Gardensway16

Inside, the restaurant was tiny. Booths of red leather and white countered tables were smug against the walls, a long bar was positioned in front of the kitchen area with tall red leathered bar stools, and the floor looked like something out of the 50’s. Black and white checked marble was scattered over the floor and made Jacob rather dizzy. A few waitresses walked around the room with hot pots of coffee in their hands, and a round man in his late forties stood behind the bar carrying on a conversation with an old man. No one looked up as he walked over to the bar and took a seat on a lonesome bar stool near the end of the white countertop.
“I know, Pete. Damn coyotes got every single one of my sheep last year, and I’m bout near sick of it. Someone better do somethin’ bout it or I’m gonna go out of business,” the old farmer told the owner.
“Well, that forest ranger came down, but he could have cared a damn less. Now, I say, you just take that rifle of yours and just blow their damn tails off. I bet th’ damn rascals won’t come back,” Pete told the man, laughing.
Taking the last sip from his coffee cup, “I better get goin’. Nice talkin’ with ya, Pete. Have a nice day.”
The man gathered a straw hat that had been positioned on the counter and plopped it on his head as he laid down two one dollar bills. Tipping his hat at the man, he disappeared out onto the sidewalk. At that moment, Pete saw his customer and instantly came over to him.
“Why, hi there, stranger, what can I get for ya?”
“Uh, a cup of coffee would be nice. Do you have a phone I could use?” Jacob asked glancing around the room for a pay phone.
“Nope, I had it uninstalled ‘bout a month ago. No one ever used it,” he told him as he went to grab a coffee pot.
Coming back from the other side of the bar, Pete continued, “I think Diana has one o’ those cellular devices. They’re pretty nifty—you ever seen one?”
“Yes, I used to have one,” Jacob said, trying to hide laughter.
“Did ya now? They’re fancy…useful too.”
Pete signaled the waitress that owned the phone. A young woman with chestnut brown hair to her shoulders and a slim figure walked over to where Jacob was sitting. She struck his eye in a way that was mesmerizing. After sliding her tray onto the bar, she turned to her boss.
“You needed me, Pete?”
“Yes, Diana, didn’t ya say that ya owned one of those cellular devices? Fella here needs to use a phone,” he said motioning to Jacob.
She reached out her hand to him.
“Nice to meet ya…I’m Diana.”
“Jacob Porter,” he said shaking her hand, smiling.
The waitress turned to look at the diner. A couple walked in and took a seat by the window overlooking the street. She began playing with a silver cross necklace that hung around her neck. Jacob could tell that she didn’t like seeing the other waitress take the customers.
Turning hastily to the man before her, she said, “I have my phone out in my car. If you could just wait until I have my lunch break…It’s nice meeting ya.”
She then turned back to her tables with Jacob looking after her. Pete noticed an order up and signaled for the waitress as to which it belonged to. Jacob ordered another cup of coffee and found a newspaper lying beside him and picked it up. Flipping through the papers, he realized how boring it was to actually read one of them. He sighed and watched the waitress named, Diana, move through the booths.
Diana looked as though she was in her early twenties and had a face that was flawless. Her brown hair shimmered with gold as the sunlight struck it with eyes that glistened through their sapphire abyss. Jacob sighed and sipped from his coffee cup. He felt his hands becoming clammy and decided to get back to his newspaper. His mind never wandered far from the young waitress causing him to look up at her continuously. Jacob didn’t need these feelings. Relationships were far from being one of his strong points in life.
Around lunch, Diana came by the bar where Jacob was seated and asked if he was ready to see her phone. The two went through the diner’s back exit and came upon her small Honda. Reaching into the backseat, she pulled out a silver device and handed it to Jacob. He took it smiling at her—their hands had touched. Looking at the service bars, he turned the antennae up towards the light blue skies and turned from her, dialing the number he had found earlier in a ragged, worn telephone book that had resided inside the diner. There were two rings before a deep man’s voice picked up the other line.
“Hello?”
“Yes, I’d like to find out when the tow truck is going to be back in Apparition Valley,” Jacob responded.
There was some paused silence.
“About Tuesday of next week, sir,” the man told him.
“Thanks.”
Jacob hung up and looked back at the waitress. Handing her the phone, she smiled and mentioned how she needed to return to her tables. He smiled.
“It was nice meeting you, Diana.”
“Likewise,” she replied and opened the door of the diner.


The phone rang. Bustling through mountains of piled clothes, Jacob finally found the motel phone. He ran his hands through his hair before greeting the voice on the other line.
“Mr. Porter? Do I have the right number?” A female voice questioned.
“Yes, this is he.”
“Oh good, Jacob, this is, Diana…from the diner? Do you remember me?”
“Certainly. And, what do I owe this pleasure?” He asked, flirting indefinitely.
Sighing, she said, “I was wondering if you wanted to get together sometime. I heard about your tow truck being delayed, and maybe I could show you around town.”
Jacob scratched his forehead and opened his blinds with the phone still pressed against his cheek. Outside, trucks were buzzing down the square and old women were chattering their gossip outside of the local hair salon.
“That’d be great. When were you thinking?” He asked, searching his small mini bar for something to drink.
“This afternoon…around five or so.”
Looking at his watch, he showed a quick smile before saying, “Alright, where do you want to meet?”
“I’ll come get you.”
“That’ll work.”
The conversation ended and Jacob found himself pulling on a pair of jeans and a brown T-shirt. Looking in the mirror he said to himself, Now, for thirty years, you don’t look too bad. He smiled and reached for his toothbrush.
He’d only been in the town for two days and had already come to the conclusion that he could start a life there. It was peaceful and away from the madness of the city. Money wouldn’t be a problem for there wasn’t much around that area, except for farms and small run-down homes that wouldn’t cost Jacob an arm and a leg. Now, as for “apparitions,” he had yet to see one. He didn’t know what all the fuss had been about at the bed and breakfast with the spirits or whatever the hell they were.
The motel breakfast was about to be served. Hustling through his room, he ran down the rickety, green carpeted stairs and into the dining room. Two other guests that were staying at the motel were also dining when he entered. They acknowledged him with a small nod of their heads and continued eating. Oatmeal and scrambled eggs, it looked to be. Grabbing a white porcelain plate, Jacob helped himself to the food—which was actually rather good.
“So, Susan, how long are you going to be residing in Apparition?” The older man asked the young woman that was seated near him.
“Oh, not long, I hope. This place freaks me out something terrible.”
Taking a sip of orange juice from his glass, the man replied, “Me, too.”
Jacob didn’t comment. He didn’t understand why everyone was so caught up with the whole “apparition” thing. If they were everywhere, why hadn’t he seen one? He sighed and took a bite of the egg. They’re a little dry, he thought.
After breakfast, he decided that the day was still young and, without having any prior engagements until the afternoon, he made his way to the diner. He was in no rush for he was expecting to consume his lunch there and he had just eaten breakfast. Jacob wanted to see the town and everything it was made of—the people, the buildings, and the businesses. A general store was positioned close to his motel and he decided to have a look around the place.
Inside, shelves upon shelves of canned goods and packaged items littered the store. A few refrigerators stood by the sides of the walls, cooling odd amounts of beverages. Behind the register, a young boy around seventeen stood unloading boxes of cigarettes with his hat tilting slightly to the side. Behind him, an old radio was screaming out the latest hits and he was slowly bobbing his head to the beat as he stocked the shelves. The boy paid no attention to Jacob as he went through the rows of items to the back wall.
He was looking for some necessities that he may need at the motel during his stay. Around the back wall, deodorants, shampoos, toothpastes, and soaps were lined up for the customer’s consumption. Jacob looked through the collection and found his preferences. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the same cashier coming in from outside, carrying a box of cigarettes. Although, he hadn’t seen the boy come past him to enter the back rooms, and he could clearly hear the boy still stacking the cigarettes in the front of the store. He shook his head and rubbed his eyes before looking again. There can’t be two of the same person, can there? Jacob asked himself.
The boy went to walk past him when a breeze or something like a breeze tore through the aisle and caused the eerie image to evaporate into the air. Jacob blinked hard for a few seconds, looked around at the surrounding aisles, and headed towards the exit. On the sidewalk, the sun was beating down heavily on the people walking and browsing along the square. The glare of the sun’s rays was blinding as he stepped onto the hot concrete. Looking along the rows of little hole in the wall stores, he saw a used book store. They had always amused Jacob as a boy for he had had an odd obsession with books.
Shrugging his shoulders and shoving his sun glasses on, he walked into “Stack O Books: Used Bookstore.” The smell of incense and musty papers filled his nostrils the moment he stepped into the place, and a haze of dim lighting showered over him through giant stacks of old, worn-out books. He picked up an old copy of Moby Dick and began to skim through the pages. Jacob needed to erase the incident that had occurred in the general store. If I go nuts, what’s left out there for the rest of them? He thought to himself.
There were a few hunter green couches in a back room cluttered around a large shelf of rare works of literature. No one was in the room except for a brown tabby cat curled in one of the chairs sound asleep. Jacob sat down in a chair and looked at the feline for a few moments before positioning his right leg over his left and found a decent page to start reading.
Time had definitely drifted away from him as he sat there reading the classic. His watch seemed to have slowed down a bit, and the hands were going backwards instead of forwards. When he finally glanced at the time, he jumped up, scaring the tabby into a hissing fit, and placed the book back on the shelf where he had found it hours before. Lunch was about to be served at the diner; he had passed the whole morning away.
The red paint of the diner was glistening against the bright sun’s glare as Jacob neared the restaurant. He hoped Diana would give him eye contact—that would make his day if only she would look in his direction. Now, exactly where this attraction had come from was beyond Jacob. He didn’t fully understand the extent of it or where it would take him later in the future. He didn’t even care. She was beautiful and young—so much younger compared to him who was growing in years. Jacob hadn’t had an intense relationship for a long time. He had almost forgotten what it felt like to hold a woman in his arms.
He sighed and strutted into Pete’s Diner. The place was almost completely empty except for a few old women carrying out some daily gossip while consuming their lunches that only embellished on their hips and thighs. He took a booth that contained a window overlooking the street. Even though deep down Jacob never wanted to witness his earlier experience over again, he found himself hoping to see the same occurrence out on the streets. Surely, it just didn’t happen indoors.
“What’d ya like?” A woman’s voice asked, breaking his daze.
Turning swiftly, he replied, “Umm…I’ll take a cup of coffee.”
The waitress was Diana, but he failed to realize it. His mind was too torn between the past and the current reality. He continued looking out the window and shortly afterwards she walked away, puzzled.
Outside, a truck was loading some tanks of gasoline onto its bed. Two boys around fifteen were helping an older man, who looked to be their grandfather, carry the items. As he looked closely, he could see their hands blur from being focused—to being unfocused. It was like turning knobs on a microscope or on binoculars. Through one angle the object looked real and crystal clear, yet when turning the head the same object blurred and became incoherent to the eyes. To Jacob, it appeared as though there was a snag in time where the movement became stuck in the past movements so that…the action lived on. Shaking his head, he looked down at the plastic menu that was positioned on the table.
Inside the diner, all was quiet. Jacob realized that compared to yesterday Pete’s Diner was dead. The kitchen was unusually easy, and the waitresses were sitting at the bar drinking cups of coffee. He looked back out the window; the old man and the two boys were no longer along the side of the street. He sighed. A few minutes later, Diana came back carrying his coffee and positioned herself across the table from him.
“Are you alright, Jacob?” She asked, looking deep into his eyes.
“Yes, I’m fine. Why do you ask?”
“Well, you look as though you’ve seen something similar to a ghost.”
He shrugged a little and drew his attention to the sidewalk outside, “Maybe I did.”
She tried to smile but it didn’t quite make it.
“It doesn’t take as long as it used to for strangers to notice it anymore,” she said in a low voice to herself.
Jacob turned swiftly and asked, “Doesn’t take what?”
“Oh, nothing…it’s nothing. I’ve said too much, I guess. Pete’s always telling me to keep my mouth shut. We need the business that we get from tourists out here,” Diana said.
He blew air out of his mouth, sipped his coffee, and turned his head away from her.
Staring at the sun reflecting off of the glass window, he said, “Why does everyone here appear to be keeping a secret? I saw some rather strange occurrences this morning and I would like to know what the hell they were. But in this god forsaken town, which I’m almost sure that it is, something is fucked up—I know that much.”
Diana didn’t speak for sometime. She stared at Jacob and the way his eyes were burning with a mysterious desire for knowledge.
“You know, I’ve lived in Apparition Valley ever since I was a little girl. I’ve seen good times and I’ve seen the bad times that take place in small towns like this. I suppose that’s when it all started. No one really knows what caused it; it just happened. The funny thing was that none of us found it weird. We immediately became accustomed to it.”
Jacob frowned.
“What is this “it” you’re referring to?”
She let out a laugh and didn’t say anything afterwards.
“What? You can’t tell me?” He asked of her.
“I could tell you but you may not understand.”
“Try me.”
She looked down at the marble table.
“The “ghosts” are not really ghosts. I used to think that they were until they started to be those of people who were still running around—living. I refer to it as “it,” because the only word one can use is “past.”
The waitress quit speaking briefly.
“This town brings a whole new meaning to the phrase, “The past can haunt you.” And, Jacob, in Apparition Valley, that’s exactly what it does,” she said, strongly.

__________________
You're the prince of my nightmares,
My love of curses and pain;
Addiction is too harsh,
To remove the crimson bloodstain.

PAGEMASTER

I may've missread it but when Jacob borrowed Diana's cell phone and called the garage, how did he get the number? And the same question goes for when Diana rung Jacob in his room?

To me Jacob seems a little forward, I mean he likes Diana, but when she asks if he's okay he feels comfortable enough to tell her that he believes something in this town is 'fucked up'. Perhaps it's just his personality.

I enjoyed it though, struggled to understand a couple of parts, but a good read.

Gardensway16

Well, I have updated a sentence to clarify your first question, Pagemaster. I hope it now makes sense. Concerning the second, it wouldn't be very hard to find someone's phone number if they're staying at a motel, the only motel, in a small town. She would have simply called the motel and found the number from there.
Also, stating how comfortable Jacob feels around Diana, have you ever met someone for the first time and felt like you've known them all your life? Where there's a sense of comfort and openess immediately? Well, that's more or less how their relationship is.
Thank you for commenting and I hope you understand those sections now.

__________________
You're the prince of my nightmares,
My love of curses and pain;
Addiction is too harsh,
To remove the crimson bloodstain.