Richard Ford - Rock Springs

“Mine, too,” Sims said. He was cold in Doris’s roomette, but he felt like he should take his shoes off. Keeping them on made him uncomfortable, but it made him uncomfortable to be in bed with Doris in the first place.

“I just couldn’t stand it,” Doris said. “They’re just other little adults. Who needs that? One’s enough.”

“That’s right,” Sims said. Marge felt the same way he did. Children made life a misery and, once they’d finished, they did it again. That had been the first thing he and Marge had seen eye to eye on. Sims put his shoes down beside the mattress and hoped they wouldn’t start to smell

“Miracles,” Doris said and held up a pint bottle of vodka. “Never fear, Doris is here,” she said. “Never a dull moment. Plus there’s glasses, too.” She rumbled around in her bag. “Right now in a jiffy there’ll be glasses,” she said. “Never fear. Are you just horribly bored already, Vic? Have I complctely blown this? Are you antsy? Are you mad? Don’t be mad.”

“I couldn’t be happier,” Sims said. Doris, on her hands and knees in the half-light, turned and smiled at him. Sims smiled back at her.

“Good man. Excellent.” Doris held up a glass. “One glass,” she said, “the fruit of patience. Did you know I look as good as I did when I was in high school. I’ve been told that — recently, in fact.”

Sims looked at Doris’s legs and her rear end. They were both good looking, he thought. Both slim and firm. “That’s easy to believe,” he said. “How old are you?”

Sergeant Benton narrowed one eye at him. “How old do you think? Or, how old do I look? I’ll ask that.”

She was taking all night to fix two drinks, Sims thought. “Thirty. Or near thirty, anyway,” he said.

“Cute,” Sergeant Benton said. “That’s extremely cute.” She smirked at him. “Thirty-eight is my age.”

“I’m forty-two,” Sims said.

Doris didn’t seem to hear him. “Glass,” she said, holding up another one for him to see. “Two glasses. Let’s just go on and have a drink, what do you say?”

“Great,” Sims said. He could smell Doris’s perfume, a sweet flowery smell he liked and that came from her suitcase. He was glad to be here.

Doris turned and crossed her legs in a way that stretched her skirt across her knees. She set both glasses on her skirt and poured two drinks. Sims realized he could see up her skirt if the light in the compartment was any better.

She smiled and handed Sims a glass. “Here’s to your wife,” Doris said. “May sweet dreams descend.”

“Here’s to that,” Sims said and drank a gulp of warm vodka. He hadn’t known how much he’d wanted a drink until this one was down his throat.

“How fast do you think we’re going now?” Doris said, peering toward the dark window where nothing was visible.

“I don’t know,” Sims said. “Eighty, maybe. I’d guess eighty.”

“Hurding through the dark night,” Doris said and smiled. She took another drink. “What scares you ought to be interesting, right?”

“Where’ve you been on this trip?” Sims said.

Sergeant Benton pushed her fingers through her blond hair and gave her head another shake, then sniffed. “Visiting a relative,” she said. She stared at Sims and her eyes seemed to blaze at him suddenly and for no reason Sims could see. Possibly this was a sensitive subject. He would be happy to avoid those.

“And where’re you going? You told me but I forgot. It seems like a long time ago.”

“Would you like to hear a little story?” Sergeant Benton said. “A recent and true-to-life story?”

“Sure.” Sims raised his vodka glass to toast a story. Doris extended the bottle and poured in some more, then more for herself.

“Well,” she said. She smelled the vodka in her glass, then pulled her skirt up slightly to be comfortable. “I go to visit my father, you see, out on San Juan Island. I haven’t seen him in maybe eight years, since before I went in the Army — since I was married, in fact. And he’s married now himself to a very nice lady. Miss Vera. They run a boarding kennels out on the island. He’s sixty something and takes care of all these noisy dogs. She’s fifty something. I don’t know how they do it.” Doris took a drink. “Or why. She’s a Mormon, believes in all the angels, so he’s more or less become one, too, though he drinks and smokes. He’s not at all spiritual. He was in the Air Force. Also a sergeant. Anyway, the first night I get there we all eat dinner together. A big steak. And right away my father says he has to drive down to the store to get something, and he’ll be back. So off he goes. And Miss Vera and I are washing dishes and watching television and chattering. And before I know it, two hours have gone by. And I say to Miss Vera, ‘Where’s Eddie? Hasn’t he been gone a long time?’ And she just says, ‘Oh, he’ll be back pretty soon.’ So we pottered around a little more. Each of us smoked a cigarette. Then she got ready to go to bed. By herself. It was ten o’clock, and I said, ‘Where’s Dad?’ And she said, ‘Sometimes he stops and has a drink down in town.’ So when she’s in bed I get in the other car and drive down the hill to the bar. And there’s his station wagon in front. Only when I go in and ask, he isn’t there, and nobody says they know where he is. I go back outside, but then this guy steps to the door behind me and says, Try the trailer, hon. That’s it. Try the trailer.’ Nothing else. And across the road is a little house trailer with its lights on and a car sitting out front. And I just walked across the road — I still had on my uniform — walked up the steps and knocked on the door. There’re some voices inside and a TV. I hear people moving around and a door close. The front door opens then and here’s a woman who apparently lives there. She’s completely dressed. I’d guess her age to be fifty. She’s younger than Vera anyway, with a younger face. She says, ‘Yes. What is it?’ and I said I was sorry, but I was looking for my father, and I guessed I’d gotten the wrong place. But she says, ‘Just a second,’ and turns around and says, ‘Eddie, your daughter’s here.’

“And my father came out of a door to the next room. Maybe it was a closet, I didn’t know. I didn’t care. He had his pants on and an undershirt. And he said, ‘Oh hi, Doris. How’re you? Come on in. This is Sherry.’ And the only thing I could think of was how thin his shoulders looked. He looked like he was going to die. I didn’t even speak to Sherry. I just said, No, I couldn’t stay. And I drove on back to the house.”

“Did you leave then?” Sims said.

“No, I stayed around a couple more days. Then left. It didn’t matter to me. It made me think, though.”

“What did you think,” Sims asked.

Doris put her head back against the metal wall and stared up. “Oh, I just thought about being the other woman, which I’ve been that enough. Everybody’s done everything twice, right? At my age. You cross a line. But you can do a thing and have it mean nothing but what you feel that minute. You don’t have to give yourself away. Isn’t that true?”

“That’s exactly true,” Sims said and thought it was right. He’d done it himself plenty of times.

“Where’s the real life, right? I don’t think I’ve had mine, yet, have you?” Doris held her glass up to her lips with both hands and smiled at him.

“Not yet, I haven’t,” Sims said. “Not entirely.”

“When I was a little girl in California and my father was teaching me to drive, I used to think, ‘I’m driving now. I have to pay strict attention to everything; I have to notice everything; I have to think about my hands being on the wheel; it’s possible I’ll only think about this very second forever, and it’ll drive me crazy.’ But I’d already thought of something else.” Doris wrinkled her nose at Sims. “That’s my movie, right?”