She worked in a truck stop near Norco. The truckers would come in and tell her jokes and she’d pass them on with a hearty laugh and a huge smile. They ordered lunch or dinner or coffee and pie. Thirty-five cents for coffee and pie. A good tip was ten or fifteen cents then.

One of the truckers took a liking to her. He was forever asking the cook all about her, especially the perfume that she wore. Turns out it was Arpége, and he eventually showed up with a small bottle. They started dating after that.

She had a daughter — two or three years old then — but he took the two of them in, no questions asked, and for 23 years they were together.

They both loved to dance. One night, after a turn around the dance floor and while walking back to their table, he went down and never got up.

She tells the story to this day. How he first noticed her. How they met. How he took the two of them in.

She wore a red rose pinned to her white blouse. It matched the color of her apron. Throughout the region she was known as the rose of the valley.

Alice is 82 now, but she talks of it as though it were only yesterday.

Snow.

Ice.

Rain.

Fog.

Chicago.

Atlanta.

Birmingham.

Pecos.

Los Angeles.

I met her at at truck stop in Ontario, California. She wasn’t your usual highway habituée, in that she drove a truck. A semi. A tractor-trailer.

Seventy-nine tons of metal rolling on rubber.

Seventy-nine tons of metal rolling through a never-ending litany of towns, cities and truck stops; along multi-lane expressways; down interstate highways; over two-lane blacktop.

Across a table we shared stories of riding and driving and the road, stories of characters met, of people seen, of things heard.

Stories of loneliness.

Then it was time to go.

“I’ll call,” she said, “the next time I’m in town.”

*     *     *

She called one time, and I rode out to meet her.

She called again, and I rode back to love her.

She doesn’t call any more.

You know how I have looked at you day-after-day for weeks now, how my eyes must take their tour around your face from your eyes to your mouth and chin and back to your eyes and then up and around the line of your forehead.

You know how much I have admired just that hint of silver starting there, and how disappointed I was when it went away. But that’s all right, I understand. And you did wait a while, just for me.

You know my eyes still make that journey, willingly.

*     *     *

I have been waking up at 3 a.m. since early in December, and yes, you are the reason, although I haven’t told you so. But I will.

I don’t know what turns my dreams your way in these early morning hours, nor why my first thoughts on waking are of you, but I do not question it. I know only that it happens, and that I accept it. Gladly.

I hope that I am not the cause of your sleepless evenings, but if in fact I am, then surely it is good for your heart, and for mine.

On the other hand, I trust that your soul will not suffer because of me.

She is the woman that has always attracted me – all dark hair and dark, sparkling eyes and a smile that is open and honest.

We started innocently enough. She was new here, while the vagabond in me had been coming and going for the past five years. She wanted to know some of the better places to eat, where to find the best coffee (there was no Starbucks for her here), where to find this or that.

So I told her.

Sometimes we would go together, and I would show her. My passion for smoothies, and hers for coffee often sent us in search of the odd, the out of the way, the unusual.

Naturally, we would talk. Or, rather, she would talk and I would listen. She was the quintessential California girl, born and raised: popular in high school, with good grades and plenty of friends.

And one more thing – she knew where to find the most scrumptious junk food in the entire state, a matter sometimes near and dear to my heart too since I was often on the road.

Eventually I returned home, mildly infatuated – to say the least – with this marvelous woman that I had let invade my life.

I knew I was in trouble by the time December rolled around. I came back down for a week, ostensibly for a celebration of sorts. By the end of the week I was completely smitten, but on my way home yet again.

When her Christmas card arrived in the mail, I knew she was too.

*     *     *

Sometimes we flirt – outrageously – a glance, knowing looks, gestures, gentle touches with fingers and warm hands.When she walks into the room I search her face for that instant of recognition, that split second of acknowledgement that always comes, that has come for days now.When she leaves the room, I can’t wait until she returns.

She’ll be talking with others, deep in discussion, distracted, yet when I look over at her I see her brief glance, her smile, and then her attention returns to pick up the thread of the conversation.

In my heart I know that this woman is capable of sending me back to desolate African deserts one more time, but I don’t care.

I am happy.

* * *

She brings me flowers, and I pull her close and we hug. Later, she watches me as I brush the hair from her forehead with gentle fingertips. I am tempted to ask what she sees.Long ago, I learned not to ask.

They’re friendly.

They smile a lot.

They like Canadian boys.

They like to greet you with a smile and a hug.

They like to air kiss — a California kiss, I call it — when they hug you. Of course, it’s mostly all meaningless. After all, this is California.

They have spunk though. They’ll ride their own motorcycle — no bitch seat for them! When the riding day is done, they’ll look like a million dollars after only a few minutes of fussing, dusty face and all.

They take bike trips with men who have wives or girlfriends of their own, and then tell all about the two beds in the hotel room and how each slept alone.

Their current boyfriend isn’t really a boyfriend, but merely a friend, mechanic, insurance salesman, whatever.

They’ll tell you how much they want to go on a ride, and then, unbidden, you’ll end up with a phone number. When you call to cancel, they have no idea who you are.

The best part of that is the next day at breakfast, with friends. When she shows up, she’ll insist it was all a mistake and offer her cell-phone number. When you refuse, no amount of explaining will convince her that, since she didn’t know you the last time you called, the new number would be of no use.

Even California girls squirm.

They’re so fickle, and so obvious.

It’s plain that some haven’t had a broken heart in recent memory, and certain too that some have mishandled each one that’s been offered.

That’s why I like a California girl almost as much as I like a Georgia peach.

*     *     *

With sincere apologies to the fabulous California girls that I know and like.

The early afternoon was hotter than blazes and I was tired and drained. I saw the roadhouse sign from the highway, but I was traveling too fast to make the cutoff so I grabbed handfuls of clutch and brake, downshifted, and burned a u-turn in the opposite direction.

The place looked new. Obviously not the typical biker hangout with dirty windows, or no windows at all. I parked by the door and went in. Biker posters, juke box, video surveillance, slot machines. Air conditioning. My eyes took their own sweet time to adjust to the lack of light. Ah yes, there was the bar, over there against the back wall.

I idled up to the bar through a maze of empty tables and chairs and asked for a beer and a burger, then found a seat at a table in a dark corner.

The waitress who brought the burger had a bib-apron on, so I wasn’t immediately able to tell, but when she turned to walk away after I paid her, I knew right away she was special: she had long, shapely legs that ran all the way up into a pair of tight cutoffs.

I did have good intentions. Really, I did. I had planned on only a couple of beers to wash down the burger, and then I would be back on the road, headed home. And no, no more than two.

I sat for a couple of hours — after all, it was air-conditioned heaven in there — kibbitzing with the waitress, buying her an occasional drink which she tipped back, and generally getting shitfaced. Hell, how could I resist, since the waitress was buying me drinks too?

When her shift was over she came and sat down across from me. I had stopped just past noon, looking for respite from the heat, and now it was four in the afternoon. I wasn’t riding anywhere soon! Besides, I had just spent over three weeks in the saddle, and I was on my last leg home.

Conversation wasn’t all that memorable, but I do recall her telling me that she was spending her tips on me. I’m not sure if I was supposed to be grateful for that or not, since she was spending my tip money. But of course, being the gentleman that I am, I’m sure I thanked her profusely.

I ran out of money around 11 p.m., just about the time the conversation got real interesting, I’m sure. Since there was no way I was going to a cash machine in my condition, I found myself unceremoniously dumped for a table of guys three-over.

I slept on the patio table that night.

In the morning I found out that my waitress had driven herself home. Now, I don’t know about you, but driving and drinking is a disaster waiting to happen for anyone in her condition: she had matched me drink-for-drink all evening.

Oh yes, the bib apron. Well, it had covered up one word written boldly across her chest: Bitch.