“Both look bloody, I’m afraid.” The waitress stands above Lane in her checked dress, a plate in either hand. She sets one down in front of Seward’s empty seat, the other in front of Lane. “That gonna be all right for you?”
He looks at the meat, pink flesh and gristle. “That’s just fine,” he says. He nods, waits for the girl to go away. She waits, too, expectant, her hands clasped behind her back, and Lane feels suddenly uncomfortable.
“You from around here?” she asks him.
“No, we ain’t.”
“Y’all just passing through?”
“So to speak.”
The girl shifts her weight from one foot to the other. “Where y’all headed next?”
“Back where we come from.”
“Where’s that?”
Lane regards the girl. Even with all the makeup she wears, she looks innocent, the kind of girl that sleeps beneath one of those lacy white canopies he’s seen in the upstairs bedroom of a stranger’s house, a doll and a teddy bear on the white armchair in the corner. “You sure ask a lot of questions,” he says.
“And you sure don’t seem to like to answer.” She smiles at him coyly, her fingers landing briefly on Lane’s shoulder. He flinches involuntarily; he cannot remember the last time a woman touched him.
“No,” he says shortly, more brusquely than he means to. He looks at her. “Don’t reckon I do.”
The girl’s smile fades, and even in the room’s dim light Lane can see the blush sweep across her face. He feels weary, and rubs his eyes with one hand. “It ain’t you,” he means to say next, but when he drops his hand and looks up for the girl, she’s gone, and he sees the captain returning to the table, where the steaks marinate in their own red juices.