By William Cass

In 1987, I met a young woman on a bus that originated in Brisbane and crossed the Australian outback to Adelaide. It took a rest stop in the dusty little town of Peterborough where I wandered over to a display rack of tourist brochures in its tiny station lobby.

I was studying one advertising the Adelaide Arcade when she appeared beside me and said, “Don’t bother…overrated.”

She was about my age, mid-twenties, and was strikingly attractive in a manner that was slightly hard and worn. I’d noticed her when I’d gotten on at Broken Hill, and our eyes, like they were doing then, held. I’d settled into a seat mid-span, a few rows in front of hers. Over the next three hours leading to that rest stop, our eyes had also met occasionally in the driver’s rearview mirror.

I replaced the brochure and said, “Thanks for the tip.”

“You’re American.”

“I am.

“Travelling, then.”

I nodded. “Backpacking around the Pacific.” Her shoulder-length hair was brown, her skin olive-colored, and her almond-shaped eyes stirred something inside me.

She asked, “Solo?”

I nodded again and said, “You?”

“Same. Connect to another bus in Adelaide tomorrow morning. Going to my sister’s wedding back home in Perth.” She gave a dismissive huff. “We’re not close. Haven’t seen her or my parents in two years. Not exactly looking forward to it.”

“Shucks.”

Her vague smile loosened a bit of her hardness. “Yeah,” she said. “Shucks.”

The bus horn blew twice, signaling passengers to reboard. The young woman’s eyebrows rose and fell, and I noticed a short, jagged scar on her chin that somehow only added to her allure. She said, “Well, then.”

I watched her turn and walk towards the exit. It was early January, the height of summer in southern Australia, and the afternoon was hot. She wore tight jeans that hugged her hips and a loose tank top adorned with a bit of Japanese calligraphy. After she disappeared through the doors, I waited for my heart to slow, then followed her to my seat. We exchanged glances again in the rearview mirror until, to be doing something, I closed my eyes and feigned sleep.

Except for a few more stolen peeks, I was able to keep that up for most of the remaining couple hundred miles to Adelaide. When the bus pulled into the station there, I saw her in the rearview emerge first out into the aisle and advance my way. She stopped beside me and handed me a scrap of paper. “Here’s where I’m staying tonight,” she told me. “If you want to stop by.”

Then she was gone, and the aisle immediately filled with other passengers gathering belongings and disembarking. I sat blinking at what she’d scribbled on the back of a receipt and waited until the bus had emptied completely before getting off myself.

***

By eight that evening, I’d checked into my hostel, dawdled over dinner at a café, showered, brushed my teeth, and changed clothes. When it finally seemed late enough, I walked downtown to her hotel, a plain-looking, multi-storied structure crowded between office buildings. To the clerk at the front desk, I gave the name—Gretchen Byers—that she’d included on the receipt. He called her room, said a few words, then sent me up.

The door to Gretchen’s room was cracked ajar when I knocked on it. Her voice called, “Come on in.”

She was propped up on her back on the bed, barefooted, but in the same clothes she’d worn on the bus. A television on the bureau across from her was tuned to a nearly mute MTV video. She held an open bottle of white wine, partially full, with one hand. With the other, she puffed the pillow next to her and patted the spot. Then she presented me with another beguiling smile and said, “Join me.”

I kicked off my Birkenstocks, stretched out next to her against the wall, and tried to affect a casual posture. She handed me the bottle, her smile remaining, and watched me take a sip before asking, “What the hell were you doing in god-forsaken Broken Hill?”

I sniffed a chuckle and said, “Wanted to see a bit of your outback.”

“And were you impressed?”

“Yeah, it was interesting. Vast.”

I tilted the bottle to my lips. The wine was sweet.

She retrieved it and took a swig herself. “Where else have you been on this big adventure of yours?”

“Started in Japan in June. Couple of months there. Few weeks in Hong Kong and Thailand, spent most of October and November trekking in Nepal. Stopped in Singapore and Bali before coming here. Scuba-dived on the Great Barrier Reef and visited Byron Bay prior to Broken Hill. Now Adelaide, of course, before Melbourne and Sydney.”

“Then?”

“New Zealand, Fiji, Cook Islands, Hawaii, and back home to the Blue Ridge Mountains. I’m a school teacher. Took a year’s leave of absence.”

“Why?”

I cocked my head. “Want the truth?”

“Sure.”

“Had to get away from everything. Just got divorced.”

She nodded slowly. “Your idea or hers?”

“Hers.” My shrug was brief. “I was traded in for a different model.”

“Ahh.” She handed me the bottle. “Well, that sucks.”

Another nod and swallow followed. Then I waited a beat and asked, “Where’s home for you now?”

“Brisbane. Been there since I left Perth.”

“What do you do for work?”

“Ceramics. I’m a potter.”

“You’re an artist.”

Gretchen waved her hand like she was shooing away a fly. “Not much of one. Can barely pay rent most months.”

“That why you’re taking buses all the way from Brisbane to Perth?”

She shook her head. “My parents would have bought my flights. Didn’t want them to.”

Gretchen reached for the bottle. I waited for her to drink, then asked, “So what’s the deal there? With your family, I mean.”

A cloud seemed to pass over her face as she tucked a strand of hair behind an ear. She took a turn shrugging and said, “Estranged.”

“How come?”

She fixed me with a steady gaze, then replied, “My sister’s marrying my ex.”

I felt myself grimace. Very quietly, I said, “Ouch.”

“Yeah.” A pained hint of smile creased her lips, then she seemed to force her attention to the flickering screen. “We just got your MTV over here,” she said to it. “Not a big fan.”

We both regarded the television for a while without speaking further, just exchanging the bottle every now and then. She gave off a faint lilac scent that I didn’t recall from Peterborough, and her toenails appeared freshly painted. Perhaps another twenty minutes went by during which we finished the wine and she set the empty bottle on the floor beside her. I excused myself to use the bathroom, and when I returned, found her lighting a joint. I resumed my spot next to her and watched her take a long toke, exhale, then extend it my way. I’d only smoked pot a handful of times in my life, and never since college, but I took it from her and managed a drag without coughing. The ceiling gradually floated in a pungent haze as we passed the joint back and forth. She didn’t stub out the roach in the ashtray on her bedside table until it was almost too short to hold. She switched off the table lamp, dimming the room to just the television’s soft, blue glow. A pleasant numbness had begun to envelop me, and it took me a moment to realize that our thighs had rearranged themselves so they were touching.

She asked, “Do you get the munchies when you’re stoned?”

“Not really. You?”

Gretchen shook her head, then turned and faced me in the murky light. I did the same, our eyes holding again, and this time I felt no inclination to look away. She said, “I mostly just get horny.”

I heard myself say, “Oh.”

We were close enough that I could make out the stitch marks in her chin scar. She reached over and ran an index fingertip very slowly and gently down the bridge of my nose to my lips where it stopped. I kissed it. She sighed, cupped my face in her hand, and we kissed fully. It didn’t take long for us to lose our clothes. From somewhere, she produced a condom, and things continued on.

Afterwards, when she curled up next to me, I wrapped my arm around her. In a few moments, I heard her breaths deepen into sleep. I waited a half hour or so to be sure her slumber was sound before easing off the bed, flushing the condom, and turning off the television. By then it was past the hostel’s ten o’clock curfew when their doors were locked to admittance, so I got under the sheet, laced my fingers behind my head, and stared up into the inky blackness. An assortment of feelings tumbled over themselves that included emptiness replacing exhilaration followed by a kind of shameful bewilderment. I was vaguely aware of intermittent traffic below in the street and the muffled, even sound of Gretchen’s breathing. Occasionally, she twitched in her sleep as if troubled by unpleasant dreams.

I was only able to doze briefly on and off myself, so mostly I lay there waiting for the first hint of dawn to appear at the curtain’s edges. When it finally did, I dressed as quietly as possible and lifted the sheet over Gretchen’s naked body. She didn’t stir. Silently, I wished her well and more before letting myself out of the room.

The hallway and elevator were empty, and the same desk clerk from the night before hardly gave me a glance as I exited the building. It was still more than an hour until the hostel would reopen at seven, so I found a park a couple blocks away where I sat on a bench bordering a small, circular pond. I watched the eastern sky blush above the treetops and tried not to think about my ex-wife’s disdain or what awaited Gretchen.

After about fifteen minutes, an old couple interrupted my reverie when they approached down the pathway holding hands and settled on another pond-side bench nearby. Except for a group of ducks in the water who immediately paddled their way, it was very still, all but silent, the strip of sky to the east now the color of creamed milk. The woman opened a plastic bag on her lap, and without haste or conversation, the couple began taking turns tossing hunks of bread to the ducks.

***

Until four months ago, my second wife and I used to make a similar stroll, both supported by walking poles, down to the Edisto Beach pathway near our house where she liked to scatter sunflower seeds for the seagulls. I used to cringe at the frivolity of her pampering scavengers like that, but it filled her tender soul with such joy that I would shrug off my misgivings and simply savor the comforting companionship our few remaining sojourns provided. The only walks we’re able to take anymore are to the interior courtyard of her memory care facility where she sometimes confuses me during my daily visits with her deceased brother.

Not even an hour ago, she made that same mistake, and I wonder, as I often do these days, what bits of her seventy-some years she’s able to recall with any clarity or accuracy. I suppose, like I do, she must have unspoken secrets among them. Small events or incidents that for some reason retain unexpected significance like that young woman in Adelaide does for me. Her arresting, troubled eyes, the scar on her chin, the decisions or choices I made at the time and those I didn’t, a recklessness I’d never again experience.

~~~

William Cass has published over four hundred short stories and won writing contests at Terrain.org, Cardinal Sins, and The Examined Life Journal. He’s been nominated once for Best of the Net, twice for Best Small Fictions, six times for the Pushcart Prize, and had three short story collections released by Wising Up Press.