Chapter 12: The hostess to Cincinnati
The snow tapped the windows as the bus plunged ahead,
stirring up in me rumors of the north, and the reports of a blizzard sweeping
across the northern states.
A vision of blotted out highways and buried cities came to
me like a dream, making me wonder about Louise and how she fared in far off
Boulder where such storms made up a way of life.
Winter in mountains came early and left late, fingers
lingering deep into spring as if to threaten even the coming of summer.
The snow pellets clung to then fell away from the windows,
melting under the consistent blast of the bus’s heaters, turning into tears
wiped away by the motion of the bus.
Not yet two days away from my family, I wondered had they
already picked up my trail or at least the rumor of where I might go. Had they
reached out to Louise’s parents, gotten a number to call her, and had they
already altered her to my possible arrival?
Would she cooperate with them if they had, agreeing to call
them if my shadow fell across her doorstep?
I realized then how little I knew about her, what she might
think or do or say if I arrived after being warned.
Would my not showing up right away bother her after all my
family’s talk about my rushing to her?
Would she even care?
In the dark bus, staring out at the snowy landscape, I felt
unprotected, even wounded when it came to her -- a wound more penetrating in
some ways than those my comrades in the army had suffered overseas, leaving a
hollowness inside me I did not know how to fill.
Back on the base with my buddy Vinnie – and off base when we
went AWOL to New York – I had filled the abyss with booze, a temporary band aid
I knew I could not resort to now, the wound far too deep for any remedy except
to meet and be with Louise, if she would have me.
The bus bumping over some rough patch in the dark jolted me
out of these thoughts. Baggage shifted in the racks above the seats. Other
passengers woke, grumbled, glanced around, then fell back into their uneasy
slumber.
The hostess, making her way from the front of the bus,
checked on the passengers, patting the shoulders of those most startled,
assuring them, then saw me, smiling as she reached my seat.
"Aren't you going to sleep?" she asked, leaning
over me, the subtle scent of her perfume lingering between us, vague from the
house since she had applied, yet stunningly fresh – something out of
springtime, not approaching winter.
I shook my head.
“I don’t sleep well on buses,” I said. “or in strange
places. It took me almost a month to sleep right when I first got to boot
camp.”
Still smiling, but glancing up the long aisle towards the
driver, the hostess slipped quickly into the seat beside me, sighing.
“I could sleep on my feet, I’m so tired,” she whispered, his
lips moist, and red, though like her perfume the lipstick she had applied at
some time earlier had faded into something pink; so, she seemed not to be
wearing lipstick at all. Her smile so appealing, I had to smile back – even
though a moment earlier I had felt despair.
“You do seem to be on your feet a lot,” I said.
“Especially on nights like this,” she said, again glancing
in the direction of the driver, and then her gaze wandering to check at a
distance some of the people she had comforted a moment before. “People don’t
like when we ride through weather like this – even though most of them sleep
through it. And seeing them sleep, only makes me want to curl up in a seat and
go to sleep myself.”
She turned towards me and smiled once more.
“I could curl up right here,” she said. “You look like you
would make a good pillow. You wouldn’t mind letting me lean against you for a
bit, would you?”
“Of course not,” I said, glad for the darkness that hid my
blushing.
She leaned her head against my shoulder, taking one of my
hands in her, fingers weaving between mine, squeezing lightly. “Thanks.”
My head turned towards her, my gaze looking down into very
dark and dilated eyes, her lips seemed to tremble as much as I did.
“So where are you from, soldier boy?” she asked, her voice
husky, deep, losing all of the artificial charm she used when making
announcements over the PA system.
“New York,” I said, close enough to the truth for me to
sound convincing. “What about you?”
“Pittsburgh,” she said, somewhat dourly. “I ride from
Pittsburgh to Cincinnati then back again. It’s more than a little boring,
unless I meet someone interesting – like you.”
“You find me interesting?”
“Mysterious fits better,” she said. “I see a lot of people
during these rides. I get to know when someone has something to hide.”
I stiffened; she sensed it.
“Don’t worry,” she said, patting my shoulder with her other
hand. “I won’t give you away. I like your company, even if you feel the need to
keep your secret. And now that I know you’re from New York, I’m even more
pleased to be with you.”
“You like New York?”
“I’ve never been there,” she said. “And I want to go there
so bad it hurts.”
“Why don’t you go? I’m sure you can get an employee discount
to go there if you want.”
Again, she looked up at me, her eyes saying something her
lips would not breathe, her lips parting in a much different smile, tender,
even needy.
“It’s not the cost of the bus ticket, it’s the cost of being
there, and being there alone,” she said. “I can go there, but I would want to
be with somebody when I go.”
“What about your boyfriend?”
“I don’t have one.”
“That’s silly. You’re an amazingly beautiful woman, who
could get any man you want.”
“A lot of men want me,” she said. “But there are very few I
want – or want to be with after the first time I’ve been with them.”
I didn’t laugh although I wanted to. She seemed so utterly
serious and pressed against me with such warmth, I didn’t want to spoil it
“So, you’re not going to go until you have someone you can
go with?” I asked.
“Exactly,” she said again squeezing my fingers with hers.
“Maybe you can take me there and show me around.”
“Me? But I’m headed west.”
“That doesn’t mean you won’t come back this way,” she said.
“People generally do.”
“I’m not sure I will,” I said.
She pouted. “That would be a shame,” she said. “I’m sure you
could show me more than most men could.”
I was more wide awake because of her than I had a right to be, so long without a bed,
though what touched me most was the way she looked at me, as if I had provided
her with a glimpse of something she could not go and get for herself, as if I
had dragged New York City onto the bus on my back for her to examine in detail,
her eyes nearly as bright as the headlights that passed outside.
I might have warned her to stay home, having seen so many
girls like her in Greenwich Village, searching for something that did not
exist. Yet with her, I got the feeling she wasn’t looking for a place so much
as a person, someone to share something, if not New York then any other landscape,
even the landscape of each other’s lives.
I came close to saying something to her if not at that
moment a light hadn’t flickered on towards the back of the bus, one of the
overheads over one of the seats on the other side.
I glanced in that direction.
Hard, gray eyes glared back at me, and though I did not know
the man, he seemed to know me, nodding as I looked back at him. Then the light
went out again, leaving only the afterglow of those eyes.
“He’s been watching you since we left Pittsburgh,” the
hostess said, guessing at what I had seen. “I was going to say something, but
I'm always putting my two cents in where it doesn't belong. I figured you two
knew each other."
"We don't,"
I said. "You wouldn't happen to know how far he's going, would you?"
"I saw his
ticket. It said Cincinnati," the hostess said. "Does that mean
anything to you?"
"I knew a kid in
the army who was from Cincinnati," I said. "But he was missing a leg
the last time I saw him."
I glanced again at the spot where the face had been; the
light did not go back on, and after the bus had rolled on for a time, I gave it
up, talked with the hostess a little more before she informed me, she needed to
get back to work.
I knew I would never see her again, one of those passing
moments in time, literally stranger passing in the night. The temptation to get
off the bus again and buy yet another ticket back to Pittsburgh danced in the
back of my head, possibly maybe even a ticket for two to New York.
But the thought vanished almost soon as it came.
I stared back out into the dark exterior, hearing the gush
of tires over the slushy snow, seeing the tears of melting flakes run down the
window, down across my reflected face.
I didn’t want to think about the hostess or the man with the
gray eyes. I didn’t want to think at all.
We passed into Canton almost like a surprise, a series of
exits, then a brief stop, then on the road again.
We closed in on Cincinnati, though my staring out the window
found no clue to its arrival, no advanced notice of lights that I would have
expected. Instead, I saw only trees thick with their burden of snow, and other
lumps hidden under the growing white mass, as we passed through quiet suburbs
towards the heart of the city.
Occasionally, I
braced myself and turned my head for a glance back at the darkness where I knew
the grey-eyed man sat. I could see his vague outline in the darkness, slumped
against the windowpane in apparent sleep.
I did not trust that slumber and wished for Cincinnati to
hurry so that the man would get off, leaving me free of his gaze.
Later, as we grew
nearer to the city and the lights began to reveal themselves despite the snow,
the hostess made her way up towards the front of the bus.
She touched my shoulder affectionately with her long
fingers.
“You really should get some sleep,” she said. “Maybe if
you’d taken a train with a sleeping car, you might be better rested later.”
“Then I wouldn’t have met you,” I said.
This seemed to startle her. She looked down, her soft smile
quivering again, she nodded.
The driver called to her, and she gave me another, somewhat
sadder smile.
"I probably
won't have time to talk again," she said, reaching out to touch my hand.
"It has been nice meeting you."
And just like that,
she was gone.
I sank back into the
seat and closed my eyes. But a wheezing cough woke me, and I found myself
turning towards the place from which the sound had come and found myself
staring at the grey-eyed man, who was again staring at me.
He looked away as
quickly as he could, but he had shaken me enough for me to sink even deeper
into the seat, where I closed my eyes and feigned sleep, only for sleep to take
hold of me, despite my fear.
When I woke, the bus
had stopped, although the snow had not. People stumbled around me with their
bags, making their way towards the front of the bus and out. Some of the other
passengers also got off, to relieve themselves in a toilet that wasn't jolting
this way and that, or to find food that did not have to be unwrapped before
eating.
I did not move. I did
not see the hostess again. Nor did I ever again expect to see the man with the
grey eyes, but I was wrong.
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