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factory, though. Suppose if they closed it down, the town might just dry right up.”
    “Do you think the factory might be hiring?”
    “It’s possible, but it doesn’t happen often. That is, unless someone retires or dies.” The pump clicked off, and he rounded it up to the next whole dollar. “Sixteen even,” he said.
    “Don’t forget the Coke.”
    “Oh, that’s okay. It’s on the house.”
    Zack paid him and got into his car. “Hey,” he said, before the old man could walk away, “is there a good place to eat around here that’s not too expensive?”
    The attendant leaned into the passenger window. “There’s only one place to eat in town. We just call it the Diner. It’s just past the light, on the right.” He pointed up the street. “Can’t miss it.”
    Zack pulled up to the street as the sheriff, Zack could now read “Sheriff” painted on the side of the car, passed by slowly. Zack carefully pulled out behind him.
    A block down, the sheriff pulled to the curb in front of a two-story brick building with a blue and white sign that read “County Sheriff.”
    The sheriff’s head turned toward Zack, and he stared at him as he drove past.
    The Diner stood where the attendant had said, and Zack searched for a close parking spot. He found one along the curb a few storefronts down, parked, and walked over to the parking meter.
    Fishing in his pocket, he came out with a handful of change. First, he tried a quarter to get an idea how much more he’d have to drop in to make the needle slide over to two hours, its maximum. He cranked the handle, and the needle flopped all the way across to the right. Zack’s eyes widened. “Two hours for a quarter?” he said, incredulously. “This must be a small town.”
    He turned and walked toward the old fashioned, glass-fronted diner. He looked up at the birds clinging to a second-story window ledge chirping a happy summer song.
    Zack listened to the soft soles of his sneakers slapping against the hot pavement. In Detroit, he never remembered hearing the small sounds around him. Either they had been drowned out by traffic noise, or he was always in too much of a hurry to pay attention, he wasn’t sure which.
    Inside the Diner, he felt like he’d stepped back in time to the 1950s. He found eight tables; four on the right and four on the left. A row of five booths ran along the left wall, and a horseshoe-shaped counter, lined with stools, stuck out from the far wall. Zack stepped up to the right side of the counter and climbed onto a stool with a red vinyl seat cover, worn from all of the customers who had sat there over the years. A minute later, the door leading from the kitchen swung open and a waitress came out. She didn’t notice him at first, but Zack, wide-eyed, looked her over closely. She wore a pink and white, spotlessly clean uniform with the skirt cut just above the knee. Her golden-blond hair was tied into a short ponytail, which hung down the back of her neck. A few stray tendrils of hair framed her face. She brushed at them absently, as she hurried to serve other diners. She had a thin, but well-proportioned, figure. Zack craned his neck to get a look at her features, but she faced the other way.
    “More coffee, Kate,” called an overweight, middle-aged man sitting with two other older men across from Zack.
    “Coming right up,” she answered in a cheerful tone, as she turned to the auto-drip coffeemaker to put on another pot. That’s when she spotted Zack, and he got a good look at her pretty face.
    She filled a glass pot with water as she looked over at Zack. “I’m sorry. When did you sneak in here?” Zack said nothing. He couldn’t speak. He only stared, with his mouth almost hanging open. Her face was shaped like a heart, and she had large, sea-green eyes, a thin, straight nose, and pink, full lips. She was beautiful. She looked like she’d stepped off the cover of a magazine; every feature was perfect, even though she wore very little