Piccadilly Lilly
(Totally untrue story of a totally true airport diner)

Lone Rock Airport, not far out of Spring Green, suited its name, thankfully thought Kat, on these quiet early mornings as she regularly got to the Piccadilly by 5:15. Just enough time to turn the thermostat back up to 70 and feel the one-room diner warm-up from corner to corner. She flipped through a handful of order sheets from Shel's County Meat, scratched out a few stock needs for next day's menu, then stirred up some of Merle's homemade oatmeal (dried diced-up back bacon and cubed apples was his secret). All this before 8:30 when the first wave (one, two, sometimes three) of single props buzzed up to the door step, noses bent like puppies sniffing people food.

This morning the body of a Cessna sat out in the lot glowing white as bone in the remaining moonlight.  A string of runway lights mirrored off of the windshield and down onto water streaks off the runway like set candles bright against the dark cement.

Kat set down her papers on the hostess podium and walked out to see if it was Ray's '67.  Ray had been flying-in daily from Waunakee for two years now, since Kat opened up here at the corner of the airport.  Ray wouldn't necessarily call if he didn't plan on flying-in for breakfast here and there, but the next morning you could overhear him telling the retired regulars all the who's the what's, where's when's and why's.  It was Ray and Kat's dad who helped rebuild the old Piccadilly B-17 Flying Fortress

way back and which inspired the name of the diner.  Kat hadn't heard anything this time around, and she knew Ray hadn't landed last night before closing.  She walked up to the small pilot's door and opened the latch.  The two-seater was empty, no doubt, the instrument panel completely dark except for the

dull hazy light of the outdoor lamp from out back.  On the passenger seat sat a white piece of paper though, so she stepped up, leaned in, picked it up and all it said was "fly me."