the Newhall Road, one of three or four spots claiming to have laid the table for James Dean’s last meal, a slice of apple pie and a glass of milk if the legend had it right, before he drove his Spyder 550 on north over the Grapevine to Cholame and the Y intersection of the 41 and 46 highways where a Cal Poly kid in a black-and-white Ford turned in front of him. The diner was borderline shrine. There were pictures of Dean all along the wall above the long counter, the one from Giant with his arms draped over the rifle across his shoulders like it was the top bar of the cross or something, the other famous one that everybody’s seen, Dean’s hand at his waist, middle finger and thumb curled to touch, index finger pointing off camera. Above the register was one of Dean leaning against the silver Porsche roadster in front of a gas station down in L.A. where he had picked up his mechanic that morning. That fateful morning . . . Isn’t that what they say? The two were on their way to a pro-am race up at Salinas when they bought it, when Mr. D waved the black flag. It was like they always said over the PA out at the old Saugus Speedway on hot Saturday nights, “The most dangerous miles driven tonight will be your trip here and home . . .”
But then again, as the racers like to say, it’s not the going fast that kills you . . . It’s the sudden stop.
The waitress waited. “Would you like a side of beans with that?” she said again.
“What kind of beans?” Jimmy Miles said. The place wasn’t crowded. It was early afternoon. He could play with her a little.
“Ranchero beans,” she said.
“Pot beans,” Jimmy said.
“Uh-huh.”
“Maybe cooked with a little bacon.”
“Uh-huh.”
There was a fly, big and blue and buzzing, the size of a jelly bean, flying in wack circles over the booth, slamming itself into the same spot on the plate glass window every half minute, trying to get out of there but not learning a damn thing from previous experience.
Jimmy knew a thing or two about that.
The waitress snatched it out of the air and snuffed it, dropped it onto the linoleum floor and flipped it under the table with the toe of her waitress shoe all in one seamless little . . . what would you call it? Dance?
“I guess I’d better,” Jimmy said. “And a beer. Whatever you drink.”
“I drink cherry Cokes,” she said.
She was the kind of waitress who didn’t write anything down, and he was the kind of customer who hadn’t needed a menu, so she just tapped the Formica twice with her short, unpainted nails and stepped away.
“And pie,” Jimmy said after her. “Apple. And milk.”
“Why not?” she said without turning.
Jimmy looked out the window, across the street, at the old clapboard train station. It used to be across two lanes; now there were four and clotted with traffic. A hundred years ago, it had been a stagecoach trail. Two hundred, a mission trail, friars and priests. Five hundred, five thousand, and it would be indigenes with leathery feet, breaking the dirt down to dust.
The girl came back from the bathroom. Her eyes were red, but she wasn’t crying anymore. She had a folded brown washroom towel in her hand, too rough to put to your eyes. She was maybe twenty-five, a Latina, but one who’d probably never been south of San Diego. Or maybe even Long Beach. She was wearing a rayon dress, like this was the forties. Or The Postman Always Rings Twice.
She hadn’t looked at Jimmy once since he’d come in, or at anyone else in the place, off on her own trip. As soon as she sat back down in the ban quette, her food came, a tuna melt and a side of fries from what Jimmy could see. She smiled up at the waitress, an open-eyed look that almost asked the woman to sit down and talk about it, femme to femme. Almost. There was a lot of almost in the young woman’s story, from what Jimmy could already see.
“Anything else, hon?” the waitress said to her, like a nurse.
The girl shook her head. When the waitress was gone, the forced smile fell off the girl’s face. She arranged the two plates so it suited her, pushed the ketchup bottle forward an inch, and then picked up half the sandwich