Free The Listener by Christina Dodd

THE LISTENER
    Welcome to Virtue Falls
Founded 1902
Your Vacation Destination on the Washington Coast
Home of the World Famous Virtue Falls Canyon
Population 2487
    At two-thirty P.M. on a Thursday afternoon, Coast Guard Commander Kateri Kwinault shoved open the door to the Oceanview Café, stalked inside, seated herself on a stool at the lunch counter, and slapped her palm flat on the surface. “I’ll take a beer.”
    Rainbow finished wiping off a table, balanced the dirty dishes on one arm, and strolled over to the wall behind the counter. She dumped the dishes in one plastic pan, the silverware in another. In a tone of colorless courtesy, she said, “I’m sorry, we here at the Oceanview Café don’t have a beer license.”
    Kateri slapped the counter again. “I’ll take a bourbon on the rocks.”
    “I’m sorry, we here at the Oceanview Café don’t have a liquor license.”
    “I’ll take a puff of weed.”
    Rainbow put her fists on her ample hips. “I’m sorry, we here at the Oceanview Café don’t have a marijuana license.”
    Kateri sighed. “I’ll take a full-fat, full-sugar, half-caff latte with two pumps of vanilla.”
    “That I can do.” Rainbow Breezewing, waitress and all-round Virtue Falls busybody, hustled to the coffee machine and programmed it then, before she punched
go
, she returned, leaned down, and looked deep into Kateri’s eyes. “Real cow’s milk? Because you know what that does to your digestion.”
    “I
truly
need full-fat cow’s milk,” Kateri said.
    “Do you
want
to spend the afternoon being gassy?” Rainbow leaned closer.
    Kateri backed up. “Fine. Soy milk. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s hanging with someone who saw me grow up.”
    “You could go to the Halfway Bar.” Rainbow put the latte in front of Kateri.
    “Yes, because that’s a classy place for a single woman to hang out.” And for all her joking, Kateri didn’t drink. For most Native Americans, liquor created results even more dire than cow’s milk. “Besides, I’m on duty.”
    “So you took a break?”
    “No use being the station commander if I can’t give myself some time off when I need it. I took the new kid out for a trial run up the coast.” Kateri took a sip and grimaced. “I hate soy milk.”
    Rainbow leaned her elbows against the counter and propped her chin in her hands. “He didn’t work out?”
    “He compared the Pacific Ocean with New York Harbor.”
    Rainbow cackled like a hen.
    “Precisely.” Kateri took another sip and put the cup down.
    “What’s his name again?”
    “Lt. J. G. Landon Adams. His uncle was a senator. His uncle got voted out, so Landon … Landlubber”—Kateri laughed, and realized she’d just found his nickname —“lost his job in the civilized world and had to come out here.”
    “Bit of a culture shock?”
    “He asked about the music scene.” Kateri met Rainbow’s gaze straight on. “Ensign Sanchez told him the high-school version of
Oklahoma
was quite good.”
    Both women started laughing so hard Kateri had to hide her face in a napkin, and the four retired men in the corner turned indignant faces in their direction.
    “Oh-oh.” Rainbow grabbed the coffeepot. “I’d better go warm up their cups or they’ll stop complaining about the government and start complaining about me.”
    “Can’t have that.” While Rainbow was cajoling the old guys into a better humor, Kateri looked around the diner.
    Rainbow liked to say the Oceanview Café was inspired by the fifties. In fact, the corner diner was built in the fifties and the only stuff that wasn’t original was anything that had been broken and replaced. The white-topped tables and red-seated chairs had chrome legs. The floor was tiny black-and-white tiles with stained white grout. Despite its name, the diner’s windows looked out not on the ocean, but on the two streets leading into the Virtue Falls town square.
    Virtue Falls was located on a bypass off Highway 101 on the Washington