Paper Stones by Laurie Ray Hill

Author:Laurie Ray Hill
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Inanna Publications
Published: 2020-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

19.

THE NEXT WEEKEND, me and Sally were leaving the farm country heading north in Sally’s old T-Bird. It hit me that months ago, when Josie was laying at death’s door and I was talking away to her, talking and talking about the hotel and the town, that what always come out of my mouth was “me and Sally.” “Me and Sally are going to go up there,” I said. “Me and Sally will check it out.” How did I figure it had to be Sally first?

Well, Sally works on faith. Not like Marg who’s got more sense.

Myself, I’m somewheres in between the two of them. But I had a hunch that what we could use right then was not being careful or planning but just a crazy burst. Some kind of a forward leap that nobody’d be wide-eyed silly enough to take but Sally.

Me and Sally got to Strone at eleven o’clock in the morning. Our idea was to eat lunch at the Good Luck Restaurant there and fool around town for the afternoon. We thought we might find someplace to take a swim. We were supposed to be at Dave’s dad’s by five. He was cooking supper. We were going to stay over.

We pulled up to the restaurant and the car bottomed out on a pothole in the parking lot. “Got to fix that!” Those there were the first words that come out of Sally’s mouth in Strone. Like it was her pothole.

That’s how it happened for her. No discussion.

The young woman there, Jinping, remembered me. When she give us our coffees, she said, “You will marry with Al’s nice boy.”

“You got a good memory,” I says.

“Last time spring, you know what kind of pie.”

“Listen, that’s a long story. I’m not a fortune teller or nothing. This is my friend, Sally.”

“Hi. Good morning.”

“Hi there,” Sally says. “Yous wouldn’t be looking for an experienced waitress, would yous?”

Jinping says to me, “Your friend is also fortune teller!”

It turns out that Jinping, just this minute, walked out here from the kitchen wondering what in the world she was going to do about the weekend lunch crowd that’s right ready to stampede through that door because her girl just quit with no notice. They get tourists here in summer.

“In kitchen,” she says, “I am one arm paper hanger in high wind, and now this girl quit and it’s very suddenly, but if you want start right now, seem like it is good luck. Do you wish to do so? Maybe had other plan?”

Sally, she says this fits in with her plans amazing. She stands up. But Jinping says, “Oh finish coffee. Have lunch, no charge. You save my life!”

Me and Sally look at each other.

“You don’t mind, do you?” Sally says. “We can look around the town when I’m done my shift.”

I can’t keep up with the pace here.

I says, “Shift? What did you just go and do, take a job up here? You got nowheres to live! Are you quitting Group?

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