Sybil was surprised when she got up to find breakfast waiting for her. It was
getting late by the time she made her appearance, so I left the two of them
to have their breakfast in the little nook in the back of the kitchen where
we had our family meals. Having already eaten, I went to work preparing the
diner for opening. We still had half an hour, and I could have lingered at the
table for a while if I had chosen to do so. I told myself that I was just giving
Sybil and Jerry some time alone together — which was true as far as it
went — but the reality was that I was avoiding any more discussion of my
dream.
Opening the diner was not a monumental task. I moved a working quantity of
eggs, bacon, and sausage from the main refrigerator to the smaller cooling unit
next to the grill. I left the beef and ham steaks, which tended to be ordered
much less frequently, in the freezer. In a pitcher, I mixed up a batch of pancake
batter and put it with the other food. I turned the toaster on and added a half
stick of butter to the warming bowl beside it, then set a clean brush next to
the bowl. Every slice of bread got brushed with a healthy slathering of butter
before being set on the toaster’s miniature conveyor belt.
With the kitchen finished, I went to work on the counter area. I put a big
paper filter on either side of the coffee machine, scooping grounds of regular
into one of them and decaffeinated into the other. But I wouldn’t press the
brew button until five minutes before I unlocked the double glass front door
and turned on the Open sign. That way, our first few customers would get a fresh
cup. There was no preparation to make for the milk or orange juice dispensers.
I just checked to make sure that there were enough trays of cups and glasses
to get us through the morning.
I noticed that there were six trays of coffee cups, with nine missing from
the top tray for a total of 141. There were four trays of juice glasses, with
eight missing from the top tray for a total of 72. Each cup tray held 25 cups;
each glass tray held 20 glasses.
As I started putting out paper placemats and silverware, I thought about these
numbers. The number of juice glasses, 72, was equal to the combined ages of
my friends at the time I left the home. The eight empty spaces were equal to
my age when I left. The number of coffee cups, 141, was equal to the combined
difference in age in all of us between then and now, 120, added to Sybil’s
age at the time I left, 21. That number, 141, was also the room number of the
hotel where Sybil and I stayed in Las Vegas all those years ago.
But that was only the beginning. I’ve tried to train myself, over the years,
not to notice numbers. At least, not to notice them too much. The numbers
72 and 141 weren’t really significant for any particular reason. The truth is,
we all encounter the same numbers over and over again every day of our lives.
Most people just don’t notice them. I suffer from not only noticing, but
remembering every number I come into contact with. It seems they all
just lie there, the numbers, waiting for the chance to wake up and take me out
of the world for a while.
And I was only getting started with these two.
