The Awakening Read Free

or something here in town?
I’m going to need a place to stay.”
    “Sure, about a block down on your right, place called
the Hillrock. Kate Jameson runs it. She’ll take good care of you. You want me
to have Ernie get ahold of you there?”
    “That would be great. Thanks a lot.”
    “Glad to help. See you in the morning, maybe?”
    “Sure.”
     
    *          *          *
     
    Kate Jameson was a small woman in her late fifties,
given to overweight and a cheery disposition. She had run the Hillrock Hotel
since her husband’s death almost ten years before. Around harvest season,
business usually picked up, but during the off seasons as it was now, things
slowed to a standstill. An insurance settlement on her husband helped her to
maintain the place in careful comfort. It was a large place for one person to
run as she did, but she derived a great deal of satisfaction from her work.
Busy hands doing good work was something she believed in. When the young man
walked into the lobby with the worn suitcase in his hands she was working in
the lobby,
    “Hello, can I help you?” She smiled, stuffing a much
used polish cloth into its corner under the counter. The brass lamp base she
had been working on gleamed proudly,
    “I hope so. I could use a room, and Mr. Parker down
at the store suggested your place.”
    “Jeff? You’re lucky he didn’t wear your ear off. He’s
a dear man, but he does go on.”
    “Maybe a little, but he was a lot of help.”
    “Well, I’ll be glad to have you. I’ve got a nice room
on the second floor with a bath.”
    After telling him the price, she led him upstairs and
showed him the room, summing him up in her mind. He was tall and lean, with a
rugged, friendly face. She decided that she liked what she saw.
     
    *          *          *
     
    The hotel didn’t supply meals or kitchen facilities,
so Derek ate at the only restaurant in town. It was a little on the shabby
sides but homey, and the food was good. Derek wolfed down two hamburgers as if
he hadn’t eaten in a week, instead of merely one day.
    Later, even after a short walk and a couple of hours
in his room, the food still weighed heavily on his stomach. He tossed
restlessly on the bed, occasionally punching the pillow into a more comfortable
position. A gently stirring breeze drifted through the open window and carried
out the smoke from his cigarette.
    He watched the smoke curling aimlessly on the air
currents. Just like that. Pointless motion. I do a lot of that.
    He had spent six years in the Air Force as a pilot,
much of that active duty in Viet Nam. When he left the service he had seen his
future as a model of the American dream, everything seemed thumbs up, there was
always a shortage of trained pilots for the major airlines, and with his
background in the Air Force it didn’t take long before he landed a choice
position with Trans World Airlines.
    Then came Janet. Red haired and beautiful, with a
fiery disposition and her own ideas of the way things should be run. He found
himself out of balance constantly, in love and overpowered. Within weeks, they
were married.
    Everything went well for a while. They bought a new
home and made plan after plan. He was happy and he thought Janet was, until she
started complaining about the long absences his job required. The warning signs
were there; he mentally kicked himself for not seeing them.
    He didn’t contest the divorce. He gave her most of
what they had and sold the rest. He became moody, depressed much of the time,
and he began drinking a little too much. When it got to the point of affecting
his work, he quit, even going as far as to blame it for most of his troubles.
He didn’t now, but that didn’t matter; it was too far in the past. So here he
was by his own hands, thirty-three-years-old and going nowhere.
    The cigarette left a bad taste in his mouth. He
snubbed it out and lay staring at the ceiling.
     
    *