Worship You

Chapter Thirteen - Hazard of Beauty

I once asked her what it was like to be so pretty.  

"It must be like a superpower," I said.  

She said, "It's nothing but trouble. If you have any sense, you hide it." 

We were in my car. I went, "Ha. You poor thing." Like, sure, it's just terrible being pretty and getting your own way all the time, having people want to do things for you. 

So she told me a story. 

Once, a couple of years after her mother had died, she had been hitching, not going anywhere in particular. This was when she was thirteen and had just started to turn into a woman. She was out on 29 and she caught a ride with a trucker who was headed for a place called The Starlight Cafe that was in her direction. It was a truck stop bar and she figured from there she could catch a ride home easy. The trucker was a nice guy it seemed, but even so she caught a weird vibe and once as he was shifting gears his hand touched her leg as it came away from the shifting lever, even though he didn't have to, she wasn't that close. He didn't try anything else. He told her as a matter of fact that she should be careful, that hitching was dangerous and these days more than likely the man who would pick her up would have bad things in mind. 

What things?, she wanted to know. 

"Never mind. I got daughters of my own and I wouldn't want them out here alone. If I wasn't behind schedule and had to go north, I'd take you to your door. Just be careful who you ride with." 

Cassie said she didn't know exactly what he was talking about but she felt something coming from him that was not just "nice man" but something bad that made her heart race. 

He let her off at the exit to the Interstate and she crossed 29 to the neon sign that said Starlight Cafe. 

She told me that in those days she went with her heart showing on her face and anybody who wanted to could see just who she was. Her mother had always taught her to be that way, open and free, believing the best about life if she could, that that was the only way to find the magic in things. You had to see, and to see, your eyes had to be open. 

"Don't worry, darling," her mother said, "If there's bad road up ahead, you'll travel it soon enough. 'Til then I'll be with you, helping you get ready." Her mother originally came from North Carolina mountains and often talked like that. You know, country. 

Then her mother died but Cassie still had no idea how alone she really was. So when she walked in the door of The Starlight, it seemed a friendly, warm place out of the night and away from the cold. She had to be safe in a place with so much laughter. 

She had enough money to get a hamburger and a cup of coffee. The man behind the bar asked her for ID but she told him she didn't want to drink, just eat. She was hungry. 

The first man to approach her had been a good looking young guy about twenty-five years old. He was a little drunk but it just made him laugh and he seemed like a good person. He asked if he could buy her a drink and she said, no thank you. But he didn't go away and as she ate her hamburger, he talked and talked, telling her dull stories about his work which had something to do with trucks. He either fixed them or loaded them up, it wasn't clear to her. She didn't say anything, keeping her mouth full with burger and nodding every once in a while to his questions, just to be polite. When he asked her how old she was, she lied and said sixteen, which could have been true because she looked a little older than she was. She didn't know why she said that exactly. Half way through her burger, two other men came up to them at the bar, moving in close behind her. They all were talking now, laughing loudly and sometimes touching her, leaning over her shoulder, close, asking her questions that she didn't know how to answer. Once, one of the men squeezed her tight in a hug from behind, rubbing his bristly cheek against hers.