I know it's starting a little slow. Bear with me. Soon we'll get to the action.
Oh, yeah, X-men is property of Marvel Comics, not me. No copyright infringement intended. You know the drill.
She looked down at the gas gauge as she accelerated on the entrance ramp to Interstate 44. Less than a quarter of a tank, but enough to get her back to the motel. Though it was in a different place than usual, she'd spend yet another night alone. She'd been alone since her mom was hit by a drunk driver when Lisa was seventeen—one week before her eighteenth birthday. Happy birthday to me. I sure do miss her, she thought.
Lisa almost gagged as she rummaged through her suitcase for her pajamas. Not any different than any other motel, the Route 66 Budget Motor Hotel reeked of cigarettes and mildew. She never could see how someone could be a smoker. She tried a few times, thinking that it might calm her nerves. She probably could have got used to it. She didn't cough after about the third cigarette. But smoking could never be something she enjoyed.
After eating a Snickers candy bar, she sat down on the bed to watch a rerun of "Friends." The commercials were louder than the show, and when too many slogans like "Just do it" and "Make 7-Up yours" had blared through the shallow air in the room, she had had enough. As Nolan Ryan declared that Ol-Shan could fix the cracks in foundations, Lisa closed her eyes and turned down the volume. She immediately heard her aunt's reprimand: "Can't you just use a remote control like everyone else?" And Lisa always answered with "I will start using the remote when you walk to the fridge to get a Coke instead of 'floating' it to you."
Chandler and Joey were now having a fight. The audience laughed, but Lisa did not. She was never much of a television watcher, and the sitcom was boring instead of its intended humorous. Everything in the motel was boring: solitaire, magazines, HBO. Boring.
Though she was extremely tired, she couldn't sleep, so she pulled on jeans and boots and dragged herself out the door. Surely she could find something to do, even on this side of town. It was a pretty big city. A pool hall or bowling alley should be open. She knew bars would be open, but she wasn't a drinker either. She didn't care much for the taste of alcohol. Besides, the men at bars were worse than the ones at Uncle Charlie's café. So, she decided, she'd just play a few rounds of pool, or maybe poker. She noticed Buck's Billiards and Games just down the road, so she walked. She was almost out of gas in her truck.
The smoke in the pool hall was thicker than the fog had been that morning. Her favorite pool hall back east wasn't like that. The owner was a real nice guy— didn't allow smoking or drinking.
She coughed. Maybe this isn't such a good idea, she thought. She stepped back outside and sat down on the curb beside the sidewalk. She thought of the near empty pouch of Red Man back in her truck at the motel. Red Man. That was her way of relaxing, her only vice. Before he died, her uncle always made fun of her. He thought it strange that a girl who hated tobacco smoke could dip. She blamed it on him. He's the one who taught her how. She was only fourteen when he got her hooked. They would build fortresses out of Coke cans and then see who could knock the other's castle down with a BB gun. The loser had to buy the winner a pack of chew. Lisa always won. She knew chewing wasn't good for her. One day her teeth would probably turn yellow and fall out. Or she could get cancer. But once you start something like that, it's difficult to quit.
She looked upward to see if she could see the stars. She had stopped in rural Kentucky on the way to Oklahoma, and she could see the stars out there. She liked it. But here you could not see the stars. Maybe I should move to the country.
She thought of her Red Man again. I should buy more, she thought. She scanned the street for a convenience store or gas station. She spotted the star of a Texaco sign. "Oh, it can wait until the morning," she told herself. "I've gotta get gas before I go home, anyway."
"What?" a voice behind her asked.
She turned quickly. She hadn't realized there was anyone around, or she wouldn't have been talking to herself. A tall figure stood over her. She couldn't see his face because of the neon lights behind him. She looked at his feet. She had a strange way of forming opinions of people. She determined first impressions from their shoes.
"Snake skin cowboy boots," she said out loud.
"I beg your pardon?" His words seemed too loud, so she closed her eyes.
"Oh, nothing. I just noticed your boots."
"They're not really my style," he said. "I won 'em in a poker match. So I figured I'd go ahead an' wear 'em." He paused. "You need a ride somewhere?"
"No, just hanging out," she mumbled. "Couldn't sleep."
"Care if I hang with you?" he asked.
She shrugged. She really didn't want him there, but he had every much right as she did to be there. "It's a free country," she said.
He squatted down beside her. She tried not to look at him, but she couldn't help herself. Despite her dislike of most men, his voice sounded sexy to her, so she just had to look. He was gazing out into the distance, fishing in his shirt pocket for something. He had a nice profile, so she didn't stop herself from looking. Looking at one and wanting one were two different things.
He turned to her and held out a pack of cigarettes. "Want one?"
She was right. He was good looking. From what she could tell, his hair was light brown with golden highlights. She assumed he spent a lot of time outside. Sun bleached hair and tan complexion. But he smoked. Definitely not a good sign. But then again, he would think the same thing about her chewing.
What are you doing? Lisa asked herself. Why does it matter what he thinks of you? You've been away from your friends too long. Looking for a friendly face. You need to go home and hang with Sheila. You cannot go and start some kind of relationship, no matter how trivial, with a man.
"Want one?" he asked again.
"Oh, no," she replied. "No thanks. I don't smoke."
"Yeah, I shouldn't either," he said. "But once you start something like this…" He held up a cigarette. "It's hard to quit."
She stared at his darkened figure momentarily. It was so weird to hear a stranger mimic her very own words.
"So do you live around here?" he asked after he flicked his lighter. "I've never seen you at Buck's before."
She shook her head. "I don't live in Oklahoma." She wanted to leave it at that, but he continued his probing.
"Where ya from?"
She sighed. The smelly motel suddenly didn't seem all that bad. "East."
"Why ya here?"
"Why does it matter?" she asked half-heartedly.
"Doesn't. Just trying to be nice. Play pool?"
She nodded. She was actually quite good at pool, but she was NOT going back into that pool hall.
"Wanna go inside? You can play me for my boots."
She smiled. She didn't mean to, but it was funny. "I don't like the smoke."
He exhaled a puff and crushed the cigarette butt on the sidewalk. "Sorry."
"You're fine. It doesn't bother me out here. So how do you do that?"
He looked at the butt on the ground. "Smoke?"
She shook her head. "No. How do you walk up to a perfect stranger and just start talking to them? What is it with guys like you?"
"Guys like me?" he repeated. "How do you know how I am?"
"You are all the same," she said. A man wobbled out the pool hall door and stumbled to his car. He collapsed across the hood. Lisa nodded toward the drunk. "Never met anyone different."
"That's a pretty cynical point of view, don't ya think?" He fished in his pocket for his cigarettes but then dropped his hand back to his side.
"Is it?" she asked. "Care to prove me wrong?"
"Maybe," he replied. "What do you mean?"
"How many drinks have you had tonight?" she wondered aloud.
"None," he answered quickly. "I don't drink."
She raised an eyebrow and chalked him a mental point. "Married or divorced?"
"Single. Never married."
Another point. "Kids?"
"No." He sounded a little disgusted.
He was three and O. "Job?"
"Mechanic."
"Uh huh." She erased a mental point.
"What's wrong with being a mechanic? It's a good living."
"My dad was a mechanic." Damn it! She didn't mean to say that.
"Is that what this is all about? You hate your dad, and you think every man is like him? Geeze. I just came outside for a little fresh air. To smoke a cigarette. Didn't know I was going to get the third degree from some tyrant on some anti-man campaign."
She shrugged. "You talked to me first, not the other way around."
He stood up. "I thought you needed a ride somewhere. Thought your car was broke down or somethin'. I was trying to help. But I guess that's above guys like me, huh?"
"Sorry," she said. "Just call 'em like I see 'em. Should we help the hobo?" She pointed toward the car.
"No, he'll wake up eventually. So what's your name, Miss Cynical?"
"I figured you'd be gone with my last remark," she said. "Most guys are."
He ran his fingers through his hair. "Most guys like me?"
She breathed in hard and refused to look at him. "Okay, so maybe I judged too soon." But what did it matter? She'd never see him again. It wasn't like they were friends. Tomorrow she would go back to South Carolina and forget she ever met him.
"Is that an apology?" he asked.
She shrugged. "I guess."
"Then I accept it." He looked at his watch. He moved his arm closer to the lights. "It's a little after three. Are you tired?"
She nodded. Yes, she was tired, but not sleepy. Insomnia was not uncommon to her.
"Wanna go get some breakfast? There's a Waffle House a couple miles away. They're open twenty-four hours."
She stood to her feet. "No, I'd better get back to my motel. I've got a long drive ahead of me tomorrow."
"Going back home?"
She nodded again.
"So where's home?"
He had already asked her that question, and she wouldn't answer the first time. Oh, what the hell, she thought. "South Carolina. Greenville, South Carolina."
He rubbed his hands on his jeans. "Where's your motel?"
She pointed west.
"Route 66? Want me to drive you?"
"No."
"Care if I walk you?" he asked as he rolled up one sleeve.
She didn't reply and stepped toward the road. He followed. Somehow she knew he would.
"I was serious when I asked you how you can just talk to strangers like that," she said. "Every time I go out, whether alone or with my girlfriends, guys come up and talk to me. How do you do it? I don't know you or them from Adam."
He laughed. "Maybe you do."
"What do you mean?"
"That's my name. Adam."
She smiled again. She wished she wouldn't have. She quickly solemned her face. "You didn't answer my question."
He kicked at a rock. "I have no idea why other men talk to you. I suppose it could have something to do with you being pretty." He cleared his throat. "But me, I talk to everyone. That's just how I am. I like people."
"Wish I did." She had never been a people person. "You should be a used car salesman."
He laughed again.
A long lapse of silence lingered. As they stepped up on the curb in front of the motel, he said, "You never did tell me your name."
"Lisa."
"And does Lisa have a last name?"
"Bates."
She could tell he was smiling, and she knew what was coming next. "Any relation to Norman?"
"Yes, Mother."
With a chuckle, he said. "You're pretty funny."
"Well, yeah, what can I say?"
"Say you'll go eat breakfast with me in the morning before you leave town."
She couldn't hide her surprise. "I don't get you." She shook her head. "I try to run you off, and you stick around anyway. Now you are asking me to breakfast? Maybe I wasn't wrong in the first place. Maybe you are just like every other guy I've ever met."
"Or maybe," he added, "Maybe I'd like more company at the Waffle House than a couple fat hairy truck drivers and a toothless waitress."
Now it was her turn to smile. "Fine," she replied. "Breakfast would be nice." Eggs and bacon sounded so much better than a Snickers or a Three Musketeers anyway.
"What time are ya planning on headin' out?"
"Oh, I don't know. Eight. Nine." She knew she'd be up earlier than that. She knew she wouldn't be able to sleep.
"Well, then." He ran his fingers through his hair again. "How 'bout I stop by here about eight thirty."
"Okay. Here's my room."
"One-Oh-Six. I'll remember that."
She closed the door behind her. "That was weird," she said out loud. "I'll be glad to get back east and get back to normal. Whatever normal is."