Chapter Four

Hazel and about half of the students from the meditation circle walked from the mill along Upper Sharon Road to the Lunchbox.

Wedged between Cunningham Hall and the Community Church, the Lunchbox was a diner that was open for breakfast and lunch, but occasionally was open well into the dinner hour, just not on any regular basis. The owner was also the short order cook, and some mix of where the supply levels were at in the walk-in cooler and his own energy level determined where between 2:00 pm and evening the Lunchbox closed.

The lights were on, the vent fan was pushing grill scents out onto the sidewalk, and the half-dozen or so of them went in the door and turned to fill the large booth in the front of the long, narrow restaurant.

Once Hazel had realized that things were not quite as she had assumed, her diplomatic instincts had kicked in quickly, and she meant to offer coffee or tea all around, and some conversation. During the short walk over, this had turned into a purchase of dinner, which she'd decided not to contest but instead pretend that it had been her intention from the outset.

"How did you all start meditating together?" she asked after they all got settled into their positions around the table. "Is this a club, or some other activity?"

"A bunch of us go to the Salvage Yard," said one young woman who hadn't said much so far. "That's where we started talking to each other."

"The Salvage Yard?" asked Hazel; "The junk shop down near the crossroads?" she went on.

They all smiled a variety of smiles. "No," said the first girl, "that's what we call our fellowship group, our church. But it meets in the Sharon Architectural Salvage building."

The young man who had said he was the "convener" of the group spoke up, no longer sounding as wary and defensive as he had back in the mill; "The Salvage Yard is a group of community members including some students who meet for worship and prayer. It started with an AA group that got kicked out of the Community Church, and started meeting down at Nicholas' warehouse, and just grew from there after Natasha died."

Hazel could tell the students all assumed she knew who Nicholas and Natasha were, and felt obscurely guilty about never having encountered the names before. The only reasonable response seemed to be a brief nod of the head, and when she had, the first young woman added "They just started welcoming people, and it turned into a church. Nicholas doesn't really like calling it that, but it's what people are familiar with. He calls it a meeting for worship, it's kind of a Quaker thing."

"So you're all Quakers?" asked Hazel.

"Oh, no" said two or three of them. Someone over to one side of her down the side of the booth said "Sort of, but..."

The young man leaned into the table and looked over at Hazel. "We're just a supportive community. Some of us are Christians of different sort, and some not sure what they are. But we just needed to find a place to get some reassurance. You know, about what we're doing, where we're going."

There was just a hint of "and we don't get that at the college" in both the statement and the look he gave her, to which Hazel felt it prudent to just nod. As she did, the other students nodded with her. They were all agreeing to something, she just wasn't sure what.

And then the waitress came with two arms full of plates, and everyone started sorting out whose was whose.