His eyes took on a sparkle as he realized the comments and answers from any of these three girls were equally sharp, yet his attention returned to Mayfair. She sensed it and, for the moment, welcomed it.
“It has its charm,” he said. “At least to me.”
“Maybe you’re too easily pleased,” Corliss said dryly.
“What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, I guess,” he said, shrugging.
Mayfair looked at Corliss and then at Donna to see how they were reacting to his responses. She saw they wore identical looks of distrust and wondered just how much of a mirror image of herself they presented. Each had been wounded deeply enough by romantic relationships, especially her, to lean heavily toward the cynical. It almost didn’t matter who had approached their table to talk to one of them. The bridge across the moat wasn’t readily lifted, and there were alligators waiting in the water, jaws open. Who wouldn’t be driven away?
But he just smiled, pulled out the fourth chair, and turned it around so he could sit on it with the back of it between him and them like some shield.
“So, you don’t strike me as high school girls. There’s a community college nearby, but most of the girls there are not twenty-one and don’t come here.”
He leaned in to speak in a voice just above a whisper.
“There are places they can go where they’ll be served, but not here. No, most of the women you see at the bar are either married to someone, going with someone, or working women. I don’t mean ‘working women’ like it might sound.”
“And how might it sound?” Donna asked.
He looked toward the bar. “Call girls, prostitutes. These girls are secretaries, salespeople, some working in this mall. There’s even a nurse or two.”
He sipped his beer. Corliss and Donna looked at Mayfair, obviously to see if she or they should continue talking with him.
“For a visitor, you sure know a lot about the locals,” Donna said.
“I’m a quick study.”
“So we admit we don’t come from here and we’re not in high school,” Mayfair said. “You’ve obviously been around here long enough to reach some conclusions about us. What are you willing to reveal about yourself, or are you the mysterious stranger?”
“Me? I’m an open book. I’m at the end of a journey. This might be as far as I go before I turn back. That’s why I’ve lingered a bit.”
“So what are you, a writer looking for a story?”
“You don’t have to be a writer to look for a story,” he said. He finished his beer and twirled the glass in his hand.
“Then you’re trying to find yourself,” Donna said in the tone of someone who had heard this explanation many times.
“Aren’t you?” he countered. “You have that deer-in-the-headlights look.”
“I beg your pardon. I’m not confused or surprised about anything I see here. If we are trying to find ourselves, I don’t expect we’ll find ourselves here,” Donna said. She looked at Corliss, who closed and opened her eyes in approval, and then she looked at Mayfair. She looked thoughtful, as if searching for ways to be more clever.
“Which doesn’t preclude the possibility that we are looking for ourselves,” Mayfair said.
“Preclude? I knew I should have carried my thesaurus tonight.” He smiled. “College girls, then?”
“Which reminds me,” Donna said. “Curfew?”
“Yes, time to say good-bye,” Corliss said. She signaled the waitress.
“Not just good night? Good-bye sounds so permanent.”
“Probably is,” Donna said.
“Sensitive types,” he said to Mayfair.
She smiled. “I wish we were.”
“Under a curfew?” He looked at his watch. “It isn’t that late.”