EXT. ROADSIDE DINER - DAY
Quaint, rustic and alone on the side of a rural tree-shaded two-lane road. A FEW PATRONS at tables in the small outside patio, A FEW MORE PATRONS visible in the window to inside seating. A SERVER, 20, comes outside with two plates for patrons at a table, serves them, goes back inside.
The ASSORTED VEHICLES with California plates in the dirt lot partially cordoned with hay bales, include EIGHT TWO-SEATER TOURING MOTORCCYLES and EIGHT COUPLES in riding gear walking to them from the diner, their collective CONVERSATION A CHORUS OF MURMURED CHATTER. A mid-70s PORSCHE TARGA 911 is the most eye-catching of the cars and trucks.
INT. DINER
Barbara, dressed as she was playing scrabble, at a corner small table under a framed photograph that flatters San Luis Obispo County's Edna Valley, across from BRIAN, 50-something - fashion-friendly work boots, jeans, untucked plaid flannel - and their respective phones and bottles of sparkling water. Their relatively secluded location somewhat minimizes the MURMUR OF CONVERSATION and CLATTER of dish and silverware but they lean into each other to better hear.
BRIAN: How did they meet?
BARBARA: Playing the slots at the Silver Spur Casino in Reno. Tom was passing through on his way from a ranch hand job in northeast Nevada to drop off a truck and horse with someone before flying to Mexico. Olivia was there to audition for a play at the Pioneer Theatre.
BRIAN: An actress.
BARBARA: And singer and dancer. Brand new fresh theatre degree from Fullerton.
BRIAN: Do we know what she was auditioning for?
Barbara smiles, Brian winks.
BARBARA: We do. The Music Man. She auditioned that morning.
She turns to look at what Brian is eyeing: the motorcycle riders helmeting and saddling up like a sixteen-part machine. They TURN ON THEIR ENGINES almost as one, REV a throaty chorus, finally RUMBLE to the road and ride away, taking their ROAR with them, out of view and range.
BRIAN: So the slots at the spur.
BARBARA: They won at almost exactly the same time, their backs to each other. Conversation led to Tom's invitation for a drive around Lake Tahoe the next day. Olivia accepted. Tom picked her up the next morning, they did the drive and on the way back to Reno got diverted to taking fifty through Carson City because of a fire in the Spooner Lake area. That diversion became dinner and an overnight stay at what was then called The Pony Express Hotel. That overnight stay resulted in Hunter.
BRIAN: So she's in her early twenties.
BARBARA: They were both twenty-two.
BRIAN: Birth control?
BARBARA: Olivia used a diaphragm. Ninety-four percent success rate. My favorite Hunter story is the one he told about how Olivia laughed then cried when he told her why he wore number six in high school baseball.
Brian laughs, Barbara smiles.
BARBARA: They drove back to Reno the next morning, had breakfast, Tom dropped off Olivia at her hotel and left. No way to find him when she found out she was pregnant. Never saw him again. She moved in with her parents, had Hunter, went back for her graduate degree, and the rest I'll fill in on the drive home.
BRIAN: I bet there were and are probably a few Tom Walkers in Texas.
BARBARA: A few hundred. I'll get a middle name from Chloe.
SERVER, 30, arrives with a soup and salad that goes to Barbara and sandwich and fries that go to Brian.
SERVER: Can I bring you anything else.?
Brian and Barbara look at each other, Barbara shakes her head.
BRIAN: We're good right now.
SERVER: Alright. Well just wave me down if you need anything.
BARBARA: Thank you.
Server leaves.
BRIAN: How are your folks with this?
BARBARA: Stoically freaked as fuck.
____________________
OR I just put them in bed or something way simpler and cut a lot of cost.
AND something here isn't right but to be fixed later, if scene not jettisoned.
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