I went looking for America and found Maldova

Ever since the Maldovans found out I went four days without speaking, they treat me like someone who is very sick or very sad. The truth of the matter is I am an extremely healthy horse, inexorably more so than them because my lungs are still pink, and I do not feel sad although some times I think I should. When the days stretch like this between work and snow and sleep, all that one needs to be happy is food and the ability to be warm and dry. This I have, even though some times I am too lazy to get up and put a fire in the stove. I'd rather lay there and shiver. But you cannot be made sad by your own personal shortcomings, if you do you will become a Fucking Ridiculous Moron, which I do not myself claim to be.

"Sit with me," they say, words leaded with the mystique of their accent. "You sit here now. You been okay?" They regard me as if I am some troubling painting. For lack of a better thing to do I am more than happy to play the part. "Oh, you know," I sigh, "I've been alright." What I don't tell them is that I am currently choosing a new life in the same manner one chooses a piece of candy from a vending machine, and pretty soon I will pull the lever, take my selection and walk away. I don't know yet who I will become next, so for the meantime I sit back and wait for my next move like a chess piece, drumming my fingernails against the counter.

As soon as I finished my shift for the morning, Milla appears out of nowhere in her dark make up and gold studded pants. She directs me to sit down with her and then vanishes outside with Elana, where they stand in two clouds of smoke under the dripping awning. Outside the sky has let loose a tantrum of sleet and rain, decimating the snow and slaying the schedules of schools. Life seems pretty grim even though I know better.

Earlier on in the morning, Elana informed me in the empty dining car that I would never have sex again until I learned to wear two socks of the same color. I told her that sounded okay, because sex never led to anything particularly good in my life. "This I am not so sure of," she said, pointing her chin at an angle. But her tone was thoughtful, as if the subject was still up for debate. Later on she told me a long and complicated story that kept twisting, about a boy who loved her (and was stalking her it sounded like, but she didn't seem too concerned, and to be honest I could only understand about a third of her words.) We stood there talking for a long time, she holding an empty tray at shoulder level, me holding a rag in position against the counter, in case the manager should come in and see us. "I went home, to Maldova, and he was calling me and calling me. But then I got sick, and had to sleep all the time, and got so skinny, and still he was calling me." How did you get sick? I asked her. "Oh, you know, witches. They look at me a certain way and I get sick. Very sick, my cousin take care of me." I asked, well...why? Why would the witches curse you like that? I was stuttering, wondering if there was a less draconian manner in which to ask the question. There wasn't. "Because they jealous, I am so beautiful and I have money, because I work at Mcdonalds in West Leb when I am in America. So they curse me, and all I can do is sleep, and sleep and sleep, and can't call him back because I am sleeping so much! So he gets new girlfriend." How, I managed to ask, did you get over being cursed? We see the manager walking out from the kitchen, the door swinging behind her, so Elana starts to walk away. "Water from the church, what you call this?" She asks over her shoulder. Holy water? I try. "Yes, holy water, I drink holy water. This cures me."

Milla returns from her cigarette break to find me hovering over my telephone. "What is?" she asks. Well...I start, wondering how to go about explaining. See, our friend Charles had a dog named Moon who was lost and it turned out he was stuck in a hole for three days. And I haven't heard from Will is a long time so I wrote him and asked, why haven't I heard from you in a long time, are you stuck in a hole with Moon? And he writes me back now and says, 'yes I am in a deep hole but I can still write.' So I am wondering what he means and how I should respond. Milla leanS forward to study his message herself. Then she asks, "Is this deep hole a hole of love?" What? I start laughing. Milla starts laughing. Is this a love hole? I'm not sure, I don't think that's what he meant, I tell her. "Well, you never know, until you ask him." The way she says it, it has the clarity of ice. So reasonable, that everything complicated in the world could be boiled down to this one thing: you never know until you ask him. I almost tempted to write Will back and ask, did you mean you are in a deep hole of love? Is this perhaps what you mean? But I don't. I figure he is in a hole because he is very depressed, because he is forced to take a computer science class in order to graduate. I write back instead: is this a hole caused by computer science? do you need anything? and his response: send down the geek squad.

Milla says she likes to sit in a car when someone else is driving, because it relaxes her. So when I leave the diner to do my errands I take her along. Sometimes it is nice, when the road is a sheet of ice and the weather is shit, to have the radio playing and a Moldovan half asleep in the passenger seat. I go to the bank and then to put gas in the car. I can't think of anything else to do, except go to the post office in White River, which would require getting on the highway, and that is too dangerous in this deluge. Besides, I didn't want to go to the post office just yet because I received a pink notice that there is a package waiting for me. I like to think it is from all of my friends who lived in Seattle who had combined efforts to send me an early Christmas. Of course I know the package is not going to be for me, I get my aunt and uncle's mail by accident all the time and they are big mail-order people. I don't want to go pick it up just yet, so I can keep thinking that it might be something nice for me. I don't want that little dream to be smothered so soon. (You see why I sometimes think I should feel sad?)

So I turn the car around and start to negotiate my way on those slippery roads back to the diner. A few minutes into the return trip Milla lifts her head from the window and casually announces she is getting married. "Not the boy from Oklahoma," She says. "Not him. But Mike, he lives right ere." She points out the window at a nondescript white house sitting directly on the road. By now what I have learned about the Moldovans is a) they say whatever they want, and b) they mean everything they say. So I respond, great, when is the wedding, can I come, I love weddings. "Of course!" She says brightly. "It will be some time before or after New Years." I think, the same could be said of every day there ever was except one. "It will not be December 2nd." Good, we are narrowing it down. Why not December 2nd? "Is his Court Date. Got caught with Mar-a-hoo-wanna." I said, lucky you, you're getting married! And she shrugged. "Is complicated. He was going to marry Elana, so she could get green card, but I start to like him so I say to her, I think I start to like him. And she says, so you must marry him."

This is how the world falls into place for Milla. She needs a green card and so she will marry the 21 year old from down the road who smokes mar-a-hoo-wana and lives with his super lazy and angry (for no apparent reason, he is a Fucking Ridiculous Moron it seems,) brother. What a catch for Milla. The thing is, if she wants to marry him, she will. Snap her fingers and that little stoner will make the trek to the courthouse and give an exalted whisper: I do. My eyes leave the road as they turn to her in wonder. I can't even get a boy to crawl out of a phantom hole and make a return phone call, and by all standards I am prettier than she is. I think, I am missing something. I am missing something that she has. I used to have it but now I've lost it.