He sighed, putting up a hand to touch her in the moonlight.
Long dark hair shaking in the wind; beautiful, it was.
And her lips like red peppermints.
And her cheeks like fresh-cut wet roses.
And her body like a clear vaporous mist, while her soft cool sweet voice crooned to him once more the words to the old sad song, Oh, Genevieve, sweet Genevieve, the years may come, the years may go…
He slept.
He reached New Texas City at midnight.
He halted before the Deluxe Beauty Salon, yelling.
He expected her to rush out, all perfume, all laughter.
Nothing happened.
“She’s asleep.”
He walked to the door.
“Here I am!” he called.
“Hello, Genevieve!”
The town lay in double moonlit silence.
Somewhere a wind flapped a canvas awning.
He swung the glass door wide and stepped in.
“Hey!”
He laughed uneasily.
“Don’t hide!
I know you’re here!”
He searched every booth.
He found a tiny handkerchief on the floor.
It smelled so good he almost lost his balance.
“Genevieve,” he said.
He drove the car through the empty streets but saw nothing.
“If this is a practical joke…”
He slowed the car.
“Wait a minute. We were cut off.
Maybe she drove to Marlin Village while I was driving here!
She probably took the old Sea Road. We missed each other during the day.
How’d she know I’d come get her?
I didn’t say I would.
And she was so afraid when the phone died that she rushed to Marlin Village to find me!
And here I am, by God, what a fool I am!”
Giving the horn a blow, he shot out of town.
He drove all night.
He thought, What if she isn’t in Marlin Village waiting, when I arrive?
He wouldn’t think of that.
She must be there.
And he would run up and hold her and perhaps even kiss her, once, on the lips.
Genevieve, sweet Genevieve, he whistled, stepping it up to one hundred miles an hour.
Marlin Village was quiet at dawn.
Yellow lights were still burning in several stores, and a juke box that had played steadily for one hundred hours finally, with a crackle of electricity, ceased, making the silence complete.
The sun warmed the streets and warmed the cold and vacant sky.
Walter turned down Main Street, the car lights still on, honking the horn a double toot, six times at one corner, six times at another.
He peered at the store names.
His face was white and tired, and his hands slid on the sweaty steering wheel.
“Genevieve!” he called in the empty street.
The door to a beauty salon opened.