LOGAN AND SAMANTHA RODE THEIR tandem bike from the cabin two miles outside Yellow Springs to Donna’s Diner. In a t-shirt, jeans, and work boots, Logan steered toward the parking lot. The humidity didn’t seem to affect Sam behind him.
In an oversized zippered hoodie, his wife smiled up at him with her mesmerizing eyes, one green and the other cobalt blue. He adored that grin and the freckles across her face. Wearing sandals and shorts, she hid her four-month baby bump.
They wanted to keep the secret for as long as possible. The gossip chain in their rural town was expansive. Since their notoriety last summer, they fiercely protected their privacy.
Stopping next to the other bikes on the sunny day, they headed for the diner. “I hope the smells don’t make me barf,” Sam said.
“The books say you shouldn’t have morning sickness anymore.” He had gotten the books at the library in Sebright, the next town over. Their doctor was also in Sebright, giving them slightly more privacy.
“So, because you read it in a book, you’re dismissing what I’m feeling?”
He winced. It wasn’t the first time she’d said it. “I’m just saying, the morning sickness should stop soon.”
Pausing on the sidewalk, she put her hands on her hips. “Well, I’m sorry I still have it, morning, noon, and night.” Tearing up, she stormed toward the diner.
He sighed and followed. Crying over anything and everything seemed to be the biggest issue for her. The books never said how to combat these symptoms. Just hormones, he thought. When she turned and glared at him, he smiled innocently. Is reading minds a pregnancy superpower?
He held the door open for her then held his breath. Depending on the smells, they may stay or immediately leave. He hoped they would stay, since they were supposed to be meeting his co-worker, Jack Parker, for lunch.
He and Jack had lunch a few times in Sebright where Jack lived, but Jack suggested meeting them in Yellow Springs. This was the first time Samantha would be joining them.
Logan waited for his wife to decide. She nodded as Donna, the diner’s new owner, waved them to a square table in the corner away from the bakery counter of breads, donuts, and muffins. Logan ignored the old-fashioned diner motif of plastic red-and-white checkered tablecloths with black-and-white pictures on the walls.
With the air conditioning on high, Sam shivered as she slid onto the chair. One minute she was hot; another, cold. His strict military background had a hard time adjusting to her random symptoms that seemed to change within a heartbeat. Not quite a war zone where his quick reflexes were needed. Although, some days …
“Just the two of you today?” Donna asked.
“One more,” Logan replied.
She set down three menus. “Let’s see. Coke for the major. Iced tea for you, Ms. Sam?”
“Yes, please,” she said. Donna nodded, then grabbed the dirty dishes from the table next to them.
“Caffeine?” he asked. As soon as he said it, he wished he hadn’t.
“Your drink has it, too,” she replied as one of her five-year-old dance students, wearing a rainbow tutu over a green shirt and orange shorts, approached her. “Emma, are you ready for dance classes to start?”
Emma nodded and did a quick ball-chain to prove it. “I’ve been practicing all summer.”
With her long blond hair in a high, tight ponytail, Emma’s overly tan mom stood behind her. “She sure has. Tapping from dusk ’til dawn on our hardwood floors.”
Sam laughed. “I can’t wait to see how you’ve progressed.”
Emma beamed and gave Sam a brief hug. “See you soon,” Emma said, taking her mother’s hand.
Logan lowered his voice as Emma and her mother left the restaurant. “Are you up for teaching?” Her classes were scheduled to start in two weeks.
“It’s my job, and I enjoy it.” She sat back as Donna set their drinks on the table.
“We’ll order when Jack gets here,” Logan said. Donna nodded, then rushed away to help the customers in line at the bakery counter.
“Logan, will you stop being overly protective? I’m not the first woman to have a baby.”
“You’re the first woman to have my baby.”
She snorted. “I’d better be.”
He patted her hand as Jack approached their table, smoothing down the baggy t-shirt on his thin frame. Logan smiled that Jack had a fresh haircut and clean shave. He had looked forward to meeting Sam.
Logan stood and shook Jack’s sweaty hand. “I’m glad you made it. Sam, this is Jack Parker. Jack, my wife.”
“Nice to finally meet you,” Sam said. “Have a seat.”
“Thanks,” Jack replied, easing down onto the chair as if afraid he’d miss it and fall on the floor.
“Logan tells me you’re a hi-lo driver at the distribution center. My dad let me drive one once. I backed into one of the five-foot-high shelves at the base. I knocked over four of them like a domino chain reaction.”
Jack laughed. “It takes practice.”
“Jack’s maneuvering is second nature. A skill and talent,” Logan added.
Seeming uncomfortable with the compliment, Jack bounced his knee under the table. He played with the corner of his menu. “I met your father once,” Jack said to Sam.
“Really? When?” Sam asked.
Oh, boy, Logan thought. Anytime Sam’s father, General Steven Randall, was brought up, Sam teared up and cried, full-on snot sobs. She still missed him. Going on three years now.
“He came to the high school here in Yellow Springs when I was a freshman, and talked about how tough it is to distinguish between right from wrong.” He set his hands on his lap and rubbed his damp palms on his jeans. “I should have listened better.”
“Hey,” Logan said, “you made mistakes and made amends.”
Jack looked over at Sam. “He told you I sold drugs and did time?”
With pen and pad, Donna stopped at their table. After writing down their order of burgers and a Coke for Jack, she quickly left as more people lined up at the bakery counter.
“He did,” Sam said, “and he also told me you got your GED while there. That, to me, takes dedication, because you have to learn everything on your own.” She unzipped her hoodie, then put her hands around her glass of iced tea. She used the condensation around the glass to cool her face.
Jack sat up straighter and nodded. “I still read a lot of different books.”
“That’s great,” Logan said, happy to hear Jack speaking positively about his life these days.
“Wait. You went to high school here?” Sam asked, leaning forward, her belly hiding under the table.
“Yeah, for a while,” Jack said.
“Did you ever have Mr. Smith for English?” Sam asked, sliding her fingers into the sleeves of her hoodie.
Logan noticed that, in just a few seconds, her body radiated heat then shivered from a chill. I don’t understand it at all.
“Yeah,” Jack said, “he loved Shakespeare. I hated reading those plays aloud in class.”
Sam laughed and turned to Logan. “He’d split up the parts to everyone in class and then we’d read it like putting on the play from our desks.”
Grinning, Jack nodded. “I liked Mr. Miller for science. He showed us all these cool experiments. He once had us repeat the animal classifications over and over until we had them memorized. I still remember: kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species.”
“Family, genus, species,” she finished with him. “Me, too, and all the girls had crushes on him.”
“Did you?” Logan asked, enjoying their memories. Much different than his high school experience.
“Of course; he was cute. Jack, did you have Mr. Bale for P.E. in middle school?”
“Oh, yeah, he was so mean. I ran so many laps,” Jack said.
Nodding, Sam turned again to Logan. “Mr. Bale made us play cutthroat dodgeball, a mix of boys and girls on each team. The boys whipped the balls so hard I had bruises. The losing team had to run laps up and down the bleachers all the way around the gym.”
“Wow, it sounds a lot like Bear when I was in basic training,” Logan added. Barrett worked this scrawny kid hard.
Donna and her teen waitress-in-training set their food in front of them. Sam took a big, juicy bite of her cheeseburger. Rolling her eyes, it appeared she was savoring it. Hesitant at first, Jack saw Sam eating with gusto then dug into his. Logan focused on his food as well, giving them a lull in the conversation.
The diner still had a line all the way to the door for the baked goods, and every table remained occupied. Since the change in ownership, the diner became the most popular place for locals. Sam seemed to like the smell of greasy grilled burgers and fresh bread. Thank God.
Jack wiped his mouth. “So did you have a good vacation in D.C.?” Jack asked, before sipping his Coke.
“Yeah, it was good seeing my mother and stepfather,” Sam said.
Logan nodded. “Sam’s mother, Martha, is married to the Russian Ambassador, Dmitri Demas.”
Martha had been over the moon to learn that Samantha was pregnant. Dmitri was even more excited. He’d always had a tender spot for Sam. He loved her as his own. Although Sam had chosen to live with her father in Yellow Springs, she had spent part of her summers growing up in D.C.
“Oh, wow, that’s cool,” Jack said. “Do you know Russian?”
“A few words,” she said. “My mother speaks it fluently. In fact, they’re flying to Russia in a couple days to visit Dmitri’s mother and his sisters.”
“I always wanted to travel,” Jack said, looking at his plate as if surprised it was empty.
“Where would you like to go?” Logan asked, eating his last French fry.
“Anywhere away from here. A fresh start where nobody knows me.”
Before Logan could add his own fantasy getaway, Jack glanced at the front entrance and stiffened. Their relaxing lunch suddenly held a truckload of tension. Sam must have felt it, too. She looked to where Jack was staring. Officer George Biggs, in his mid-fifties, stood in the long line.
Logan had heard Barrett and a few others call him “Biggie,” and understood it referred just as much to his hefty girth as it did his last name. Biggs had joined the police force in Yellow Springs the previous year, giving the town a total of three cops. Logan knew all of this because the gossip chain usually started with Barrett.
Biggs surveyed the room. His eyes stopped at Jack and their table before scanning the rest of the packed diner.
“You haven’t done anything wrong,” Logan said, hoping to ease Jack’s obvious anxiety of law enforcement.
“I know,” Jack said, looking away.
Clearly impatient, Officer Biggs skipped the line and walked straight up to the counter, demanding his order. Irked at Biggs’s attitude, Logan narrowed his eyes. The young waitress-in-training quickly put his order in a bag. Biggs walked out without paying. When he left, all the tension in the room seemed to leave with him. Jack appeared to relax.
“Entitled jerk,” Sam said, tearing up. “Did you see the way he intimidated that poor girl? That makes me so angry.” She balled her hands into fists.
Jack nodded but remained silent. Sam’s maternal instincts must have kicked in. She had become motherly to anyone younger than herself. The teen waitress qualified.
Logan took their bill and slid back his chair. “I’ll be right back.”
He found the spot at the end of the line while Sam and Jack chatted. By the time he got to the counter, the teenage girl returned from the back. Next to her, Donna reassured her. Logan paid and signed the tip on his credit card. He then slipped twenty dollars into the teen’s tip jar next to the register.
Her eyes widened. “Thank you.”
Logan nodded and met his wife and Jack by the entrance. He hoped the teen would focus on the tip rather than on Biggs’s rudeness.
Sam stopped outside the door. “Jack, we’re grilling steaks tomorrow. Would you like to join us?”
Jack smiled. “At your house?”
Sam laughed. “Well, yeah, that’s where our grill is.”
“Sure, and thanks for lunch,” he said, holding out his hand to shake Sam’s. Instead, she gave him a brief hug. Seeming surprised by the gesture, he turned pink.
Logan set his hand on Jack’s shoulder. “See you at noon? You know where we live?”
Jack nodded, shaking Logan’s hand. “Everyone knows where you live.”
They watched Jack walk to his dirty white Olds Cutlass in the parking lot. Sam took Logan’s hand as families passed them on the sidewalk.
“That went well,” Logan said, squeezing her hand. “I didn’t know we were grilling tomorrow.”
“I’m craving more meat like a thick, juicy steak,” Sam said.
“I must have sympathy pains. I crave that, too. And I’m kinda hungry for ice cream now.”
“You’ve read my mind,” she said, smiling.
The Eclectic World of Christina 