The bus to Kearney would be two hours late, the Greyhound driver announced sometime after the sun went down. Gertrude sighed and looked out the window at the dusty flat blackness of the Plains.
“Don’t you worry, ma’am, we’ll get there soon enough,” the wispy Negro maid with a receding chin and Eleanor Roosevelt overbite said, a bit too cheerful for Gertrude to tolerate. But tolerate it, she chose to do.
“I know that, young lady, don’t you worry about me. I’ve been on this bus to Kearney way too much to expect it to be on time. Ever a once.”
Gertrude wanted to be nice, but how come she could never get that tinny tone of annoyance out of her voice when she actually was trying to be nice? Maybe she just didn’t give a D.
“You from there, ma’am?”
“I was born there. My mother and father – well, before they died – they spent their whole lives there. I’m going to see my sister who’s ill.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” the young woman said, her chin receding even further into her neck.
“Don’t be. She and I haven’t spoken for a decade, not since before we buried Mama. You see –“
Gertrude hesitated, but what did it matter? She might as well tell the story and entertain the young lady. She seemed perfectly harmless, right?
“You see,” Gertrude continued, determined to get it out in a single sentence, “my sister slept with my ex-husband, so I haven’t spoken with that cheap whore twelve years now. I’m just going back to Kearney to make sure the bitch dies in pain.”
“Oh, dear,” the woman said. She cast her eyes away – of course, Gertrude thought, she didn’t want to get into the middle of it all.
“Now don’t you worry,” Gertrude said. “All’s right with the world. Once she croaks.”
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