(2) Dead Like A River

Josie?

I am not a very observant person. I tend to look inward rather than outward; the introspective type. Anyway, I followed her smile and saw a girl sitting with her back to the tree, her arms around her drawn-up knees, staring at me with a hint of dislike.

"Hi," I said, like you would say to a stowaway on your boat whom you had never seen before. She blinked at me as if I were an illusion she hoped would disappear.

This put me in an awkward position. I had two hitchhikers and could accommodate only one. I said as much to Moira. Her face brightened and the smile was a supernova. "I know!" she said with a soundless laugh. Now I felt even more awkward.

Josie stood up. She was a little taller than Moira, about five-seven. She wore a brown t-shirt with orange and white designs on it, and khaki shorts past her knees. I especially remember the bright blue woolen socks peeking above her hiking boots. And her flat chest. "Take her," she said in a voice like a boy's. "I'll get a ride." She went to the edge of the pavement and looked up-road in the gusty wind, her dirty blond hair whipping around her shoulders. She walked like a boy, too. I was beginning to think that Josie was not a girl. But then Moira said, all smiles, "She hates me and she doesn't like my cooking."

Moira was hyper. She was also a chatterbox. Her mac and cheese did not appear to slow her speech. She said innane stuff and things that seemed pregnant with insights into her troubled young life that passed over my head like flights of starlings. I set my tea bottle on a rock and rolled a smoke, hoping to catch her age and circumstance, but everything she said was a piece of a jigsaw puzzle that I couldn't put together. I did learn that she was born and raised in Milwaukee. Her mother was a total bitch and her older brother tried out for the Green Bay Packers as a walk-on and didn't make it. When I heard that she had dropped out of high school against the wishes of her dad I was greatly relieved. It meant that she was at least eighteen. Or so I thought at the time, that she had quit school in her senior year.

During this time a number of cars and trucks went by. Josie was apparently quite patient. After a while she came up to Moira, grabbed her by the waist and gave her a provocative shake. Moira made a face and elbowed her good-naturedly. They had a brief flurry of conversation that suggested a friendship that was flakey and haphazard. They loved each other but they didn't really want to spend a whole lot of time together. At first I thought they were sisters that didn't look much alike, then I thought maybe cousins. But within thirty minutes of my being there I determined that they had been neighbors in Milwaukee whose parents co-owned a business; not retail, but a service of some sort.

I tried to ask direct questions, but this required that I interrupt her, which she didn't like. Finally she said, "No questions. I don't like questions." I said that she needed to answer this one: Did she want a ride to Topeka?

She brightened up again. "Let's go!"

"Where do you want me to drop you off?"

"At the police station," she said, answering not only a second question, but also my next one: "Why the police station?" She explained that because she was a homeless woman the police would give her a motel voucher and restaurant gift cards; usually McDonald's, but sometimes a really nice restaurant.

So that was settled. Josie looked disgruntled. Moira had a whispered talk with her while I mounted the bike and fired it up. I watched them in the mirror. They hugged. Then Moira put on her surprisingly small backpack and came up to the sissy seat behind me, biting her underlip and narrowing her eyes at me.

"Put a foot on the peg and swing a leg over," I explained. "Here, wear my helmet." I handed it to her, and she laughed, making faces at Josie as she mashed it down on her tangled head and cinched the chin-strap.

She arranged herself on the seat and linked her hands on my stomach. I had expected her to lean on the padded backrest with her knees spread, like a biker bitch. But she preferred the cuddle position, and I must confess that I didn't object.

I tapped the shifter down from neutral, throttled up, and eased off the clutch. And off down the road we went. I glimpsed Josie in the mirror, giving us the finger.