Three Seconds Daily

She was a flower borne in the traffic, and every day she picked his booth to pay her toll. Her warm smile just for him swelled his heart with fondness and longing, but despite their brief moments of closeness, the distance between them seemed vast. What was in store for these hearts that shared three seconds daily?

Would she stop by today?

Leaning through the window, Joe turned his head into the glare of the headlights and savored the morning air. Even above the ever-present char of exhaust, San Francisco’s morning fog comforted him. Droplets condensed on his eyelashes. Pausing in his work, he smiled at the lights of the Golden Gate. They glowed gold and red in the haze, tracing the famous orange towers and the roadway that was the north entrance into San Francisco.

Of course she would stop by.

Joe blinked himself back to work. In a fluid motion, he reached out with a smile, counted the toll, and flashed his green light. Within three seconds, the car was on its way into the city. Joe usually used the few seconds of contact to say thanks and give a welcoming wave. He liked being the first friendly face thousands of commuters saw every day as they entered the city.

He glanced at his watch and sighed as he did the arithmetic. It would be ninety-seven minutes until the swell of rush hour reached its peak, when the busy lines of cars and trucks would slow and stretch beyond the Golden Gate’s crest. In ninety-seven minutes, floating in the press of traffic like a flower floating on a stream, she would appear, and he would savor the best three seconds this day would bring.

Joe sighed and smiled at the traffic as he worked. He always had his favorite booth, the fourth from the left. As he greeted the stream of commuters with practiced efficiency, he thought about her, about how every day she chose this lane.

It was one of the things about her that enchanted him. Every day she had exact change for the five-dollar toll, knowing precisely how to fold the bills and hold them at the perfect height and angle for the most efficient exchange. When her fingers briefly brushed his palm to hand him the toll, her face beamed with a smile that, in the three seconds daily it shone upon him, would energize Joe for hours.

During her visit every morning, her voice was an angel’s song in his ears as they exchanged greetings and comments on the traffic or the weather. He longed some day to have a real conversation with her, one that extended beyond the routine handful of words that crowded each day’s brief exchange. He dreamt of the jokes and stories they might share, the things they would learn about one another, if only he could turn those three seconds into three minutes, or three hours. But he hadn’t gained the courage even to ask her name. What would such a radiant woman want with a tollbooth guy, anyways?

Between cars, Joe glanced up and squinted at the fog as it dissipated brightly in the sun. Surprised, he consulted his watch. More than an hour and a half had passed as he mindlessly worked through hundreds of commuters, his longing thoughts of her distracting him.

He straightened his collar and tidied his hair with his fingers. He cleared his throat and smiled as he thought of what he might say during his three seconds with her today. Hoping it might bring her sooner, he worked with a speed that his co-workers admired, a car passing every fraction of a second under the guidance of his blurred movements.

Finally there came a pause in his lane, where a gap had opened between cars. Joe took advantage of the time to take a breath and flex his fingers, but then he saw her. She approached slowly, her car’s hesitation the reason for the growing opening in the traffic. For the first time since he had known them, her eyes were troubled. Thin smoke rose from her little car, and sounds of impatience rose from the traffic behind her. Joe’s heart cried out, wanting to help her as she struggled the last yards to his booth, but he could do nothing but wait for her to arrive. When she stopped with her toll held in her perfect style, her car sputtered and gasped.

Speechless with concern, Joe accepted her toll and flashed his green light. She attempted to move on, but her car stalled. Her face contorted with disgrace as commuters jeered behind her. Joe swallowed, wanting nothing but to silence the commuters behind, and rush to her aid.

“Oh, no. Please…” she cried as she turned the key. The poor engine rattled and belched a puff of smoke before returning to defeated silence. She despaired, “Oh, no! Not now. Not here.”

A lump formed in Joe’s throat. Each day revolved around these three seconds he spent with her, and now she was helpless in front of him. He didn’t even know her name.

In a series of motions as deft as his taking of the tolls, he snatched a bit of paper and scribbled, “Dear miss, good mechanic friend.” He added his mechanic’s address and, “Spark plug wires? Joe the tollbooth guy.”

“Um,” he stammered to get her attention. She tried to smile as she took the folded note from his quaking fingers. He assured her, “Just wait a few seconds and try again. It’ll be okay.”

“I’m so sorry…” She closed her eyes for a moment and turned the key. When the engine coughed to life, she ground it into gear and jerked forward without looking back. Her car limped into the distance, trailing a forlorn haze.

As the day wore on, Joe wondered if she made it to her daily destination. He hoped his note had helped, but maybe it had been too much. He was just a tollbooth guy, and what business of his was it to intrude and suggest that she visit a mechanic? That was basically the same as telling her to get her no-good piece of junk off the road. And that last part with his name, “Joe the tollbooth guy”. Why did he have to remind her that he was just the daily tollbooth guy? Why would she want anything to do with him after that?

By the end of his shift, when the sunset painted the Golden Gate a dreary red, he had pondered the mistake of handing her that stupid note so fully that he knew that she would never stop at his booth again. He sighed and drove home with a heavy heart.

The next morning found him working listlessly through his booth window. He doubted he would ever see her again, unless she stopped by one last time today to tell him off or to spit at him, but he doubted that she would do that. She was too sweet to demean a befuddled tollbooth guy. He wished she would stop by to punish him nonetheless. He deserved it. He cursed himself, why did he have to write that stupid note?

For hours he processed the traffic like a robot, not thinking to smile at the commuters as they passed into the city. Somebody else would have to be the first friendly face they saw today, and for all the days to come. Joe took the tolls and made change in a spiritless daze, wondering if he should quit this lousy job altogether and work the toll at San Francisco’s east entrance, the Oakland Bay Bridge, instead.

He held his hand out for the next driver to shove him the wrong change in wet, crumpled bills. Instead, a familiarly folded toll brushed his fingers. He looked up and saw only her eyes. His tunnel vision widened until he saw her smile, framed in her cascade of brown hair. He gaped, speechless.

“Good morning, Joe,” she said as she nudged her toll into his fingers. Joe saw among the bills a small, folded note. When he remained mute, she grinned and continued, “It’s so nice to meet you. And thanks.”

In three seconds she was gone, her freshly tuned car zipping past as if the engine was brand new. Joe stared at the neatly creased message in his hand, his heart racing. Between the next five tolls he managed to fumble it open and read the words written in her swirling script.

“To Joe From Diane. I have wanted to learn your name for two months, but lacked the courage to ask it. Who would have guessed that a worn-out set of spark plug wires would solve that problem for me? Join me some time for dinner in Oakland?”

For the remainder of his shift, Joe greeted the commuters passing through his lane with the friendliest face they would see all day.

“Dear Diane,” Joe wrote in reply, “for three seconds at a time, I waited three months, and also have your worn spark plug wires to thank. My shift ends at four, and I can be in Oakland by five. I would love to join you for dinner. Which day is best? Joe the tollbooth guy.”

Her smile was as dazzling as ever the next morning. They exchanged folded bits of paper and within three seconds she was vanishing south on highway 101. Joe unfolded her message. Beneath an address for an Oakland restaurant was her seemingly clairvoyant reply, “Dear Joe, Excellent. See you at five. Tonight. Diane.”

He wondered how she could have known before reading his note that he got off before five. When he asked his co-workers, they shrugged and smiled. They told him that their guess was as good as his, and advised him not to be late.

At four-thirty that evening, with a whirlwind of butterflies in his stomach, Joe drove with the thick traffic heading into Oakland on the heavy, double-deckered steelwork of the Oakland Bay Bridge, so different from the orange grace of his Golden Gate. He rarely ventured east from San Francisco into Oakland, so he had memorized the directions. It was delightful to finally know her name. The thrill he felt as he voiced those two syllables made his butterflies surge still more. More than ever, he wanted to meet her, to gaze at her in some setting other than the seat of her car, and to talk to her for more than three seconds at a time. Sweaty palms clutching the wheel, he made his way to the restaurant.

At ten past five, Joe was still alone, pretending to read the menu. He had hoped to see her when he entered, smiling up at him from one of the tables, but there was no sign of her. Where was she? Her bewitching note from this morning had become dog-eared in his fingers. The hostess approached.

“Sir?” she asked. “Excuse me, are you Joe?”

He nodded.

“I’m so sorry. Diane left this note for you.”

He accepted it and murmured thanks. He felt the stigma of his tollbooth job dousing his hopes. He was surprised that Diane’s delicate lettering was capable of communicating such cruel news:

“Dear Joe, My apologies for this morning’s impulsive invitation. In retrospect I think we should get to know each other a little better before committing to dinner. See you at the tollbooth. Diane.”

Joe trudged to his car. His disappointment weighed on him like wet snow as he started back west toward San Francisco. He wondered if he could stand the humiliation of seeing her again at his tollbooth. Maybe it was finally time to give up and look for another job. Nobody wanted anything to do with a tollbooth guy.

Joe gloomily began his evening’s second crossing of the Oakland Bay Bridge. Tolls were only paid by traffic entering the city, and he was dismally reminded of Diane as he neatly folded the Bay Bridge’s three-dollar toll. Contemplating the failure of his life and his idiotic choice of career, he absently held his payment for the tollbooth guy, a fellow soul caged in a booth so similar to Joe’s own. He waited with depressed patience, but the light remained red, his toll untaken.

Joe realized that the attendant was talking on the intercom, probably calling for change. He didn’t know any of the Bay Bridge crew, but they waved at him and laughed from neighboring booths. Joe groaned, wanting to leave his car and crawl away.

Another attendant came alongside, and Joe reached out with his money so he could pay and hurry away.

“That covers your toll, Joe,” Diane laughed at Joe’s surprise. Pretty in her Bay Bridge tollbooth uniform, she waved to her co-workers, hurried to the passenger side, and let herself in. “But you still owe me dinner.”

Author’s note:

From 1937 to 2013, human toll booth workers manned the Golden Gate’s toll booths. Today an automated system captures tolls from cars that hardly even need to slow. During those 76 years, did any of those devoted workers have an experience like Joe’s and Diane’s? Let’s hope so.

Cover:

Image by F.P. Wilson

Graphic Design by N. Herd