Only God Knows

When she was fifteen, she rode the school bus home, leaving behind walks to the burger joint with friends and gatherings in someone’s bedroom to experiment with new lipsticks or hairdos.

Instead she trudged up the bus steps, made her way down the aisle to the back seat where she would immerse herself in other worlds for the next half-hour. She’d explore unknown worlds where teenaged suitors were cast out when they accidently clanged a spoon against their teeth while eating ice cream. 

She tried to imagine such a life, where girls went to college before marrying the handsome law student. Or maybe became a nurse or missionary and went to unknown dangerous places to minister to the needy.

One summer she convinced her parents to let her work at the Little Chef drive-in where she put potatoes through the French fry slicer and helped the dishwasher. Rarely, she was allowed to work the front counter, mixing vanilla Cokes and clipping burger orders on the cook’s wheel.

It didn’t last, of course, cause the owner found out she hadn’t picked out the rotten potatoes before sending them through the cutter. “No one told me to,” she countered but it didn’t save her job. Back to being on the outside looking in wasn’t too bad. Her best friend got to use the family car and drove everyone to the drive-in for fries and Cokes. 

Chance accounts for more than planning can ever accomplish. On a warm Saturday afternoon two young airmen decide to cruise the Little Chef. Bored or feeling lucky or just being friendly, they chat up the girls in the next car. One of them asks her to go to the movies and she says yes, but only if her parents agree. They don’t of course. He’s 21, an adult, in the Air Force, and from New York. God knows what that could lead to.