“Excuse me,” Aida says so happily the woman shakes her head at her. Two-thirds there. Her eyes scan the station. There must be at least one panhandler here.
Their bus pulls into Gate Eleven as soon as they arrive. From somewhere nearby, Aida can hear a guitar and the soft voices of a man and woman singing in harmony.
“Be right back,” Bill whispers right into her ear, his breath warm.
Aida is tingly with excitement. A kiss on a bus leaving Denver with a tragic hero is even more thrilling than one in a meadow, even in the rain. She sees Bill push his way through the crowd and walk directly to a pay phone.
The couple is singing, “I’ll taste your strawberries . . . I’ll drink your sweet wine . . .”
He is talking, agitated, his face scrunched up in frustration.
The line starts moving forward. People are getting on the bus, and Aida worries that Bill will not even notice.
A scratchy announcement calls passengers for the bus to San Francisco, and Aida starts waving like crazy. But Bill has his back turned and can’t see her.
The bus is right there, waiting, the front like a grinning cartoon bus. Above the window, Aida watches the sign shift from DENVER to SAN FRANCISCO. Behind her, she hears thundering footsteps, Bill’s voice calling for her to wait up. Is there a kiss coming? Or is he going to simply wave good-bye as the bus pulls away? She keeps moving forward; she has to.
Someone tugs at her arm and she turns, expecting to see Bill. Instead, it is a dirty girl, not much older than Aida herself. Dirty bare feet, tangled blond hair, a peasant blouse with unraveling embroidery. Beside her is a bearded boy, also dirty, also barefoot, a guitar slung over his shoulder.
“Did you like our singing?” the girl is asking, but all Aida hears is Bill trying to get through the crowd, calling her name.
“My name is Melody,” the girl says. She holds a wilted daisy out for Aida, her hand trembling.
“Melody,” she says again, smiling in a way that makes Aida think of her sister Teresa, stoned and foggy.
Aida takes the flower and, unsure what to do with it, tucks it behind her ear.
“Pretty,” the girl says, forcing a smile. “Maybe a couple quarters for the flower? Your boyfriend will like it there.”
Aida is at the bus door now, the girl pressing against her.
“Get that fucking hippie out of the way,” someone in the line says.
“It’s worth a dollar,” the girl is saying.
Aida grins at her. The girl, Melody, is a panhandler. She is asking Aida for change. Out of breath, Bill reaches her finally. “Shit,” he says. “Thought I was going to miss the bus.” He takes Aida’s elbow in his hand and hoists her up the steps of the bus.
Aida pulls her loose change from her pocket and manages to drop it in Melody’s grimy outstretched hand.
“Peace,” Melody says.
“Get the fuck out of my way,” Aida hears someone say. But she is on the bus, and Bill is right behind her, a sheen of sweat on his forehead.
“You were just going to go,” he says. “Without me.”
Aida shrugs.
There are people ahead of her putting bags in the overhead racks, and people behind her, urging them on.
Bill takes her face in both of his hands and kisses her hard and quick on the lips.
“Wait for me next time, okay?” he says.
“You can make out when you sit down,” that same guy shouts, and some of the passengers giggle.
But Bill doesn’t move. “Okay?” he says again.
There’s a window seat still available, and Aida slides into it.
Bill is still standing there, waiting.
“Okay,” she says.
He slides into the seat beside her, stretches his long legs. Aida places her hand in his sweaty one, and looks out the window. The sun is up, full and white, over the mountains. The bus backs up slowly, then lurches forward.
IT IS NIGHT and they are somewhere, but Aida has lost track. What is after Colorado? She tries to remember but can’t. Her lips still vibrate from that one fast kiss, like a beesting. If he doesn’t kiss her again soon she might die from anticipation. But he doesn’t seem at all in a kissing mood. Instead, he is telling her an unbelievable story about a group of pioneers who got caught in a freak spring snowstorm in the mountains and ended up having to eat each other.
“They did it for survival,” he says. “People will do anything to survive.”
“You got that right,” a woman behind them says, and Bill laughs softly.
Another woman says, “I heard about this sports team somewhere, in Argentina or Australia or somewhere who ate each other. They were in a plane crash, and they were up in the mountains, and those dead ones just got eaten.”
She is certainly not going to be kissed when the whole bus is in on her conversation.
“See?” Bill says softly. He tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear and she gets a surge of excitement again. “Cannibals are everywhere,” he whispers.
Aida smiles despite herself.