(10)

I debated whether I should head for the Labor Ready office at 4:30am or blow it off and have breakfast with Moira in the lobby, sometime before 9, so as to pry into her affairs concerning Josie. Then I realized, at first skeptically, that it was Sunday. I went back to bed after a grateful piss and fell asleep just as the mermaid was pulling Mr Peabody down into the depths of the sea.

I tried to wake up Moira at 8, but nothing doing. On the floor, at her side of the bed, was her cell phone. I gave that a Hmm, but thought no more of it, except to set it back on the dresser and resign myself to meeting Josie later in the day. Meanwhile, after showering, I had two hardboiled eggs, toasted English muffins, and a bowl of oatmeal at one of the cozy square tables in the dining area of the lobby. It was crowded and I was lucky to find a table to myself. I made a plate of waffles for Moira and grabbed a couple blueberry muffins for her. Later, if she ever woke up, she could heat the waffles in the microwave.

I heard the land-line phone ringing as I was unlocking the door. Moira was sitting up in bed, looking like a primitive Polynesian girl with her bare breasts and unbrushed hair, the phone to her ear. She had an awful expression and shook her head at me. I set her plate and muffins on the table.

She said to the motel manager, "Tell them to come back in...in...two hours. I'm not dressed. I'm not even awake." She slammed the phone down on the nightstand and then slammed her arms down in angry exasperation. "My mom's here! And Josie's mom!" As it turned out, Moira got a call from Josie last night when I was out getting ice before the movie. Evidently he then called his mother, and she and Mrs Jennings drove all night, taking turns driving no doubt, and met with Josie about the time I was fixing Moira's breakfast.

She looked at me with contrition and said, "I didn't tell you because I was afraid it would spoil everything. I didn't know he was going to call his mom. I think he's homesick. Or he wants his mom to drive him down to Memphis."

She went on about what a jerk Josie was and how she was going to speak her mind to her mother, while I pushed the rat out of the room. I parked it in the first available stall. I went back inside and asked if she had mentioned me to Josie. "Did you tell him I was spending the night with you?"

She looked dumbstruck by my question. Then: "But of course he knew!" And that bothered me a little. How was it that Josie 'knew' that Moira would invite a near-stranger, a man older than her father probably, to sleep with her? She wasn't a virgin, but I liked to think that she had her first taste of unbridled passion with Hangman, and was not comparing me to the devil knows how many other guys. Well, that was an ego thing. I gave her the plate and a plastic fork. "Eat it while it's hot."

She said in a grumpy voice that she wasn't hungry. I tossed her a blueberry muffin. "Try that then." She threw it back at me. "Maybe you'd better go," she said. "And come back later. Call me from somebody's phone, if you don't have one. I'll give you my number."

In answer to that I sat down and began rolling a smoke. I had a cup of coffee and was damned if I would leave the comforts of home because of two fussbudgets. "Why should it matter if I'm here?" I said sternly. "You're a big girl. You can do as you please."

She seemed to shrink into the pillows. She pulled her wadded-up blouse from under the covers and held it to her breasts. "I told Mom that I wasn't really interested in sex. That's why, you know, I go with Josie. That's what I told her. And it was true..." She stared at me with something like horror. Then she gave me a feeble smile. I said, "I wasn't the first, Moira." And the look of horror was back for a moment before she put on that pseudo smile again.

"It was Josie's mom who did that, in the bath. With her fingers. It hurt and there was blood in the water." She arched her brows, as if her own words surprised her. I could hardly believe what she had said. In fact at first I did not accept it. I looked at the blank black screen of the TV and imagined how I would react if, or when, I saw Josie's mother.