The Adventures of Earrings and Hash Browns
Who: Ronnie & Wren What: Wren’s Lost Her Earring When: Evening Where: Terrible’s Roadhouse, Searchlight Rating: Low
Only one thing justified a road trip back to that sticky, little diner in Searchlight: Jewelry. Specifically, the 2.0CT. princess-cut, diamond stud earring made of 14K gold that her grandfather had given her for her sixteenth birthday. At some point in her cat-fight with the waitress, Wren’s left earring had been clawed out of her earlobe. Much as it pained her to admit it, she wanted that earring back. All she could do was cross her fingers that it hadn’t been sucked into a vacuum or pawned.
Just past 9:30pm, Wren parked her car in the lot, engaged the alarm, and waltzed through the door. She was an unusual sight in the casual eatery, a statuesque girl in an off-shoulder top, high-waist pants, and heels. She stopped by the counter and crossed her arms. One painted thumbnail flicked at her middle finger, a tick-tick-tick of boredom as she studied the drop-tile ceiling. After ten seconds, she tapped a metal bell.
That little chime rang out merrily.
Ronnie peered through the little window from the kitchen and recognized the woman at the counter instantly. She was one of the ones from that night who had gone a bit crazy. Fortunately nothing terrible had happened to him though from what he’d been told he nearly came close to being knocked out with a frying pan.
“Just a second,” he offered. And then he came twirling through the door that led to the kitchen, letting it swing gently behind himself. His first thought was to send a warning text to Mikey, but then the woman didn’t look exactly dangerous.
“Can I help you?” It was a general enough question; some of their patrons were the call in and take out type but this woman looked very well dressed to make the long trip down for scrambled eggs and coffee on a whim.
Wren pointed a finger. “Yes! Ronnie,” she answered brightly, reading his name tag. “You can tell me if there’s a Lost and Found, and if anyone who dines here,” she looked around her at the tables and chairs, at the bottles of ketchup and syrup that Management just left on the tables, all the time, “Would have turned in something if they found it.” She peeled her eyes away from a man in a trucker cap who had plumber’s crack. It could be the final days of humanity and she, a thirsty vampire on the precipice of the true death, still wouldn’t go there. Ronnie, on the other hand…
His head tipped a bit. “I mean, sure. People leave stuff here once in a while.” A nod. Head would tip to the side and then he searched behind the counter. Kneeling down, a bit of rummaging could be heard, the soft clank of things being pushed together and he withdrew a small plastic basket in an oval shape that might have held fries or onion rings at one point in its prime.
Standing up, the basket was placed on the counter and slid toward the woman. “There you go. Looks like you have a bit more than usual to thumb through.” An assortment of pens, sunglasses, a guitar pick, and a toy Hot Wheels car were all that sat nestled in the basket.
“You looking for something in particular?” She didn’t seem like the motel pen type to him.
Wren recoiled. “Ew.” She was as likely to stick her hand in a basket of people’s assorted junk and root around as she was to stick it in a public toilet. It might not kill her but it was deeply gross. She picked up a straw from a nearby canister and used the tip to poke through the collection. “I’m looking for my earring,” she said, glancing at Ronnie. “It’s a diamond stud.”
This time, a memory attached itself to him. Oh, right. He was Hash Brown. That angel had stopped her from braining him with an iron skillet. Kitchenware wasn’t really her style. Maybe he hadn’t placed her; He didn’t smell scared. Wren set the straw down. “I want it back, but if it’s still in that seat cushion, hard pass.”
He watched her revulsion as she mulled through the basket of lost items as if it might carry something deadly instead of a few cheap pairs of shaded lookers. “Like a stud with fourteen carat gold?” He inquired. “I doubt you’ll find that in there.” While he wasn’t unafraid, he had no idea what she was exactly and therefore didn’t put too much thought into it.
“Hold up. And I call dibs on those blue ones,” Ronnie murmured, amused, pointing absently at a pair of sunglasses with blue ear pieces. The basket was whisked away and he turned to wander off.
“I thought you would’ve come looking for this thing sooner.”
Wren craned her neck to see where he was going. “I don’t make it out here often.” Ever. She felt a tickle of excitement over the possibility that he might actually have her earring back there. It was pretty and expensive, which was a good enough reason for wanting it back, but it was also one of the only things she’d had on her body when her sire so rudely dragged her into that SUV to not offer first aid. If he comes back with some grandma’s clip-on, I swear to god…
Wren pressed her hands together.
“You should,” he called back.
A bit of rustling around - where the heck did I put that thing - and then he cried out in triumph. Behind a sieve was a small wrapped item. Ronnie grabbed the cloth and brought it back to the woman at the counter. “Trust me the food isn’t terrible, like the name. And the people aren’t bad either, when we aren’t trying to kill each other with appliances.”
The little bit of cloth was set down and he unwrapped it carefully to expose the expensive earring. “That it?”
Wren clapped her hands. “Eeeeee!!!” She picked it up and inspected the earring, hoping the post hadn’t gotten bent in the fight or under someone’s shoe. It was in perfect condition. She leaned across the counter, turned the cook’s face, and gave him a big kiss on the cheek. “Mwah!” There was a faint red lipstick stain.
Thankfully Katherine wasn’t here to see this.
“You are my hero.” Wren put the earring into her lobe, not willing to risk losing it again in her pocket or purse. “This kind of makes me regret swinging on you with that pan.”
He had not been expecting that and his cheeks flushed, “Uh, yeah, you’re welcome!” He’d found it after they began the cleaning process and tucked it away in case anyone had come to look for it. His intuition had paid off, apparently.
“Hey, it’s all good. I mean, I don’t think you meant to try to knock me out or anything.” There had been a lot going on that night. “Can I get you anything else while you’re here?” Hand would wave at the coffee urns but there was food too.
The corner of Wren's mouth puckered. About that, sweetie... Knocking him out had been the least of her goals, but no need to correct any naive assumptions. Wren considered the offer. She wasn’t particularly hungry for a human meal and picking off a local was the kind of thing that got noticed and pinned on an unfamiliar face, so that was a dud. Maybe she’d try something off the regular menu for the fun of it. “That old guy I drove out here kept going on and on about pie,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “He was ridiculously invested in it. Do you have cherry?”
She sat on the nearest bar stool. It swiveled unexpectedly. Either there was a bolt missing or it was a feature. Wren let out a yip of surprise and brought herself back to center.
He remembered Nesryn saying something about pie that particular evening. Her inquiry brought that recollection back. “Sure, sure! Coming up.” He tapped the counter gently and did his best not to laugh at her startled reaction.
It didn’t take long to get a slice of the cherry pie he’d made fresh that day and bring it to her. “You down for whipped cream or nah?” She didn’t look like the type but then again who was he to judge anyone? “And I didn’t get your name, earrings.”
“Yes whipped cream, but on the side. Otherwise it makes the crust cold and mushy.” Wren’s shoulders shivered at the idea of a moist bread product. She picked up a fork and poked it through the tip of the pie, only belatedly considering how much the cherry filling looked like coagulated blood. She scrutinized it before taking a bite and answering him. “I’m Wren, but I’ll answer to earrings if you let me call you hash brown.”
Actually, there was something a little bit Charlie Brown about him, too. She had a wildly out-of-place image of him adopting a skinny Christmas tree.
“You got it,” he replied.
A little canister of whipped cream came out of a tiny refrigerator under the counter used for quickly retrieving colder things and he set it down for her to do herself. “While I’d love to spray your plate, my version of how much you need might be different than yours. And I’m probably liable to get it all over both of us.”
Not on purpose but those things were tricky.
“Deal. I like earrings, it sounds exotic.” He was okay with nicknames, it was a statement of camaraderie, that things were cool.
“Then you’d love my legal name.” She picked up the can of whipped cream and shook it — was that a thing one did or was it only for spray paint? A bracelet jangled on her wrist. Wren estimated it had been seven or eight years since she put whipped cream on anything and it had come out of a tub. She pressed the nozzle and watched a thick ribbon of it spool out like fancy toothpaste.
She surveyed her handiwork. Recapping it, she passed the can to Ronnie. The vampire dipped a piece of pie into the whipped cream, sampled it, and decided it was good. “Are you a Ronald or did your parents just cut to the chase?”
“Yeah? Is it as fancy as you are?” He inquired, amused. There was nothing fancy in the diner. Even the napkin holders and silverware were old and from a different time. But then that was Searchlight to a tee - a town that got lost in time and really didn’t change much.
The can of whipped cream went back into the little fridge next to the creamer and then he shrugged a shoulder as his gaze found hers again.
“Actually it’s the same as my Pops. But he went by a different nickname. And yeah, Ronald. So people don’t get me confused with Pops, I go by Ronnie. He was a Rocky.” Or maybe that was just the way Ronnie sounded when you were so drunk you couldn’t see straight.
Wren made a confused face. “How? It’s like when they make Dick out of Richard. Then again men will make dick out of anything.”
She set her fork on the side of the plate, tines down. She supposed Rocky could just be a big fan of Sylvester Stallone. Out here in Searchlight there was a distinct possibility that they screened Over the Top at the drive-in.
“My real name is Mariana,” she said.
“Yeah probably,” he laughed, shrugging. “Who knows. Pops left when I was five. Disappeared. We were better off without him.” He waved a hand dismissively.
And then his eyebrows lifted at her next sentence. “That’s pretty. Wren is...pretty but it’s different. Mariana has a ring to it on its own. You should go by that instead.” But then he could take his own advice and go by *Ronald* like the basic small town dude he was.
Wren stopped and stared at him. Her mouth opened in an ‘O’.
“You don’t like my name!” she exclaimed, cherry pie forgotten. “It was all there in the pause.” She searched his face and tried to pin down why this felt so surprising. Oh that’s right, because nobody told her less-than-stellar reviews to her face.
“No, I love it. It’s great,” he promised, shaking his head at her though he felt amusement soaking into the grin. “Really. But your real name is prettier. Go by what you want though, you’re your own person and a pretty gal needs a name to match.”
Ronnie was not a pretty name but he supposed it could’ve been worse. He could’ve been a Carl or a Seaburn. Or Gerald.
“Uh huh.” Her tongue got caught between her molars as she considered him. She wasn’t buying what Ronnie was selling but it didn’t really matter. She took one last bite of the pie and slid the plate to the side.
Wren reached up to scratch her neck just as there was movement to the side. She looked over and saw that a waitress patiently filling someone’s coffee pot was not the same one who’d gotten into a fight with her. Freakishly strong girl for a waitress, that had been, and kind of hot in a toxic way. It looked as if everything here had gone back to normal afterward: Nothing to see, just two women openly wrestling one another and being exorcised in the town restaurant.
“Did the girl quit?” she asked. She vaguely remembered Ronnie yelling a name at her. Something that started with an N.
His eyebrows went up. “Girl?” It took a second for him to pick up on what Wren was laying down and as it stuck him his eyes widened. “You talking about Nesryn? Nah, she’s just taking a night off. Probably hanging out with her boyfriend or something.” It was all she talked about lately.
The rest of the diner around them was essentially back to normal. Beyond where they were the spot machines continued their exciting siren’s song. He’d gotten used to the payout and spinning machine sounds a long time ago.
She slowed in the midst of taking cash from her purse to buy the pie. The bill was folded and slipped under the corner of the dish. “You’re suggesting this village has a dating scene?” Wren swiveled on her stool, fingers going to her hair to smooth it as she looked out the window at the dusty parking lot and highway beyond. “Where did they meet, the truck stop?”
“Hey, when they elected me mayor of the idiots my first order of business was to reopen the dating pool,” he laughed, shrugging. Maybe this place didn’t have a lot of cool stuff from an outsider's perspective but when you grew up in a small town you got creative.
“The truck stop is a good place. They have a bowling alley and everything - you should try it sometime. It’s straight out of ninety two.”
“Me. Bowl?” She imagined herself renting shoes and sticking her fingers in a house ball. Wren arched her head back, a dry-heaving sound in her throat. “Bleh. I’ll bowl when you,” she used her fingers to pantomime, “Trot yourself to Las Vegas and take um… Oh, I can’t put you in ballet shoes, though I should. Mmm… take an aerial artistry class. Trapeze, silks, straps, get crazy. Enjoy the tights.” She gave him a smug thumbs-up.
Ronnie laughed softly at that reaction. “It’s way more fun than it looks. I’m terrible at it, but I guess the experience is what makes it worth it.” He shrugged his shoulders in a casual way. “You trying to teach me to be an aerialist, earrings?” Actually that sounded like fun.
“I mean, tights aside I’d go. Sounds like fun. But you have to catch me if I fall.” His jeans were pretty tight as it was, so the idea of actual tights wasn’t so daunting.
Catch him? “No, I’d record it and take selfies with your mangled limbs,” she admitted. “What is art without pain? Want to see something cool?” Wren fished her phone out of her purse and scrolled through a bunch of photos, fingernails flashing. “Look!” She shared the screen with him. “That’s my dislocated knee.”
“Well, at least it would be in the name of art, right?” He leaned over the counter, frame twisted to see what Wren was showing from the mobile device. He winced and sucked air through his teeth, “Ouch. Points for danger though.”
Then he leaned back and shrugged, “But I would still be interested to try it. Why not? You only live once right?”
“You would think so, wouldn’t you?” Wren’s smile was sharp enough to cut.
She considered Ronnie, wondering what good could come of such an arrangement, and decided that it fell into the category of okay for amusement’s sake. “I dance at Iris,” she said. “Like most things in Las Vegas, it’s a cash grab... which means the owner squeezes every possible drop of profit out of the tourists before they get back on the plane. They watch us dangling in the air, they ask themselves, ‘Hmm… could I do that?’ And voila, there are private and group lessons available!”
She shrugged and slipped off the stool. “Look it up. Bring a friend.”
Iris. He found that vaguely familiar as if he’d heard of it from his time there and hadn’t thought about it again until Wren mentioned it. “Cool. I’ll check it out and see what’s up. Worst case a bunch of tourists will get a laugh.” And he could break his neck but what was life without a bit of spice? Maybe the adventure would help keep him distracted from the other stuff going on.
“Will do. Thanks for the tip and don’t lose your earring again. I won’t be able to find it next time.”
Wren wrinkled her nose. “Oh, I don’t see myself in here again,” she said, pointing around the establishment. The vampire collected her purse and made for the door. “See you around, Hash Browns.” With a waggle of her fingers, she left the Roadhouse.