Maura

 

Maura picked Griff up the next morning at Christopher’s Bed and Breakfast in a granite-colored, four-door Jeep Rubicon Recon with the top open.

“Nice place,” Maura said when Griff got in. “I presume you slept alone.”

“Why’s that?”

“You want to burn in hell for having sex in a church?”

“Former church.”

“The site of countless weddings, baptisms, funerals, readings from the good book, yearning prayers, mournful hymns and sermons on reaching the pearly gates? And you’re going to tempt the Almighty by doing the horizontal mambo in His house? You SEALs are crazy insane.”

Griff laughed. “And that coming from a Devil Dog.”

Maura grinned and pulled away. She crossed the Ohio River, then followed Route 52 along the north shore heading southeast.

Wind noise made conversation difficult, so Griff sat back and enjoyed the scenery—inside and outside the Jeep. An easy, blissful smile rested naturally on Maura’s lips as she passed the world by, her fingers tapping on the steering wheel to the beat of some song in her head, since the radio was off. He didn’t mind that she seemed unconcerned with obeying Ohio speed limits. Her black ponytail, pulled through the back of a black Los Angeles Dodgers baseball cap, danced crazily in the slipstream like the tail of a racing thoroughbred. An occasional tugboat churned the water, pushing barges laden with coal upstream. Four lanes became two, but Maura held her speed, and the centrifugal pull in the curves leaned Griff towards Maura, then her to him.

An hour later the Rubicon crossed the river back into Kentucky at Maysville. She turned right down West 2nd, then onto Rosemary Clooney Street on the west side of town.

“Rosemary Clooney is from Kentucky?” Griff asked.

“George, too.” Maura said. “Hillbilly blood runs deep in them thar Hollywood hills. Probably why they call it Tinsel Town.”

She pulled into the parking lot of the Blue Wing Diner overlooking the river.

“Is this what I think it is?”

“Let’s grab a bite.” Maura hopped out of the Jeep.

Griff followed her into the diner. They took a booth next to the windows facing the Ohio River. Maura opened a menu and studied. Griff warily surveyed the restaurant’s nondescript Denny’s-like interior, fighting back a haunting Twilight Zone sense of foreboding. The tables and booths were a third full of late breakfast eaters and coffee klatches of senior citizens, who arrested their conversations to seriously eyeball Maura and Griff.

“Coffee?” asked a young waitress coming up to their table, holding up a pot.

Griff nodded as he turned over his mug, staring down a quintet of nosy old men in overalls across the room. He looked up at the waitress to say “thank you” but couldn’t get the words out as he recognized the twenty-something blonde.

Maura lifted her eyes from the menu to savor Griff’s expression. She turned over her mug, then patted Griff's hand gently. “Now, honey…it’s not polite to stare.”

Griff glared at Maura, then looked back up at the waitress, who mustered a weak smile.

“Thanks.” Maura smiled back at the waitress. “I think my friend and I will need a minute or two.”

“No hurry. I’ll check back.” The waitress gave Griff a wary once over, then headed back to the counter.

“Is that…” Griff tracked the waitress to the Bunn coffee machine, then into the kitchen.

“Helena’s cousin.” Maura looked down into her menu to hide her growing grin. “Too bad we’re here so early. They have a chicken fried steak to die for—and world class derby pie.”

“Cousin?” Griff looked back to Maura.

“Quaint, huh. I mean, a family-run diner in the middle of a heartland Mayberry? Mom and dad and the kids all slaving away over a hot grill for their piece of the American dream. It’s what this country is all about, isn’t it. Of course, they don’t have a Learjet. Just an old F150 pickup truck.”

“Her aunt?”

Maura pointed to a stern looking woman behind the register.

“But this is Pine Hollow?”

“Patience, Griff. Patience. We’ll get there after breakfast. I’m hungry.”

 

***~~~***

 

After suddenly coming face-to-face with Helena’s doppelgänger, Griff wasn’t in the mood to talk, so breakfast was a conversational vacuum. Maura ate her French toast, humming a cheerful melody purposely chosen to annoy Griff, who, between agitated glares her way, intently studied each and every employee of the Blue Wing Diner like a hungry wolf while he choked down his bacon and eggs.

When Helena’s cousin, Angie by the name tag on her uniform, set down the check, Maura cleared her throat loudly to get Griff’s attention and slid it across the table to him. “I paid for gas.”

“How was everything?” asked Helena’s aunt at the cash register with a sudden warming smile that transformed her countenance.

Griff grunted, dug out his money clip, and handed her two twenty-dollar bills. He read her name tag, which said “Willa,” then studied her face.

“Everything was delicious…again,” Maura said, poking Griff in the ribs with her elbow.

“Yes, ma’am. Very good,” he said in a mild-mannered voice.

“You know, hon, I thought I recognized you from before,” Willa said to Maura.

“I just had to bring him by to see for himself.”

Griff glanced sideways at Maura with his eyes as he collected his change. He started to say something but just turned for the door instead.

“Griff…” Maura scolded. “Don’t you forget about Angie.”

“Oh, yeah.” He went back to the table to leave a tip.

“Is your friend all right?” Willa asked.

“There’s been a death in the family,” Maura said. “But we’re working through it.”

“My condolences.”

Maura nodded as she watched Griff. “Appreciate it.”

“Thank you for stopping in and come back again.”

Maura smiled then scurried to catch up with Griff, who was halfway out the door.

They sat in the Jeep with the engine off. Griff searched the river out his side window. Maura stared at Griff and smiled.

“Remarkable resemblances, eh? Say what you will about us hillbillies, we got some strong and deep and dominant gene pools,” Maura said.

“That was kind of a dirty trick.” Griff watched Angie work her station through the window into the diner.

“Yeah. I know.”

He turned in his seat to look Maura in the eye. “You’re something of a…scamp.”

Maura laughed. “That’s a new one. Been called worse, so I guess I’ll take it.”

Griff smiled at Maura. “What now?”

Maura started the Rubicon. “Just wait ‘til you see Pine Hollow.”

“Great. More surprises.”

Maura playfully patted Griff on the thigh, then backed out of the parking spot and headed south out of town.

 

***~~~***