My Back-Up Plan - Bonnie Smetts

I was standing behind a lady at the pharmacy. Randy’d invited me to take a vacation with her and her too nice husband. I hadn’t decided but I thought I’d at least buy some sunscreen and see if that helped me along with my decision. I’ve never been on a vacation, and I swear Randy hasn’t either but she was pretending that she knew what that was like. So any anyway I’m standing in line to buy the lotion when I hear the lady say, “If you got a Plan B, then you don’t have god.”

That made me think that I got no back-up plan going forward but I am not so sure I got god either. But when I got back to the diner, not even all the way back, just down the block and I see an ambulance and a fire truck and the sheriff’s car in front, I realize maybe I should have a Plan B, god or no.

I run down the block to the mess, people and firemen everywhere. I push on in to the diner, nobody even sees I’m there. And there he is, Richard’s on the floor, actually they got him with a big heave onto the stretcher.

“Shirley, what’s going on?” I take hold of Shirley’s arm and then realize I’m holding on too tight. She’s not seeing straight but she hears me and I gotta hug her, but she’s hugging me and leaning into me but she’s sure not taking her eyes off Richard. They got the stretcher up on its wheels now, and they got an emergency guy working on him, listening to his chest and putting a mask for air over his mouth. Their radios are echoing all over the diner. Poor Roalo peeking from the kitchen, looking scared to death.

“Heart attack, they think maybe a heart attack,” Shirley says, still not turning her face to me. I just hold her up, hold her straight. And then they start to roll Richard out the door and they got people waiting for him at the ambulance. And like magic, they get the stretcher thing into the ambulance. I’m guiding Shirley right behind following so they don’t let Richard get away with out Shirley.

“She can go with him? She wants to go. She’s gotta go with him,” I’m not sure what to ask but I just keep it up.

“Yes, lady. His wife can accompany him to the hospital. But only his wife,” the man in the ambulance says.

And that’s when I realize that I can’t go too, not that I was even thinking about it. And that when I finally start thinking. “Shirley, I’ll take care of the diner. Don’t worry. Me and Raolo, we’ll clean up and take care of everything. OK?” And I hand Shirley off to one of the ambulance people and they guide her up the stairs with a little push from me. And then I gotta cover my ears because they start up the siren and all I can see through the window as they go off toward Manville is Shirley’s pink sweater.