Not much had changed at Don’s Burgers in the 50 years they’d been in business. The cooks and wait staff still wore old school blue and white uniforms. They still had carhop service, although only on the weekends now, and their chocolate malts were second to none. They even kept their name, although everyone insisted on calling them Tower Burger. Business slowed in the middle of the night, but it never stopped. There were always a few people scattered among the well-lit tables, indoors and out. At 3:30 on any given morning, there were at least two dozen cars in the lot.

“I told you, didn’t I?” The lady held her hand over her mouth, trying to conceal the fact that she was talking with food in it. She sat in the front seat of the black sedan that had been dispatched to meet her at the airport take her home. “Isn’t this the best burger you’ve ever had?”

The Israeli driver nodded absently. He’d been amazed to discover that this hole-in-the-wall ran a kosher kitchen and eagerly accepted his fare’s offer to treat him to what she guaranteed would be the best thing he’d ever tasted.

“I think it’s in the sauce,” Dana Fairbanks babbled. “I’ve been trying to figure it out for years.” She gulped her coke and attacked her French fries with gusto. “And the fries are pretty amazing too.”

Moments later she was unable to stifle the long, loud, sailor’s burp caused by the soda pop and eating too fast. Any other day, Dana would have been embarrassed, but she was too hungry to worry about extraneous things like manners at the moment. She and her driver settled into a comfortable silence as they ate.

In the quiet, Dana glanced through her half open window, trying to push thoughts of the other times she’d been to Tower out of head. She smiled as she watched a cute woman in the distance juggling her soda and tray of food as she struggled to unlock and open the door of her car.

Dana nearly choked when she realized the woman in question was Alice Piezecki.

This was the moment Dana had dreaded for three long years. And it was nothing like she’d ever imagined it in the million and one times she’d pictured it. She tried to decide what she should do, but had only one thought screaming through her head.

“OhmyGod,” Dana watched Alice sit her tray on the roof of the old Neon. “OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGod!”

She forced herself to snap out it and wondered vaguely what Alice was doing there. Should she go offer to help? How would Al react? But maybe running in Alice was a sign. Maybe she was meant to run into Alice at one of “their” places. Still paralyzed, Dana took a deep breath. Her hand inched toward the door handle. Maybe this was really it.

“MOTHER-FUCKING-FUCKER!!!” Dana’s reverie was rudely interrupted by Alice’s frustration when she lost her battle and dumped her coke on her feet. “Son of a fucking bitch! I knew this was a bad idea!!!”  

Dana’s hand left the door handle as she intuitively reached for the button and closed her window.

“Let’s get out of here,” Dana said softly.  “I need to go home.”