Originalfic_LAS Challenge 9
I did okay in the Stargate voting, but I came through this challenge only by the skin of my teeth. And I actually thought this was the better story of the two. I wonder if it's partly an age thing - as most of my original stories have been about adults, some of them about seniors (as in senior citizens, not seniors in high school or college). The LAS communities tend to have a younger audience, I think. OTOH, the SG-1 story was (a) more humorous and (b) Sam & Cassie (winning combo, right?) :D
Open to concrit if you're willing.
Story Title: It's Now or Never
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
When I first saw you
With your smile so tender
My heart was captured,
My soul surrendered
I’d spend a lifetime
Waiting for the right time
Now that you’re near
The time is here at last.
Just like a willow
We would cry an ocean
If we lost true love
And sweet devotion
Your lips excite me,
Let your arms invite me
For who knows when
We’ll meet again this way.
Chorus
It’s now or never,
Come hold me tight
Kiss me my darling
Be mine tonight
Tomorrow will be too late.
It’s now or never
My love won’t wait
The Elvis Presley song played in the background, and Dolores hummed along unconsciously as she wiped down tables after the pre-dawn, on-the-road, breakfast crowd. Her white-streaked red hair was pulled back in a tidy French roll; the pale-yellow truckstop waitress uniform - still size 8, even at sixty - didn’t serve her complexion well, but she wore minimal make-up to counteract it. Though the years had etched themselves onto her face, her indomitable spirit shone through.
The local regulars hadn’t arrived at the truckstop yet and wouldn’t for another half hour or so. Dolores’ daughter Lucy might beat them in if she came on time for once after dropping her grandkids at school. Lucy had taken in her daughter’s three kids when their mother abandoned them for her latest drug-dealing boyfriend. Dolores and Lucy had waited tables here their whole adult lives.
Currently only one lone truck driver sat nursing a cup of coffee in the last booth.. He looked a bit old to drive long haul. Not too many guys over sixty drove kidney-buster routes, so she figured he was a new local or intermediate man. That he lollygagged at the truck stop for an hour stirred her curiosity more than most.
Dolores felt his eyes on her, though when she looked his way, he stared into his cup and the brim of his well-worn Cubs hat obscured his face. Working her way in his direction, she tried to strike up a conversation.
“New in the area?”
He nodded but said nothing. His eyes riveted on her name tag; at least she thought so. Could be her breasts, she supposed, but Dolores doubted her breasts had attracted a man’s undivided attention in years.
“Can I warm that up for ya?” she asked, hands on hips and head tilted to the right. When he dipped his head, Dolores came back with the pot. While pouring, she asked, “So will we see you regular from now on?”
“Thanks. I hope so.” The way he said it, almost prayer-like to Dolores’ mind, gave her pause, but when he said nothing more, she swiveled to return the pot to the burner. Just as Lucy wandered in at the other end of the diner, the man said, “That Elvis song played the last time we met. You wore a blue dress with white polka dots and a matching bow in your hair, and after we danced, we did just what the song said. Do you remember, Dodie?”
Dolores froze in her tracks, coffee pot in hand. Lucy had hung her coat and tied on her apron in the time she stood there, and now her daughter stared at her with concern.
No one had called Dolores “Dodie” in years. Not since she quit high school, went to work at the truck stop after her Daddy kicked her out for getting knocked up and had Lucy The owner had had her full name printed on her name tag, and that’s what everyone called her from that day forward.
As Lucy walked toward her, Dolores slid onto the first counter stool, her back still to him. She held onto the pot with her right hand and stared into space. With her left hand she fingered a locket hanging at her collar. When Lucy came up beside her, she put a hand on Dolores’ shoulder and asked if she was okay. Dolores finally sighed, stood up, and straightened her apron.
“Lucy, meet your father.” With that, Dolores left the pot, grabbed Lucy’s coat on the way out the front door, and huddled under the overhang outside. She pulled a lighter and a packet of Marlboros out of the pocket and, tapping one cigarette out of the pack, pulled it out and lit it with shaking hands. Through the large diner windows, she could see Lucy staring at her with an open mouth - a feminine version of her father’s expression.
Dolores hadn’t smoked in years, had quit cold turkey. Lucy hadn’t managed to kick the habit despite patches and gum. Seeing her mother light up after forty years might do it, though. Dolores choked and coughed and finally threw the cigarette down and stomped on it. Apparently, Lucy felt better about that and turned her attention to the man in the booth. Dolores watched them talk for a few minutes, and then Lucy came out.
“He wanted to find you. Said, ‘It’s now or never.’ Sounded like he might be dying. I thought you said my father *had* died.” Lucy shivered, her prematurely-grayed-and-now-dyed-ridiculous-red spiky hair ruffling in the breeze. She had inherited her mother’s slim build and, except for the recent bout of hot flashes, usually felt the cold easily. Out of motherly habit, Dolores relinquished the coat to her.
“What was I supposed to say?”
“How about the truth?”
“I met a man I thought was the ONE. He left.” Dolores shrugged. Apparently Lucy’s daughter came by the abandonment gene honestly.
Dolores saw two of the regulars pull in and ushered Lucy inside to avoid discussing it publicly. Inside, she found a twenty on the table along with a phone number on a slip of paper; she put both in her pocket. Lucy’s father had slipped out the back, Cookie said.
“Sounds like him,” Dolores mumbled. She *was* curious about what had happened to him over the years, but would she call him? Certainly not ‘now’ and maybe ‘never’.