It had been a full day of deciding. Deciding to be happy, while fighting off tears. Deciding what things needed to be thrown away and what things needed buying. Deciding on who I needed to talk too and what moments would be silent. It was hot, and the heat made me decide that it was the perfect day for a hamburger, onion rings, and chocolate milkshake from the hot-pink roadway burger joint in town. It sat next to the U-haul place and across the street from T’s Flowers on Main Street.
The building is Milk of Magnesia Pink and has been for years. It screams that this place is worth the stop. Y is a spunky, funky tattooed woman who has a lot to say about everything. Her smile is contagious and happiness poofs out the “Order Here” window with whiffs of everything greasy and delicious. She is a young Norma Rae, “Sally Field” shapely, and fierce. She made it through the pandemic, and vows never to shut her doors again. Customers flock to her and today, I was one of many in line.
After ordering, a space opened up at the picnic table out front, and I took a seat, facing the road. My legs stretched out almost touching the broken sidewalk. Spotty grass, broken asphalt, and weeds made a mosaic in front of the restaurant. The building was new in the 50’s and had been one thing or another since then. Its plaster was cracked and weather beaten as many people and things are in my town. An old woman sat on the other end and side, facing the same way as I. We both gazed across Main, looking at T’s Flowers, and the unmarked house next door.
Without an introduction, she started a conversation.
“Do you know if the Book Store Lady opens very often? House next to T’s? You know? The used book store?”
I turned to look at her more closely. She was Nevada old. The high desert steals some things and she doesn’t give them back, ever. She steals moisture with intense sunshine, wind, and heat. She replaces soft, supple skin with leather, dried so long in the sun, it doesn’t burn anymore. Flowing hair is replaced with something resembling dry straw. Hopeful eyes dim. This woman was Nevada old. Petite, in her t-shirt and shorts, I had heard her order. Two “Y’s Bombs”, the biggest hamburger sold. Two of them for this tiny woman.
“Not sure, I just moved her in April. It hasn’t been open when I’ve been around. Was it a good place?”
“I used to go there all the time. I live up the road, East about 30 miles, myself. Just come here for the burgers.”
Her blue eyes shown out from hooded lids, and the wrinkles of time were gouged deeply in her face. I suppose she was sizing me up too, as we High Desert Ladies tend to do. Rattlesnakes and varmints need to be identified quickly in wild places when a woman is traveling alone.
With no conversation flowing, I offered up more information than I should.
“I’m a new widow. I haven’t taken the time to visit all the stores here. I’ll pay attention to the Book Store and check it out when she opens.”
“Probably dead. I’m a widow, too. 26 years. I miss him every day.” Her wedding ring, studded with diamonds, sparkled on her left hand as we both turned to look at it together. I hoped she hadn’t noticed. I was thinking about the woman and her drive of 30 miles to buy two huge burgers that would be cold by the time she got home. I thought of her widowhood of 26 years. Almost as long as I had been a wife. Was that what my life would become? Was this an omen? 26 years from now, would I be sitting in front of a hot pink hamburger shack, talking to a young woman of 64 about her new widowhood while waiting for my two “Y’s Bombs”? I was looking through a window into my future, which was hopeful and devastating all at once.
“Order 27. Mae. Your order’s up. 2 “Y’s Bombs” with everything.”
“That’s me. Gotta go.”
“Wait, I need to ask. How old are you? ” Not sure why I asked, but it was a question I had to know right then.
“90.”
And with that she was gone. My window closed. So many details about Mae I will remember forever. She was me, I was her. She looking back, I looking ahead, with 26 years meaning two very different things to two very different ladies.
So many questions were left unanswered that day. I would love to find her again and ask her to tell me about important way points to watch for on the way to 90. Some advice about what to avoid and what to embrace. Stories about the guy she loved so much that his absence still breaks her heart 26 years later. She was the friend that got away, floating back home through the dust of the high desert, 30 miles East, with two cooling “Y’s Bombs” on her front seat.
Oh, by the way. What is 64 years PLUS 26 years????????????? Yeah. Just another weird coincidence in this the wilderness of widowhood and the high desert, in which I find myself.
Yee gods, Amaryllis, I’ve left you alone for six whole days ! And now gulped it all down in a marathon catch-up. If I learn nothing else it will be this: never try to digest six days of Joy’s musings in one afternoon of yours. Too rich for your system.
You continue to touch personal soft spots with your own fine words, weaving highlights and sheer misery into a tapestry of universal widowhood. And survival.
You’ll never be Mae, nothing you’ve written of her or yourself leads there. But you’ll learn things from her. I hope you meet again. (and I hope she reads your book. She’ll surely learn from you!)
btw I’m now 87 (and a half!) and miss Buck every day too. It’s only been 8 (and a quarter) years of widowhood but I assure you, the beat goes on. If we’re the lucky ones. And we are!