The Snowstorm

Personal Yummy #84

“Hey, Shane,” Nick says, as he leans over the end of the bar and comfortably rests his forearms on top of it. “Are you the early-person-out tonight?”

Shane, busy doing his side work, stops with his hand buried inside a white plastic container of bright blue, yellow, and pink sugar and sweetener packets. He looks up expectantly. “Yeah, I sure am, Nick,” he replies.

“Well, why don’t you get going then? It’s nine—a little early—but there’s no use sticking around here any longer tonight.”

No argument there. Within minutes, Shane puts the plastic container back on its shelf near the kitchen, grabs his coat and scarf, says a quick “See you guys later,” and is out the door. As he passes by the front window, I can’t help but admire his silky blond hair glistening in the prancing snowflakes.

About fifteen minutes later, Mary Ellen strides lazily out of the kitchen, her apron jumbled in her hand. “It’s dead in here,” she says, stopping with her knee bent and her hip jutted to the side, glancing at me as I sit on a stool at the bar, my head resting in my hands, and at Nick, as he counts a stack of money he has just taken out of the register. “There’s no use keeping the kitchen open any longer for this…so…I’m closed,” she says in her usual manner of matter-of-factness.

With that, she turns back around and eventually disappears.

I resume staring out the window, thinking how refreshing it would be to take a walk in what really looks like the winter wonderland I had sung about so often as a child. Around seven o’clock, a deliberate but beautiful snow had started to fall, and fall, and fall…

“Jenna.”

Startled, I quickly straighten up in my seat.

“Nick…oh…sorry…I was just looking—”

“Oh no, that’s okay, Jenna. I was just going to tell you that you should probably get out of here too. I don’t think we’re going to get any more business tonight anyway, and if we do, I can handle it. Besides, the roads are getting pretty bad…so…as long as all of your closing duties are taken care of…”

“Oh yeah, Nick, I finished them a while ago,” I reply, jumping down from my seat.

“Great… Well, go ahead and take off then.”

“Thanks!” I say, smiling, as I proceed to walk toward the kitchen and then turn the corner to go down into the warm basement to pick up my coat, hat, gloves, and duffel bag.

Once I’m all bundled up, I climb up the cracked wooden stairs and remember to grab a Styrofoam cup of minestrone that Mary Ellen has left for me on the stainless-steel counter in the kitchen. As always, the surface of the counter is gently reflecting the small overhead night-light.

I pass by the bar on my way out, calling “Have a good night, Nick,” who is now concentrating on doing the report for the credit card machine. But before I get to the door, he stops me.

“Jenna…” I turn around and look at him. Has he changed his mind?

“Yes, Nick,” I answer.

“Do you have your car tonight?” he asks.

“Yeah…I do… But it’s parked nearby, on the street in front of the Gulf Station,” I say, pointing in that direction. “I can get there al—”

“Well, just hold on for a second, would ya?” he asks, and, without waiting for an answer, heads—in his usual focused, deliberate, and athletic manner—to where I’ve just come from. I can hear him jogging down the steps.

Soon, he reappears, but he is not alone. He is holding a broom in his right hand, the straw head resting on the ground.

“I just thought you could use some help cleaning your car off,” he explains. “There must be at least three to five inches out there by now.” As he says this, he motions for me to go in front of him.

“Oh…okay, okay,” I reply. But for some damn reason I cannot move.

“Jenna?” he says, finally. “Everything okay? You seem a little—”

“Oh yeah, sure, Nick… Sorry, Nick… But, Nick…I was just… But don’t…don’t you want to put your coat on?” I ask, not sure what else to say, but then I immediately start laughing, realizing what a stupid question that is.

Nick is wearing shorts, which he always does, whether the temperature is eighty-five or two.

“Just forget I said that,” I say, laughing again, and then I turn around—Nick right behind me. I seriously pray that I don’t stumble or trip.

I take a few steps forward. I lift my hand. I place my hand on the door handle. I exert my force. I push the door open. I walk outside.

And then he does. And then he’s beside me.

And suddenly, I can’t believe how it all feels. Like a pool of cold water that doesn’t stun but exhilarates. Little drops of life piercing our faces and our tongues, a thousand a second. Feathers under our feet and covering all of the buildings and streetlights—and covering us, as we walk—romanticizing everything.

“Is this it?” Nick asks. He once again awakes me from my reverie, pointing with the broom handle toward what looks nothing like a car.

“Well, uh,” I say, glancing up and down the street. “That’s where I parked it. And besides, there’s nothing else like it on the street anyway.”

“Yeah,” Nick says, laughing, “I guess most people went home early, or didn’t go out in the first place.”

“Yeah, well, it’s their loss, right?” I say, shrugging my shoulders and catching his eye through the falling snowflakes.

“Yes,” he says, nodding, “it is quite beautiful, isn’t it?”

And we just stand there for a moment, focused on each other.

******

The above excerpt is from my coming-of-age novel—The Grill on Murray Avenue: A Story of Innocence—about the inhabitants of an unassuming bar-and-grill in Squirrel Hill, a vibrant neighborhood in the east end of Pittsburgh. The story is told by Jenna, a young waitress who dreams of becoming a professional dancer.