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Ernie thinks he’s been told that he’ll be inheriting the diner since the day he was born, and if it hasn’t been quite that long, it was probably the day after.
For years, the thought was okay with him. When he was little, filling salt shakers and reminding himself to be careful-careful when he got the chance to lift the occasional plate onto a table as tall as he was, it was the only future he could imagine. But now, halfway through being a junior in high school, he sees the sorts of things his classmates are planning, all that they get to do and choose and find out about themselves, and suddenly what he has waiting for him doesn’t seem like enough, even though he knows that it represents two generations of effort and saving and love from his family.
Plus most of his classmates don't have to work the early shift before school starts.
“Thank you for a lovely breakfast,” Miss Carter tells him one morning, thankfully coming over to pay for her meal just in time to rescue him from having to clean up the catsup spill at the corner four-top.
Miss Carter is a regular. He has the feeling that she’s either real busy, or doesn’t have a clue about how to cook, or maybe both - she’s in for either breakfast or dinner more often than not. She’s pretty, polite, always more put together than she needs to be for the job she says she has at the phone company. Sometimes she seems a little sad, gazing into her teacup or sighing to herself without even seeming to realize it, but he’s also seen her confront a kid who’d stolen a tip off one of the tables, looking ready to flip him over her shoulder as she waited for him to put the money down and cough up some extra too.
Ernie likes Miss Carter, but he’d never want to cross her.
“You have a good day, ma’am,” he says, dropping the pair of quarters into the register (and putting her tip into his own pocket). “Hope it’s not too busy for you.”
She laughs. “I’ll hope that for all our sakes. When things become busy for me, it usually indicates more trouble than I think anyone would like.” Picking up her briefcase, she adds, “But as far as I’m aware, it should be quite uneventful: just paperwork on the docket, and then I’ll be back this evening.”
“Enjoy your paperwork, then,” Ernie tries joking shyly. It earns a light laugh, but afterward, as he hangs up his apron and runs water through his hair to get ready for school, he wonders if it was just out of pity.
“Stupid,” he mutters to himself. He never knows what to say around Miss Carter; one of these days he'll learn to keep his mouth shut.
She doesn’t come back for dinner like she said she would. The tables are jam-packed all evening and Ernie’s so run off his feet that he doesn’t even notice.
Just before he falls asleep, he does remember what she said and wonder if this means there’s some big problem that she has to take care of, but then he puts it out of his mind, rolling over.
If the world’s ending, maybe he'll at least get a chance to sleep in.
Miss Carter isn’t there for breakfast either, and this time Ernie’s not the only one who notices. His mama and pops have always said that one of the advantages of owning a “community establishment” like theirs is getting to know and care about people and having them feel the same for you. Ernie’s never quite believed in that - people coming up to loudly tell him that his skin is finally clearing has never felt quite like caring to him - but now he understands just a little. When his sister Luella says that she hopes that everything’s fine over with Miss Carter, he agrees with perhaps too much vehemence.
She finally comes back for dinner, and he’s taking in a breath to shout back for a cup of tea (Miss Carter has a regular breakfast order, but she likes a hot drink while she picks something out on the dinner menu) when he notices that she’s not alone.
Miss Carter has come in with a friend every so often in the past, mostly a tall, beaky sort of man with an accent that matches hers, and a brunette lady who acted fancy, sticking out her pinky and all, but tipped real well. A few times it was with a cheerful redhead who had a different sort of accent, one Ernie didn’t recognize, or a handsome, dark-haired man who used a crutch and watched Miss Carter closely. Once she even came in with Howard Stark, the inventor. Ernie recognized him from the papers and almost went over to say hello or ask for an autograph, but he was too familiar with the signs of hangover to try it; he made sure to be extra quick sending coffee to their table instead.
(Mr. Stark has a great mustache up close, though. If Ernie could grow one, that’s the kind he’d want, but at last glance into the side of the toaster he has barely half a dozen struggling hairs on his upper lip.)
This man isn’t someone Ernie recognizes, and he can tell immediately that he’s not just a friend. His hand is wrapped so tightly around Miss Carter’s that Ernie can only think about the two trees out on his granny’s property which have been growing around each other for so many years they finally fused together. When Miss Carter points out her regular booth, there’s a moment where Ernie thinks she isn’t going to even let the man go to sit facing her. Eventually she does, but they lean over the tabletop so that they’re nearly touching, and her gaze on him is so intense, so full of love and pain that Ernie turns to go make Luella take their order instead.
“Uh-uh!” she whispers and swishes over to go top off coffee cups that she'd just refilled five minutes ago.
Ernie stands up straight, taking out his pad like it's armor. As he walks over, he tries to imagine the least awkward way of clearing his throat.
He doesn’t achieve it one bit (it comes out as an “A-HEM,” like Patty Francona’s dad when he found them standing together talking on the porch after their one and only date) but the two of them are too wrapped up to notice.
“What can I get you folks this evening?” he asks, the automatic patter helping steady him.
“I’m not certain yet, Ernie,” Miss Carter says, finally looking up at him, polite as usual, though her voice is soft as heartbreak. “We might need just another moment to get our bearings.”
“Take your time,” Ernie responds, quick with relief, and hightails it back to the counter.
When the two of them finally pick something, it’s a couple orders of franks and spaghetti, which Ernie’s never known Miss Carter to eat. He’s actually not known very many people to pick that off the menu. It’s like they just put a finger down and decided at random. Luella makes a face when Vince, the short order cook, adds the franks on top.
“Hope they enjoy,” she says dubiously as Ernie goes to take the food out front. Miss Carter and her companion have decided that they’d like it to go. As he rings them up, they both offer him tips at the same time. The looks they give each other are so soft and sappy that Ernie ends up practically shoving the bag of food at them before saying rapid and clipped, “You have a very pleasant evening now!”
“Thank you,” says Miss Carter, nearly sing-song. “I believe we shall.”
And she and her companion stride out arm in arm.
They start calling the man ‘Mr. Carter.’ While they might not know his actual name, he’s a regular now which means that they have to call him something.
Beyond his name and where he came from, there’s a lot of speculation as to what exactly happened between him and Miss Carter.
Vince, thoughtfully cleaning the grill, suggests that maybe their families didn’t approve of them being together. “And he had to wait years and years until his parents died, but as soon as they did he raced back up here to see her.”
“No, he probably married another woman,” proposes Jean, the other evening waitress, looking at her reflection in the side of a napkin dispenser to make sure that her hat’s on straight. “Men are fickle like that, you know. Forget a girl as soon as their eyes are closed. So she’s just been pining away all these years, waiting for him to realize that they belong together, and he finally got divorced and looked her up. But a man like that, he'll be gone in another blink, that's for certain.”
From her place swinging her legs atop the counter, Luella scoffs, “As if she would ever pine. No, I’ll bet they were just about to get married and then he tripped over a sewer grate and hit his head and lost all of his memories and is only just getting them back.” She sighs. “The first thing he remembered about his old life was probably her.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Ernie says, giving up on trying to do his homework in the corner of the kitchen and entering the conversation fully. “You might as well say he was MIA from the war and finally came home, that’d be just as realistic.”
“The war was years ago,” Luella says, waving an irritated hand. “If someone suddenly came home now, it’d be a miracle. We’d have heard about it.”
Just to needle her, Ernie says, “Not if they’re spies. They’re probably both government agents and all their business has to be kept completely top secret!”
She just shakes her head, looking put upon, as if just entertaining his notions ages her ten years. “I have no idea where you come up with these things,” she says, and huffs out of the kitchen.
Whatever happened, Mr. and Miss Carter sure do look happy together. They come in for breakfast together more often than not, and dinner several nights a week too - apparently he's no cook either or is just as short on time.
(When Ernie mentions this observation to Vince, he gets a very huffy reminder that some people really do just prefer the food here.)
They laugh a lot across the table, and they're always touching. She'll swat at his shoulder while he gives a mischievous grin. He'll fold a little flower when they've finished with the newspaper and slide it gently behind her ear. They link their little fingers together on the tabletop so often that Ernie, bright red over the top of his notepad, has to pretend not to see it, and eventually he actually stops noticing it altogether.
Mr. Carter sometimes comes in for lunch on his own, but he's not there the Sunday afternoon when the radio starts acting up and people coming in report strange lightning strikes nearby. And Ernie doesn't see him or Miss Carter that evening, either, when there's an earthquake strong enough that the road ripples beneath the cars outside and concrete slides off of the surrounding buildings. In the diner, everyone's food shimmies off the table and splatters all over the floor.
Ernie stands there a minute after the shaking has stopped, staring around at the mess. The building itself is fine, and something in him isn't surprised that the place is still solidly standing.
"Get a move on," Luella urges, practically skating in gravy as she comes to hand him a mop. "All this isn't going to clean itself up!"
The Carters do show up again the next night, listening to the other regulars recounting the shock of what had happened. Considering they've spent the past few weeks practically sharing the same air, it's easy to notice the change between them. They're both perfectly civil to Ernie when he comes over to take their orders and deliver the food, but they speak to each other only occasionally and in undertones that seem taut even from where Ernie is standing.
A while later, he glances into the dining area on the way back to throw out the kitchen trash and notices that they’re no longer at their table. When he opens the outside door, however, he finds where they’ve gone.
“—putting yourself in danger!” Mr. Carter’s voice is low but harsh.
Miss Carter hisses, “As if you can talk,” with so much venom that Ernie almost steps back inside even though it wasn’t directed at him.
“Even if Delacroix had hit me, it wouldn’t have been fatal.” (Mr. Carter should have probably asked for some advice before trying that one, or at least rehearsed so it wouldn’t sound as flimsy.
The alley is dim, but even with the low light Ernie can see how her face twists. “If that’s the metric that we’re using, ‘will this certainly kill me?’ then I don’t—”
“And what about you?!” He hits back defensively. “You knew that Howard had said another minute for the power, and you jumped anyway. If he’d been ten seconds slower—”
“He wasn’t.” She seems to be trying to spit the words with her same vehemence, but it doesn’t quite work. Her arms are tightly crossed over her chest. “And had you been in the same position, you would have made the same decision, Steve, don’t act as if you wouldn’t have.”
“I know,” and with the simple words all the fight seems to go out of him. “I know. I would have. And one of the reasons I love you is that you would make the same choice. But Peggy—” He steps forward, arms held open, and though Ernie thinks he’s nuts for trying it, Miss Carter actually moves toward him too, letting her own arms drop and pressing herself against his chest.
“When I came back, it was because I wanted to get a chance at a life together. A good, long life,” he says, so softly into her hair that Ernie has to strain to hear it. “Which means that we have to, the both of us, take better care to make sure we last that long.”
“I suppose I can prioritize further recruitment of people we trust. With more hands, things might not get quite as...shaky as they did last night.”
Ernie wouldn’t have pegged Miss Carter as a fan of puns, but Mr. Carter just laughs. “I think Jarvis especially would appreciate it. He’s probably going to name his ulcer after us if we keep on like this.”
“You underestimate him,” Miss Carter remarks. “And you underestimate me. I would say I’ve earned the ulcer all on my own. Perhaps I shall grant you the gray hairs, however.”
“Generous of you.”
They’re both laughing together now, turning to come back inside. Ernie hastily hefts the trash bag and steps noisily into the alley.
“Oh!” he says, projecting surprise as hard as he can when he spots them (though the springing eyebrows might be a bit much). “Good evening there.”
“Hullo, Ernie,” says Miss Carter, patting his shoulder as they sail by. “Careful on the stones. Some of them seem to have come a bit loose after last night.”
He watches the way their silhouettes stay framed in the doorway for just a second, little fingers twined together once again, before he shakes his head and turns toward the dumpster.
He’d learned a lot more than he’d expected to tonight: that the Carters weren’t entirely perfect, that Mr. Carter was apparently called Steve, and that Miss Carter, no matter what she said, pretty certainly didn’t just work for the phone company.
Mr. Carter comes in by himself one quiet spring Saturday. (Ernie might know his name now, but in a thousand years, he doesn’t think he could bring himself just to call him by it. The most he might stammer out one day is “Mr. Steve, sir.”) He sits at the counter and asks Ernie for a root beer float, swiveling on the stool a bit and just thinking or drifting as he drinks it down.
“Say, we’ve been asking around,” he says once he’s finished and turned over a full dollar (“Keep the change,” and floats are only sixty cents!). “Do you happen to have old boxes in the back? Maybe crates left over from deliveries that you’re not using anymore?”
Ernie thinks as he takes his four dimes from the register and puts them in his pocket. “Maybe one or two. Do they have to be big?”
“It might make it easier. We’re using them to pack up the apartment, and we have some more stuff than we bargained for,” Mr. Carter explains.
Ernie tips back his hat. “Oh. Did you two get a new place?”
“We did, but not here. We’re moving out of state - Peggy needs to, for her new job. She’s actually at the office now, taking care of some last minute paperwork so the transition goes smoothly.” He’s smiling as he says it, really proud of her, but Ernie’s too distracted to pay much attention.
“I wish I could get out of state,” he says, the words bitterly out before he can stop them. Mr. Carter raises an eyebrow and sits back down on his stool, leaning over the counter.
“Why do you say that?”
“Well.” Ernie shoves his hands into his apron pocket, then rips them out to gesture around. “Look at this place!”
Mr. Carter actually takes him literally, glancing around at the linoleum Ernie’s mama swears she’s going to have replaced soon, the two- and four-tops with the salt and pepper shakers that have been in the diner since the day Ernie’s grandparents opened, the wooden booths which Luella is supposed to polish every week.
(They’re looking a little worn, actually. Maybe Ernie will mention that to his pops, just if it comes up, or if Luella does something annoying.)
“Looks like a pretty nice place to me,” Mr. Carter says, swinging back around. “And I’ve got some good memories from here. So I guess the question is why you don’t.”
Ernie says indignantly, “I do!” before he’s even realized it. His voice pitches up embarrassingly; he brings it down a purposeful octave and says, “I have plenty of good memories, I just don’t know that I want to stay working here forever.” He rubs a hand over his forehead, then rests his elbows on the counter across from Mr. Carter. “And the worst part is, if I had something else I wanted to do instead, my parents would try real hard to help that happen, but I don’t know that I want to do anything else. I just know that I’m not sure I want to do this. And heck, maybe I really do! What if I give up on this place and it turns out that I don’t like whatever else I try?”
Mr. Carter passes a hand over his mouth, considering. “Huh. Well, do you think your parents would let you take a year for yourself? Would they be able to run things without you while you traveled a little, took some classes, worked a couple of jobs, just to see what’s out there?”
“Maybe?” They’ve never talked about anything like that. He’s never even asked, afraid that the answer would be that it’s impossible, the family can’t swing it, can’t make things work without him.
“That’s my advice for now,” Mr. Carter says. “Find out, and if it’s okay with your folks, take a year away, see how you feel. Sometimes you know how you want your life to turn out, and sometimes you need a little time to know, or to realize how much you want something.”
As if he hears something outside, he turns on his stool so he can see through the big front windows. Miss Carter is at the opposite corner walking toward them, glancing quickly back and forth before she crosses to enter the diner.
“The places that are home will still be that when you come back,” says Mr. Carter, turning to look meaningfully at Ernie one last time before he steps over to greet Miss Carter just as she opens the door.
A few years later, Ernie’s running a busy dinner shift. Half the staff is out with a cold, the remaining half can barely keep up with orders while also drying the floor so no one breaks their neck slipping in melting snow, and Ernie’s wondering how it always seems that Luella never has to work on these sorts of nights. It’s why he’d hesitated before agreeing to split managing with his sister when she finishes high school next year. That, and she’s been going on and on about “revolutionizing” the diner with what she’s planning on learning in the business classes she’s going to take at night school. Ernie doesn’t really need a revolution; there’s some charm in the idea that this place doesn’t change much.
The door opens with a gust and Ernie glances over the dining room to see if there’s even a free table. Then he looks back at who it is and decides that he’ll make one if he has to.
The Carters stand there, looking around with smiles on their faces. They’re each holding the hand of what must be a toddler, though it’s hard to tell considering how well-bundled that snowsuit keeps things.
“Welcome back,” Ernie says, trying to be careful not to slip himself as he hurries over to them. “It’s good to see you, Miss Carter, Mr. Carter.”
The words are out before he can stop them and he can feel his face flaming. “I’m sorry,” he manages. “Back then, we didn’t know—It’s just what we all—”
Mr. Carter just laughs. “That’s okay. It’s what I go by officially these days anyway,” and Ernie notices a wedding ring when Mr. Carter puts out his hand to shake.
“I’m glad to see you working tonight, but I’m still wondering: did you get a chance to figure out where home is?” Mr. Carter asks, and Ernie looks around at the linoleum they’ve finally gotten a chance to replace, at the salt and pepper shakers that he filled himself in the late quiet last night, at the booths which Luella keeps proprietarily shiny now that she’s “almost in charge.” He went to plenty of diners during his year away, and many even looked like this one, but none of the others felt like it, at least not to him.
“I did,” Ernie says. “Thank you.” He glances at the wedding ring on Mr. Carter’s hand, at Mrs. Carter, who’s leading the baby over to their old, surprisingly free booth. “I guess you found where home was too.”
Mr. Carter follows his gaze, taking in the scene. “I guess I did,” he says. His eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles. “I guess we all did.”
(And, Ernie decides, Jean can go suck an egg.)