The Edge of Sleep by David Wiltse Read Free Book Online Page A

her good humor. He smiled and inclined his head slightly. Dee looked at him as if he had startled her with his familiarity, as if she had only now become aware of him and wasn’t at all certain how to take such boldness.
    Ash saw the exchange and knew why he was walking home. He would be spending another night outside the room, listening to Dee and some stranger. But mostly to Dee, her laughter, her shouts of exuberance, her ecstatic screams at the end. It hurt him so much to listen to her, to see her behaving this way for the benefit of the strange man in the corner, to know she was giving herself to someone else.
    “What is it?” she was saying.
    “Nothing,” he said, thinking she was inquiring about his thoughts. She would figure it out on her own soon enough. She always did, but it hurt him even more to tell her how much it hurt.
    “Nothing? That’s a strange name for a motel.”
    “Oh.” So she was not reading his mind. That happened sometimes when she was this happy. She seemed to lose her magical wisdom when she was this way.
    “Days Inn?” he guessed.
    “Daybreak,” she corrected him. “Daybreak Motel. Got it?”
    Ash nodded.
    “Say it.”
    “Daybreak Motel. Daybreak. I turn left and stay on the highway till I get to Daybreak Motel.”
    “That a boy. You’ll do just fine. Now pop the rest of that muck into your mouth and off you go.”
    Ash rose dutifully and let her swipe once at his face with a napkin.
    “Are you all right?” he asked.
    “Never better,” she said. “Don’t worry about a thing; we’ve got the world by its ying-yang.”
    Ash smiled. He thought the word was funny even if her mood frightened him.
    “Now scoot,” she said.
    “Daybreak?”
    “Stop stalling and go on.”
    Ash shambled out the door, looking back at her once with that face of a mourner, and Dee waved goodbye to make sure the man in the corner understood that she was now alone.
    She stayed at the table for a few minutes more to emphasize the separation. She opened her compact and checked her makeup, holding the mirror at an angle so that she could see the man’s reflection. He was still studying her, of course. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her. Now he raised his hand and wiggled his fingers in a greeting. The gesture looked silly in the mirror, weak, feminine. Dee hoped he wasn’t one of those, but if he was, there were lots more fish in the sea and she was just about the best bait they were likely to come across.
    Dee started out of the taco shop and paused once to look back at the man. She held his eyes fully and smiled. He smiled back. Dee saw no point in being too subtle about these matters. It just wasted time.
    The bar portion of the restaurant was noisy and she could hear the music and the sound of voices spilling out as soon as she stepped from the Mexican place. At this time of night most of the shops were closed except for the food pavilion and the individual restaurants, so a little more noise would get no complaint from neighboring merchants.
    Dee had time to order a white wine and study the men on either side of her before the man from the restaurant showed up. The other men looked passable enough, provided they were in proper working order—so many men were not these days—but she still preferred her friend from the restaurant. He was a little younger than the other two, a little cuter, and he did not sport a gold chain. Dee had long since despaired of men who wore gold chains as hopeless to talk to and useless in bed.
    “Is your—uh—friend gone?” he asked.
    Dee looked at him, then around the room, then back to him. “I like to think I have friends wherever I go,” she said.
    “I’ll bet you do, too. I just didn’t want to intrude if your friend was coming back. He’s one big bruiser; I wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of him.”
    “He’s gone home,” she said.
    “And left a pretty lady like yourself all alone?”
    “He’s never much company at the best of times,”