Free The White Widow: A Novel by Jim Lehrer

bus.
    His
bus.
    He forgot to smell her! He had been so intent on the sound of her voice that he had not smelled her. Had she bathed again in a white porcelain bathtub with legs before catching his bus?
    He was actually shaking when he closed the bus door behind her and the eight other passengers who boarded at Victoria. He had trouble getting his ticket punch back into the holster on his right hip. He felt some twitching in his left leg, as if it was about to rattle out of control again, as it had last Friday.
    Progress Paul Madison, who had also just had his last call for San Antonio, was there at the counter sorting through his tickets. “Twenty-two peoples, not bad,” he said to Jack. “That’s progress, you see.”
    Jack knew Paul would see something in him. Paul never missed a thing.
    “You okay, young Mr. Oliver?” said Paul.
    “I’m fine, I’m fine.” Jack put his tickets in little stacks by towns. “Let’s see, three to Corpus, two for Woodsboro, one to Odem …”
    “Hey, you’re shaking,” said Paul. “You have a problem with a passenger?”
    “No problem. No problem at all.”
    Jack knew that Paul Madison knew better but he did not press it. “Hasta la vista, boys and girls, one and all,” Paul said to Jack and to Johnny Merriweather behind the counter. And he was gone.
    In a few seconds Jack heard the smooth revving of the Buick engine in Paul’s Flxible Clipper, then the release of its air brakes.
    “I have a question, Johnny,” Jack said. He could not help himself.
    “Sure, Jack.”
    “There’s a woman I just put on. She rode last Friday, too. She looks familiar. Should she? Did she used to work around here or something?”
    “You mean the looker?”
    Jack felt some warmth in his face. “Yeah, that’s the one.”
    “I wish I was familiar with her. But I ain’t. She looks to me like she’s got money or something, though. She looks like a White Widow to me.”
    Money or something. Now Jack hadn’t even gotten that far in thinking about her. Money or something.
    “Give me a last call,” he said to Johnny and turned to go back out to his bus and to her.
    Right behind him at the counter stood Mr. Abernathy with his suitcase.
    “I’m ready and this time I am really going,” he said. Jack had never seen him so direct and happy.
    “Get yourself a ticket and let’s hightail it,” Jack said. “Hey, hey, Mr. Abernathy.”
    “No, no, I’m not going with you,” said Mr. Abernathy, still smiling. “I’m on my way to Mount Rushmore through San Antonio with Mr. Paul Madison and then on west and up.”
    “Paul just pulled out. That was him leaving as you were coming into the waiting room.”
    “Oh, my,” said Mr. Abernathy. “I will just have to come back.”
    And again he walked away with his suitcase.
    “I feel sorry for him,” said Johnny Merriweather. “He’s crazy as a red hornet.”
    “Right,” Jack said, never really having heard of red hornets, crazy or otherwise. “Only a crazy person would miss the bus to Mount Rushmore, wherever that is.”
    “What are you saying, Jack?”
    “I don’t know what I’m saying,” he said. And he really didn’t know. “Like I said, give me a last call.”

    She took a different seat. She was on the aisle, on the right, four rows back. He had found her quickly when he made his announcement to the passengers, which he did without losing his lunch or control over his left leg. As Paul would have said, that’s progress, you see.
    Now he could see her clearly in his rearview mirror. There was a young boy in a clean white T-shirt with SAN ANTONIO YMCA CAMP emblazoned in dark blue on it sitting by her in the window seat. He was a Dollar. Probably in high school. They were talking.
    She was a looker all right. Oh my, yes, she was a looker.
    She’s got money or something. Johnny was probably right about that, too. And she had gone to college. No question she had gone to college. Probably to U.T. at Austin, or that women’s college