Later, when something I said cooled the ardor for both of us, and, more to the point, the ice for the soda had melted, we packed up and crossed the bridge. It was a short ride to Sandy Hook Road. A right turn, and a few minutes of bumpy pavement brought us to Highway 24.
We had passed through Rossville and were back out in the farmland following alongside the railroad tracks when Moira began tugging on my leather jacket. There was a reservoir ahead to our right, and I was correct to suspect that this was at least part of the reason she wanted me to pull over. So I did, always ready for a sip and a smoke.
I parked near a row of hedges. Moira was getting better at swinging herself off the sissy seat and was now in the habit of doing a backstepping dance at the end of the maneuver. "There's a nail, it looks like, in your back tire," she said.
Sure enough, a nail head the size of a dime. I swore a blue streak without much passion and got my tool kit out from the left side saddlebag. With my pocketknife I pried out the nail, actually a large tack, and replaced it with a rubber plug liberally smeared in super glue. "We'll give that a half hour to dry," I remarked, "before I pump up the tire."
"How old are you?" she asked.
"Fifty-four. How old are you?"
"Seventeen." She said this proudly, tilting her head back; her hair a flaming red in the late sun and crumpled up from the helmet that she now swung saucily by its strap. I was considering the patrolman, how he seemed unflustered over a minor riding with an apparently unrelated adult. I asked her if she was an emancipated teen. That big supernova smile again. I was on a roll; she was open to questions. "How'd you manage to swing that?"
She explained that her mother, the 'total bitch,' was jealous and wanted her out of the house. I pictured Moira flirting with her dad and taunting her mom. She could support herself through the family business. A court appointed psychologist called her mature and level-headed. Her first act of emancipation was to drop out of school in her junior year and her second was to run off with Josie.
"How old is Josie?"
"He's eighteen." Her face turned beet red. "I mean she," she added lamely, but I pretended not to notice. I wanted to know if she had a source of income. Well, Josie's dad would send money if they didn't ask too often. She was starting to clam up again, so I dropped the subject. Why should any of it matter? After a couple hours I would never see her again; or so I believed.
As I was rolling a smoke and watching the glue dry she reached out and put her hands under my jacket. She tried to tickle me and failed. Then she traipsed off between the hedges toward the reservoir. I leaned against the bike, smoking rather glumly. I wondered if she was taking off her clothes. Five minutes passed without sight or sound of her. I went for a look.
She was sitting low down on the slope with her bare feet in the greenish muddy water, leaning back on her elbows and singing under her breath. She looked at me with those cold blue marbles. "You can stay with me in the motel tonight," she said in a parental tone, as if I were a child that had to be told what to do.
My insides caught fire for a moment. I asked if Josie would get a motel voucher. She said that his father had given him a Motel 6 credit card. So I had to ask, "Then why do you need a motel voucher?" I thought I knew the answer already, and I was right. "Because I want my own room. If I get a voucher. If I don't then I stay with Josie. Sometimes I stay at a homeless shelter if there's one in town. Unless they're full up. Then the police give me a voucher."
She seemed to know intuitively that I wasn't a member of the Fortune 500 and would appreciate the offer of a free room. In fact, not only that, but I was hoping for a meal in a decent restaurant. But mostly I was looking ahead to clean crisp bedsheets and something to lay on besides pillows.
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