2019-08-05 - Everything you ever wanted to know about Elma, WA.

"I'm just saying," Graham is just saying from where he sits at the bar, folding up one of the diner's paper placemants into what's going to be an awesome paper airplane, "that it's only illegal if someone reports it. If no one cares, then why can't you just gimme an ashtray and call it a day?" He's having this argument with one of the waitresses, who has zero interest in debating the issue with him. It's dinner time, and she has tables to wait - not that she cares, based on the boredness of her eye-roll when she swishes off to refill someone's drink, but it beats arguing with this slacker.

It's dinner time. After wandering in, Abby spends a few moments eyeing the booths before setting her sights on the counter. "Hello! How are ya?" She smiles at the waitress and sounds unreasonably peppy as she takes a seat, sighing as she allows herself to slump forward for a second, elbows on the counter and chin on the palms of her hands, shoulders sagging wearily. She's in a purple v-neck tee, spotted with sweat, jeans and comfortable sandals. Once she's had a breather, and accepted a menu, she tilts her head and extends the greeting to her fellow patrons at the counter. "Hi!"

Sitting forward on his stool, Graham calls a last-ditch effort after the waitress, "Think about it, though. Seriously!" She persists in ignoring him, so he drops back down to his seat, shaking his head and putting a last crease to his airplane. Next to him, a stack of mostly-eaten waffles (brinner!) sits on a plate, getting soggy in a puddle of syrup, so he must have been here for legitimate reasons before he was reduced to aerospace origami. His attention fixes on Abby when she enters, trails her to a seat, and leaves him leaning her way to greet, "Hey. You're a nurse at the hospital. Amy? Ally? Something like that?"

"Abby," says Abby with a friendly smile, then winces as she pushes herself up from her slouch and sits straighter in her stool, because posture matters. "That's right!" She says, then squints slightly as she stares at Graham, trying to search for his face in her memory for a few seconds. "I guess you've... been to the hospital lately?" It's her best guess, and she makes a face as if to apologize for not being able to place him. Her eyes stray to the menu again, mouth twisting side to side, hesitating. But when the waitress comes over, she does finally place her order. Meat loaf, hash browns and oooh, green beans?

"Abby," he repeats, memory successfully jogged. He puts his finished airplane aside for now, with a glance toward the waitress that's been giving him trouble, and reaches across the distance between his stool and hers, offering a handshake. "Nice to meet you, Abby. I'm Graham. You know Elise Kruger?" (Who is also a nurse at the hospital.) "I'm her better half." The particularly bright smile he flashes at Abby when he says that should make plain that he in no way believes that he's truly the better of that half.

"Thank you!" Abby says to the waitress as she wanders off, then looks back to Graham and reaches out to give the proffered hand a firm shake. "Sure, I know Elise -" she starts with a tiny curious frown, that gives way to wider eyes as he explains the relation. "Ah, okay! It's nice to meet you too, Graham. That would explain that! Oh, are you an aerospace engineer?"

"Yeah," says Graham of being an aerospace engineer. He rattles off the lie easily enough, but it lacks conviction, landing in the 'blatantly untrue' bucket. "I designed the SR-71, actually. The plane that the X-Men use? That was all me." After the nice little handshake, he flattens out the wings on his paper airplane a little bit with his palm, making it more SR-71-esque (but not really). "I didn't go to high school with you, soooooo. Where ya from, Nurse Abby?"

"Ooooh. I have no idea what that is, but it sounds terribly impressive!" Abby plays along with a smile, though she frowns for a second. "The superheroes? Wolverine and Storm and eyebeams man? Cyclops! They have a plane?" That's the part she fixates on. And the waitress is over with Abby's diet coke, so Abby reaches for it for a sip. "Oh, I'm from Elma. Go Eagles!" That wasn't a very convincing show of school spirit.

Nodding gravely, Graham agrees, "It really does." Sound terribly impressive. As for the X-Men, he issues another grave nod. "They do. I never really got why? Maybe it has to do with traffic in D.C.? Anyway, they fly around in an SR-71. Which I helped design." Thirty years before he was born. "Elma as in - " He turns on his stool, trying to get his bearings geographically before he points off in some random direction. " - as in, the Elma that's right over there? They got much of a pharmacy in Elma?"

"Neat!" Abby reacts to this important information regarding the X-Men's transportation and traffic situation. Like it really is neat. And she continues to muse on the subject. "It's probably awkward for them to get on a commercial flight. TSA would never let Wolverine on a plane." And then she turns and glances out the door, thinking for a second to get her bearings before gesturing in a vaguely eastward direction. "Right! That way. Kind of. A pharmacy?" She tilts her head and gives Graham a bemused look. "Well, there's HealthMart on Main. Why?"

As for Wolverine and airport security, Graham glances down at his sneakers and guesses, "I mean, if I'm the Wolverine and they ask me to take off my shoes to go through security. I think that's when I do a little snikt-snikt on the TSA goon." He makes a pair of fists for the snikts, follows through with some very bad karate-chopping motions, and finishes the gesture by reaching to find his wallet in his back pocket. Why, she asks! "Oh, I haven't been out toward Elma since... I wanna say fourth grade? And it never hurts to know where to get Children's Tylenol in an emergency, yanno?" Here's another smile; this one is his trustworthy smile.

It is very good. He's totally trustworthy.

Abby cringes slightly at the snikt-snikt and mimed combat, giving Graham an odd look and, eventually, an amused smile. She leans in ever so slightly. "I don't think they're going to let Wolverine on the plane covered in the TSA agent's blood, so that kind of defeats the whole... catching a commercial flight thing anyway." Leaning back into her seat, she takes a sip and makes the glass in her ice clink as she swings it back and forth. "There you go, then! We do have pharmacies and everything in Elma, we're not complete savages. If you get off the highway, up on 3rd, it's right on the corner with Main. On your right. Can't miss it!"

"Good thing they have their own SR-71 then, right?" Graham tips his fingers toward the paper airplane next to the plate, then puts a couple bills down on the bar next to the plate of waffles that he finished, like, a hundred years ago. It's dinnertime, and he and Abby are at the counter, talking about the Wolverine and pharmacies in neighboring towns. The smile that follows Abby's directions is authentic, as is the, "Thank you," that answers her helpfulness. "This way, when Siri sends me to the wrong place, I can mute that bitch and be like, 'Nurse Abby said it's on the right.'" Ahem. "Next time I'm in Elma."

This isn't really Dante's sort of place. But to be fair, the whole town isn't really his sort of place. The tall Englishman enters the diner. He's dressed down - for him, which means black slacks, black suit jacket with white pocket square and white button-up. He claps a sleek black umbrella closed just before stepping inside and gives it a little shake. He takes a step or two in, finds he's tracking mud, then scoots them across the carpet by the door. "Any port in a storm," he says on the exhale as he takes in his surroundings.

"I guess it is, if Wolverine kept murdering people! That wouldn't look good for them at all," Abby comments in Graham's direction. She has a drink in her hand, a glass of coke with lots of ice in it. It's very hot out, enough that the fading damp spots on her purple tee look more like sweat than rain. Her food is only just now arriving: meatloaf, hash browns, and green beans. She picks up her fork and continues with a smile. "You're welcome! I haven't been back in a few months but I'm almost sure the pharmacy hasn't moved in the meantime, so you should be good."

Philosophically, "Well, that really depends on who he's murdering." Graham puts hits wallet back, picks up the airplane, fixing the folds between his fingers while he waxes about X-Men (and also murder). "If he's murdering a gang-banger? Probably people are gonna be okay with that. But otherwise, yeah. Murder isn't typically a good look." He lets the airplane fly, intending to make it hit the waitress that was giving him grief a while ago. But he completely misses her , and the plane veers off to bump into Dante and his spiffy suit-jacket, then falls sadly to the floor. This may or may not have anything to do with the comment that follows: "I gotta go pick up Elise. You enjoy that meatloaf and hash-browns? Not mashed potatoes?" That's weird! "Nurse Abby."

Dante is busy fanning his suit jacket and frowning at the decor, so he doesn't notice that there's a projectile incoming. It bumps off him and then spirals to slap against the floor. He looks down at it, perplexed, then up, trying to spot the small child that must have thrown it. His eyebrows arch, then he grins a little, and bends down to pick the plane up. "Is there some good gossip folded into this? I hope so. Otherwise it's just a disappointment to the Wright Brothers."

"I think it's pretty much always a bad look. Even if they're terrible, it's still going to land Wolverine on some kind of no-flying list..." Abby remarks with a small disapproving shake of her head, though she smiles as she cuts a piece of meatloaf with her fork. She follows the paper plane with her eyes, all the way to Dante, then frowns, taking him in. "It's raining now? Oh, shoot." Her shoulders slump slightly again, but she perks up again to look in Graham's direction. "Nice to meet you. And why does everyone - there isn't any law that says you have to eat it with mashed potatoes, you know?"

"If by 'gossip' you mean 'a well-composed argument for allowing smoking in diners,' then yes." Indeed, there are bullet-points on the inside of that folded up placemat.

1. second-hand smoke from one meal won't kill you, chill
2. there's carcinogens in these waffles probably but you don't hear me screaming about how people can't eat waffles indoors anymore
3. you're not the boss of me

Graham tacks on a quick, "Sorry about that. My aim's off. Obviously." He laughs and laughs at Abby's comment about there being no law, and that laughter sees him out the door.

"I can rebut all of these. Shoddy, shoddy," says Dante with a tut-tut. Then he slides the aerodynamic placemat along the end of the counter, then sits on the stool. He shakes his head and chuckles after Graham, then glances to Abby. "It is indeed raining. Shocker. I heard this part of the country was damp, but it's actually a wonder that we're not all covered in moss."

Abby just shakes her head after Graham's departing figure at the mention of smoking in diners. She's eating now, so it takes her a few longer seconds to reply to Dante after glancing his way, but even with her mouth closed to chew she starts to smile. Then she replies. "It wasn't raining when I got here. I just realized when I saw your umbrella." And then she adds, bright and friendly. "Hi! How are you? And hopefully it'll stop raining soon." she comments with another glance outside.

"Bloody warm, that's what I am. I'm English, so I'm accustomed to rain, but not usually rain and heat at the same time." In fact, even though Dante's impulse is always to stay properly dressed, he he to shrug off his suit jacket as the humidity gets to him. It's hard to tell if the marks on his shirt are rain or sweat - possibly both. "Could I have a glass of water, please? Cheers," this to whoever is behind the counter that he manages to meet the eyes of. "And yourself?"

"I was wondering that!" Abby confesses this by leaning ever so slightly in Dante's direction, eyebrows rising above smiling eyes. "I mean about your accent and the damp weather thing." She quickly adds that as a clarification, forking some green beans up towards her mouth. "Oh, I'm from Elma. It's about thirty minutes away from here." In case he doesn't know. And she gestures with her forkless hand towards the east, more or less. "But trust me, I really don't like it when the weather gets muggy like this either, though." Then she finishes the fork's path to her mouth and eats.

"Ah, so you're quite accustomed to this weather, then?" says Dante with a grin. When the water arrives, he murmurs a thank-you and takes a few hungry gulps. "And how you're able to eat hot food in this weather. I can't imagine the time the poor fry cook is having back in that kitchen." He nods towards the back, then tugs over a menu to see what there is on the cold side.

"Mmhmmm. I guess I am? It's not usually like this..." Abby protests with a small smile and goes back to her plate. The question gets a small laugh out of her and an arched eyebrow. "By not being in the kitchen? I was really hungry. And..." She reaches for her glass and holds it up for Dante's view. It's brown and bubbly. But really, there's more ice than Coke in it.

"I'd imagine it would be a mistake to order a salad in a diner," says Dante. He peers over the options, but pauses to fan himself with the menu. "Maybe I should just order ice cream for dinner like a true adult." He chuckles.

"I'm sure the salad's fine!" Abby says with optimism and cheer and a brief look in the nearest waitress's direction. She bites into some hash browns, then points to the menu with the back of her fork, thinking for a moment. "They have cold sandwiches, too. But ice cream for dinner sounds terribly adult! Children aren't usually allowed to have ice cream for dinner, so... it's super adult."

"Yes, but the tension of being an adult is realizing it's apt to give you heartburn and make your pants fit too tight," Dante considers the menu again, settling on, "A BLT, please. No fries." He pats his stomach after the waitress has moved off. "I really do need to cook my own meals. Otherwise this town will make my pants fit poorly whether I eat ice cream for dinner or not." Food ordered, and another sip of water taken, he swivels his stool to half-face Abby. "So, you're a local, or at least a regional. Tell me a story. A smattering of local history. A little colour."

Abby considers this, and takes a small sip of watered-down coke, making ice cubes clink together. "It's a sacrifice some of us are willing to make," she says, and her jeans probably do fit just a touch too tight. "It's really all about portion control and picking the right sides." She is having hash browns with her meatloaf, so she must be speaking theoretically. The question makes her arch an eyebrow. "Hmmm. I don't really know that much about local history,. There's just the boring stuff you learn in school... it's not that interesting. What kind of story do you mean?"

"The stranger the better. I'm actually in your town to see if there's enough material to write about it." Dante squints at the various bear bits on the walls surrounding them. "I bet I could devote a whole chapter just to the story of this place. Or at least part of one." When his food arrives, he murmurs a polite thank you and asks for a refill on his water.

"I guess there might be enough strange stories to write about Gray Harbor. I don't think there's enough about Elma to fill a whole chapter," Abby replies with a bright smile, then goes thoughtful between bites of meatloaf, following Dante's eyes to the diner's beary decoration. "My grandfather used to tell us all kinds of weird stories, but... I can't really vouch for them. There was the time he says he shot a two-headed deer." She sets down her fork and knife and gives Dante a squinty, intense look, deepening her voice, clearly imitating someone else. "And I swear, the first head was dead as a doornail, but the second head was lookin' me right in the eyes! Right in the eyes, like it was staring into my soul!" And she points two fingers into her own eyes.

Dante chuckles warmly, then wags a finger, "See, that's exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for." His own dark eyes dance with amusement. "When I've asked that question to others, they've always qualified it with..." he looks left, right, leans in a little, "Now I don't know if this is true..." Then he shakes his head. "But it doesn't matter. I'm documenting folk tales, not a 60 Minutes expose'."

Abby laughs once she's done her story, then shrugs, lightly stabbing her food with her fork. "Mmhmm. Well, I don't know if this is true because my grandpa was high on crank a lot!" And she manages to sound oddly cheerful saying that, like it's just another bit of local color. A finger tugs at the neck of her t-shirt to fan herself slightly, letting some air in. She thinks some more. "I'm sure you'll find lots of material around here, though, maybe people just have to warm up to you first. Now, I don't know if it's because it's a real city," she says, which probably goes to show just how small the town she comes from is, "But Gray Harbor's full of all kinds of strange people. Just the other day there was someone talking about people getting snatched into mirrors. He was this close to breaking a bunch of mirrors in a shop for no good reason."

"Oh really? Interesting..." Now that Dante is already sans suit jacket, it seems all bets are off. He cuffs his shirt - though he does it quite neatly - before picking up a wedge of sandwich. "I have a feeling it might take a bit for people to warm up to me. I am quite obviously an outsider, after all. As charming as I try to be." He bites, chews, then wipes crumbs off his hand with a napkin. "Could you describe this mirror fellow to me?"

"Well, how long have you been in town for?" Abby asks with a smile, glancing over her shoulder to see if the rain has abated. She gives the question some thought. "He was a big guy. I hadn't seen him before... There was a boy missing so I wasn't really paying attention. He thought the boy had been snatched up by the fitting room mirror, if you can believe that." Obviously, Abby doesn't believe that, and even rolls her eyes, though it's a subtle motion. "And while everyone's looking for the kid, all he wanted to do was smash mirrors. He didn't look like he was on anything, but you never know."

Dante finishes one wedge of his sandwich and leans on the counter, giving her his full attention. "Well of course not, but what fascinates me about these stories is that they exist at all. Just what did prompt that? What combination of true little nuggets, folklore, religion and mythology might have led that man to that point? What trick of the light? What trauma? These stories reveal so much about our nature." As for how long he's been in town? "Only a few weeks. And this feels like the kind of town where you're considered 'new' even if you've lived here for twenty years."

"You haven't ever lived in a really small town, have you?" Abby asks Dante with a smile, then shakes her head as she looks down to her plate. She's gradually going through her food, quick small bite after quick small bite so she can have time to talk in between them. "We get a lot of strange people saying strange things at the hospital. You could just go and sit in the ER for material. I'm afraid that usually it's just the drugs talking. Or mental illness. I'm not sure there's a lot of insight there into much of anything."

"I have!" says Dante a tad quickly, but then he backtracks. "Well, when I was quite young, but yes, most of my time has been spent in cities. I spent some time in New England, though. My ex is from there. So I've had quite a bit of experience being the funny-sounding one." As for her suggestion, he shrugs. "That seems exploitative. I'm thinking more of the local legends that seem to persist with residents who claim to have seen evidence."

Abby grins down at her plate as she listens, glancing up from her food to comment. "Some people are bound to love the accent though!" Then she eats quietly for a few moments, growing thoughtful. "You hear a few stories about strange things, but I never did put much stock in them. I don't know, I guess I never heard them from anyone I'd call credible. Not really. Some people just like to make things up, and some people just... well, they aren't all there."

"And some people may very well have seen something, but there's a rational explanation. And that rational explanation has been covered and skewed by some local myth that's so pervasive, it seems possible. The human mind is delightful at making those kinds of connections. And then..." Dante leans in a bit conspiratorally, "...there are the stories that have no rational explanation, and the person does seem entirely credible. In those cases, there might even be evidence. I like those best, because they fire up the imagination."

"Oh, I'm sure there are! I'm not saying there's nothing like that out there," Abby is quick to reply with an encouraging smile for Dante, poking a little more at her food. "I'm sure there's all kinds of things we can't explain. Maybe I just haven't run into anyone that credible just yet. I think people being strange in their own regular people ways is just about strange enough for me."

"I suppose I'm just nosy. But it does come with the territory." Dante finishes off only half of his sandwich, but that seems to be enough for him. He pulls out his wallet and drops the appropriate amount of money on the counter. "Speaking of, I should get back at it. Lovely to speak to you. I'm Dante, by the way."

Abby bites back a laugh, a hand coming up to cover her full mouth. She's working on her plate She doesn't eat fast, in between the talking and thing. "Oh, sure thing! I'm Abby. It was really nice to meet you. Oooh, and Dante is a good name if you're writing about strange things like that. Like the hell guy! I mean, the Italian writer," she specifies with a sheepish expression and a small smile, then perks up, pointing her fork his way. "If I hear any strange stories, I'll keep them in mind in case I see you again. But you'll have to be the one to decide if they're reliable or not, I'm not sure I'm a very good judge of that..."

"Ah yes. In retrospect, my parents should have realized that giving me a name like that would predispose me to the macabre," says Dante with a smile that can't help but be a bit sharkish. He stands and retrieves his suit jacket, which he folds over his arm. Then he picks up his umbrella. "A pleasure, Miss Abby. If you do meet anyone with a strange story to tell, just tell them to find the tall, dark and handsome Englishman. I'm sure they'll be easily led to me." He winks, then starts for the door.