It was a lot like our own place, except that Mr. Langford was not a doctor, like my dad, and had more time to keep the place in shape. It was seven-thirty when I pulled the Chevy into the driveway, almost dark, and Old Man Langford had just finished watering the front lawn.
“You're late tonight, aren't you, Joe?”
Be thirty minutes late for a date and the whole town knew it; that's the way Creston was. “I got held up at the station,” I said. “I thought maybe we'd have a sandwich and see a movie. There's plenty of time for that.”
“Sure,” Langford said doubtfully, then shrugged. “How's the tourist business?”
“Fine. Just fine.”
But I wasn't fooling him one little bit. If business was so fine, I'd be driving a better car. Langford was a retired real-estate man and he knew the signs. Then the front door opened and Beth came out.
“I'm sorry I'm late,” I said, hardly seeing her.
I'd seen her so many times, had had so many dates with her exactly like this one, that there was nothing fresh or new about it. Long ago I had slipped into the habit of taking Beth for granted. I knew just about everything there was to be known about her; I could guess beforehand just what she would wear, what she would say, how she would react to any given situation. I could look at her as I was doing now, and never actually see her, because I knew her as well as I knew my right hand, and a man doesn't have to keep looking at his hand to make sure it hasn't changed.
“A sandwich and a movie?” I asked.
She smiled and I knew the exact words she would answer with. “Sure, Joe. A sandwich and movie sounds nice.”
There was a drive-in movie on the highway south of town, and that's where we went. But I couldn't tell you what the picture was about. I don't remember her name, but the girl in the picture was blonde and plenty good-looking, and the husky way she had of talking kept reminding me of that girl back at the tourist court, that Mrs. Sheldon.
I kept remembering the funny way she had looked at me, and that remark she had made about my build.
“What is it, Joe?”
“What?”
“I thought you had gone to sleep,” Beth said.
I became aware of the giant screen in front of us. “I wasn't asleep,” I said. “I was thinking.”
“I thought you liked John Wayne. If you want to go, Joe, it's all right with me.”
“I like John Wayne fine. Let's watch the picture.”
She looked puzzled. Then, almost immediately, she slipped back into that Hollywood dream. I looked at her and had the uneasy feeling that I was sitting beside a total stranger. I looked at her objectively, the way you would look at a photograph of a person you had never seen. By no stretch of the imagination could she be called beautiful, or even pretty, although she was pleasant enough to look at, and certainly she wasn't ugly.
Her face was small, and her hair was rather thick and long, which was the wrong way to wear it. Even I knew that. Her figure was all right, if a little thin. But her arms always freckled in the summer, and they were freckled now. Her eyes, I think, were the best part of her. They were large and startlingly clear.
It's difficult to dislike people with eyes like Beth's, and maybe that's the reason I had fallen into the habit of dating her. But what the hell, I thought. A guy had to do something. If she had let herself believe that it meant something, it wasn't my fault.
She turned her head briefly and looked at me. She smiled and took my hand and squeezed it. The night was hot and her palm was sweaty, and I had to go through an elaborate act of lighting a cigarette to get my hand free. My nerves were beginning to get on edge and I didn't know exactly why.
I settled back in the seat, tried to get comfortable, and stared determinedly at the screen.
It wasn't a minute before I was thinking of that blonde again.
Chapter Two
I went straight back to the station after taking Beth home. The place was dark; Ike Abrams had already called it a day and locked up. I put the Chevy in the carport and then went around and checked all the locks to see that Ike hadn't missed anything. Four of the cabins were still empty, I noticed. Right at the height of the tourist season and only one cabin rented!
The dead, hot air hit me in the face as I went inside my own shack. The lights were still on in the Sheldon cabin, and I could hear the muffled sounds of their talking, without being able to understand what they were saying. Probably, I thought, that blonde is still raising hell about having to stay in such a place.
Well, I couldn't blame her for that.
Think about something else, I thought. Or think about nothing—that's better. Just get your clothes off and hope a breeze comes up and you'll be able to get some sleep before the sun comes up again.
It wasn't any good. The bed was hot, and pretty soon it was clammy with sweat, and I lay there in the darkness smoking cigarettes and wondering when the hell my luck was going to change. When would I be able to pull out of this hole for good?
Times like this were the toughest. It isn't easy to have faith when you're alone. The harder you pray for a break, the more they seem to avoid you, and pretty soon you begin thinking that maybe you've got it figured all wrong, that maybe you're destined to be stuck here the rest of your life, just, the way you are now.
That's when it gets tough, when you have no money, when you have no special influence, and you know there's no way in the world to go out and make something happen. All you can do is wait and be ready to take advantage of any break that happens to come your way—but they never seem to come. And soon, if you let yourself, you'll get to believe they'll never come.
When I'd got out of the Army I'd gone to work in the Provo Box Factory in Creston—just marking time, I told myself. I'll keep my eyes open and wait for something to come up. Then there had been rumors of a big superhighway project along Route 66 and I had grabbed this tourist court on a GI loan. The superhighway project had flopped, and with it my plans for big right-of-way profits. So I was right back where I'd started, except that I was now saddled with a slipping business.
It was almost midnight and not getting any cooler. Disgusted, I got out of bed and walked around in my shorts. Then I thought: Hell, I might as well go outside if I want to walk. So I put on my pants and a pair of moccasins and went outside.
The lights were still on in Number 2, and they were still talking. That Sheldon! Why didn't he just get in that Buick of his and start driving? That's what I would do if I was in his shoes.
I sat on the steps arid started to light another cigarette. But something stopped me. I didn't know what it was at first, but I knew something wasn't right. I listened hard, the unlighted cigarette in my mouth, but the only thing I could hear was the talking over in Number 2. Sheldon and his wife. I listened some more, knowing that something was wrong, but I couldn't put my finger on it.
Then it hit me. It wasn't Sheldon and his wife talking; it was Sheldon and another man!
I couldn't hear what they were saying, but the talk kept going on and on between the men, and only occasionally did Mrs. Sheldon put in a word. The thing seemed funny to me. If Sheldon knew anybody in Creston, he hadn't mentioned It. Then I remembered that car trouble that didn't seem to exist. And the fact that he had chosen one of my shacks instead of a first-class motel. And now he was receiving company at midnight, in a place where he was supposed to be a stranger.
Little things, but put them together and it came to a pretty queer situation.
I had no qualms about eavesdropping; I was trying to hear what they were saying now, but the words were mushy and senseless by the time they had drifted over to where I was. Finally I got up and swung wide around the carport and came up in the shadows by the east window. You're going to have a hell of a time explaining this, I told myself, if Sheldon happens to look out that window and sees you standing here.