Wanda Part 5

Winter comes. Ice bends the trees almost to the ground and cars skitter like bugs on a still pond. Power flickers on and off with the wind. Jake drops Wanda off each morning at the Mainline truck stop out on Jacksboro Highway. She was nervous at first but soon learned how to increase her tips by forgetting to charge the truck drivers for extras and making sure to keep their coffee refilled.

Most days she takes the bus back to the apartment but sometimes Marvin, the Negro day cook, offers to drop her off on his way home. He’s older, a quiet man who lives with his sister and brother-in-law in a trailer house out near Carswell AFB. She worries sometimes that Jake might not like it, her riding alone with a black man, but he’s never home before six or seven. She likes Marvin and his quiet ways. He never asks her questions like some of the others. Sometimes she fantasizes about asking him to drop her off at a phone booth but then she remembers that she doesn't know anyone who has a phone.

It seems like a long time since she was a daughter even though it’s only six months since she and Jake drove non-stop through the Texas night. He hadn’t talked much, stopping only for gas and cigarettes. She always went to the bathroom so she wouldn’t have to squat along the highway. He didn’t tell her his name until they were looking for a place to stay.