Mary's Diner by Makenzie Miller

Mary’s Diner

Jerry’s stroll turned into a brisk walk as he rounded the corner of 37^th and Fleming. The letters of the “Mary’s Diner” sign shone in front of him like a neon beacon- beckoning him like the open arms of an old friend. Jerry was thankful that there was never anyone around at this time of night to see what he knew to be an unusual sight: a seventy year-old man walking alone at two o’clock in the morning in the bad part of town. This shame always faded quickly, though, as he neared the nondescript building ahead.

To any passerby, Mary’s looked like a run-down, abandoned fifties diner. And it truly was on the outside. The once white walls were now tinted brown from years of accumulated grime. Large pieces of ply-wood hid the windows that wrapped around the building and had become canvases for graffiti. What little of the red trim that was not covered by this rotting wood was chipped and faded. Even the shiny, metal accents that characterized diners of this era had become dull and worn. Mary’s was just one of many buildings in this town that had seen better days.

Jerry, however, knew all too well that the building’s façade was misleading. Only the neon sign that seemed to be eternally lit gave any indication of the magical interior of Mary’s Diner.

*

Linda could not help but stare at her husband across the booth as he gorged himself with sausage and eggs. She always forgot how handsome he was when she had first met him. Thick, brown hair, an angled jaw, lips that puckered just slightly, and those hazel eyes- it was no wonder she had been so enthralled with Tom when they dated in high school. Of course, that was years ago and more than just her husband’s looks had declined since then. With every year of marriage, Tom seemed to acquire another undesirable trait, making their relationship all the more unbearable. Mary’s was the only place Linda could stand to be around him anymore.

Linda would never forget the night she and Tom had discovered Mary’s Diner. They had gotten lost on the way to one of Tom’s annual Christmas parties, thank goodness, and were arguing about what to do when the both noticed the neon sign of the diner to their left. Despite the building’s decrepit exterior, they decided to go take a look.

Linda nearly fell backward when, to her amazement, the door easily swung open to reveal a lively fifties diner. It looked just like the ones she and Tom had frequented as teenagers. The checkered floors, the red upholstery, the kitschy decorations, everything. It was more than just the décor, though, that was authentic. The people were, too. Everyone in the diner looked like they had been copied and pasted right out of a Google Image search for “diner”. It wasn't until she looked at her husband that Linda realized she and Tom had been transformed, too. Their skin was flawless, their hair was no longer gray, and they both looked to be about twenty pounds lighter. They had somehow physically changed back into their teenage selves.

The remainder of that night proceeded like a dream. She and Tom spent the night at the diner like they used to when they were in high school- drinking milkshakes, listening to Nat King Cole, and forgetting about their troubles. Linda was convinced it was all a dream when she woke up in the morning, until Tom told her about the same “dream” he had. Another trip to Mary’s that night confirmed that it, in fact, was not a dream.

Now, Mary’s Diner had become their weekly ritual- their scheduled escape from reality. Even if was only for a few hours, Linda could forget about her awful life, her awful marriage. Even if she knew it was the same old Tom behind that handsome face, she could pretend that he really was he a teenager, that she really was happy, that she really loved her husband.

*

Gus stood behind the grill, admiring the sizzle of the hamburger patties as he flipped them. He looked up at the tickets to double check the orders. Two cheeseburgers, check. One omelet, check. One fried egg with a side of hash browns, check. Despite the chaos of the kitchen, Gus could always keep the orders in order. After all, he had been working in the kitchen at Mary’s for nearly fifteen years now. He loved the feeling of control he had behind the grill and he found comfort in the fact that he always knew what to do, that there were never any surprises. At Mary’s, it was always December 12, 1956, Gus was always his thirty-something-year-old self, and there were always mouths to feed.

It was Gus’s need for this stability that had led him to Mary’s in the first place. After losing his job and his wife shortly thereafter, Gus was desperate for some kind of constant in his life. It was on one of his daily job hunts that Gus spotted the seemingly abandoned diner. Though the place looked long out of business, the neon sign, lit up in the broad daylight, intrigued him. Just one pull on the door had exposed that the old diner was much more than it appeared to be.

It took Gus all but an hour inside Mary’s to decide that whatever was going on here, he wanted to be a part of it. He signed on as a cook that day and had returned every day since.

It had been easy to catch on to the routine at Mary’s and even easier to maintain it after all these years. Gus saw the same faces every week through the cutout in the kitchen wall above the grill. There was rarely ever an unfamiliar face in the crowd. Even when there was a new arrival, they weren't strangers for long. If there was one thing Gus had learned in all these years, it was that once people came to Mary’s Diner, they were there to stay.

It was just as rare to see people stop coming to Mary’s. On occasion, a waitress or a busboy would simply stop showing up to work, but there was always a new person that would come in, ready to fill in the gaps.

*

                Jerry stared down at the last sip of coffee at the bottom of his mug, trying his best to delay the inevitable. He came to Mary’s every night, but leaving never got any easier. In fact, it seemed to get harder.

            That was the odd thing about Mary’s- it made you feel like you had an obligation to it. For Jerry, these feelings always conjured up memories of the mutualistic relationships he had learned about in high school Biology, how two organisms interacted in such a way that both benefited individually. Mary’s worked the same way: the diner provided people with a way to escape reality and, in return, these people kept Mary’s thriving.

            When Jerry finally finished the last of his coffee, he placed the mug delicately on the table, put on his coat, and walked slowly toward the door, taking in as much of this world as he could before he crossed that threshold back to reality.

Rather than heading straight home like he normally did, however, Jerry walked across the street, sat on a bench, and watched as people went in and out of the diner. He studied the people, all old and elderly, like him, as they excitedly opened the door and disappeared inside.  And he watched as these same people left the diner, often looking notably sadder than when they arrived.

As Jerry stared at the few people in the world that shared his secret, he wondered if there would ever come a day when the doors to Mary’s Diner would be locked, if those neon letters would ever flicker out. But he knew they never would. Mary’s thrived off people like Jerry. People whose lives had fallen apart, people who had nothing and no one to care about, people who needed to turn back time just to live.