Read Strangers for Free Online

about loneliness.
    The sun touched the horizon and slowly sank out of sight. The crimson afternoon faded to electric blue, then to a luminous purple that reminded Ernie of day’s end in Singapore, where he had been stationed for two years as an embassy guard when he had been a young recruit.
    It came. The twilight.
    Then worse. Night.
    The outside lights, including the blue and green neon sign that couldbe seen clearly from the freeway, had blinked on automatically as dusk crept in, but that had not made Ernie feel any better. Dawn was an eternity away. Night ruled.
    With the dying of the light, the outside temperature fell below freezing. To cut the chill in the office, the oil furnace kicked in more frequently. In spite of the chill, Ernie Block was sweating.
    At six o’clock, Sandy Sarver dashed over from the Tranquility Grille, which stood west of the motel. It was a small sandwich shop with a limited menu, serving only lunch and dinner to the guests and to hungry truckers who swung in from the highway for a bite. (Breakfast for guests was complimentary sweet rolls and coffee delivered to their rooms, if they asked for it the night before.) Sandy, thirty-two, and her husband, Ned, ran the restaurant for Ernie and Faye; Sandy waited tables, and Ned cooked. They lived in a trailer up near Beowawe and drove in every day in their battered Ford pickup.
    Ernie winced when Sandy entered, for when she opened the door he had the irrational feeling that the darkness outside would spring, pantherlike, into the office.
    “Brought supper,” Sandy said, shivering in the gust of cold air that entered with her. She set a small, lidless, cardboard box on the counter. It held a cheeseburger, French fries, a plastic container of cole slaw, and a can of Coors. “Figured you’d need a Coors to sluice all this cholesterol out of your system.”
    “Thanks, Sandy.”
    Sandy Sarver was not much to look at, plain and washed out, even drab, though she had more potential than she realized. Her legs were too thin but not unattractive. She was underweight, but if she put on fifteen or even twenty pounds, she would have a reasonably good shape. She was flat-chested, though an appealing suppleness compensated for her lack of amplitude, and she had a charming feminine delicateness most apparent in her small bones, slender arms, and swanlike neck. Also, she possessed an infrequently seen but arresting gracefulness that was usually disguised by her habit of shuffling when she walked and slumping round-shouldered when she sat. Her brown hair was lusterless and limp, probably because she washed it with soap instead of shampoo. She never wore makeup, not even lipstick. Her nails were bitten and neglected. However, she was good-hearted, with a generous spirit, which was why Ernie and Faye wished she could look better and get more out of life.
    Sometimes Ernie worried about her, the same way he used to worry about Lucy, his own daughter, before Lucy found and married Frank and became so obviously, perfectly happy. He sensed that something bad had happened to Sandy Sarver a long time ago, that she had taken a very hardblow which had not broken her but had taught her to keep a low profile, to keep her head tucked down, to harbor only meager expectations in order to protect herself from disappointment, pain, and human cruelty.
    Relishing the aroma of the food, popping the tab on the Coors, Ernie said, “Ned makes the best darned cheeseburgers I’ve ever eaten.”
    Sandy smiled shyly. “It’s a blessing having a man who cooks.” Her voice was soft, meek. “Especially in my case ’cause I’m no good at it.”
    “Oh, I’ll bet you’re a fine cook, too,” Ernie said.
    “No, no, not me, not even a little bit. Never was, never will be.”
    He looked at her bare, goose-pimpled arms, exposed by her short-sleeved uniform. “You shouldn’t come out on a night like this without a sweater. You’ll catch your death.”
    “Not me,” she said. “I…I