“Sure.”
He told her about it as well as he could within the limitations of his knowledge and his information.
“Are you worried about it?”
“Yes. But I haven’t thought about it all afternoon.”
“We’ll see what there is in the paper,” she said. “And tomorrow you can follow it on the radio in the car. Tomorrow we’ll really get an early start.”
“I bought an alarm clock.”
“Weren’t you intelligent? It’s wonderful to have such an intelligent husband. Roger?”
“Yes, daughter.”
“What do you think they will have to eat at the Green Lantern?”
The next day they started early in the morning before sunrise and by breakfast they had done a hundred miles and were away from the sea and the bays with their wooden docks and fish packing houses and up in the monotonous pine and scrub palmetto of the cattle country. They ate at a lunch counter in a town in the middle of the Florida prairie. The lunch counter was on the shady side of the square and looked out on a red bricked court house with its green lawn.
“I don’t know how I ever held out for that second fifty,” the girl said, looking at the menu.
“We should have stopped at Punta Gorda,” Roger said. “That would have been sensible.”
“We said we’d do a hundred though,” the girl said. “And we did it. What are you going to have, darling?”
“I’m going to have ham and eggs and coffee and a big slice of raw onion,” Roger told the waitress.
“How do you want the eggs?”
“Straight up.”
“The lady?”
“I’ll have corned beef hash, browned, with two poached eggs,” Helena said.
“Tea, coffee, or milk?”
“Milk please.”
“What kind of juice?”
“Grapefruit please.”
“Two grapefruits. Do you mind the onion?” Roger asked.
“I love onions,” she said. “Not as much as I love you though. And I never tried them for breakfast.”
“They’re good,” Roger said. “They get in there with the coffee and keep you from being lonely when you drive.”
“You’re not lonely are you?”
“No, daughter.”
“We made quite good time didn’t we?”
“Not really good. That’s not much of a stretch for time with the bridges and the towns.”
“Look at the cowpunchers,” she said. Two men on cow ponies, wearing western work clothes, got down from their stock saddles and hitched their horses to the rail in front of the lunch room and walked down the sidewalk on their high-heeled boots.
“They run a lot of cattle around here,” Roger said. “You have to watch for stock on all these roads.”
“I didn’t know they raised many cattle in Florida.”
“An awful lot. Good cattle now too.”
“Don’t you want to get a paper?”
“I’d like to,” he said. “I’ll see if the cashier has one.”
“At the drugstore,” the cashier said. “St. Petersburg and Tampa papers at the drugstore.”
“Where is it?”
“At the corner. I doubt if you could miss it.”
“You want anything from the drugstore?” Roger asked the girl.
“Camels,” she said. “Remember we have to fill the ice jug.”
“I’ll ask them.”
Roger came back with the morning papers and a carton of cigarettes.
“It’s not going so good.” He handed her one of the papers.
“Is there anything we didn’t get on the radio?”
“Not much. But it doesn’t look so good.”
“Can they fill the ice jug?”
“I forgot to ask.”
The waitress came with the two breakfasts and they both drank their cold grapefruit juice and started to eat. Roger kept on reading his paper so Helena propped hers against a water glass and read too.
“Have you any chili sauce?” Roger asked the waitress. She Was a thin juke-joint looking blonde.
“You bet,” she said. “You people from Hollywood.”
“I’ve been there.”
“Ain’t she from there?”
“She’s going there.”
“Oh Jesus me,” the waitress said. “Would you write in my book?
“I’d love to,” Helena said. “But I’m not in pictures.”
“You will be, honey,” the waitress said. “Wait a minute,” she said, got a pen.”
She handed Helena the book. It was quite new and had a grey imitation leather cover.
“I only just got it,” she said. “I only had this job a week.”
Helena wrote Helena Hancock on the first page in the rather flamboyant untypical hand that had emerged form the mixed ways of writing she had been taught at various schools.
“Jesus beat me what a name,” the waitress said. “Wouldn’t you write something with it?”
“What’s your name?” Helena asked.
“Marie.”
To Marie from her friend Helena wrote above the florid name in the slightly suspect script.
“Gee thanks,” Marie said. Then to Roger, “You don’t mind writing do you.”
“No,” Roger said. “I’d like to. What’s your last name, Marie?”
“Oh that don’t matter.”
He wrote Best always to Marie from Roger Hancock.
“You her father?” the waitress asked.
“Yes,” said Roger.
“Gee I’m glad she’s going out there with her father,” the waitress said. “Well I certainly wish you people luck.”
“We need it,” Roger said.
“No,” the waitress said. “You don’t need it. But I wish it to you anyway. Say you must have got married awfully young.”
“I was,” Roger said. I sure as hell was, he thought.
“I’ll bet her mother was beautiful.”
“She was the most beautiful girl you ever saw.”
“Where’s she now?”
“In London,” Helena said.
“You people certainly lead lives,” the waitress said. “Do you want another glass of milk?”
“No thanks,” Helena said. “Where are you from, Marie?”
“Fort Meade,” the waitress said. “It’s right up the road.”
“Do you like it here?”
“This is a bigger town. It’s a step up I guess.”
“Do you have any fun?”
“I always have fun when there’s any time. Do you want anything more?” she asked Roger.
“No. We have to roll.”
They paid the check and shook hands.
