It has been five years since my divorce—an easy one for me, as it was my former wife Margie who ran off with her older sister’s husband, and I stayed blissfully single and roaming a bit for those years, too. I badly missed one of my earliest playmates from the day I had learned of my unfaithful wife from her own niece!
That cute niece, almost 18 at the time, and I (26, then) had a week of wild sex, for my wife’s sister had taken off after them with fire in her eyes, despite her attorney’s advice, to find and—I don’t know what she intended, really, for she never found ‘em, and I for one didn’t give a damn.
As I said, Bennie and I had an almost idyllic week, keeping close to my house, me not wanting any interference, she not caring as long as she was "comforting" me. I think she grew up a lot that week.
Anyway, Bennie’s mother finally came home and called me, wanting to commiserate and, as an afterthought, wanting to know where her daughter Benicia might be. Not that she seemed to care very much, Bennie having turned 18 just before she came home. I know she had no reaction when I told her that Bennie had spent most of the days with me, going home at night. Luckily, Bennie and I had done some cleaning—in the daytime—Marsha’s house didn’t look too horrible. She had no comment on that, either, but as soon as Bennie graduated from high school that Spring, they moved away, separately, and I didn’t know where Bennie had gone. Marsha—I cared?
So, I was going through life with the feeling that I was missing something, and trying to make up for it by being a workaholic and making out very occasionally with some of the girls with whom my work threw me in contact. I was traveling a good deal, and I met a good many nice—and occasionally really weird—girls and young women, some business types, some students, some—and I swear those meetings never developed into anything serious—housewives who came on kinda strong in some bar or other. Maybe I began to understand my former b-i-l and my ex-wife a little better. She’d probably gotten bored with me and they’d met in a bar and made their plans?
Well, as I say, I was traveling for my job, and I came to a small town in the mid-West, where some client had wanted to meet me. There was no close-by airport, save for a cow pasture about three miles out, so I had rented car and driven some ninety miles rather than risk my life on a kangaroo airline. I had to find a motel, and the only one seemed to be the hot pillow type—I could figure no other reason for it’s being where it was, the town was too small to support more than the one almost starter industry, from which my client had called for me. However, there were seven cars in the lot, for fifteen rooms, so it wasn’t doing too badly. I wondered what there was....
Well, the idiot client had gone out of town—I cannot figure why, he’d made the appointment—and I was stuck there overnight. Asking at the desk of the motel, I discovered that there was a "good restaurant"—by whose standards, I wondered—and I went there for supper. I sat up front in a booth, the back was really busy. I was generally pissed off and tired, but I brightened up a lot when I got a good look at the waitress.
"May I take your order, sir?" she asked, in a voice a good bit more mature than I remembered. She was still familiar.
"Why, you sure can, miss." I answered. Then it hit me.
"Bennie?" I whispered. I thought she would fall right out, but I saw her muscles tense in her effort to stand still, although she did blush very slightly. "My God! It’s...Fred?" She whispered, too. "Is it really you?"
"Is the man bothering you, Ginny?" asked a deep voice, and a hulk loomed up behind Bennie.
"No...no, not at all. I’ve known him for years, Jimmy Bob. It’s O K, really. This is my cousin...Gene." Her hesitation was very slight.
"O K, but you just don’t get funny with Ginny, Gene...call me if you need me, Ginny." He looked at me with deep suspicion, and slowly walked away to the counter, looking back at me with a scowl once or twice.
"Who...is that?" I asked, keeping my voice down.
"That?" She was murmuring, too. "Jimmy Bob? He’s the owner, thinks he owns me because I work here, Fr...Gene. Pay him no mind. He won’t hurt you, he’s just...worried. He thinks every man that comes in here is a...snoop, maybe." She laughed softly. "I don’t think you’re a Fed...are you?"
"Never, Bennie, but what’s with this ‘Ginny?’" "Oh, that’s been my name since Mother killed herself. I go by ‘Geneva Harlan’ these days."
"Married?"
"No, Fred. You?"
"No. I’m...sorry about your mother."
"Don’t sweat it. She was never ‘right’ after Dad ran off with Aunt Margie—Oh, I saw those two about six months ago, passing through. I hate to tell you that Margie still looks good, but Dad...Jesus, you’d think he’d been drinking hard all that time—maybe he has—or Margie’s giving him a lot of hell. They didn’t know me. Anyway...how’s with you?"
"Pretty good...lonely for these last five years, though, Bennie. You sure still look good!"
"You know...shit, he’s comin’..." her voice shook. "You better give me your order, Gene! I’ll see you after work."
"You a transient? You steady here, then?"
"I’ve been here almost eight months now, and I’m..." she raised her voice, "...figuring on staying for quite a while longer. Let me take your order. Can’t waste any more time."
Well, there was obviously something wrong, but I played it by ear and perused the menu. It did not look bad. Maybe I could work something out with "Ginny."
"What did you want to eat, Gene?" she asked hastily, pencil and notepad poised, as the hulk came walking down the aisle. I noticed that she still wasn’t using my right name.
"Right, let me have the Salisbury steak, gravy, mashed; how’re the green beans, french or cut?" I as hastily answered.
"Frenched, but the broccoli, b’lieve it, is better, it’s fresh, and the cook’s pretty good with veggies."
"O K. I’ll go with that, then. I’ll wait to order dessert later, O K?"
"Right. Gottit." She dropped back to a mutter as she was turning away to forestall the hulk.
