MARSHA
by
Louis Lopez
© 2023 by Louis Lopez.
All rights reserved. It is allowed to reproduce and distribute copies of this book PROVIDED that (1) full credit is given to the author Louis Lopez, (2) it is copied exactly as found here without any alterations to the wording and (3) no more than $20 is charged for each copy.
The first time . . . he couldn't stop staring at her face. Her eyes seemed to reflect a serenity and wisdom unusual for a woman in her 20's. Her face had smooth, invitingly caressible skin bordered by medium-length auburn hair. The red hair gave her an additional aura of attractiveness since he had always been very fond of red hair. Auburn hair was not as brilliant as the Titian red hair he adored, but it still added to her special allure and reflected a harmony with her burgundy-colored evening dress.
He could feast his eyes on her undetectedly as he stood a safe 50 feet away at the opposite end of the bar counter in a noisy, crowded, and dimly lit singles bar called the Smuggler's Inn. He could tell she was a new cocktail waitress because he came at least once every two weeks and had never seen her before. He didn't try to talk to her that first time. He was content to admire her alluring beauty as something in the world to merely behold and appreciate, like an unusually beautiful flower or a captivating sunset.
Several years before, he had dated cocktail waitresses because he had found it easier to get to know them since many times the other women he met in bars never came back again. They were usually out on the town for one time and that was it. Barmaids you could get to know better because you could count on their being there when you returned. Besides they were generally attractive; after all, they were especially picked for that reason. Then again the aura they presented as knowledgeable women of the world made them that much more challenging to a naive young man. But after a bad experience with a bar waitress several years back, he had been disabused of the notion that chasing one could be rewarding. He had gone out several times with one in the early morning hours after she got off work. Then one evening it surprised him when she said she wouldn't be able to go anywhere with him that night. Afterwards in the parking lot, he saw her and another waitress get into a car with two guys. He swore never to date a cocktail waitress again.
The next two times he went to the Smuggler's Inn, he saw the new waitress but was able to ignore her. The place was small but very popular and got very crowded on Friday nights. There were always many people standing in the aisles and at times there was hardly any room to walk. Most of the men didn't seem to mind standing because it made it easier to move quickly and unobtrusively to ask a woman to dance. One Friday, he was having a good night getting women to dance. His good looks helped, but they were never a guarantee. Sometimes it was next to impossible to get anyone to dance. He had met many women at the disco but had not found one to be serious with. At one point between dances, Mike was standing alone.
"Do you want a drink?" a voice came from his left. He turned and saw it was the new waitress standing there with her small tray, smiling.
"Yes," he answered after a slight hesitation, "I'll have a vodka Collins." He had to yell the order into her ear to overcome the loud music. Without a word more, she went to other people to ask for more orders. It was a long time before she returned. The bartenders were swamped with work.
When she delivered the drink, he tried further communication, "Looks like it's pretty busy again tonight."
"You're telling me," she said with a smile but went off immediately to serve her other orders. He remained standing there thinking and realized that waitresses rarely offered to bring drinks to the people standing. They generally only bothered with the patrons sitting at the tables since they tipped better and, unlike many standers, would still be there when their drinks were brought. He wondered why she had asked him. Had it been simple whim or could it have been attraction? Maybe he looked like a big tipper.
He didn't think anymore about it. In the following weeks, he continued to make it a point to order drinks from her, and she was always pleasant. He never had the chance to talk to her for very long, but he learned her name was Marsha. He still hadn't noticed her serving drinks to any of the other people standing around. It looked like she enjoyed treating him special. He had the urge to ask her for her phone number but didn't want to rush things. He wanted her to feel familiar with him so there would be less chance of her saying "no."
Finally one night, he decided it was time to ask. After she had served him a drink, he gently put his hand on her upper right arm, drew close so she could hear him and told her as gently as possible considering the loud music, "I'd like to get to know you better. Can I have your phone number?"
"I'm hardly ever home. You wouldn't be able to catch me," she replied quickly with a smile. She kept rearranging the empty glasses she was taking back on her tray.
"Don't worry. I'll keep trying until I reach you," he came right back.
"I'm here a lot of the time. Why don't we just talk here?" and with that she whisked off. She hadn't been rude so he wasn't offended, just frustrated. He followed her with his eyes as she walked away. He pictured himself standing in front of her reaching to caress the soft, soft skin of her cheek as she stood with her eyes closed, smiling with pleasure.
How would they ever be able to have any kind of conversation? With all the loud music and interruptions, he found it hard enough to talk to other customers. The times he had talked to her they had only had a chance for a few superficial comments. He had assumed that she would jump to give him her phone number since she had been so friendly before. He had been silly to let his heart get so far ahead of things. She was probably just as friendly to everyone, part of being a good waitress--it brought more tips.
Mike was determined not to let Marsha affect him when he returned after staying away for almost two months. Carlos, whom he had met there before, came up to him. They talked briefly about their jobs, sports, other things talked about in discos by people who didn't know each other very well. Carlos mentioned that he had broken up with his latest girlfriend and moved to another apartment. Mike thought of how it had been a long time since he'd had a girlfriend himself. At 23, he couldn't even say there had ever been anything deep. He talked excitedly about his new apartment because it was the first time he had ever lived on his own. He was the youngest child and his mother was an invalid. Besides, he would have never gotten his recent bachelor's in electrical engineering without living at home the whole time. Recently, his mother had been supportive of his moving out on his own.
After a lull in the conversation, it occurred to Mike that Carlos might know a little about Marsha since he normally came at least twice a week. He often had different kinds of information to pass on about people there. Mike tried to think of a casual way to bring up the subject.
"Hey, that waitress there hasn't been here that long, has she?" he asked as he pointed her out.
"Marsha? She's been around a while. She worked at the Lemon Piper for a long time." After a short pause, Carlos added, "Yea, she's not a bad looking woman."
"I wonder why she left? The Lemon Piper's a pretty classy place."
"I think she quit when she got married about a year ago."
"She's married, huh," Mike was surprised by the revelation but tried to hide any real interest.
"Yea, but I heard she's separated now, waiting for her divorce to come through. I guess that's why she came back to work," Carlos volunteered the information matter-of-factly.
"Sounds like that marriage soured real quick. Maybe she's a real bitch," Mike said laughing and still trying to get whatever information he could.
"Could be, but you'd never guess it from the way she is, would you?" Carlos didn't seem too interested in talking about Marsha. A friend stopped to talk to him.
Mike stood there alone trying to digest the information he had gotten. It was confusing, but the picture improved as he thought more about it. He felt sorry for her for having to go back to work. Perhaps she had refused to give him her number because she felt uncomfortable about seeing anyone else since she was still married. He had heard of lawyers telling their clients waiting for a divorce not to date, especially if they wanted to get custody of their children. Even if she wasn't concerned about a divorce battle, she could have hesitated because she didn't feel in the mood to go out. She was understandably depressed. It wasn't that she didn't like him or that she wouldn't want to see him sometime in the future.
He tried hard to spot her, but couldn't. Finally he saw her near the bar. He felt like talking to her. He moved toward the place where she was, but before he got there, she moved to take orders at a table. There were several people at the table so it would take her a while before she finished and then she would have to hurry to the bar to get the orders. After waiting around and realizing that she was not going to have even one free moment to talk, he went home. It would be better to return on a week night when there would be more of a chance to talk.
The next week went by, but Mike didn't have a chance to go. His new job with Raytheon sometimes required that he go out of town. He got around to going on Friday, knowing it would be just as bad as any other Friday with no chance to talk to her, but he figured he could at least say "hi."
He got there to find the usual wall-to-wall people. There were a lot of attractive ladies, and he thought if nothing else maybe he could meet somebody new. He felt full of energy, ready for some excitement. The music helped give him a boost, it sounded sharp and clear. He went to the bar and ordered a drink. Marsha was nowhere in sight.
"Hey, stranger, what are you doing here? Haven't seen you in a long time," he went up and told Sophie, a woman he had met there the year before. He liked her, but she already had a boyfriend.
"I stopped coming for a while," she replied. "You come too much and you start feeling like part of the furniture." As they talked about what each had been doing lately, Mike tried to spot Marsha but couldn't see her anywhere. The thought crossed his mind that she could have quit and then he might never see her again. Mike and Sophie danced several dances, and then another guy came and asked her to dance. Mike saw Marsha for the first time as she was getting an order from a table next to the brightly lit fireplace in the corner. Joe, a guy he knew from before, came up and started a conversation with him. Before long Carlos entered the discotheque and came to where they were.
As they were talking, Marsha unexpectedly came up. "You need anything to drink?" she asked, directing her question to no one in particular.
"Yeah, I could use another one," Joe said.
She looked at Mike with a smile and their eyes met. "Vodka Collins?" she asked him.
"Yeah, please." She remembered what he drank. She went to get the drink as Carlos and Joe returned to the conversation. Mike thought about how he would have preferred to have been alone. Then again she would have probably flitted off quickly in her usual rush. Maybe it would be best to let time go by, maybe until she got her final divorce.
When Marsha came back with the drinks, Mike gave her the money directly in her hand rather than on her tray. He wanted to see if he was going to get any kind of positive sign from her, but she acted indifferently.
"That Marsha looks as good as ever," said Joe after she left.
"Yeah," agreed Carlos. "Do you remember when she worked at the Lemon Piper?"
"Yeah," Joe said slowly as if pictures of the past were going through his mind.
"I guess she had to come back to work when she got separated," Mike interjected.
"Huh-uh, I bet she won't be hard up for long," Joe remarked laughingly. "Not if she doesn't want to."
"She must make a lot of money in tips, huh," Mike said.
"Marsha does tricks," Joe said.
"Really? How do you know?" asked Mike.
"I know some guys she propositioned back at the Lemon Piper," Joe answered confidently.
"Yeah, I heard that, too," added Carlos.
Mike didn't press for any more information. Carlos and Joe soon wandered off as he stood there finishing his drink and then left for home.
Mike didn't go back for a long time. He had decided to forget about her. He didn't condemn her for selling her body, and while he didn't feel any great repulsion toward her personally, he still felt a confused aversion toward the situation. Then he remembered longingly how beautiful she was in spite of everything. He found himself fantasizing that he could change her life.
It was not until six months had passed that he decided it was safe to go back. By then he felt she would no longer have any effect on him. He had been out on dates recently but nothing had developed. The night went by quickly as he talked to many of his old acquaintances and danced many times. He didn't see Marsha the whole night. She might have only been absent that particular night, but he assumed she had quit and he would never see her again.
The next week he had been there more than an hour and still had not seen her. He was curious to know what happened to her, so he decided to ask another waitress, "Does Marsha still work here?"
"No, she quit a long time ago."
"Did she go work somewhere else?"
"Yeah, I think she went to some other bar but nobody knows where. She said she wanted a quieter place to work."
"Oh, yeah."
"They say she had cancer, you know," the waitress said.
"Cancer?" Mike exclaimed.
He left early feeling an entangled combination of sadness and elation. At first he didn't understand why he felt happy, but then he realized it was because he understood now why she had sold her body. It was a matter of pure necessity--to pay the bills. She probably didn't have any medical insurance and her husband wasn't helping any. He wanted very much now just to soothe and console her. Her husband might not want her but he did.
After leaving Smuggler's Inn, he decided to go to some of the smaller, quieter bars where she might now be working. In a quiet place, it would be that much easier to talk. It would be enough now if they could just be friends. He went to two places but she wasn't there. He wasn't discouraged at all. There were plenty more places where she could be and he was willing to look in all of them. It was late now, but he would continue his search another night. When he found her, he would tell her that he accepted her no matter what. Even if she couldn't beat the cancer, he could help fill her final days with enchantment and love.
He looked for several weeks on several nights each week but could find her nowhere. He was starting to get discouraged but kept trying. He went back to some places a second time in case he had missed her on a day off. Neither was he too embarrassed to go back to Smugglers' Inn to ask the waitresses and bartenders if they knew where she had gone, but no one knew. She hadn't told anyone where she was going. Mike despaired. For all he knew she was already dead. After he had looked in every possible place, he was hit by a depression that held him down for two weeks.
When he was ready to try again, he went to different bars at random--just in case--but without much hope. Mainly he went because he didn't want to feel he had given up completely. Then one night he couldn't believe what he was seeing. She was standing on the other side of the bar at the Wagon Wheel, a small country and western night club. She was waiting to get some drinks from the bartender. Mike walked over slowly to where she was to make sure it was really her. He remembered looking carefully in this club before, but he hadn't seen her.
As he approached, she saw him and smiled in recognition. "Hi," she said.
"Haven't seen you in a long time. How've you been?" he said as he reminded himself to control his excitement.
"O.K." she said simply as she picked up the tray with drinks. "Excuse me, I have to go serve these drinks." He was still stunned that he had found her and now, after all this anxious searching, he wasn't sure how to begin. She looked just as beautiful as ever but somewhat run down and weak. There were faint circles under her eyes, and it looked like she had lost weight.
"How come you stopped working at Smugglers'?" he asked when she got back.
"It was just too hectic. The money was good, but I wanted to take it a little easier."
"This certainly looks like a quiet enough place."
"Yeah, it is. Excuse me," she said as she went to check on a table. When she got back, they talked about her new job, and he told her a few things that had happened to him in his job.
Then he decided to tell her what he had wanted to for so long, "Listen, I'd like to get together with you. I want to get to know you better. I've wanted to for a long time. I think we could have a great time."
"I think you're real nice," she said looking down with a smile, "but right now I'm just not going out at all. I'm just happy staying to myself. Maybe later but not now." She put her hand on his forearm briefly.
"You're just afraid. I know what you're going through, and I could help you a lot. I know I could. I'll stay with you no matter what." Mike knew he was risking that he would scare her off by coming on too strong, but he felt it might work to bring her out of her shell, especially since it looked pretty hopeless anyway.
She looked up startled but with a look in her eye that seemed to appreciate his sincerity, "I don't know what you're talking about. I'm doing fine."
"I know. I heard about it. I know you're dying of cancer."
"What are you talking about?" she looked surprised.
"They told me you were dying of cancer," he stated confidently.
"I don't know who told you that but it's a lot of bull," with that she hurried to wait on tables. He stood there, not fully realizing what had happened and then it hit him how unfounded rumors so often got passed around in singles' bars. He was embarrassed but decided to stay around to try to apologize. After a long time, she still hadn't returned. It became clear she was trying to avoid him so he left.
For days he thought about how much of a fool he had made of himself. He felt angry at that waitress back at Smuggler's Inn and her careless mouth. He thought about all the time he had spent looking, and Marsha was just an ordinary whore.
After several months he had forgotten her for the most part, but he sometimes wondered what it would have been like if the fantasy had been true and they could have been together if only for a short, bittersweet time. One day he went back to the Wagon Wheel. He felt like looking at her from afar just one last time, and then he would forget her forever. He waited for a long time but didn't see her anywhere. He figured it was her day off and started to leave. He would just make himself forget her and that would be it. Then he decided to ask another waitress where Marsha was, just to be sure.
"Excuse me, is Marsha off tonight?" The waitress seemed surprised by the question.
"She doesn't work here anymore."
"Oh," Mike said without surprise.
"Did you know her?"
"Well, yeah. I met her a while back," he answered casually.
"Didn't you hear? She died. She had cancer."
"What? Are you sure? Marsha?"
"Yeah."
THE END