a five-year-old’s perspective. Kate was always so talkative. As her mother asked for a table, Clara looked at the tiles of the floor. Blue and white.

There was a countertop at which people ate. The stools were so high. Some people sat at tables and there were booths along the side of the walls.

A jukebox was playing all sorts of different music. People were having fun, dancing to the music. Kate took her friend by the hand and they started twirling around, giggling. Although it was an adorable sight, their mothers had to break it up so they wouldn’t run into anyone.

‘‘Let’s rock everybody, let’s rock! Everybody in the whole cell block.’

“Mom, Mom?” Kate tugged at her mother’s dress. She always interrupted. Kate was the most impatient five-year-old. On their first day of kindergarten, she sprinted to the school hardly giving Clara a chance to keep up with her. Clara never saw any child so excited about school.

“Yes, what is it darling?” Her mother asked after politely cutting out of the conversation with Clara’s mom.

“Can we sit at that booth in the corner?”

Following where Kate was pointing, Clara saw this booth in the corner of the diner. Turning her nose up at the little rip in the corner of the seat. To her, it was just like all the other booths in the diner. But of course, Kate saw it as something special. That’s what Clara liked about her best friend since the... womb? That’s what her mother said.

The cushions were very soft and bouncy. The little girls bounced up and down as they sat, laughing. They were right near the door that led into the kitchen. As soon as a waiter came out, the girls were so astonished to see someone on rollerblades.

“Grilled cheese!” Clara exclaimed. Grilled cheese sandwiches were her favorite.

“I want a grilled cheese sandwich, too!” Kate agreed, following along. Usually, that was the opposite way around.

“You two are the birthday girls after all,” her mother smiled, moving the hair that fell into her eyes.

After the meal ended, they were given sundaes.

“Can we come here every birthday?” Kate asked, dripping chocolate sauce on her dress.

“Yeah, can we?” Clara agreed though she wiped her mouth with a napkin.

“We can come here every birthday until we’re one hundred!” Kate raised her arms into the air like a bird.

The tiles of Rhyer’s 24/7 Diner changed years ago. New workers were hired. Nobody roller bladed anymore. Food changed on the menu. Grilled cheeses remained. And the Chocolate milkshakes.

Back in the day, this place was always busy. One was lucky to get a table in less than an hour. Tonight, when Clara walked in it saddened her to only see twenty people in here.

The two girls were in conversation. She and Kate were always in deep conversation. So deep that when the waiter came over, Kate snorted her chocolate milkshake making it come out of her nose.

Taking another sip of her tea, Clara looked at the cracks in the table. Were those cracks always there? She took her glasses off, feeling little tears prickle at her eyes.

Getting their favorite booth in the corner of the diner, Kate and Clara sat down. Unlike some people their age who celebrated their eighteenth birthday with huge birthday extravaganzas, they came to the diner. It was a tradition. And they never broke tradition.

“So, I have some news,” Kate began with a little smile on her face.

“Doesn’t Kate-the-loud-mouth always have news?” Clara snickered. Sarcasm was the girl’s main language.

Kate turned up her nose at her and stuck out her tongue. Then she did something that she hardly ever did - Kate turned serious. “I got into New York State University.”

Not sure whether to happily bounce out of her seat and hug her best friend, Clara sat there, staring at her. They never talked about that school in their numerous conversations about college. Clara was the one that insisted they stay close to home.

“New York State University?” she repeated her voice drawn out.

Nodding, Kate’s smile disappeared a bit. “Yes. And I’m moving there.”

The world felt like it stopped. Right when Kate said that a waiter fell over with a tray and glasses broke. Clara never saw a waiter fall in the number of times they ate here.

“What?”

“I didn’t mean to keep it secret from you. I didn’t think I could get in either.”

“W-Why are you moving?” Clara whimpered. No, she did not want to cry. Not in her favorite diner with everyone looking. Of course, they minded their business, but everyone ‘people watched’. She and Kate did it all the time when they came here.

“Clara, I can’t stay here my whole life. Don’t you want to see the world?” Kate asked her, spreading her arms out resembling how she looked like a bird when she was five.

Stuck on how to answer that question, Clara never thought about anything like that before. She just realized that she was an adult now. Going to college in five months. The deadline to make a decision for which school she wanted to go to was in a month from now. She still had no idea. The fear of it all was too much to handle some days.

“But... what about... our birthday’s?” That was all she could think about right now. Breaking a tradition felt like the worst heartbreak.

Reaching across the table, Kate smiled. “We’re not breaking tradition. No matter what happens, or where we are, or who we are with, we are always going to travel back here and celebrate our birthday. Even when we are one hundred.”

Smiling at her best friend, Clara felt some reassurance, but fear crept her insides. For now, she ignored it to get up to dance to their favorite song.

‘Let’s rock everybody, let’s rock! Everybody in the whole cell block.’

“Did you enjoy everything, ma’am?” The waiter arrived at the table. Clara almost forgot she was eating a grilled cheese sandwich. She hadn’t eaten a grilled cheese sandwich in a year.

“I am. Thank you,” she responded, feeling her voice giving way to the tears.

The waiter was not sure whether to ask if something was bothering her or not. Glancing around at the other patrons, Clara was the oldest out of anyone here. Most of them were adults. But those two girls who were having grilled cheese sandwiches were the youngest. She smiled when one of them was telling the other a funny story who could barely hold her drink in her mouth.

“I would like to have an ice cream fudge sundae, please,” she asked the waiter. “Today is my birthday.”

“Happy birthday to you! Want me to put a candle in it for you?” he asked.

Clara nodded, smiling. She wondered if it was possible to put one hundred candles in a chocolate sundae. Or even two hundred candles.

“So, tell me, what’s going on in your fifty-year-old life, old lady?” Kate asked taking a bite of her grilled cheese, She didn’t think that her flight was going to make it in today. An impending snowstorm threatened to delay all planes at the airport. But, Kate being Kate always found an alternative.

Clara huffed, adjusting her glasses. “You’re the old lady, not me!”

“Hey, no fair! We look great for thirty years old, don’t we?” she smirked, lifting an eyebrow.

The booth in the corner of the diner still had a rip in the upholstery. The picture of the boy throwing a bone to his dog never changed. None of the waiters were on skates anymore. Now that Clara thought about it, after the waiter who fell on their eighteenth birthday fell, none of the waiters ever rollerbladed again.

“There have been a lot of snow days this year,” Clara explained. “My students have had a hard time paying attention.”

“Remember how we always passed notes to each other in class? Old Harrison thought he could separate us across the room but we always passed notes!”

“How are your kids?” Clara asked.

“I have one college-bound kid. How did that ever happen? We’re trying to decide right now. Ally wants to move two states over but I don’t know if that’s going to happen.”

Clara furrowed her brow. “Why not?”

“It’s too far,” Kate responded.

“But, you moved to New York when you moved to college. Why don’t you let her?” Clara reminded her.

Kate was quiet for a moment. She left the crust of her grilled cheese on the plate. Normally, she always finished.

“I’m sick...”

Just like that their favorite song started playing on the jukebox.

‘‘Let’s rock everybody, let’s rock! Everybody in the whole cell block.’

“What?”

“Clara, I’m a fighter. You know me. I’m not giving up. We’re coming here until we’re one hundred! And we’re going to have two hundred candles Now let’s stop all those dark talk and boogie!”

And that’s what Kate did. It was a hard battle but she beat cancer - twice as a matter of fact. At one point doctors didn’t think that she was going to make it. Somehow she was able to travel across the country on a plane to share their birthday at Rhyer’s Diner.

Clara believed that she was eternal. Last year when Kate got up to dance on the hip that she had to have replaced nobody would have ever believed that she was a woman close to one hundred.

Because of Kate, Clara lived like Kate. Eventually, she moved away. Life didn’t scare her. Kate taught her how to be free, to have courage, and teach her the incredible gift of friendship. Because of Kate, she was sitting here in the diner she’d been coming to for her birthday for almost a century.

“Here you are, ma’am. Happy birthday,” The waiter arrived at the table holding the tall bowl of ice cream dripping with chocolate sauce. A blue candle rested on the top of the mountain.

“Thank you,” she smiled, appreciated. And she blew out the candle on her first try.

“Wait,” she said to the waiter who was about to leave. “It’s not for me,” she then pointed to the two girls sitting in the booth. They were watching. “It’s for them.” Clara smiled at the girls, at the years of friendship to come.

Standing up to leave, and wincing as her achy bones cracked, Clara took her walker and began to leave walking across the tiles that used to be blue and white, away from the table with the rip in the cushion, the picture of the boy with his dog, just as the jukebox began to play the song she and Kate danced to.

‘‘Let’s rock everybody, let’s rock! Everybody in the whole cell block.’

“Happy birthday, Kate.”