There was never a bad time to go to the Awful Waffle. It was just that Harper wasn’t exactly dressed to dine in a greasy diner. It wasn’t until she’d taken a good look inside that she realized that she was overdressed. Still squeezed into a little (okay, large, but tight) black dress that flared at her hips and hugged her puddling cleavage. Even soaked, her big black hairdo looked pretty great even as it began to frizz. The only evidence that she’d been having a bad time was her running makeup, and even still, she blamed that on the rain.
Officer Reagan had shed her poncho to reveal the uniform underneath. The DPPD’s men and women on the line wore a cobalt button-up and blue-black bottoms, as well as all the tools and gadgets that Harper had never really bothered to think about before seeing someone all decked out in them across the dinner table. She had the trim figure of a woman in her thirties who liked to keep fit—she wasn’t especially muscular or petite, but Harper noticed that even the unflattering police uniform couldn’t detract from her subtle curves.
As her hair dried, Officer Reagan—Roxanne—turned out to be a blonde rather than the dark brunette she looked in the late-night downpour. She had fair skin with pink cheeks, and pale blue eyes.
“Jeez—and here I thought that I’d been having a shitty day.” She said, warming herself as she tuned out the inane chatter on her walkie, “What a horrible way to turn 35.”
“That’s right—35 for the sixth time.” Harper picked at her All-Star Breakfast platter, “You really didn’t have to buy me this.”
“Oh come on, you said it yourself that you had to cancel your dinner plans.” Roxanne dismissed, “Besides, you really don’t want their steak.”
“I’m not complaining, I’m just saying that you didn’t have to buy me dinner.” Harper shifted in her seat, her olive-brown thighs spreading and sticking like butter against the cheap Waffle House booth, “Lord knows I don’t need it. I already feel like I’m gonna pop out of this stupid thing.”
“If it helps, I think those 10-51’s by the bathroom might like to see that.”
“They probably would.” Harper’s half-exposed spread brushed against the table as she leaned over to grab the pepper, “Good ol’ Awful Waffle—someone’s always hammered.”
“Now how do you know what a 10-51 is?”
“You don’t turn 35 six times without learning a thing or two, thank you very much.” Harper stifled a laugh with a forkful of cheesy scrambled eggs, “I may or may not have been a 10-51 once or twice, if you must know, Officer Reagan.”
“60 in a 45, public intoxication—you’re playing it fast and loose, Harper.”
“That’s meeee~” Harper said in a sing-song voice, holding her bacon to her cheesy smile like Audrey Hepburn and her cigarette before taking a bite, “Except the loose part but this is a rentaalll so I’m gonna be gooood~”
The two of them shared a good laugh as Harper adjusted the tight shoulders. Her canopy of cleavage shifted and wobbled in response to its new configuration in her too-tight ensemble. She grunted a bit, settling back into her seat and digging back into her free policeman’s dinner.
“I can’t believe you’re forty-one—you look great.” Roxanne took a long slurp of her coffee, “Your husband… boyfriend, whatever… ‘s a lucky guy.”
“Nope.” Harper said simply, bitterly, as she took a slurp from her own cup—Harper Black took it Black—“Got nobody waiting on me except a cranky 4-year-old and an equally cranky 25-year-old stuck babysitting.”
“Oh.” Roxanne took another sudden drink, “I, uh… didn’t know.”
“Aw you know the drill—men are pigs. All of ‘em.” Harper skewered another two bites’ worth of eggs, “Just when you think you’ve found the right guy, BOOM… he’s married.”
How long had it been since she’d had a decent relationship? Patrick, the girls’ daddy, was probably the closest thing she had to a stable relationship. Six years living in ‘Married… with Children’ re-runs before the divorce, then in-and-out ever since. Mostly out since Hunter’d been born. Boyfriends here, casual flings there. She’d honestly thought Bobby had been the one… before she found out about Mrs. Bobby, that is.
Harper took another bite. This time of her waffle. Roxanne had sprung for chocolate chips, and she hadn’t had them in years. The bittersweet taste brought back a lot of memories… but from where?
“Actually, I wouldn’t know about that.” Roxanne laughed awkwardly, “At least, uh… the men part.”
“Yeah?” Harper did her best to hide her surprise, “I didn’t know you were, uh…”
“Did you miss the part where I told you that I played basketball in high school?” Roxanne joked, “I mean, I took Timmy Gramling to prom but that’s not—I mean, that was high school, you know?”
High school—that was where she remembered the chocolate chips in her waffles from. She’d had them on one of her dates back then. She used to eat them all the time before the smell of them made her sick to her stomach. That was when she was pregnant with Parker— She’d eaten them on one of her first dates with Patrick.
God, that seemed like forever ago.
“I mean… is that okay with you?” Roxanne made a face, “I did just buy your dinner you know.”
“No, no, I think that’s great. Go you.” Harper said with a weak smile as she pushed her plate away, “It’s just… God, I’m so old.”
The tears started to well back up again in her eyes. Harper began to sniffle quietly, beginning to cry again.
“Woah woah, hey there Birthday Girl, you’re not old.” Roxanne took Harper’s hand in hers from across the booth, pushing aside the dinners that she’d paid for, “Or ugly, or fat! You’re only three years older than I am—we went to the same school, remember?”
“Then you’re old too.” Harper managed a little joke between tears as she felt Officer Reagan’s thumb run across the back of her hand, “It’s just so hard for me feel okay about my life when I’ve got three kids (two of which are in their twenties), a shitty job with no money… and I can barely fit into a large dress because of my fat tits and my big ass and… and…”
Harper took a broken, heaving sigh as Roxanne took her other hand.
“I just feel so ugly.”
“You’re not ugly.” Roxanne said in an aside sort of way, “Harper… you’re hot. Like, really, really hot.”
“You’re just saying that.”
“I bought you dinner and let you off with a warning when I caught you going sixty.” Roxanne flattened her expression, “Does that sound like someone who’s just being nice?”
“Well… it’s my birthday.” Harper laughed a little, her sobs calming, “I thought… you know, you were just being nice.”
“I’ll be honest—I’ve been flirting all night.” Roxanne said in a low voice, “You’re… really, really pretty. And I don’t know if you have a lot of experience dating cops—or ladies, for that matter—buuut… I was just wondering… you know… if you’re interested…”
Harper took a moment, probably a bit longer than she ought to have considering the look on Roxanne’s face, to replay the moments leading up to her dinner at the Waffle House with Officer Reagan. The shitty relationships stemming all the way back from high school. Her lousy friends cancelling on her. Getting pulled over for crying, driving down the road like a lunatic. Being 41. Needing an extra-large dress for the first time in her life if the fit of this one was anything to go by…
“I’m not… not interested.” Harper said with a weak little smile, “What are you doing Friday night?”
“I’m free as can be.” Roxanne’s smile shone brighter than the cheap fluorescent lighting overhead, “I’ll pick you up at six?”
“Sounds great.” Harper gripped Roxanne’s hands in hers, “It’s a date.”
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
More by this author
