Halloween Help Earns Second Chance

"She looks confident," I said hoping to switch the conversation from sex to romance. "I like how she carries herself. She's not ashamed of her height in the way that some tall women stoop to make them appear shorter," I said looking at Ruth and watching her pay her beef stew more attention than what I was saying. "She makes me wish I were younger."

"Oh, but you are," she said with a laugh and without missing a beat of her spoon, while shoveling the food in her mouth much in the way of a starving animal attacking a meal.

"Compared to you, perhaps, I'm younger, but I'm past my prime. My best days are long gone. I'm closer to sixty than I am to forty."

"How is everything," said the waitress returning to our table and making eye contact with me with a smile that melted my heart?

She was ever so more beautiful when she smiled and she was smiling at me now. I figured she was hoping for a big tip, and with that smile, and the extra bit of service with extra bread and butter, she just guaranteed herself of getting one.

"Great, the beef stew is delicious. I'd like to have two more to go, please, and with extra bread and butter and some plastic utensils."

"Sure, I'll have it ready at the counter when you leave," she said giving me another smile and giving the old woman's shoulder another pat before walking away.

"I like her too," said Ruth. "She's one of a kind. You'd be a fool to let her get away. I've met a lot of people in my days and she's a special one. She'd make you happy, not like that other bitch you wasted your years with."

As if she had just slapped me across the face, she stunned me with her remark. She was talking about my ex-wife, but how did she know? I decided it was just a lucky guess on her part.

"I'm old enough to be her father," I said with a sad laugh.

Suddenly, the image of making love to the waitress disappeared, along with my lustful thoughts of her sucking my cock.

"Not anymore," said Ruth shoveling stew in her mouth. "Not anymore. Your days of pining over someone, someone who never loved you, are over. Today is a new day for you. Go get her, Romeo. She's yours for the taking."

"Wait, what did you just say? What are you talking about? You just can't say things like that to people. How do you know anything about me?"

Maybe because her remarks hit so close to home, I was angry by her off the cuff comments. She made me wonder if she knew me or my ex-wife or the both of us. I was still hurting over my failed relationship with my wife and for this old, bag of a woman to throw it up in my face was defeating.

"Suffice to say," she said looking up at me with a face full of seriousness, "that I see things and I can clearly see that your days of unhappiness are over. I fixed you," she said with a laugh. "You're all fixed."

Done eating and ready to leave, I walked to the counter to pay my bill and pickup the takeout food. The conversation that I was suddenly having with Ruth or Bucket, whatever was her name, were disturbing, to say the least.

"With the takeout, that will be $29.68 with tax," said the waitress, while making solid eye contact with me again and giving me her best smile.

She was so very beautiful. Why I didn't notice her before is beyond me? Suddenly, my testosterone must have kicked in. Suddenly, I felt that I may have a chance with her, but as soon as I thought that, I thought of the differences in our age. She'd never want me, someone as old as her father and if she did want someone so much older, she'd certainly have emotional problems. So what, I thought, just the chance to be with someone like her, even for one night was worth the embarrassment of rejection, but I couldn't summon the courage to ask her out.

"Keep the change," I said handing her two twenties.

She smiled and handed me a takeout menu.

"Should you want to order takeout, here's our menu. I wrote my cell phone number on the back should you need it delivered."

"Thank you," I said accepting the menu from her and when I did, she delayed my departure with a light touch of my hand.

Wait, what just happened? She made eye contact, smiled at me, touched my hand, and gave me her cell phone number. Duh? Ask her out. C'mon, you can do it.

"That was a nice thing you did for that old woman. I saw what those boys did to her from the window. My Dad never would have been as nice," she said looking up at the photo of him that looked down at her over the counter. "He would have never come to her rescue."

It was then that I realized he was the same man in the coma and the same man that Ruth had said she fixed.

"I'll include your father in my prayers," I said.

"Thank you," she said. "He always hated the homeless, hated that they hung out too close to his restaurant bothering the customers in hopes of a handout and going through the dumpster out back looking for food. Much like a stray cat or dog, he feared if he gave them a handout, they'd never leave."

"Well, I only wished I could have gotten her cans back for her."

We don't get too many gentlemen in here. Call me," she said. "My name is Donna."

"Tom," I said sticking out my hand to shake hers. Her hand was so soft and her grip firm. Making eye contact with me again, she was smiling, and I didn't want to let go of her. "But everyone on the street calls me Second Chance," I said to her with a wink and a nod to Ruth, who was impatiently waiting by the door, anxious to leave.

My mind was running away with the imagined thoughts of Donna in my life. Call her for takeout or for a date, I couldn't believe that I may have a chance with this beauty. I couldn't believe it. I wanted to think she wanted me to call her for a date, but I was at least 20 years older than she was.

Maybe, she just wanted the takeout business. Maybe, she's nice to all the doddering old men, hoping to build her customer base in that way by having guys like me lust over her. Certainly someone like her wouldn't be interested in an old guy like me. It just doesn't happen, especially to someone like me.

What comes around goes around my ass. With the loss of my wife, alone and lonely, my life is still in the toilet and now I feel even more depressed with the imagined loss of the waitress. Why didn't I take the chance? Why didn't I ask her out? Why am I so afraid of being rejected? What if she said yes?

I walked Ruth out making sure those kids weren't around before loading her bucket with the takeout food. After nine o'clock with Halloween officially over, even the teenagers looking for trouble had gone home. With no trick or treaters left on the street, we stood there without talking. With a full moon shining brightly over head, there was an eeriness in the air. I was more preoccupied with the waitress, than I was with Ruth.

"I need to use the bathroom before we go. Do you think they'd let me," she asked?

"Sure," I said turning around to open the door, eager to see the waitress again.

When Donna turned and saw me standing there, I pointed to the bathroom and she nodded me her permission. Ruth went inside, while I waited by the front door with her bucket. I stood in the alcove by the front door watching Donna serve her customers. I wanted to take the vision of her away with me. She was more beautiful every time I looked at her. I wondered why someone who looked like her worked here, but figured maybe she was just filling in for her dad. I wondered if she was married or attached, but she wasn't wearing a ring.

There was a mirror just inside the front door and when I looked to see my reflection, I was shocked. At first I thought it was someone else, but it was me. I looked how I used to look. I looked 20 years younger. I was thinner with more muscle tone and had more hair. And my missing tooth way in the back was there again. How can this be? Am I dreaming? I couldn't believe it. That was when I realized it was Ruth. She fixed me. Boy did she ever. She told me that I'd thank my lucky stars for meeting her and now I did. No wonder the waitress was paying me so much attention. I was hot.

Consumed before with watching the waitress and now consumed with my image in the mirror, I never saw Ruth leave the restaurant and disappear in the night. Her blue bucket was gone along with the takeout food. I looked in the mirror again before scurrying out the front door. Looking down the block in both directions, the street was empty. She was gone.

My good deed had given me a second chance at love and I decided to take it. Returning back in the restaurant, I had a piece of apple pie and I don't know how many cups of coffee, while waiting for Donna to close the restaurant. I walked her home and twenty years later, we're still together.

Unfortunately, her father never recovered from the coma and I finally aged now to where I used to be then. Every Halloween, I think of Ruth and her blue bucket and I never pass by someone without lending a helping hand to someone in need. Truly, I believe what comes around goes around.