American Vacanza

i am a tomater hater • madison

As the scarlet color drained from my boyfriend's face and his breathing slowed to a regular pace, I was finally able to treat myself by picking up a menu and actually indulging in some well-needed food therapy. I'd spent three hours in the car with Siena, one of which was spent with her even batter friend. I deserved some comfort food.

"Hey, can I get a BLT on wheat, no tomato?" I asked the waitress, Linda, flashing my most charming smile and handing her back my menu.

Linda stood there with her hands on her hips, her face unwavering. I, awkwardly, pulled the menu back to me as she stated: "How about a BLT on rye, like the menu says, and with tomato."

"Is there a reason you can't do what I want?" I asked, raising an eyebrow and giving her my most condescending stare.

My coldest San Fran rich girl voice had nothing on her Southern attitude, and we both knew it. "I don't trust girls with pink hair," she mused, shuffling off without taking our menus back.

"Fine," I grumbled, knowing that I could always just take the tomatoes off, although it would be kind of gross and tomato-y.

"I'll have some fries," Siena yelled after her with a smile.

I expected another remark from the Southern Sassmaster, but all Siena got from Linda was a wink and a "You got it, darlin'." Did this woman really like my bratty stepsister over me?

Siena wrinkled her nose, leaned in close - although Linda was already shuffling away at the counter, making my BLT on rye, and said, "No offense to Linda or anything, but this stuff doesn't look too appetizing."

She had me there. As the waitress finally tended to the bald man in the corner booth, I turned to talk to Ethan. "Why did you eat that thing?"

"'Cause, babe, I wanted to prove that I love you." He smiled, his dimple peeking out, and looked deep into my eyes. It was adorable, the way he said it. The fact that he did something so stupid for me wasn't really that cute, but wasn't it the thought that counted?

"You did that for me?" I gasped, only somewhat sarcastically, putting a hand to my chest. My nails poked into my skin through my tank top. There was no way I could go three thousand miles without a manicure.

Ethan shrugged, his sandy hair falling into his eyes. I loved that hair. "Well, and I kinda wanted to get my face on that wall. But it was mostly for you, babe." He put his muscular arm around me, and I leaned on his shoulder affectionately, while Siena made garbled coughing noises.

"Ugh, get a room," she grumbled, turning around to watch the waitress (and cook, I guess) at work. Siena was fifteen. I was sure she could handle a little hand-holding, a little arm-resting.

"Excuse me!" Linda nearly dropped her coffee pot, fuming mad. "There are no public displays of affection allowed at Linda's Diner, especially for young, doomed lovers!"

I chuckled. "I'm just resting on his shoulder. For all you know, we could be brother and sister."

"Nuh uh. I can tell these things. You're young and in love for sure. And I," she waggled her finger sassily, "can just tell that y'all are crazy for each other. Too bad it won't last." The last part was kind of mumbled, but her sass was still imminent.

"What?" Siena asked, intrigued. "Can you repeat that last part?"

"Oh, before I opened the diner, I was workin' at a psychic shop in Tennessee. Developed a real knack for it," she explained. "Maybe I was bein' dramatic about the whole 'doomed' thing, but yer relationship ain't gonna last two weeks."

"We're traveling across the country together. We've been together for months. Of course we'll stay together! We love each other very much." I put my arm around his shoulder possessively, squeezing tight. He was mine. I was his. We'd be together forever.

"Aw, shoot, cross-country? That'll be the death of ya, that's for sure. Those cross-country trips, man. They either strengthen ya for life, or they break ya. And those two aren't strong enough to make it." It felt like Linda was just talking to Siena at this point. It made sense, considering Ethan and I were the doomed lovers. But that didn't make me any less mad.

"This trip will not break us!" I found myself shrieking, louder than I'd ever intended. In fact, I really hadn't meant to speak at all.

"One BLT with extra T, coming up," Linda muttered, giving Siena a knowing glare before getting back to work. I didn't like this at all, and it wasn't just Linda's bad psychic juju. It was because deep down, I realized that Linda might have been right.

Not about me and Ethan. No, we were going to last for a while. But a road trip could either make or break a relationship, which was exactly why our parents sent us on this in the first place. Were Siena and I fated to become best friends?

Ew, ew, ew. That sounded like the beginning of a horrible fantasy novel. I'd rather eat a thousand Dragon Breaths than face the possibility of becoming friends with Siena.

"Actually, I think she doesn't want the T,"Ethan corrected her, smiling his biggest, brightest, most innocent smile. It was so cute that he remembered.

"Nope. For cranky, pink-haired customers like her, ya get extra tomato. Noooo exceptions."

"Wait," interjected Siena, "if her hair wasn't pink, would you maybe treat her better?" Her eyes wiggled up and down as she anxiously awaited the answer.

The waitress sighed, pressing a slice of bread on the sandwich. "Possibly. It's you rebellious teens with your ripped jeans and your dyed hair and your tattoos and your piercings that get on my last nerves."

Well, this woman wasn't possibly expecting a tip. I looked down at my light cutoff shorts, my ballerina-pink hair. I couldn't stare at my ears, but at least they weren't too bad; I had four piercings total. They were just double piercings on my earlobes. Even Krystal had double piercings.

The only tattoo I'd ever gotten had been a rainbow peace sign when I was eight years old. "So, are you saying that you don't like me?"

"No, I'm just callin' ya a cranky tomater hater." Siena high-fived the waitress. Leave it to my stepsister to think something as stupid as "tomater hater" was funny.

"Will you be, like my new best friend?" Siena joked. She was literally so clichè that I had to groan as loudly and obnoxiously as possible.

"If I had a buck for every time someone said that to me, I'd have one George Washington," Linda replied, sitting down at our booth next to Siena and leaning over the table like a gossip-hungry teenage girl. It was like she'd completely forgotten she owed us food and was just trying to be one of us, for a change.

"Oh, that's not true. You're the coolest diner-owner I've ever met," Siena said, trying not to let her laugh show through her voice. Why was she being so friendly? This woman was the waitress, not the queen.

"I still can't get over how these two are still together." She nudged Siena as if they had been best friends for years. "How'd you guys get together, anyway?"

I smiled shyly. "He sits behind me in English, and one day he asked me for a pencil. There was no doubt there was a spark, and then we were formally introduced at a party one day that I threw--"

"And made out in the bathroom?" Siena interrupted, earning another high five from her new bestie, Linda.

"No." I shot her an angry glare. "He got me some punch--"

"What was the alcohol content percentage of said punch?" Siena smiled sweetly. Linda mimicked her. Wait, wasn't this woman supposed to be preparing our food?

"What-never mind. Never mind, this was a waste of time." I gargled some water in my mouth, looking for a distraction, and Ethan gazed longingly at the wall with pictures of people doing the Dragon Breath challenge.

"Ten bucks they won't make it halfway across the country?" Siena whispered loudly to Linda.

"If you wouldn't have to be a thousand miles away to validate this bet, it'd be a sweet deal,"" Linda whispered, and that was it. I paid. Siena's insults were normally terrible, but Linda just made it way... stranger So, after eating a mediocre meal at Linda's, we naturally did the next thing that came to mind.

We got back on the road.