Park Your Burger

She opens the front door and stumbles inside, her eyes glossed over to match her patent leather boots. The Burger King was looking especially civilian today. She glances around to get a read of the room. On one table, two flies were sharing a fry. On another, a man was caressing the tan line around his ring finger, as if to tell the appendage, “It’s gonna be okay.”

Photo by Marjan Blan | @marjanblan on Unsplash

She walks past the diners to reach the front counter and pretends to look at the bright menu board above, as though she wasn’t about to order the same double cheeseburger combo she’s ordered every day so far this week. Her eyes move down from the menu and onto the name tag in bold, Cooper Black font standing in front of her: Stephanie. Their parents are close friends, and she was sure they had told Stephanie everything. Fuck.

She locks eyes with her less-than-delighted customer and greets her with ShamWow-commercial-level excitement. “Oh, hey! It’s so nice to see you, I feel like I haven’t seen you in the hallways in forever!!! Where have you bee-,” she pauses, the excitement draining out her body. Her ShamWow seemed to be wrung out. She definitely knew.

Stephanie tried a different approach this time. “How have you been,” she said, this time using an empathetic ‘I may be working in the fast-food industry but at least my life doesn’t suck as much as yours’ look. She couldn’t think of an excuse fast enough. “I’ve been fine,” she replied to the girl behind the cash register, “and I’d like a double cheeseburger combo, please. With Coke.”

Stephanie marked down the order but didn’t move her eyes away from her now noticeably tearing up customer.

After she had paid, Stephanie reached out and said, “Stay here one second,” before she left to an unseen part of the burger palace. When she returns, she hands her pitied customer/family friend a vanilla sundae. “Here, it’s the least I can do. On the house [palace].” Too choked up to say anything to the ShamWow rep, she took the ice cream and walked toward the nearest empty table.

While she sat down, she began to reminisce on the happier times she’s spent at that very spot. The empty seat in front of her was mocking her for being alone. She snaps out of her trance and pulls out her phone. Although she was in no mood to meet new people, it was time to pull out the dating apps. It was part of the tradition, after all.

After swiping left on at least 100 applicants, her thumb slipped while trying to zoom in on a profile picture and caused her phone to chirp an annoying bell sound. It was a match. She squinted in speculation at his name. River. Kind of a stupid name really, she thought to herself. In an effort to blow off some steam, she decides to send him her opinions, unfiltered.

Her thumbs began to dance on the keyboard. “Cry me a river, River! Sorry, I had to, it’s just kind of a dumb name. Your mom ought to have just named you Park or Mountain, although that last one might be too generous. But whatever floats your boat, literally :/.” Send. After a slight chuckle, she lowers her phone to look back at the empty seat. Her smile goes missing once again.

After several minutes of self-loathing via social media scrolling, she sees a familiar face walk into the burger palace. She scans him closely, not being able to put her finger on who it was.... until they met eyes. Double fuck.

After giving ShamWow Stephanie his order, he walks over and points to her, knowing exactly what to say. “You must be Park, right?” At least he had a sense of humor. All the blood flowed to her face. “I guess that’s me...” she replied. There was a pause of silence where she couldn’t tell if he was checking her out or just hyper-focusing on her red, bloodshot eyes. She gestures to him to sit down.

“Look,” she says cautiously, “I’m sorry about the message, I was just being a troll. Your name is... nice.” He laughed. “No, it’s not... but it’s at least better than Park.” She laughed back. “I suppose so.”

For the next few minutes as they waited for their orders together, she had forgotten why she was sad. Through conversation, they learned they had similar music tastes, played the same sports growing up, and shared a fondness for capybara memes on Instagram. They end up following each other. He scrolls through her profile, realizing just how put together she typically was, and the noticeable lack of it right now. He thought she was beautiful either way.

He makes a comment on a particular photo. “Who’s this person? They’re in like every pic. Is that your friend or sister? I’m hoping it’s not a former girlfriend or something.” Her memory floods back in, and she feels a warm rush of blood spread from her heart to her toes and fingertips. “Best friend,” she replied. She pauses for a few seconds before adding, “She was my best friend.”

He reaches for words to say. “Friend breakups are tough, I just stopped talking to my friend Brett... he was always with that stupid red hat. I just couldn’t be around him anymore.” She remains silent for a while, scrolling through her profile, missing her.

“She was in a serious car crash a couple of weeks ago. She died on impact.” A tear that had been restrained since she entered the room finally found its release. “I’m so sorry,” he replied, knowing he reached wrong. “That’s a really hard thing, losing a friend like that.”

“ORDER NUMBER 423 and 427,” yelled Stephanie from the front counter. She looks around. River and Park were the only ones in the room. “I guess that’s us. I’ll get it.”

Once he left the table, her tears became too much to hold back. As she felt more salty drops drip down to meet her lips, she got up and began to pace toward the exit. Her hand was on the door before he could realize what she was doing.

He tried to go after her. But it was too late. She was already in her car, pulling out of the parking lot. As she began to pull out of the lot, he held up the greasy paper bag holding her double-cheeseburger combo, the one her best friend would always order in spite of her since she was vegetarian, right before they would compare potential dating matches and share a Coke.

“BUT PARK, YOUR BURGER!”