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barstool along the front section of the diner. As I took a seat, Penny, my regular server, came over and flipped my coffee cup right side up and poured me some black coffee.
    “Mornin’ Ricky,” she said, smiling as she popped a bubble with her gum. Penny was about sixty or so—I didn’t know her exact age. She had been there at the diner for most of my life, but she moved away ten years ago to Arizona with her husband. Once he passed away, she came back to Spokane, figuring it was the only thing left to do. Never having had a child of her own, she felt aimless in life and even once admitted to me that she came back to die. Luckily, she found a second wind for living when she returned to the diner to serve again. Taking care of the patrons of Heidi’s brought her joy and fulfillment in life.
    “Mornin’ Penny, you’re lucky I still let you call me that after all these years,” I said, smiling as I took a sip of the steaming hot coffee.
    “You’ll always be little Ricky to me.” She laughed.
    “No fires to fight today?” Ron said, smiling as he came through the kitchen’s swinging doors. Ron loved being the cook. His skin was almost like leather in the summer months; he’d tan instantly as soon as spring hit, and then he would get darker and darker until winter when his skin would return to a lighter leather look. Ron had wrinkles everywhere, but they were the charming kind of wrinkles that gave the impression that he knew something. For all the pain and heartache he had gone through in his life, I felt inspired every time I talked to him. He seemed happy and cheerful no matter what was going on in his life.
    “Nope, no fires today. Plus, they needed a break from me,” I replied, grinning. “What you got going on today?” I asked as he ambled over to me and leaned across the bar top.
    He shrugged and leaned his weight on both arms as they lay across the bar top. His eyes scanned across the diner, taking in all the people that were there and enjoying his masterpieces that he crafted in the kitchen. “Some of this, some of that. Might take the Old Girl for a spin this afternoon.”
    Ron’s Old Girl , as he liked to call it, was a 1964 Pontiac GTO that he bought after he and his late wife, Heidi, made their first profitable year at the diner. His wife didn’t get more than a few years of enjoying Old Girl because she unfortunately passed away. Even though Heidi was gone before I ever met Ron, I knew by the way he talked about her that she was one classy lady.
    Glancing over to the windows, I said, “It should be pretty nice out today. Have you taken her out yet this year?”
    He nodded as he threw the dirty dish towel over his shoulder. “I did mid-June a couple of times. But outside of that . . . not really. My ability to handle a chill in the air just ain’t what it once was.”
    “I hear ya. I can’t be like Elsa either. The cold bothers me in my older age,” I replied with a soft smile, knowing he would get the reference because of his grandkids.
    He laughed. “I’d love to be as young as you are, Rick!”
    “I’m anything but young,” I replied, rubbing the corner of my coffee cup with a thumb as I looked down at it.
    “Psh. You’ll be around for a while, Rick. Don’t fret. The good Lord gave you a life; you can’t let age control you. God has a plan for your life.”
    “Well, you agreed when I told you a couple of weeks ago that chief wanted us to write a will,” I retorted.
    He shook his head, smiling as he looked down for a moment and then back at me. “Well, yeah, ya dummy! A will keeps your stuff in order if something happens to you. I didn’t mean you were going to die soon! Did you get ‘er done?” Ron asked.
    I shrugged. “Wrote a few lines . . . wasn’t a very comfortable task.”
    “Hire someone to write it for you. That’s what I did. I told him what I wanted it to say and then signed off on it after I read through it.”
    Nodding, I looked at him and said, “I