1st sight
What made me look? What made her look? What the hell happened?
I mean, other people had entered, guys and women, guys together, women together, I hadn't looked. I didn't know anyone in this little town.
I've ridden the coast before and stopped at lots of the small towns along the highway, but couldn't remember stopping there before. Didn't even know why I had that time. There were at least two more riding hours before I'd want to stop, three before I'd begin to feel like I ought to stop. I can ride three hundred fifty miles almost any day, five hundred miles some days, and on really good days six hundred fifty, but normally that's a stretch. It was two hours til sundown when I stopped! I don't know why, it just felt right.
I checked into the motel, got out of my chaps, helmet, and leather jacket, then put on my jeans jacket because it was probably cool along the beach. It was. I must've walked a couple of miles, smiling to couples who looked at me, pretending not to notice couples who were too busy. None of the couples needed jeans jackets apparently, which was fine with me. They look silly over bikinis anyway. Then I walked back, imagining the taste of a hamburger.
But right next door to the restaurant was a western-like bar. I'm a sucker for those bars, and for cafes that pretend to be leftover from cowboy times. I went in for a beer and stayed for a second. It was a nice bar. People had fun, some danced, the jukebox was barely too loud, so you could talk to someone else at your table but you couldn't eavesdrop. The bartender was friendly but disinterested. A perfect bar.
The door opened and I looked. Two good-looking women entered, talking to each other. One waved at someone or someones in the bar, the other looked at me and stopped. So did I when our eyes met. I felt jolted. I put my bottle down on the table and walked to her. Her eyes never wavered, and I don't think she heard a word her friend said to her. Her friend stopped talking and stepped back, looking worried.
"Hi," I said, amazed I could say that much. "Would, would you like to dance?"
"No," she said, "talk."
"Table?" I asked.
"Yes," she said.
"Goddamit, Ailee, I'm talking to you!" some guy said, his hand on her elbow.
"No," she said, "you're not. He is. And you don't want to tangle with him."
Some-guy looked at me furiously. "Asshole!" he greeted. "You want to step outside?"
"No," I said. "I want to talk to her. Maybe later."
He looked like the whole world except him had gone crazy and he didn't like it one bit. Fortunately a couple of his friends caught him. "Let go," one of them told him patiently. "It was probably time for you to leave anyway."
Some-guy looked at his friend sourly, let go of her elbow, and let his friends coax him out of the bar.
The young woman and I sat down at a nearby table. The waitress came over. "Ailee," she said and waited for Ailee to focus on her. "Jeanie wants to know you're all right." Ailee looked confused, then horrified.
"Jeanie!" she said. "My god!" She looked back at me. "I'll be right back," she said. "Order me coffee. I don't think we need alcohol."
"Two coffees," I asked the waitress.
She shook her head, showing me a wry look. "I heard," she said.
I sat and stared at the door, half sure I should amble to it then run like hell.
Ailee came back and sat down, our eyes locked again. I wasn't going anywhere until she released me, and when she did, I might just drown myself.
"Uh," she said, "I don't do this."
"I know," I said. "Me neither."
"Who are you?" she said.
I gave her a synopsis, a techie, a Harley rider, a sometimes fighter, a moderately good dancer.
"Drunk?" she said. "If you are, I'll kill you."
I grinned. "One beer," I admitted. "I think I just became a teetotaller."
"Oh Jesus!" the waitress said, setting down our coffees, "Not in here! This is the wrong place!"
"No," said Ailee, "this is the right place. This is where it happened."
"What?" protested the waitress. "What are you two doing?"
"I don't know," said Ailee, "but it's important."
I nodded, but only enough that we didn't lose eye-contact. "How much?" I asked the waitress.
"Ten dollars," she said, and Ailee and I laughed. "Well, hell," the waitress complained, "it was worth trying."
"It was," I agreed and gave her the ten dollars. She stared at me, but my eyes were full.
"We have to at least sip these," Ailee said. So we did. She grinned. "You obey," she teased, "that's a good start."
I grinned back. "It may be temporary," I admitted.
"I hope so," she said. "So is this permanent?"
"I think so," I said. "I hope so."
She looked hopeless. "Sane people don't do this!" she asserted. "I was always sane before!" She described herself, born and raised in that town, too stubborn to marry right out of high school or even when she finished college. She worked for her father and kept thinking about moving to the city instead. She had come to the bar with her friend Jeanie. "We've known each other since we were two," Ailee said. They'd come to meet some friends, flirt and be flirted with, dance, maybe get picked up. "You screwed that up!" she said.
"How can I make it up to you?" I asked.
"Oh god!" she said weakly. "All I know is you'd better."
Someone started the jukebox, so we danced. Jeanie danced with someone else and tugged on Ailee's sleeve. "Not now, Jeanie," Ailee said. "I'm either fine, better than ever before, or lost forever, and I don't know which."
"You're scaring me, Ailee," Jeanie said.
"I'm scaring myself," Ailee agreed. "Really, though, don't interfere with this."
The song ended, and we walked back toward our table. I pulled her chair back for her, but she shook her head. "I think we'd better go," she said, "before I lose my nerve."
Jeanie walked up to her. "You all right, Ailee?" she worried.
Ailee's eyes left mine to smile at Jeanie. I felt lost, rudderless, anchorless, and felt like I'd just come up for air too. What were we doing? If any guy I knew were doing this, if I noticed, I'd dismiss him as lust-crazed. Lust? But Jeanie was as good-looking, the waitress was as good-looking, at least one of the women who'd arrived earlier was too. No, this was something Ailee-specific and stronger than lust, although full of that too.
"Never better, Jeanie, honest!" Ailee said. She smiled strangely, "I think."
I nodded, equally sure and uncertain. Ailee's eyes came back to mine and her smile strengthened. "I'm sure," she said. I'd just had the same conversion. I nodded again. I don't think Jeanie felt a moment's relief.
"We're leaving now," Ailee said, to Jeanie I thought, yes, because she continued, "if you have to tell my father anything, tell him I'm with...." She looked blank.
"Zeb," I said. "My mother was religious. She hoped I'd find gold. I may have."
Ailee grinned at me. "I'm not blond," she scoffed, then continued to Jeanie. "With Zeb. He'll know where we are."
Jeanie's mouth opened then snapped shut. She glared at me then walked away. I suppose she stalked away, but I hadn't eyes enough for her too.
Ailee reached for my hand and I took hers. I felt like I was riding in fog, and at the same time felt like spring sunlight had just reached me. We walked out of the bar and turned toward the motel.
The guy who'd grabbed her elbow before hurried out of the shadows and blocked us. "You can't do this, Ailee!" he protested. "I was gonna propose tonight!"
"I wouldn't have accepted, Tank," she said, her eyes on mine. "You know that. You're fun to dance with until you get drunk. Whatever more than that you had between us existed only in your mind."
Tank said an ugly word, about the situation, not her. Suddenly he looked at me and drew back a fist. He might've punched me off my feet, except I was faster. Without looking away from Ailee, I must've swung from the level of my knees. My fist hit Tank's jaw while his fist still traveled toward me. It never landed. Tank did, on his back. He lay still a moment, and Ailee glanced at him worriedly. I had a moment of lucidity and confusion before her eyes came back to mine.
Tank shook his head and sat up, bracing himself with his arms. "I'm gonna tell your daddy!" he complained.
We walked past him maybe a dozen steps, about to where the bar ended and the restaurant began. I noticed that the restaurant had closed. Ailee stopped and stamped her foot. "He will too," she said. "He's such a brat." She stood still a while, kinda frowning, then shrugged then grinned. "I guess you have to meet my folks before we do this," she decided.
"Fine," I said and smiled. I didn't think it was fine at all. I suspected it was the end of this magnificent craziness. Ah, but what a wonderful thing to have experienced! I smiled at her.
She turned back toward the bar, so we switched hands that we held. She frowned a moment again, then smiled and shrugged. "I can't drive like this, looking at you. I probably should leave the car for Jeanie anyway. We'll have to walk. It's less than a dozen blocks." She smiled wider. "Anything in town is less than a dozen blocks from anything else."
I grinned at her, knowing that wasn't really true. I'd seen the whole town as I turned onto the offramp. It was probably two dozen blocks wide and two dozen blocks deep, about that. In any case, I didn't mind walking with her, anywhere, any time.
We walked and she told me some more about herself. She'd never imagined living anywhere else. "Before," she said and smiled at me. I smiled back, sure I understood. When she was a girl, she'd known all the other kids in town, even the mean ones. While she was in college, the town had doubled in size, and she'd only met half of the newcomers since she came back.
I told her that since I'd met her, I had twice as many friends as before. She bumped my shoulder with hers, grinning. "No lies," she scolded, "we don't have time for them." I blew her a kiss and she looked pleased. I sketched my biography, a town not much bigger than hers before all the jobs went away, the city, finding my way and feeling lost at the same time, college, technical work as much as anything because that's what I'd found, but it had turned out to be fun and I was good at it too.
"That'd better not be all you're good at!" she said, only it sounded more like a welcome than a warning.
We turned toward a house with a dim light on near the door. "They still think I'm a teenager," she smiled.
She pulled open the screen and pushed open the door behind it, and we stepped in. A man with grey in his hair looked up from a book he was reading, then stood. He wore pajamas and a robe and glasses. "Ailee?" he said. We still looked at each other. "Tank came by with some crazy story...." He stopped and looked worried.
"Dad," Ailee said, "This is Zeb. You should probably get Mom. You're going to think Zeb is a nightmare, but he's my dream. I've been dreaming since our eyes met."
That was it! This was a dream. But no, I don't feel slightly hungry in dreams. My fist doesn't retain the indefinite pain of meeting someone else's jaw.
"I'm here, Ailee," said a woman's voice. She must've spoken from the shadows, I couldn't see her. "You two should stop looking at each other like that. Do it when you're alone. Otherwise, it's impolite. And probably dangerous." She hardly missed a beat. "And you haven't known each other long enough to be alone yet."
"Oh Mom," Ailee said. "You're mistaken. Before Tank threatened to come here and tattle, we were headed to his motel room."
"Ailee!" scolded her father, "Stop that! Don't talk that way in front of a stranger!"
Ailee smiled. "He is a stranger, isn't he?" she said dreamily. "And yet I know him as if I'd known him all my life, maybe better."
"Ailee," her mother scolded. "That's just lust talking! Stop that! Look here! Let's have some pie and coffee, we'll get acquainted, then we can put this foolishness to bed."
"Mm," Ailee agreed. To me she said, "Don't decline. You don't want to miss my mother's pie. It's wonderful anytime, and she did better than usual this time. Strawberry pie!" Still looking at me, she addressed her mother. "I brought him here so we could get acquainted before I take him to bed!"
"Ailee!" her mother and father said together.
"Don't talk like that!" her mother said.
"You'll do no such thing!" her father said at the same time as her mother spoke.
"Oh yes I will!" Ailee said, her eyes on mine. She didn't argue, just corrected, without a trace of charge on it. "And if he doesn't marry me, I'll kill him. But that's for later."
"Let's all go to the kitchen!" her mother commanded. Her father scowled, bookmarked his place and put the book in his chair. He led the way, Ailee's mother followed him, and Ailee and I followed, still holding hands, still looking into each other's eyes.
Ailee released my hand, and her eyes apologized. "I'll make the coffee," she said mostly to me. "Mother's coffee doesn't match her pie, and Dad's is meant to keep him awake. You'll like mine."
She looked away and stepped away, to make the coffee. I felt disoriented, as if I really saw the kitchen for the first time. I couldn't remember what the living room looked like, except that it had a big red tiltback lounger for her father.
"Oh you!" Ailee's mother said, but she let Ailee make the coffee.
Ailee's father and I looked at each other for the first time. He didn't like me, but we shook hands anyway. He had been a rugged cuss, and was still powerful, but I suspected it was more from his mind and from what he did than from his muscles anymore. Hadn't Ailee said he was a lawyer? One of two in town? I thought so.
"Zeb, is it?" he asked. It was as safe a place to start as any. "You are not gonna sleep with my daughter!" is probably what he wanted to say.
"For Zebulon," I agreed. "Mother sometimes claimed she named me for the Colonel, sometimes for the archangel, but I don't know anything about the angel."
"I bet," Ailee's father commented.
"Daddy!" Ailee said as she set the coffee to perking.
He asked me about my parents and I told him about my mother, told him that my father had disappeared sometime after we moved to the city. My mother took a minimum-wage job at first, then another, but worked her way up slowly. She managed a store for a city-wide chain. "So you do know about responsibility," he concluded. He didn't need to say "at least someone else's". I grinned at him.
He asked how much I made, how much I'd saved, how much insurance I carried "riding that fool machine." I told him I had no dependents.
Ailee interrupted innocently with, "Daddy took up skydiving just before I started college. You did, what? Twenty? Twenty-four jumps before I graduated?"
"That was different," he explained, annoyed. "You and your mother were provided for."
"Oh," she said. "You mean you'd rather I'd chosen a forty-year-old married man, who'd already provided for his wife and child?"
"Stop it!" he scolded. "I'm trying to protect you!"
She nodded, "Like Grampa did. What did he say about you? 'Kid thinks because he won two debates he's gonna make a lawyer. Town's already got a lawyer!' Something like that."
"Dammit, Ailee!" her father said. "I can't let you throw your life away! And I was captain of the debate team."
She grinned at him. "Daddy," she said gently. "Find something to like about him. I'm crazy about him. I'm going to bed him. I'm going to marry him."
He stood and leaned on the table and Ailee's mother stood up. "Sit down!" she told him. "Do you think looming improves your case? I'll get you some pie. I'll get you some coffee. But sit down. Think about it! She came to get your blessing, not your approval! She's not asking for permission! She's not asking for advice! She's telling you what she's going to do and asking your blessing, your good wishes! You did your job right! Be satisfied!"
She turned her back on him and he closed his mouth. He watched her go to the counter and cut two slices of pie, then pour two mugs and two cups full of coffee.
Marriage! Had I been thinking about marriage when I pulled off the highway? Walked the beach? Sat in the bar? Not that I remembered! Had I thought it when our eyes locked? No! I'd felt jolted, knocked off any groundings I had, certain I wanted this woman once, often, the rest of my life, but not just sex with her, everything she had to offer! And I wanted to give her all I had and all I could find. Well, wasn't that how marriage was supposed to work?
Ailee's mother turned around, and Ailee's father sat down quickly. "You're right," he said to her. To Ailee, he said, "I apologize. Thank you for asking. You have my blessing."
Ailee smiled at him, patted his hand, then looked at me. "I told you Mom's pie is good." Everyone laughed.
His look at me, though, told me that he wasn't at all satisfied with me, just with his daughter and his wife.
Ailee's mother served the pie to her husband then to me. We got the mugs of coffee, she and Ailee got the cups with saucers.
"What will you do when you and Ailee marry?" her mother asked me. Her father choked on his bite of strawberry pie. She glared at him. "Will you take her off to the city? I think she might like that for a while. We'd miss her terribly! She's always been nearby. Even college was only two hours away. Have you considered working here? What would you do? Will we get to meet your mother before the wedding? Have you suitable friends for the wedding party?"
"Mother!" protested Ailee, while her father tried to cover up a laugh. "How can he possibly answer a barrage like that? Especially with his mouth full! Won't you let him enjoy your pie? I've never heard you load so many questions onto anyone before!"
"He can take his time with his pie, of course!" her mother defended. "I'd never hurry a man while he eats! He can use his chewing time to consider his answers! I just finally had a chance to insert my questions and took advantage of it."
"Well, I can answer some of them," Ailee said. "I haven't bedded him, he hasn't proposed, I haven't accepted, so we haven't set a date, but it'll be soon." She smiled at me and I nodded, certain I didn't want to set foot into whatever was going on. "He only needs one friend for the wedding party, and he's already assured me he has that many." She looked to me for confirmation. I nodded and stuffed another bite of her mother's pie in my mouth. It was good! But I was protecting myself from needing to answer. Ailee's look back told me she knew exactly what I did. "Of course, you'll meet his mother before the wedding. She'll probably fly up this weekend to find out what kind of hussy keeps her boy from his work and has him trapped into marriage."
"You're no hussy," snapped her mother. "Whatever makes her think that? I don't like her already!"
"You will!" Ailee insisted, it almost sounded like a command. "I mean if I liked him this much before I knew a thing about him, don't you know you're going to love her by the time you've spent a day with her, comparing notes on ungrateful children?"
Her mother sputtered, "You're not ungrateful! At least not before tonight! A little headstrong, sometimes, but how would you have survived in a household with your father and me if you hadn't been?"
"Exactly!" Ailee said and patted her mother's hand. Her mother didn't look much mollified. "Let's see," Ailee continued, "what have I forgotten? Oh! Work here! What would he do? Construction? You couldn't stand to have a son-in-law in construction! Cowboy? There might be room for another cowboy at one of the ranches, but I couldn't stand never to see him. I want him close and pleasing me." She smiled at me and for a moment, our eyes locked again. I forgot the pie and for that moment, she forgot her parents.
"Ahem!" her mother called us back.
"Anyway," she continued, maybe a little shakily, "unless he's going to set up a competing law office, I don't think we're going to stay here."
"Well," I stepped in, suspecting I should leave well enough alone, "we could find out if people around here need technical work."
Her father blinked. "What do you mean, technical work?" he grumbled.
I described the work I did in the city, maintaining computers, creating and maintaining a network of them, connecting them to the internet.
He frowned. "I know my office could use someone like that," he said reluctantly. "I suppose Harold's office could. I think you would find a demand for that in our town. But after you've done it once, then what?"
I told him computers were like cars, they needed maintenance more often than one expects, and they have to be replaced before one expects.
He laughed. "If you want to open a shop here doing that, I'll back you. Ailee knows enough about business that you probably won't fail."
I grinned at him, partly for the gibe, and partly for knowing my weakness. I knew vaguely how a business was run, but not nearly enough, and I had no experience at it.
The rest of the conversation that night was a reluctant leading up to good nights. Ailee's father scowled at me one more time before they retired.
Ailee said, "Oh damn! I never really expected their blessing." When I turned to her, though, our eyes locked again and we took each other's hands, delighted, bemused, amazed, and probably plain crazy. "If we do run a shop together," she said, "we have to wear blinders and promise not to look at each other! I don't think either of us can work like this any more than we could drive." She grinned and led me to her bed.
Wyatt Underwood © 2024
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