Shirl dashed down the hall, her heels clattering as loud as a shoed horse. Evanee handed her open checks to the green-haired girl like a member of the Olympic relay team passing a baton, then walked out the back door.
The first thing she noticed was the rumble, roar, and release of pressure from the eighteen-wheelers parked behind the diner. The noise was as constant as a heartbeat.
A brisk autumn breeze raised goose bumps on her skin. Sunshine melted them away. Tilting her face to the sun to soak up some vitamin D, she leaned against the building and pried her pumps from her swollen feet. Each shoe came off with an indecent sucking sound and left a deep red cleft around her foot.
Ahhh. The cold pavement was a delight against her hot soles.
She walked across the parking lot, her legs moving in an awkward flamingo step as they recalibrated to being flat-footed.
The hardest part of the day wasn’t the eight hours in the heels. It was this moment, when she had time to remember her belly flop off the cliff of comfort into the cesspool of white trash. From a safe, easy life to this truck-stop waitress existence. From trendy apartment to living behind Sweet Buns at Morty’s Motor Lodge. From privacy to sharing a room with Brittany, the town whore. From profound ignorance to the realization that everything good she used to have came from being a whore too.
But she wasn’t going to think about that. Nope. Not going to.
Halfway across the parking lot, she spotted Brittany’s special signal.
The ribbon tied to their doorknob used to be pretty-girl pink, but had long since faded to a shade of old and used.
“Damn it, Brittany.”
The steady stream of truckers kept Brittany bumping around the clock. At least she always made her guys rent another room for the hour. Unless she had a loaded one. Someone with thousands to burn. Being customer service–oriented, Brittany gave those guys a discount by letting them use her room—the one she shared with Evanee. They’d be in there all night, possibly even days.
Now Evanee stood eyeball to eyeball with being homeless for the night.
A weight bore down on her shoulders, threatened to buckle her knees, crush her into the pavement.
She shook her head, flinging the bad thoughts out of her mind like a dog shaking off water. There had to be a bright side. If she looked hard enough, long enough, she could find something good hiding behind every bad thing. Or maybe the search for good was just a distraction from the bad. She’d have to think about that one later.
She wasn’t homeless. Homeless meant no roof over her head, nowhere to go. She had her car and could drive herself anywhere.
She fished through the wads of cash and change in her tiny apron pocket, finding her key ring. Once inside the Miata, she locked the doors and then counted through the day’s tips. Some ones, but mostly fives, tens, even a few twenties from the most desperate of truckers who thought if they tipped high, they’d eventually earn some alone time with her.
With her tips from yesterday, she had enough cash for her car payment with twenty-three dollars left over. Not enough for another motel room. She shoved the money back into her apron pocket and set it on the floor.
The bow on the door fluttered on the breeze, its movement more effective than a neon sign flashing Sex In Progress. Heat scorched her cheeks. She felt like a slow-witted Peeping Tom staring at the ribbon, knowing all manner of sexual acrobatics were occurring inside the room.
Evanee started her car. The motor turned over with a quiet hum that instantly lifted her mood. No matter how impractical or how flashy, she loved her Miata.
With no particular destination in mind, she pulled out of Morty’s and headed toward the country, away from semis and people. She took one winding, hilly road after another until she found an isolated spot.
The road passed through a serpentine valley encircled by low, undulating hills. A barbed-wire fence ran parallel with the pavement. Cows probably grazed there in the summer, but this late in the fall, the grass had shriveled to spikes of straw. The lonesome beauty of the land, the way the hills folded around her, soothed something inside her she hadn’t realized needed comfort until that moment.
See, there was always a bright side. She would never have found this place if Brittany hadn’t confiscated their room for a conjugal visit with a horny trucker.
She pulled over and cut the ignition.
She could spend the night here. It’d be like camping out. Sort of.
Leaning back against the headrest, she let her eyes slide shut. Sometimes she forgot a world existed beyond Sweet Buns, Morty’s, and the constant rumble of semis.
Silence. Pure and perfect. The best thing she’d heard in weeks. The quiet lulled her into relaxation, into sleep.
*
Evanee startled awake with a full-body lurch. Her heart ping-ponged off the walls of her chest. Breath choked in and out of her lungs.
She’d had a nightmare.