Confession: This is from the wee hours of this morning when I couldn't sleep and Camilla kept rolling around in my brain.

To me it's awfully slow but it is the first draft (I keep reminding myself so I'll keep on and not start editing) and that's okay for now.

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She walked up to the door and realized she had assumed there would be an indication of the establishment hours. The closed sign was easy to spot; it hung in the middle of the window, and the logos for the accepted credit cards was easy to understand as well. It wasn’t necessary to really read them. The hours however were not intended to be seen in the dark. They were there in the lower center of the window, but the sign was black with thin white strips and the printing in the strips was smaller yet. Camilla bent down to get as close to the sign as she could, while in the back of her mind she had to calculate again which day of the week it was.

As her nose got close to the sign, an explosion of noise and movement erupted on the other side of the glass. Camilla thought she caught a glimpse of a beak, but the flap and flutter was too great for a single pair of wings. Nor could a bird have jerked open the door and screamed at her, “And just what do you think you’re doing?”

Camilla raised her hands above her head as if someone were pointing a gun at her. “Just reading your hours of operation!” she yelled back as she struggled to regain her balance and her footing, stole another quick look at the woman, and stepped back one more step.

The woman was short, the top of her head about even with Camilla’s chest, and her nose was hawkish, her hair dark, and her skin deep in color, mouth small, her teeth gleaming white even in the darkness--not smiling but bared like a wolf's. As Camilla waited for the woman to relax, another woman, younger, tall and very blonde in comparison appeared behind her.

“What’s the fuss?”

“I caught this woman peeking through our windows.”

“I was just trying to read your hours of operation,” Camilla said again, drawing herself up to full height and letting some of her stubborn confidence take hold. She had no doubt that if things got ugly she’d want to be on the side of the short woman and not against her. Still Camilla was a good foot taller and half the battle of conquering was not letting the opposition see your fear.

“You’re not from around here, are you?” the taller woman said.

“No. No Ma’am, I’m not. I’ve been driving all night and I thought I’d get an idea of when you’d be open and catch some sleep until then.”

“See Constance. Just talk,” she said to the other woman, patting her shoulder and smiling gently at her.

“You just can’t tell these days. The world is a mess!” Without an apology or introduction, the woman spun on her heel and ducked under her companion’s arm, heading for the dark depths she had emerged from.

“You can come in now if you like. I’m Mila Stanley. We’re about to open. Constance was here to turn the sign no doubt. Bad timing. I hope you’ll forgive us.” Mila reached out to turn the sign to Open and then held the door wide for Camilla to step in.

“I’m sorry I startled her. Not a good way to start a day.”

“Not to mention we’re getting a late start this morning. I overslept and some of our deliveries were delayed, so we’ve started out under the gun. But the coffee is ready if you’d like to have a mug and look at the menu. It might be a bit of a wait on some of the items, depending on what you want, of course.”

“I’m in no hurry. I’d like to grab a few things from my car anyway. I have some calls I need to make, too, if that’s not a problem.”

“That’s fine. You can test out the new wireless tower that’s such a topic of conversation around here; your signal should go through now. Choose a table when you come back in and I’ll get you coffee, a menu and a paper.”

Camilla rubbed her arms as she walked quickly to the car. She opened the trunk to take out her computer bag where she had stashed both her cash and the phone. Rather than root through it in the dark for what she needed, she decided to carry the entire case in. As an afterthought she stopped by the passenger side of the car and got her camera. If it deserved a passenger seat berth, it made no sense to leave it out in the cold while the other electronic gadgets enjoyed the warmth. Of course there was no real reason to take it in, but then there was no real reason to chuck one life and start a new one in the space of 24 hours either. So what did one more eccentricity matter.

Camilla let herself in the door and chose a table in the portion of the building that looked like an enclosed porch. The walls were mostly windows there and faced the east. Some high mare’s tails were smearing dark smudges on the ever lightening sky, and promised an interesting sunrise. There was just enough time to wash her hands and make sure it wasn’t her mere appearance that gave Constance such a fright.

The lights and mirrors in the women’s room were not kind. They made her blond hair appear almost green and her skin white, lips colorless. Camilla ran the hot water tap until the water was warmed, leaned over the sink and splashed a couple handfuls on her face, hoping the heat would give her just a little color. She ran a comb through her waves and helped them settle into a more tidy mass, straightened the collar of her white blouse, and smoothed the untucked tail over her jeans. They still held the starched crease in the leg, she was glad to see. There was an urge to reach for a cosmetic bag for a touch of blush, some mascara and lipstick, but that was something else she had resolutely left behind.

By the time she returned to her table, all the lights were on in the diner making the walls almost glow in a soft cream color. The ceiling fans above them turned in lazy circles, too slow to make a draft but no doubt helping push warmed air toward the floor. It was a small dining area holding not more than a couple dozen square tables at best, all set as diamonds and surrounded by four dark oak captain’s chairs. The tablecloths were green vinyl, divided by white pinstripes into ½ squares, also set on a diagonal and then tucked under the table and stapled there. Camilla found it ingenious as she recalled her constant struggle with the tablecloths in her father’s establishment when she was young and helping out there. This solved so many problems. Dishes would move easily, but not too easily, and there would never be wrinkles that would catch a fork tine or tilt a juice glass. The table was protected and easy to wipe. Camilla applauded the ingenuity that went into that one tiny detail.

The menus were hand done, as were the watercolors that hung under each double-globed sconce in which burned flame-shaped bulbs inside crackled glass globes, open at the top. The holders themselves were pale green-grey metal, very simple there thereby elegant. They graced the walls between the large picture windows—three on each side of the room in the main dining area and one on each end of this porch. There was no space between the windows to the east for anything and it was easy to see why.

The sun was rising behind the mountain. The rock began adopting the luster of a pearl while the sky turned shades of salmon and mauve, the clouds holding on to purple and lavender except where the lower cumulus clouds rolled in vivid white with deep grey creases. This was why the camera had to come in. But as she looked through the lens, the lights from inside bounced off the glass and would have ruined the picture had she taken it. She reluctantly put the camera aside, and talked herself into just living in the moment instead of preserving it. Camilla rested her elbows on the table so that she could rest her chin on her folded hands and just watch the panorama unfold. As she watched the sky shift and change and lighten, a warm contentment slipped over her mind and heart like a childhood blanket—soothing and reassuring.

The next thing she knew she was lifting her head from her elbow and blinking. The room was bright and full of chatter, clanking silverware and faint piped music. There was no longer a need for lights, but the fan above her still turned hypnotically. She glanced around to see who was watching the out-of-towner snoozing at her table. Thank goodness it appeared they all had better things to do.

“Ready for some coffee now?” Constance stood at her side with a cream colored carafe. This time she was calm and smiling.

“For heaven’s sake, I can’t believe I-- What time is it?”

“You’ve only been asleep for about half an hour. We had the table to spare so we let you catch some shut-eye. But it’s starting to get a little busy now.”

“Oh, my. Yes. I’m so sorry.”

“I guess I scared every last bit of pep out of you, so you deserved a rest,” Constance said as she poured coffee into a mug that read, ‘Excuse me, but you’re drinking my paper clips.’ Camilla laughed. At both Constance and the cup.

“The special is stuffed French toast,” she continued, pointing to the chalkboard close to the door. “Did you look at the menu yet?”

“No, but the French toast sounds good. With strawberries, please.”

“Very good. I’ll be right back.”

Camilla studied the people at the various tables. One was a young father with two small but very well-mannered children enjoying pancakes. At another table was a grown man and his elderly father who kept fiddling with his hearing aid. Camilla wondered if it were new. The girls serving the customers were young and unhurried, greeting people as though they knew them, and they probably did. There were no standard coffee cups—all of them were mugs of different sizes, shapes and slogans. None of the salt and pepper sets were the same either. Every table had a white bowl of carefully arranged containers of half and half, and with a twinge of reluctance she plucked two from the bowl at her table to puncture with the tip of her knife and squirt into her coffee. She loved the way the white streams swirled into the depths of the coffee and left that only to watch more clouds scuttle across the face of the mountain and shift in shape and size.

The French toast was generous and sweetly crisp, though the strawberries could have stood another swing through the microwave. They still had the frozen chill she’d learned to recognize from the strawberry and banana concoction at the buffet-style restaurant that had been a favorite of her father’s when she and her brother and sister were young. But followed by a robust gulp of coffee and everything evened out to satisfying.

“Was everything all right?” This time it was Mila at her elbow.

“Heavenly. Especially the nap. You didn’t have to let me do that. How many people watched me snooze?”

“Not many. They mostly filled the other portion of room. I guess we all get our fill of the mountain view after awhile. Did you get your phone calls made?”

“Oh my. Thank you. Not yet. It won’t take me but a minute or two. Can you spare the table that long?”

“Oh heavens, yes. The others aren’t full. People around here aren’t shy—they love to join one another at a half-full table anyway. You go right ahead. In fact, I’ll leave your check here and come to collect it in a few minutes.”

Camilla breathed deep and sighed heavily before she began punching in her mother’s telephone number. This would be the hardest of all the calls she’d made in the past few days.

“Mother, Camilla,” she responded to the familiar “Preston residence.”

“Cammy, darling. I’ve been expecting your call. But I gave you your space after that dreadful stunt that Stuart pulled. I cannot believe the gall of the man.”

“Me neither, Mom. But I didn’t call to talk about Stuart and I haven’t much time. I’m in….” Camilla grabbed a menu and was relieved to find the address of The Eatery printed on the back. “I’m in Cadila, New Mexico. On an assignment/vacation of sorts.”

“Good for you. You needed a change of scenery and a place to get your balance before you take on that sniveling little demon.”

“Well, Mother, I’m not sure there’s anything worth taking on, but that’s not why I called. Actually, you’re going to think I’m crazy but I’ve put my house on the market.”

“That’s not crazy. What do you need with that monstrous house anyway? A nice little loft apartment would be just the thing.”

“And I don’t know for sure when I’ll be home.”

“You said you were on an assignment.”

“Yes, but not a work assignment. In fact, I’m not working at Pierce Freeman anymore.”

“You’re what?”

“I quit.”

“You quit your job and you’re selling your house." There was a digestive pause. "Where exactly are you again?”

“Exactly in Cadila, New Mexico. Exactly where that is, I couldn’t really tell you.”

“Are you all right.”

“Yes, Mother. I’m fine.”

“You don’t sound fine. You sound like you’re in shock. Leave the car there and let me send the plane out to pick you up. Surely there’s a small landing field nearby.”

“I don’t know. I do know there’s mountains nearby. I’m practically sitting in the lap of one watching the clouds play with the snowy peak. It’s breathtaking, Mom. Absolutely gorgeous.”

“Yes, but what are you going to do?”

“Hopefully watch a few more of these sunrises and figure out what I’m going to do with my life.”

“Cammy, honey, you were doing fine with your life. You’re not all of the sudden eighteen with the world out in front of you to pick and choose from. You did that already. You chose well. Look at you—the house, the car, the clothes, the travel. My goodness, you can name your own salary.”

“Which is why it wasn’t that hard to walk away.”

“But they just transferred you from Boston to Oklahoma City. My goodness, that was smack in the middle of the cowboys and Indians. And now you’re in New Mexico?”

“I need a vacation Mom. Please don’t carry on so. I just want to breathe for a few days and then I’ll fix it all back.”

“Will they hold your job?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care. I can’t work there anymore. Mother I really have to go. This diner is filling up and they need my table. I’m going to drive and think some more and maybe by this evening I can explain myself better. I just didn’t want you finding out about all this second hand. I’m fine. I feel better right now than I have in months. I’ll be fine. You know I always land on my feet.”

“Yes, my little Cammy Kitten. Well, just keep in touch dear so that I don’t worry myself out of winning my canasta tournament. Can you do that?”

“I can. I’ll call you this evening.”


Camilla paid her bill and stepped out into full sunlight. The air was of the crisp sort that woke a person up and slapped a little color in the cheeks at the same time. The wind was healthy as well, which ate through the thin sleeves of her blouse. She hurried toward her car.

Which wasn’t there.

She blinked a few times and turned around, wondering if perhaps she had lost her bearings in the darkness and had really parked somewhere else. She had been so tired. With her heart picking up speed in her chest, she walked around the back of the building, and then back to where she had parked the Jag. She was certain of it now, and felt a sick, sinking feeling down with the French toast.