Florida, 1979
Life’s a Beach and then You Die
PART FOUR
The waitress comes out the little doorway from the kitchen with a steaming plate and sets it down on the counter in front of Dorie Lanigan, who proceeds to tear into it like tomorrow is Judgment Day. Like cigarettes and coffee and sugar have been her staples for a while. Five minutes later, she wipes the thick white plate with the last hunk of toast, jams the soggy bread into her mouth and washes it down with orange juice and more coffee, making a slurping noise when she drinks.
I’m having the thought that the wise thing to do is to get out from under while I still can. But something in me doesn’t want her slipping away. I pay the bill and have only a wrinkled twenty left.
“Do you need any money, Dorie?” I ask, my ‘kind eyes’ looking into her baby blues to see what I can find.
“I can’t take your money, Keith, after you’ve been so nice to me. But if you could give me a ride down the road a-ways, it would help me out a lot. I’d feel safe with a man that has kind, smart eyes like yours.”
“Sure, I’ll give you a ride. Where do you need to go?”
“About ten miles south of here, to Crystal River. My car is getting fixed at a gas station there.”
“No problem. Where you headed after that?” I give her my soulful look.
“I don’t really know for sure. Might even come back here to the motel. They’ve been nice to me here. Old lady that owns it has been letting me crash in one of the rooms in exchange for some cleaning. I guess she got sick of cleaning those lousy little rooms for a million years in a row.”
“For sure. What’s wrong with your car?”
“I think they said the timing belt… timing gear… something like that.”
“Isn’t that an expensive job?”
Her blue eyes are drenched in pathos and vulnerability; her thin lips curl down at the edges. “I don’t know,” she says. “They didn’t say. Seemed like nice boys, though.”
She’s an attractive girl and I’m feeling needy. I can use some companionship. I’ve always been a sucker for a sad-eyed lady. There’s something real nice about Dorie. Also something else. But I can’t quite figure out what. Sometimes she seems a little slow but that doesn’t exactly explain it. Drifty. Maybe that better describes her. Sometimes I get the feeling that we aren’t both walking on the same earth. But come to think of it, I get that feeling around most women.
“You can ride along with me as far as you want to go. I’ve got a Volkswagen bus; there’s plenty of room. Why don’t you get your stuff and meet me out front of the motel after breakfast. I’ve just got to get my stuff from the room. What do you think?”
“I think it’s sweet. I really appreciate it.”
(To be continued)
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