Max Collins - Before the Dawn

Nodding, the waitress returned to her seat and picked up the paper. “False alarm, Jack!”

The guy in the kitchen came back out and picked up his paper, too; this time though, he stayed on his side of the counter.

“Original Cindy just wanted to thank you for steppin’ in tonight.” Sitting forward, she leaned across the booth and patted Max on the hand. “A sistah coulda looked at them odds and walked the hell right back out the door.”

Shaking her head, Max said, “Wouldn’t do for sistahs to be lettin’ each other bump uglies with the likes of those dickweeds.”

“They ain’t Original Cindy’s... type anyway.”

“Low-life bikers.”

“Dickweeds.”

Max gave her a look.

Original Cindy explained what had started the altercation with the biker — namely, the blonde. Watching Max carefully, she said, “You gotta do what floats your boat.”

“None of my business,” Max said, “where people put their paddles.”

Original Cindy smiled and Max gave her half a smile back. They sat and sipped their coffee for a while, letting the silence grow, both of them comfortable with it.

Finally, Original Cindy sat forward again, saying, “What the hell was that back there, girl?”

Max shrugged, playing it low-key. “What was what?”

Original Cindy made a couple of mock Kung Fu hand gestures. “That Jet Li, Jackie Chan action — what was up with that?”

Another shrug. Avoiding eye contact, Max said, “Had some training.”

The other woman waggled a finger. “No, girl, no no... Original Cindy was in the army and she had some training, can take of herself... but whew, nothin’ like what was goin’ on in that bar.”

Max stared into her coffee. “Let’s just say I’m a good student.”

“You wanna leave it at that?”

Max held her coffee cup in both hands, as if warming them. “You don’t mind?”

“That’s cool. That’s where we leave it then.”

A smile blossomed on the heart-shaped face. “Thanks.”

“ You thankin’ me? That’s whack.”

“If you say so.”

“Anyway, Original Cindy just wants to say she owes you big-time.”

This seemed to embarrass Max, who said offhandedly, “I was just jealous, all the attention you were getting.”

“Well, you my girl now — you need anything, anytime, Original Cindy got your back.”

Max saluted her with a coffee cup, and said seriously, “That’s good to know.”

“From now on you my Boo.”

Max frowned, and looked vaguely nervous. “I, uh... thought I made it clear I don’t go that way.”

Original Cindy cracked up, the laughter bubbling out of her; but Max just studied her.

“Bein’ a Boo ain’t about... that, Max — it’s about bein’ stand-up, it’s about I got your back, you got mine... it’s about bein’ tight. You my Boo.”

A natural smile blossomed on Max’s lovely face. “Well, then... you’re my Boo... too.”

The rhyme came out awkward, and made Original Cindy start laughing again, and this time Max got caught on the wave, and the two young women just sat there and giggled for maybe a minute.

Then Original Cindy extended a fist, which Max bumped with her own.

The waitress brought them refills on the coffee, an act that served as a time-out. When the waitress left, the two women sipped and talked, the conversation shifting gears.

“So,” Original Cindy said, “where you headed?”

“Seattle.”

“No kiddin’?”

Max looked at her curiously. “Shouldn’t I be?”

“No, girl, it’s just... I’m headed home myself.”

“Seattle is home?”

“One of ’em. Spent some time in the Emerald City.”

Max’s eyes tightened in confusion. “Emerald City?”

“Yeah, that’s what the peeps used to call Seattle back before the Pulse. You know... like Wizard of Oz ?”

Max got a funny expression on her face. “I’ve heard of that...”

“’Course you have!” Original Cindy looked at Max like the girl was speaking Esperanto. “Who hasn’t seen the best movie ever made?”

“Me,” Max admitted.

“Back in the old days, every kid saw that movie.”

“Well... I had a kind of sheltered childhood.”

“Oooh, Boo, we got to introduce you to the finer things.”

Grinning, Max said, “I’m up for that.”

“Look, chile, here’s the dealio: Original Cindy needs a ride to Seattle... and you’re already goin’ that way.”

Max looked into her cup. “I need to haul. I’m sort of... meeting someone there.”

“Haulin’ ass is fine with Original Cindy. The sooner we get there, the sooner we’re there... right?”

Max’s eyes widened but she also smiled. “How can I argue with that logic?... Let’s blaze, Boo.”

Original Cindy’s face exploded in a smile. “Boo, the Emerald City ain’t never been hit by a pair of witches this fine...”

Going inland and traveling on the interstate might have been faster, but Max still took precautions to avoid any possible contact with Manticore; so they kept to the winding PCH and moseyed up the coast at a leisurely eighty-five to ninety miles per hour.

They stopped only for food and the call of nature — and to gas up the bike, which at eight or nine bucks a gallon was burning a hole in her bankroll, as Max had known it would. The roar of the motorcycle and the wind kept conversation to a minimum, but the two young women somehow knew that each had finally found the sort of friend they needed.

There weren’t a lot of questions about each other’s past; instinctively they both knew the other had secrets not for sharing. Nevertheless, they just sort of fell in together and the start of their friendship felt like they were already in the middle of it.

The last five hundred miles of the trip flew by and before they knew it, Max and Original Cindy were tooling through the streets of Seattle, still a striking city despite the squalor of post-Pulse life.

“Everything’s so green,” Max said, over her shoulder.

“That’s why it’s the Emerald City, Dorothy girl.”

“Dorothy?”

“Boo, you ain’t got no sense of culture whatsoever.”

“I might surprise you, Cin...”

At Fourth and Blanchard, Max eased the Ninja over to the curb in front of a place called Buck’s Coffee. The sign looked as though it used to have four letters before the B, but they couldn’t be made out.

“Caffeine calling,” Max said.

“Original Cindy hears it, too.”

Inside, the pair of striking women walked up to the counter behind which stood a heavyset man barely taller than Max, a lascivious grin forming on his fat, five-o’clock-shadowed face. At a counter behind him, a blowsily attractive blond woman about their age — wearing knee-high pink boots, a blue miniskirt, and a pink top that bared both her midriff and most of her formidable chest — hovered over a sandwich in the making.

“Ladies, don’t even bother orderin’ no frappes, lattes, cappuccinos,” he said. Staring at Original Cindy, he added, “I serve my coffee just like I like my women — hot and black.”

The blue-cheeked guy seemed proud of himself, under the illusion he had minted this deathless phrase.

Max could tell that Original Cindy was considering jumping the counter to bitch-slap the white right off this horse’s ass; so Max gently said, “Come on, Boo — let’s go someplace where we can get a grande.”

“Yeah... instead of the limp mini this mope is peddlin’.”

Max giggled, and the blonde toward the back giggled, too... but the counter guy did not laugh; in fact, he reddened and fumed.

He started to say something, but Original Cindy cut him off with a wave of a finger accompanied by a sway of the head and shoulders. “Don’t hate the playah, baby... hate the game.”