few hours away from Hilltop Ranch, from Logan, from thinking about her job and how badly she was doing it. The incident had taken the edge off for both of them. Logan had been handling issues with guests the rest of the day yesterday, and had left early that morning with a hunting group, allowing for a cooldown period. Just enough time for doubt to put down some new roots. Mindy needed a distraction, so after lunch she’d set out to see if Bolero could offer her any.
The town looked about like it ever had. Nothing on the outskirts but scattered houses on overgrown acreage. Then a few streets of quarter-acre lots—some with houses, some with trailers, some with businesses. And finally, town proper, a grid of a dozen streets in either direction with a semi-major highway running up the middle. Three traffic-light intersections, up from two back in Mindy’s day. The new one was because somebody had died, which was usually what it took to shake the town council on that kind of expenditure. The history was clear from the bright white cross in the grass on the corner. Unnaturally vivid plastic flowers were wired around the horizontal piece and draped around the base. Cheerful colors to mark an awful event.
She stopped into her favorite diner near one end of Main Street. At four in the afternoon it was almost empty, just one old man with a newspaper sitting at the counter and two teenaged boys in the booth farthest from the door. A George Strait song from the eighties was playing, adding to the throwback sensation. The redheaded waitress looked familiar, and turned out to be the younger sister of a girl Mindy had graduated with. The menu looked familiar, too, the same laminated card stock over fading photos of burgers and chicken-fried steak. Mindy ordered a slice of pecan pie and some coffee, and watched the gathering storm through the slightly grubby window as she ate.
She couldn’t have counted the number of times she’d sat at this booth at Minnie’s Diner, eaten this same pecan pie or a burger, sipped on coffee or a shake, and stared out the window at the clouds. She’d done homework at this table. She’d been on dates here. Broken up with a boyfriend here. Laughed with her friends. Pretended not to cry when she found out about her parents’ divorce.
Moving to Dallas had let her reinvent herself. A whole new Mindy, with a new life, a new purpose. She was so much bigger than Bolero; she’d spent years telling herself that, like an affirmation. If you’re nothing else, you’re bigger than the Podunk town you came from . You’ve come so far . But five minutes sitting on the crackling old red vinyl of a dingy diner booth was all it took to remind her that she hadn’t actually changed . She hadn’t really gone anywhere at all, because the minute she’d sat down she’d felt like she’d come home. That old girl was still here in spirit, which meant a part of her had never left Bolero at all. She could add all the fancy trappings she liked, but she would still be this person. If she didn’t know who this was, she would never know who she was at all.
Dallas was the dream. Dallas was the fantasy she’d had as a teenager, and she’d made it come to life. But this—this slice of pie at Minnie’s Diner, the window overlooking the street and the empty lot between the feed store and the gas station, this gentle, honky-tonk soundtrack—was reality.
Mindy had rejected this reality a long time ago. She might feel authentic sitting in Minnie’s and washing her pie down with oversweetened coffee, watching the storm build over the gas station roof, but she had invested a lot of time and effort into the fantasy. An old, broken-in pair of cowboy boots might feel like heaven after a long day, but everybody knew the real value was in the Louboutins you put on so you’d look expensive and people would take you seriously. Even if you’d gotten them on eBay for a hundred fifty dollars, and had to get a cobbler to fix a
The town looked about like it ever had. Nothing on the outskirts but scattered houses on overgrown acreage. Then a few streets of quarter-acre lots—some with houses, some with trailers, some with businesses. And finally, town proper, a grid of a dozen streets in either direction with a semi-major highway running up the middle. Three traffic-light intersections, up from two back in Mindy’s day. The new one was because somebody had died, which was usually what it took to shake the town council on that kind of expenditure. The history was clear from the bright white cross in the grass on the corner. Unnaturally vivid plastic flowers were wired around the horizontal piece and draped around the base. Cheerful colors to mark an awful event.
She stopped into her favorite diner near one end of Main Street. At four in the afternoon it was almost empty, just one old man with a newspaper sitting at the counter and two teenaged boys in the booth farthest from the door. A George Strait song from the eighties was playing, adding to the throwback sensation. The redheaded waitress looked familiar, and turned out to be the younger sister of a girl Mindy had graduated with. The menu looked familiar, too, the same laminated card stock over fading photos of burgers and chicken-fried steak. Mindy ordered a slice of pecan pie and some coffee, and watched the gathering storm through the slightly grubby window as she ate.
She couldn’t have counted the number of times she’d sat at this booth at Minnie’s Diner, eaten this same pecan pie or a burger, sipped on coffee or a shake, and stared out the window at the clouds. She’d done homework at this table. She’d been on dates here. Broken up with a boyfriend here. Laughed with her friends. Pretended not to cry when she found out about her parents’ divorce.
Moving to Dallas had let her reinvent herself. A whole new Mindy, with a new life, a new purpose. She was so much bigger than Bolero; she’d spent years telling herself that, like an affirmation. If you’re nothing else, you’re bigger than the Podunk town you came from . You’ve come so far . But five minutes sitting on the crackling old red vinyl of a dingy diner booth was all it took to remind her that she hadn’t actually changed . She hadn’t really gone anywhere at all, because the minute she’d sat down she’d felt like she’d come home. That old girl was still here in spirit, which meant a part of her had never left Bolero at all. She could add all the fancy trappings she liked, but she would still be this person. If she didn’t know who this was, she would never know who she was at all.
Dallas was the dream. Dallas was the fantasy she’d had as a teenager, and she’d made it come to life. But this—this slice of pie at Minnie’s Diner, the window overlooking the street and the empty lot between the feed store and the gas station, this gentle, honky-tonk soundtrack—was reality.
Mindy had rejected this reality a long time ago. She might feel authentic sitting in Minnie’s and washing her pie down with oversweetened coffee, watching the storm build over the gas station roof, but she had invested a lot of time and effort into the fantasy. An old, broken-in pair of cowboy boots might feel like heaven after a long day, but everybody knew the real value was in the Louboutins you put on so you’d look expensive and people would take you seriously. Even if you’d gotten them on eBay for a hundred fifty dollars, and had to get a cobbler to fix a
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