Pete's
I read something once about hygroscopic particles making sunsets more vibrant, but I think it’s just that the desert is dry and empty. The railing shakes as I lean over and tap out cigarette ashes. It isn’t until the sun is gone that the sky begins to burn. Yellow into pink into blue. I had to move out here to discover the full spectrum of color, and still every night I stand on the crumbling concrete steps and wonder at the magic of light. The sun sets early on the desert, but my day doesn’t start until the last streak of color is smudged out.
I flip on the neon sign advertising “Pete’s Diner,” clip on my nametag, turn on the coffee pot, and tie a stained apron around my waist. I’ve been here nine years now. A graduate from Arizona State University with a degree in ecology who drove into the desert and never came back.
“Pete’s” was a lighthouse for me then. And now I keep the neon light shining across the drifting sand. After the highway went through in the 80’s, only a few travelers straggle by. A few of them are looking for adventure. Most of them are lost. One of them was me.
The coffee pot clicks off and is silent. There’s something about the desert on these nights. How it changes, like it has a different soul. The orange wall clock ticks slowly past midnight. I go back to the porch and light another cigarette, the burning end reflecting the pinpricks above. These are my favorite moments, standing beneath the celestial festival of lights, the air so warm I can’t feel it on my skin. The cigarette glows on the ground for a moment before I crush it under my heel. I close my eyes, breathing in the desert air, then step back inside.
The air is stuffy, but I hop on a stool and flip through the stack of crosswords I’ve cut from every newspaper I’ve seen over the past nine years. I’m surprised I haven’t run out yet, with all the time I have, just the diner and I.
I polish the counter again and straighten the display of pies and scones. When I first got here, Pete taught me how to bake. It wasn’t until after he passed that I perfected the pecan pie he loved so much.
***
Nine years ago I sat in a barely air conditioned stadium, waiting to walk across the stage in my maroon and gold robes while the dean struggled to pronounce my name, “Valentina Rumanyov.” Maybe I had gotten a little drunk beforehand or maybe I was just hot and tired and wondering what I would do with a degree in ecology. But it wasn’t until the speaker quoted Edith Sampson’s “Choose One of Five” speech that I paid any attention.
“Remember what Edith Sampson said, ‘Choice-five people have to live constantly with an acceptance of the fact that there are no simple answers in this world because there are no simple questions.”
That’s when I decided to go on a road trip. No destination. No answers for the questions. I couldn’t just join the workforce. It wasn’t in me. After all, didn’t Rilke say to live everything? To live the questions? And that’s exactly what I would do.
My roommate, Kara, and I packed together, taking down the movie posters and putting in big plastic tubs the momentos you collect across four years of college. I had always told myself I would never be the “t-shirt quilt” kind of person, but as I sifted through the shirts from freshman orientation to the farewell gala for a university president I’d already forgotten, I thought I might yet become that person.
“Do we just grow up now?” Kara held a Lilo and Stitch mug in her hands.
“We don’t have to, I don’t think,” I pulled my Winnie-the-Pooh onesie to its full height, “I mean, I’m gonna wear this every day!” She laughed.
“But don’t we have to be grown up to be successful?” She swathed the mug in bubble wrap.
“Probably. But who defines success? Who decides that wearing a pooh bear onesie or drinking out of a Stitch mug isn’t success?”
She looked back at me like she didn't quite agree, “Yeah, but I want to make money. I don’t want to struggle my whole life.” She peered into the tub then snapped on the lid.
“Life isn’t straightforward. I’d rather keep asking the questions than guess at the answers,” I tossed the t-shirts into a tattered box marked “Goodwill”.
“You’ve always been like that Valentina,” Kara put her hands on my shoulder. “Don’t ever stop asking the questions. We need you to keep wondering while the rest of us fight up the ladder.”
“I love you, Kara.” We hugged, breathing in the heavy air of endings.
The next day I helped her carry the last boxes down the stairs and packed them in her baby blue Fiesta. She was going home for the summer and would start a job in Chicago in the fall.
“I’m gonna miss you,” she whispered through the tears.
“I’m gonna miss you too,” we hugged again as if trying to collapse time, knowing that it would stretch silent between us.
She started the car and rolled down the window as we shouted promises down streets we’d never see again.
That was a lonely night. Just me and the empty dorm walls. Keeping vigil with the memories that some other college best friends would make. The next morning I clattered down the echoing stairs and threw my duffel bag in the trunk of my jeep. Driving down the silent streets of campus, I cried for the life I would never again live. And as I turned right onto the highway, I whispered, “Goodbye.”
The open road has always felt more like home than anywhere else. I rolled down the windows and turned up the music, screaming the words to “Go Your Own Way.” Even when the temperature hit above 100 degrees, I still couldn’t resist the rushing of wind through my hair. Slowly the city disappeared into the outlines of cacti and the rapid movement of prairie dogs. I wondered if having no destination was such a good idea, but the point was to ask, not answer. So I yelled out the window the gutteral sounds of fear and freedom.
Somewhere six hours south of Phoenix I stopped at a gas station surrounded by wooden sculptures. Inside, a woman sold charms. I bought a black onyx stone that hung from a silver chain and clasped it around my neck. I felt its coolness against my chest.
A few more hours, and the sky began to soften around the edges. Through the shadows I glimpsed a faded sign pointing toward an exit that veered off into the desert. I took a hard right, almost skidding past where guardrail used to be. The road was warped, but led straight into the setting sun, and I smiled.
Perhaps I should have stopped and rested. But I didn’t want to. Didn’t want to close my eyes on that moment. Because when the sun rose, it would bring with it a new day, and I wasn’t ready for that yet. I wanted this one to last. Needed it to last. So that someday I could close my eyes and remember the desert coolness on my skin and the feeling of leaving everything behind.
I’ve always felt I was more aware of these moments than other people. I can feel time passing in my bones. I can feel sadness before it fills my soul. I can feel the old me crumbling by the mile. But I didn’t think about it then. I just stared up at Orion’s belt wondering how long ago the stars died.
The road twisted around giant saguaro, and I followed it thoughtlessly until the faintest light drifted across the horizon. With that morning, I could feel my life starting over again. My eyes got blurry and I started stumbling over the lyrics to “Learning to Fly.” As I curved around a giant rock spire, a bright neon sign advertising “Pete’s” glowed against the bluing sky. My jeep pulled into the parking lot and I climbed up the crumbling steps. Inside, a jukebox jangled out a Beatles tune I couldn’t quite place.
“How can I help you?” A man’s voice called from somewhere behind the counter.
I was too tired to answer. Booths lined the front of the diner, and I crawled into one.
The man’s laugh echoed against the chrome as he handed me a mug of coffee, “I’ll make you what I always make lost travelers like you.”
I wanted to tell him I wasn’t lost, and was in fact an adventurer, but my eyes were already closed. An hour later, I woke up in the booth, peeling my skin from orange pleather. Outside, the sky was threaded with more colors than I have words for.
“Hope you slept well!” I froze and turned to see a wiry man standing behind the counter. “The name’s Pete.”
“Valentina,” I gave him a small smile.
“Nice to make your acquaintance,” he smiled back and I could see he was missing his front teeth. “Give me a sec and I’ll have a breakfast ready fit for a young adventurer like yourself.” He winked and the leathery skin around his eyes crinkled.
I laid my head on the formica table and took in the color surrounding me. Everything was orange. The clock, the stools, the jukebox.
“Breakfast is served!” The man named Pete balanced two plates and a glass of orange juice. He loved this.
I wondered when the last wanderer passed through there.
“My famous bacon, eggs, and pancakes,” he set them down with a flourish.
“I am starving,” I grinned.
“Of course you are kid. I’ll be in the back if you need me.”
“No, no. Sit down!” He felt like someone I needed to know. I gestured to the other bench. “When did you start this place?”
“Way back in ‘73,” his eyes got glassy and I could feel a story coming on. “There was a week long festival out here. And aw man, was that a good time. All the music and parties. Just lying on the desert, looking up at the stars, and wondering when they died. That was back when I was a kid like you. We all wanted to touch the mystery. Eventually the party was over and the desert was quiet again. But I could feel the answers were out here. Something about the stars and the way the sun rises. So I built this place piece by piece. I’m telling ya this orange was the coolest thing. Still is.”
I nodded. What I wouldn’t give for a place like this.
“So I’ve been out here for who knows how long. Open every night from dusk till dawn. Just a little light in the desert darkness. And in the downtime I study the stars and write music.”
“Have you found out how long ago the stars died?” I asked through a mouthful of pancake.
“Only some of them,” he smiled. “So what’s your story?”
I could tell he collected stories even more than the death dates of stars, so I told him everything. The questions, college, and a rutted exit.
“Well, I’m glad you found your way here. The universe is a powerful thing, and once in a while she works in your favor.”
I rubbed my thumb across the onyx stone. “I just wish I had been here in the ‘70’s. The raw beauty of it all.”
He shook his head, “It was a great time to be alive, but you youngin’s are always wanting to go back. I’m tellin’ ya it was just as bad back then.”
“Yeah, but there’s something about this place,” I gestured out the window. “It’s like I’m free here.”
His eyes glowed, “Kindred spirits I see. Can’t argue with you there. Gave my life to this desert and she hasn’t failed me yet.”
“What I wouldn’t give to own a diner in the desert.”
“Well, you come back if Mother Earth doesn’t call you somewhere else, and I’ll teach you her ways.”
I stuck out my hand and he took it, “Deal.”
Two hours later, I waved goodbye and climbed back into my car. The temperature gauge read 115 degrees as I pulled out of the lot. He stood on the steps and gave me a two fingered salute, then turned and went inside.
For the next two months I roamed. Climbed the Rockies, hiked the Grand Canyon, and worked on farms when I ran out of money. Always thinking about my future and the meaning of life. The Ph.D. I planned to get, and the house I had hoped to buy. But always I heard Pete’s voice, “Come back.” Always the whisper of lizards at night. On the last day before I headed cross-country to MIT to begin the program, I sat on the bank of the Rio Grande imagining the future ahead of me. I kept remembering the feeling of driving through the desert at night and waking up in an orange booth to a magnificent sunrise.
And then I knew what I had been trying to forget for the past couple months. I had to go back. Stones clattered down the canyon as I raced back to my jeep and drove into the sunset.
Pete was standing on the concrete steps waving a lit cigarette into the darkness when I pulled in. I smiled and parked in the empty lot.
“I knew you’d come back,” he took a long drag.
“I knew I’d be back,” he held out a cigarette and I took it.
***
Pete died four years ago. And ever since, I’ve been alone out here, keeping the old sign burning. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever be for another wanderer what Pete was to me. The voice of Mother Earth.
Headlights blink through the windows, spilling light over the stack of worn crosswords. Gravel crunches under tires. I scramble behind the counter and pour a cup of coffee in one of those sturdy white mugs they always have at diners. Two minutes pass, my heart racing. Then the door opens with a tinkle of the bell.
“Hello? Anybody here?” A man stands in the doorway, his skin weathered by the sun and wind.
“Welcome to Pete’s,” I smile and push forward the steaming mug.
“Thank God. I’ve been driving that trail for the past three hours,” he wraps his hands around the cup.
“That’s what we’re here for. A lighthouse in the desert,” I gesture toward the pie and scones.
“Sure. I’ll take a piece of that lemon meringue,” He looks more like he wants to sleep than eat.
I put a slice on a plate and slide it across the counter. I’m about to ask him about his story, when he notices my nametag.
“Your name. Is it Hispanic?”
“No, it’s Russian actually,” I smile.
“Oh, I’ve only ever known one other Valentina. And she was from Mexico. I met her just across the border, in Naco.” I see the years of buried hope glint in his eyes. “Fifteen years ago.”
“Naco is only a few hours south,” I lift an eyebrow, “I can pack you some food before you leave.”
He grins. I can see a glint of hope in his eyes. And I know how Pete felt when he saw me drive back up the dusty road.