The waitress nodded, still jotting on her order pad. Then she peeled away.
“I have to say I’m a bit surprised,” Bea said.
“About what?”
“When I said I’d buy you breakfast, frankly I thought you’d order everything on the menu.”
“This is all they had that I could eat.”
“What on earth are you talking about? They have everything here.”
The girl only grunted.
Bea almost asked her name, but stopped herself. It’s like a stray cat, she thought. Never name them if you don’t intend to keep them.
Bea’s plan had been to let the strange comment about food drop. But she was feeling out of sorts after her upsetting morning, all agitated and restless. So she worried at it out loud, like a dog who can’t bring himself to stop tugging on your pant leg.
“What do you eat and what don’t you eat that you can look at a menu like that and not be able to choose a dozen things?”
“I don’t eat anything that comes from animals,” she said, torturing her paper napkin into tight twists. “So breakfast is hard. Because everybody eats eggs and meat for breakfast.”
“You’re a vegetarian?”
“Vegan.”
“I don’t know what the difference is.”
“You don’t need to,” the girl said with a sigh. “It doesn’t matter. If we were about to keep knowing each other . . . if I was riding somewhere with you, I’d tell you. But you’re going to dump me right after breakfast. You already said so. And I know it’s true. Know how I know? Because you haven’t even asked me my name.”
They fell into an awkward silence. Bea felt as though she’d been caught in some kind of wrongdoing, but she shook the feeling away again because she didn’t like it and didn’t feel she deserved it.
“And you haven’t told me yours,” the girl continued.
“You could have done the same. You could have introduced yourself and asked my name. That would have been a polite thing to do after a carjacking like the one you just put me through.”
The girl opened her mouth to speak, but in that moment the waitress hurried up to their table with a pot of coffee. They fell into silence while she turned Bea’s mug upright and poured.
“My name is Allie,” the girl said as she watched the waitress retreat. “What’s yours?”
“Bea. What’s the difference between vegetarian and vegan?”
“A vegan doesn’t eat any animal products. No eggs, no dairy. A lot of vegans don’t even eat honey. You know. Because of the bees that have to make it. They keep them captive, you know. The bees. To make that honey.”
Bea paused from her current activity of stirring a great deal of half-and-half and three sugars into her coffee. “My goodness. Why on earth would anybody want to be that?”
The girl—Allie—leveled Bea with a look that seemed surprisingly mature and thoughtful for her age. “You sure you want me to get started on that right before she brings your breakfast?”
“Good point. I guess I don’t. But here’s what I don’t understand, Allie. There are tons of things you can eat for breakfast that aren’t from an animal. Waffles, pancakes. French toast. Regular toast.”
“Waffles and French toast have eggs in them. And besides, that’s all just refined white flour.”
“And you don’t eat flour because . . .”
“Well, I could. But why would I? I ordered fruit and oatmeal. That’s food. Why should I have a bunch of bleached white flour instead? There’s no nutrition in it. They take out all the nutrients when they refine it. And then they fortify it with vitamins, but it’s just like taking a vitamin pill. You might as well pop a daily vitamin and skip all the refined carbs, because they only make you hyper and crash your blood sugar and make you irritable. They don’t do your body any good. And the only way they taste like anything is after you slather them with butter and syrup, and butter is from animals and syrup is just pure sugar, and sugar’s like the worst thing we could possibly be eating . . .”
The waitress came with their breakfasts just then. Bea looked at her four strips of bacon and her three greasy fried eggs, and the mountain of crispy golden-brown potatoes. And the four pancakes on a separate plate.
“My goodness, that looks absolutely delicious,” she said to the waitress. But it was really more for the benefit of the girl. “Extra butter and syrup, please.”
When she left, Bea offered a dismissive look in the direction of the fruit plate.
“Sorry,” Allie said. “But you asked.”
“If you could think of a place to go . . . ,” Bea said, her stomach almost uncomfortably full, “. . . you know . . . someplace where you’d be safe, and they’d take you in . . . I might consider driving you there.”
Allie looked up from her fruit cup. She had been meticulously sticking a fork into each piece of cantaloupe and honeydew melon and using her knife to carve away the slightest bit of white or green from the rind edge. Bea had been watching and wondering, but choosing not to comment.
“That’s pretty generous of you. Especially since you have no idea where I would say I needed to go. What if it was in the exact opposite direction from where you’re going?”
“I can go in any direction I choose.”
“Where do you live?”
“That’s a bit of a personal question.”
“How can it be too personal to ask where you live? People ask each other that all the time.”
“You don’t tell a stranger where you live. It’s like writing your address on your house key and then giving your keys to some stranger who parks cars. It’s just not the right way to stay safe in this world. Which, let me tell you, is plenty different from the world I was born into.”
Allie performed another minor surgery on a chunk of watermelon and then chewed it thoughtfully. “I didn’t ask for your address. I just meant the city. What city do you live in?”
Bea said nothing for a time. Just sat and stared out the window and felt her face redden. The last thing she wanted was to be pressured into telling a relative stranger that she was homeless.
“Okay, fine,” Allie said. “Never mind. Nothing is any of my business.”
“For decades I lived in the Coachella Valley. Near Indio.”
“When did you move?”
“I left about a week ago. Maybe a little more. I think I’ve lost track of the days by now.”
“But you’re not headed back there?”
“No. Dear me, no. Too hot.”
“Why live there all those years if it’s too hot?”
“I had air-conditioning back in those days.”
Allie pushed her empty bowl away, took her shredded napkin off her lap, and wiped her mouth politely. At least she had table manners. “Okay, I know where I want to go.”
“Good. Where?”
“Your house.”
“Very funny.”
“I’m not kidding. I’ve got no place.”
“Well, my house won’t do. I was not inviting you to move in.”
“You still haven’t told me where you live now.”
Bea felt the heat in her face grow and deepen. Her gaze instinctively flickered out the window to the van in the parking lot.
“Oh, I get it,” Allie said.
“What do you get?”
“You live in your van. That explains a lot. Like why you have a recliner in there. And a cardboard dresser. And blankets. And your cat and his litter box.”
“Her.”
“Her what?”
“My cat is a she. Her litter box.”
“Fine. Whatever. She. Wow, we have a lot in common. A week ago you had a regular place to live and now you’re out in the world alone. Just like me.”
“I think that’s where our similarity ends.”
“Still seems like a lot for two people to have in common.”
The check arrived, and Bea laid a twenty on it, which covered both meals and a small tip. She made no effort to cont
inue the conversation.
“So where were you going before I came along?” Allie asked.
“I thought I’d go north along the coast.”
“Fine.”
“What’s fine?”
“You asked me where I wanted to go. I want to go north along the coast. With you.”
“I meant someplace you could jump off.”
“Well, give me a chance to find someplace. If you let me come with you for a few days, maybe I could find someplace to be. Maybe I could find some work, or make a friend who would take me in. If you get sick of me, you can put me out anytime.”
“Well, I definitely agree to that last part,” Bea said.
As they walked across the parking lot together, something that had been roiling in Bea’s mind found its way to the surface.
“You certainly have an optimistic view of the world for someone who’s just been through what you claim.”
Allie stopped walking. It took Bea a moment to notice. A few steps later she turned around to see where the child had gone.
“You still don’t believe me,” Allie said.
“It’s quite a story.”
“You’re not a very trusting type, are you?”
“No. Why should I be?”
“Because lots of people are good. Or that’s what I believe anyway.”
“Well, I haven’t met anyone matching that description recently.”
The man with the two blonde girls forced his way into her head, but she pushed him out again. She refused to dwell on the tank of gas he had bought her, because it only complicated her thinking.
“Yes, you have,” Allie said. “You’ve met me.”
Bea stood a moment, feeling the sun bake down on her scalp at the part of her thin hair. It was making her uncomfortable. Everything was.
“Says you. Are you coming or not? Because, with you or without you, your ride’s leaving.”
Within minutes of driving, the big breakfast and the big ordeal seemed to gang up on the girl and put her to sleep. Her head lolled until it touched the window, then stalled and did not move again.
Bea yawned, suddenly feeling too full-bellied and mentally muddy to drive.
She pulled off into a dirt parking area on the ocean side of Highway 1, just north of a little beach town called Cayucos. There she drew the curtains and settled into her easy chair.
“Why did we stop?” she heard the girl say just as her eyes were closing.
“So you could sleep.”
“But you can still drive if you want.”
“Your sleepiness was contagious.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
In time Bea heard her undo her seat belt. She wandered into the open area in the back of the van.
“Mind if I take a couple of those blankets? That metal floor looks hard.”
“Whatever you think you need.”
Not a minute later the girl was fast asleep again, snoring like a buzz saw. Which kept Bea awake all day. Well, that or the fact that she had already slept all night. Or some combination of the two.
Bea lay awake listening to the snoring, Phyllis on her lap, and formed an interesting idea. Maybe she should keep this pesky kid around. Snoring and weird ideas about food aside, a young girl might prove useful. The only thing better than being an older person in need of assistance was being a minor child in need. And yet strangers would perceive her as traveling with her grandmother and so would not literally take her away and try to reunite her with family.
Yes, let’s move into an era where the girl does all the scamming, Bea thought. It’s the least she can do in return for the ride and the shelter.
It felt like a relief. It felt good to watch that awful job lift off her shoulders.
“We’ll have the little girl do the icky stuff,” she said out loud to Phyllis.
The cat raised her head, yawned, and dug her claws deeply into Bea’s thighs. Then she stretched and jumped down off Bea’s lap. She sauntered over to the sleeping girl and made herself comfortable on the rising and falling landscape of Allie’s belly.
Bea took more than a little umbrage at that. But it doesn’t pay to argue with a cat.
Chapter Nineteen
It’s Called Work. Have You Heard of It?
“What is this little town?” Allie asked as they pulled off the two-lane highway.
The girl was still rubbing her hip, which—she had several times said—hurt from sleeping on hard corrugated metal. Bea thought it was a bit overdramatic of her.
Try sleeping on the side of the road on rocks and dirt, out in the weather. Show a little gratefulness. And it’s your own fault for rolling over onto your side. The cat wasn’t very happy about it, either.
“This is Cambria,” Bea said.
She turned onto the Main Street of the little town. There was a gas station. Bea had seen it from the highway. But as she pulled closer she was shocked by the prices she saw on its sign.
“Holy moly,” she breathed out loud. “I should have filled up farther back down the coast.”
“Yeah, you should have,” the girl said, in a flat tone that sounded too authoritative and struck Bea as unwelcome. “And when you get up the coast around Big Sur, it’s only going to get worse.”
“I thought you didn’t know this area very well.”
“I know it’s remote. I know more remote means more expensive.”
Bea said nothing in reply. Just cruised a bit farther down the street, past quaint diners, a little live theater, and more antique stores and real estate offices than she could have counted. She saw another gas station on the right, much smaller. A little store with one line of pumps out front. The prices were not great, but they were a few cents better.
Bea pulled up to the pumps.
“What time is it?” the girl asked.
Bea peered closely at her watch. She had been keeping her reading glasses in her pocket at all times, but she didn’t bother to reach for them. If she ever lost them she would need a watch with a bigger face. No more giant clock over the stove as she’d had at . . .
She couldn’t bring herself to think the word home. Couldn’t even form it in her head. It stung.
“Nearly seven in the evening.”
“I thought it looked like the sun was almost getting ready to go down. Boy, that day went fast, huh?”
Bea opened her mouth to say “Yes, they always do when you sleep them away.”
Before she could, Allie jumped out and slammed the door, without the courtesy of saying why. Bea watched her walk into the store, thinking it would have been nice if Allie had offered to pump the gas.
Maybe the girl was off in search of a restroom.
Bea found herself wondering if she would get stuck providing another meal for them both. Probably. What else could she do? She couldn’t just eat in front of the child while the little girl starved. Still, just what she didn’t need was another mouth to feed.
“If I’d ever wanted children, I would have had some,” she grumbled out loud as she stepped down from the van and began to pump her own gas.
A good ten minutes passed. Still Allie had not come out.
Bea had grown tired of waiting, and the aggravation was making her feel surly.
She stepped out of the van again and stuck her head into the store.
Nothing.
No Allie. Nobody behind the counter. Just a few rows of grocery items, with a mountain of sealed cartons in between, as if a big delivery had just arrived. And there was a deli case with fried chicken and a few other treats. It actually smelled quite good, but Bea decided not to stay and have any. Because the prospect of free gas was far more enticing.
She pulled her head back out, hopped into the van—suddenly spry for her age—and started it up. She drove down a couple of doors and parked in the parking lot of an empty building with a sign that offered it for sale.
She walked back to the store and looked in again.
This time she saw Allie. She was with a woman who must
have been a clerk at the little store, or owned it. They appeared to be working. Picking up the cartons one by one and moving them into a back room, maybe a storeroom of sorts, where they stayed away for a surprising length of time.
When they appeared again, Bea made a hissing sound in the girl’s direction. Both Allie and the store woman looked her way.
She was an older woman, maybe ten years younger than Bea, or maybe closer in age than that, but tanned and sturdy. It always irritated Bea when women of a similar age to her own were fit and able.
“Bunch of showoffs,” is what she and Opal had used to say.
“Go see what your grandma wants,” the woman said to Allie.
Allie set down the carton she was holding and walked down the aisle toward Bea.
Bea almost said “I’m no relation to this little beggar.” It almost slipped from her mouth before she could think the thing through.
“What are you doing?” she asked the girl in a terse whisper.
“Working.”
“Working? What on earth for?”
“It’s what people do when they need money.”
“She offered you money?”
“Well. Sort of. After she let me use her bathroom I offered to help because she said her afternoon girl called in sick. I just offered to be nice, you know? But then she said if I was really willing to do the whole thing with her she’d pay me.”
“How much?”
“She didn’t say.”
“Rookie mistake. Always find out how much up front.”
“Who cares? It’ll be more than I had to begin with. It’ll be more than I’ve had since I got dragged out of my house. And then we can go eat and you won’t have to spend your money on me.”
“Well, I like the sound of that. Bring some of that fried chicken. It smells good.”
“Ick,” Allie said, and wrinkled her lightly freckled nose.
“I didn’t say you had to eat it. I said bring some so I can eat it.”
“Fine. Whatever. Will you just be patient a little longer while I finish? And not drive off without me?”
“You’re lucky I have my mouth all set for that chicken now. I’ll wait for that.”
Allie and Bea : A Novel Page 13