“I’ll send a dozen up to your room.”
“I already have a room here.”
“Not like this one. I’ll get you the top floor executive suite if you want. The best of whatever they have. Drink champagne in the Jacuzzi and whatever. You’ll be like royalty up there. Order room service...whatever you want.”
“And?”
“No and. I won’t bother you. Won’t even phone you.”
“Freddy, I do want to thank you for the ride and the dinner. I truly appreciate it.” She gave me the nicest smile yet. “I’ll be over at the cafe in the morning. If you don’t show up, I’ll understand and I’ll be okay. But I’ll bet you’re over there before sunrise waiting for me.”
That polite thank you was all I was going to get from her. She turned and left me. The only night, the only chance to have her in my arms had passed. So painful to watch that body with those perfect hips and long legs undulate away from me into her motel room. Was all that accentuation for my benefit? She already had me under her spell.
After she was safely inside her room, I drove back to the Marriott. This was crazy. If Betty Jo hadn’t been along, I’d have driven on to Florida without stopping. I had two Martinis in the lounge while I returned some phone calls, and carried a third drink up to my room. I watched a sexy movie, but it wasn’t as good as thinking about her. At last I fell asleep.
The next morning, I was up early and rushed through my shower and shave. My head was full of Betty Jo thoughts although at this time yesterday morning I didn’t know she existed. Yesterday my head was clear and full of purposeful direction. I knew the path I was on, the path my father and wise men before him had followed for centuries. Get an education, work hard, excel, and you’ll succeed. It wasn’t complicated for me. I’d already reached my goal of unquestioned success. I laughed at those frivolous fools dancing down the purposeless path of dissipation. Until yesterday morning.
How could I have come this far without someone exactly like her in my life? She was everything. All my problems lay outside myself until I met her. Now my mind was tangled with thoughts of her. They wound around through every crevice in my head like a dark feverish snake.
I checked out, and rolled my bag across the lobby, and out into the slight chill of a bright November dawn in Georgia. I checked the gas gauge as I pulled out onto the side road. We weren’t that far from the Georgia-Florida line. I’d fill up around Jacksonville.
I don’t know why I hurried over to Mom’s Cafe. I knew I was early. I supposed strippers didn’t get to bed before 4 a.m. and were accustomed to sleeping late. It was a glorious morning and I stood outside the cafe taking in deep breaths of the fresh Georgia air and wondering why I didn’t get up to see the sun rise every morning of my life. The morning would be perfect after she showed up. I could look across the road and see the door to her motel room. No open curtains. No sign of her.
Maybe she wasn’t coming. Maybe she hadn’t gone straight to bed last night. Maybe she’d met some man staying at the motel. She could have borrowed Papp’s car and found some rough Georgia bar. The entire place would fall silent as soon as she walked in the door, and they would immediately crown her queen. She might have chosen some unworthy hunk to take back to the motel. Some tattooed biker. Maybe I’d never see her again.
After an hour of standing there, I gave up and went in the cafe. I had just finished the best country breakfast ever when she reappeared in my life. She came in looking unusually fresh and appealing. I greeted her and told her to order whatever she wanted.
“Just want a coffee to go. Can we just drive to Florida without all these stops?” An older pigtailed daughter of Mom brought her a take-out coffee.
We got underway again on I-95. Here it was a fresh new day. The last day. This was it. We’d be in Florida later and I wasn’t any closer to intimacy with Betty Jo, let alone converting her into my mistress.
She leaned back, crossed her legs, and looked out the side window at the Georgia scenery zipping by. I thought I had time to sneak a look at her without her yelling. I’d never paid any attention to a woman’s knees before and now I stared in strange fascination. How smooth and creamy they looked. Flawless knees. Dimpled and soft as if they were brand new, never used.
“Freddy, do you mind? The highway’s out in front. Try to glance at it now and then.”
“I’m sorry. I’ve never seen myself like this. I don’t understand myself. And I certainly don’t understand you. I think we both should loosen up and enjoy the situation. You don’t have to be constantly on guard as you are. You’re treating me as though I’m just another man who doesn’t appreciate you for what you really are.”
“Freddy, you assume I want to screw you because I strip to make a living. Only a man in a man’s world could come up with this stuff. You’re not my type, get it? I could hand you a bronze plaque that reads ‘Freddy. It ain’t gonna happen.’ And you’d still be convinced that somehow a party will soon start.”
She had accurately sensed my frustration. Perhaps I’d misunderstood the situation entirely. Perhaps I’d been too subtle. “I don’t mean to insult you, but what if I just flat out paid you?”
“Hookers get paid. Female friends and housewives do it for free.”
She might have thought I took her for someone cheap. “I’m talking about real money. Much more than you think I’m offering. You’d have money in the bank and a lot of money in your pocket when you walked in on your mother. You don’t want to show up as broke as she is. You could fly back to Baltimore first class.”
“Hold on, let me get out my calculator.”
“You’re making fun of me. What if I offered you something really big, a luxury apartment, expensive clothes, a glamorous lifestyle?”
“You left out the sun and moon. How far do you go before you realize you’re making an ass out of yourself? I know what I want, Freddy, and that isn’t it. Look, I admit I tricked you into giving me a ride. You appeared harmless and I loved this big safe car. I was stranded and it was up to me to take care of myself. I needed to keep myself safe. So the first thing I did before I ever approached you yesterday morning was to write down your license plate number. I have it tucked away in my purse in case something bad happens. You men don’t have to think about such things, but the world out there can get very nasty very quickly. No one is getting over on this girl ever again.
“All I want from you is the ride. I didn’t ask for food or drinks from you. And that was very nice of you, Freddy. Did I play you a little? Sure. I was keeping the ride going. Now I’m getting the ride without doing anything. So why should I do anything.”
“You could be nice.”
“Look, Freddy,” she said softly, “Don’t you understand you’re asking me to trade sex for a ride to Florida? How dare you? I don’t do things like that. Second, once we do the deed, then the ride might be over. Ask any teenage girl. The chance of a man like you kicking me out of his car while he’s still horny is zilch, nada, and zero.”
“I’m not going to put you out or leave you stranded whether I’m sexually satisfied or not, Candy.”
“Don’t call me Candy.”
“If you’re so pure in thought and deed, you mind telling me how you paid for that motel room last night?”
“What, your imagination suddenly stop working?”
“You got that old man off, didn’t you?”
“We were just sympathetic spirits. We understood each other. We each had something the other wanted. So, we made a deal. He was at my door this morning—told me I could stay a month free.”
“No doubt ready to sign over the motel to you.”
“I’m joking, Freddy. Do you really think I’d do Pops a little favor for the price of a motel room? I told you I don’t do that stuff. If I had diddled him, he’d be on a respirator right now thanking God for his last good time and saying he now was ready to go. The truth is we were talking about Florida. He told me he used to drive down and see his girlfriend in Apalachicola, but the last time she unexpectedly told him she was getting married. Poor guy. He said I reminded him of her. My guess was every woman he sees reminds him of her. That’s all. Told me he had one room rate for the tourists, but he gave me the lower rate for locals. You know what else he said? Anyone as pretty as me should float through life free anyway, like a national resource, so everyone could look at me. Wasn’t that nice? Oh God, to be able to float through life.”
“But that’s exactly what you are doing. I’m not suggesting your life is easy, and you don’t have to pay your way. But you float along in social situations by making promises with your sexuality.”
