Free NIGHT CRUISING by Billie Sue Mosiman Page A

again, come to
think of it, it was really highly amusing. She never saw Tabasco
sauce on the cafe tables in South Florida. She'd never in her life
seen a female truck driver. And thank God, she'd never known a girl
named Stinky--and wouldn't, she guessed.
    The eggs were quite
good despite their caked and drowned appearance. The beans were hot,
the rice spicy. Molly ate every bite and burped politely behind a
napkin. Damn gas bothered her like crazy when she ate spicy foods.
    Lynette didn't say
anything to her about sitting at a table reserved for truckers.
Probably because the place wasn't exactly packed to the rafters.
Molly let her cup be refilled four times before she made any move to
leave. She lingered, savoring the place, the sounds, the way the
truckers moved beneath their thick jackets and their cowboy and
gimmee hats. One fellow at the counter had great buns--tight and
small and cute as the cheeks of a panda bear--and just about the
longest legs Molly had ever seen. Dwight Yoakum, the country singer
who sang songs through his nose, had legs like that. Went on forever.
The trucker wore gray lizard-skin cowboy boots, the pointy-toed ones,
and his shirt had pearl snaps instead of buttons. He sat drinking
coffee and kidding pretty Lynette about her silly apron.
    All of a sudden Molly
felt loneliness descend, a black curtain settling just behind her
eyes. She wished the cowboy would talk to her, kid her about
something. She wished the damn sun would set, goddammit, so Cruise
would wake up and keep her company. She might as well be invisible,
sitting nursing a cup of coffee, trailing a finger through a puddle
of water condensed off her yellow plastic glass of iced water.
    Just how was she going
to make it in this world? When she got to California, that golden
West, that Pacific paradise, just how was she going to keep herself
off the street? She expected she was going to get hungry, learn all
about how it felt to have your stomach shrink and your clothes fall
off your hips. Learn all about staying out of the way of drug
addicts, pimps, pushers, and muggers. Learn how to sleep standing up,
leaning on a wall, arms folded. She'd seen people do that in downtown
Miami. Stand there like a leaning pole, propped against the side of a
wall, chin on chest, arms crossed, asleep. She guessed they locked
their knees to keep from falling on their faces.
    It had to be hard.
    Life. It was a tough
deal.
    Tears swarmed in her
eyes and she angrily brushed them away by pretending to wipe her face
with a napkin. Shit . Self-pitying asshole . She lurched
up from the table and turned her back on the cute cowboy and his doll
of a waitress. She paid at the cashier's counter and hurried out the
door. The coolness of evening braced and refreshed her.
    She eyed the sky,
measuring how far the sun had to go to hit sundown. An hour.
Forty-five minutes.
    She glanced around the
parking lot for a place to wait it out. She picked the parking curb
near the Chrysler. She lay her head on crossed arms against her
knees, face turned so she could see the western sky. She could count
the colors of sunset, gift the layers with all new names. Clam white.
Pussy pink. Well. She had to have some fun. Then there was
larva lavender. Jazz blue. Bruise purple. Scalding red. Tabby-cat
orange. Bone ivory. Summer squash yellow.
    Daydream . She
could daydream about sex with Cruise. Or the cowboy with the lizard
boots and pearl snap buttons. He was younger, though not quite as
attractive. It was all right when she was awake and could control the
images, not let it get too out of hand where her body started feeling
all hot and achy and thrumming for a touch, any touch.
    Slowly a masculine hand
pulled down the zipper of her jeans. Another hand, unattached to
body, to face, slipped up under her blouse and tugged the padded bra
aside.
    Tweaked one tiny
pink-brown nipple. Covered her breast softly. Moved gently down over
her abdomen past the elastic waist of her bikini