To Wilson’s relief, there is, as he had hoped, a jukebox for every booth in the diner. But the relief does not last long; Isabelle does not even glance at the stack of quarters he puts before her to choose the songs she wants. “Too many good songs to choose from,” Wilson says as cheerfully as he can, flipping through the selection as if he were really reading the titles. “Want to choose a couple?” Isabelle blinks at him. “Well, I’ll choose a couple. Some good songs in here.” He deposits six or seven quarters into the machine at once before he realizes that there was already money in the thing, two dollars’ worth, which at a quarter a song leaves him with fifteen songs to choose—fifteen songs he doesn’t even care to hear unless it is Isabelle who chooses them and not himself.

He smiles at Isabelle and leans close to the machine, but before he has time to begin to select his songs, a waitress appears. She leans over their table to wipe it down with a wet cloth; she smells like grease and ketchup, as Wilson knows he will, too, after they have left this place. Her forearms are remarkably large, Wilson notices, ridged and firm, the skin stretched tight around muscle. He can see muscles and tendons twitch as she rubs her rag across their table, and then as she sets the placemats down, and then the silverware, and then a dish of crayons. Crayons. Wilson’s chest warms with relief. Crayons are better than the jukebox waiting with his fifteen songs, better than the statue of Marilyn Monroe across the room, better than the letter jackets with their ivory leather arms hanging on the walls, or the old finned convertible in the corner. Isabelle likes to draw, and Wilson can draw too, and have something with his daughter that more closely resembles a conversation than if he sat there and talked to the air or sang along to music. He lets his eyes follow the arm up from the crayons and to the waitress’s face. She is young. “Thank you,” he says.

She looks at them through glassless cat-eyed glasses. She wears a fifties-style uniform, an apron around her waist and a hat pinned to her head. Her name tag reads Mona.

“Can I bring you all something to drink? Soda? Coffee? Water?”

Wilson orders a lemonade for himself and a milkshake for Isabelle. Coffee; he has never known her to order any other flavor.

The waitress leaves them menus and goes to get their drinks. Isabelle lifts her menu so that Wilson cannot see her behind it. She seems subdued today, more so than usual, and he wonders what is wrong. What is wrong, he thinks, and he smiles sadly, wishing that what is wrong were something as simple as being tired, or not feeling well, or having cold toes, or simply having gotten up on the wrong side of the bed—anything that has a name.