I wasn’t sure I’d ever been here so early, and the clientele was vastly different. Normally I saw chatting families, couples, and the group of men. At this time of morning, the vast majority of my fellow restaurant eaters were singles. Silent singles at that. A scattering of women and men sat in their booths or at their tables, staring at their coffee or their phones, not interacting with anyone except for Carol, the diner’s non-Sabrina forever waitress, and even then only to grunt for refills.

It was a bit surreal. How could the same place feel so different in the space of a couple of hours? I tucked the thought away to think about later, and looked across the booth’s table to Rick. He was in his early sixties, and if you squinted just a bit, imagined black hair instead of mostly gray, and erased some laugh lines, you saw Rafe. No wonder John Pinnock had noticed; you’d have to be completely blind to family resemblances to miss the connection.

Rafe’s elbow bumped mine. “Bet you there’s a classic coming,” he whispered.

I automatically reached into my purse for my wallet, pulled out a five-dollar bill, our long-standing betting amount, and surreptitiously slid it under my place mat. The bet was on.

Rick had been taking a long slug from his coffee mug. “It was an easement request, back about ten years. A lakefront owner a few doors down from Pinnock wanted to put up a pole barn on a nearby vacant parcel he’d bought. For working and storing his antique cars, I think it was. Anyway, to run the electrics underground, he needed to get easements from a bunch of other property owners, and Pinnock wouldn’t agree.”

“So he didn’t get his electricity?” I asked.

“Oh, he got it, but he had to run it aboveground, on poles, and we charge up the wazoo for that. Trying to encourage underground installation, don’t you know.” He upended his coffee mug. “And now I need to get going. See you kids later.” He stood, bumping fists with Rafe and squeezing my shoulder on the way out.

I switched around to the other side of the booth, because it was just too weird for the two of us to sit on the same side, snatched my money from under the place mat, and held out my hand. “Five dollars, please. No way did that meet the threshold of a classic Rick Story.”

Rafe did not immediately open his wallet. “He’s not done. You heard what he said. ‘See you later.’ He’s going to continue the story. This was the end of a chapter, is all.”

I thumped the back of my hand on the table and wiggled my fingers. “A classic is told at one sitting. If it’s spread out over time the impact just isn’t the same.”