Freeburgers.

     Walls: Gleaming White.

     Tables: Blue.

     Chairs: Red.

​     Floors: Linoleum in a red, white and blue pattern.

​     Murals of unfurled American flags adorned each wall.

​     Everything looked either coated or made out of some sort of plastic.

     Even the food they ordered reminded Cathy of plastic.

​     "Wait a second," Alison said. She pulled her phone out of her purse. "I've got to get a shot of Skip eating that burger."

     "Are you sure you can get your mouth around all of that?" Abby asked.

​     "Well, that's the challenge, isn't it?" Skip observed his Quad the way a climber would observe Mt. Everest. 

​     "It looks like a stack of pancakes," Cathy said.

​     "Twenty bucks says you can't put the whole thing in your mouth right now, right this second," Alison said.

     "What, you don't think I could?"

​     "Don't you dare!" Abby gasped.

     "But Mom, think of how many hits we'd get on You Tube."

​     "I'm only playing, Mom," Skip said. "Alison knows her money's safe." He nibbled at the top of it, swallowing a bit of meat and bun. 

​     "It'll take forever to eat that way," Cathy said. "Be a man. Gulp that mother down!"

     "Here goes nothing." Skip opened his mouth as wide as he could. Then,

​     "Hey, what are you looking at?"

​     That question was asked loud enough so that everyone in the lobby heard it.

​     "You. I'm talking to you. Why are you staring at me? Stop staring at me."

​     With those words, Abby was able to focus in on the speaker. It was a guy who sat alone in one of the booths. He had a paper cup filled with whatever in front of him. Three-day beard. He looked at this Hispanic who sat in another booth with her three children, and in his eyes there burned an intense anger, and also, oddly enough, because the situation didn't really call for it...fear. Abby, herself, felt fear as she looked into the man's eyes.

​     This man was afraid of the Hispanic woman and her three children?

​     That was crazy.

     "Not looking at you. Not hurting nobody." The Hispanic woman had a small, thin voice.

​     The exchange put everyone in the restaurant on edge. All small talk stopped. Cathy counted some dozen people sitting at tables and having lunch. Everyone tensed up like something horrifying was going to happen at any second.

     But what?

​     A young man pushed himself away from his coke and fries to exclaim, "I'm getting the Hell out of here!"

​     Everyone, in a panic, ran for the front door.

​     Skip felt like running with them. He took a single step for the door, burger still in his hands. Abby barred him from any further movement with her arm.

     "And where do you think you're going?"

     "I...I..."

     "Something going's on here," Abby said. "Whatever happens from now on happens to all of us, not any one of us. Got that?"

     They all nodded.

     "I'm scared," Alison said.

     "Me too," Cathy added.

     Abby got on the phone.

     "Time to call Dad," she said.

​END OF CHAPTER THREE

HOME