The Loveliest Girl by Barry Rachin (100 best novels of all time .txt) 📕

Among the Old Orchard Beach cognoscenti, Cassie Moffat was considered town slut. Whether her lurid reputation was justified or not wasn't really open for debate. Huey Spencer, the craggy-faced old fart who ran the air-brushed T-shirt concession, bragged that he bedded Cassie only a week after the young girl's arrival on the pier boardwalk. A short distance away, Freddy Spencer, who sold fruit coolattas - banana, coconut, mango and blueberry - never confirmed one way or the other that he slept with Cassie, but when the girl's name was mentioned, Freddy sniggered and made obscene gestures that left little to the imagination. Even the Guatemalan who spoke English as a second language and manned the henna tattoo booth claimed bragging rights to finessing Cassie into the sack after sketching a multi-colored cartoon devil with a pitchfork on her derriere. So when the trashy girl with the impertinent smile showed up at his room at the Scenic View Inn unannounced at one in the morning, Reese Donaldson knew perfectly well what to expect.
"Hey, Reese, let me in!" After the third knock Cassie hollered, "I can see light under the door so I know you're in there." Reese took a deep breath and eased the door open. "Hi, Cassie."
She brushed past him. "What is this, a freakin' broom closet?"
"An old storage room," he corrected, "converted into an efficiency apartment."
"Not very efficient," she chuckled at her own humor and promptly flopped down on the bed. She was wearing dungaree mini-shorts and a skimpy halter that resembled a maroon tube sock with the toe section cut away. The chubby girl was passably cute in a vulgar sort of way with a round face, dark eyes and hair. She possessed a pretty, kissable mouth, and most times her lower jaw hung slightly ajar showcasing a set of strong teeth. Even in repose the girl's fluid features settled quite naturally into her signature, impudent grin - an open-mouthed, in-your-face smirk that implied 'I'm not going anywhere soon so get used to it'. The cheeky nerve of her got under your skin but not necessarily in a bad way.
Reese Donaldson had run into her at the clothing boutique over by the amusement park where she worked. The store sold Maine souvenirs, cheap jewelry and racy sweatshirts with tacky slogans like:

If you think I'm an asshole,
You should meet my parents!

. "What's that?" Cassie gestured toward a card table littered with scraps of lined paper.
"I'm writing the great American novel." He tried to sound cavalier, but the tone was decidedly apologetic. With no publications to his credit, he didn't feel comfortable talking about his abortive writing career.
Cassie pointed to a wastepaper basket, which was brimming over with crumpled sheets. "Doesn't look like the project is going so hot." She lay back on the unmade single bed throwing her arms up over her head. "Maybe you need a break to stimulate your brain and get the creative juices flowing."
Reese didn't think the woman had his literary faculties in mind when she used the word 'stimulate'. She was so blasé about sex, he wasn't quite sure how to react. "Imagination," he noted. "A writer needs a compelling plot and interesting characters. I've got neither."
Cassie pursed her lips suggestively. "I'm an interesting character."
Reese smirked inwardly. How often had a flamboyant, fictional character like Cassie Moffat caused a minor insurrection, by running off with a story line he was struggling to write? Not that anything ever came of it. More often than not, the Cassie Moffat characters proved more intriguing, and irresistible than the one-dimensional stick figures that populated most of his writing. Reese glanced at the clock. "You can't stay here."
"And why not?"
"The boss doesn't allow guests. I could lose my job."
"And where is the tight-ass boss right now?"
"She lives over in East Biddeford."
"Does she ever stop by this late at night?"
"Not unless there's an emergency."
Cassie rose up on her elbows. In one deft motion, as though she had practiced the lewd maneuver a thousand times, the girl pulled her maroon halter, what little there was of it, up over her head. Lying back down, she reached out with both hands, beckoning for him to come and lie on top of her. Strangely there was no great sense of urgency, the gesture being more perfunctory then wanton.
"If I take the rest of my clothes off, does that qualify as a bona fide emergency?" Reese eased down on the mattress and began kissing the side of her neck. Working the button free, he wriggled her dungaree shorts down around her knees. "Now that's better." A hand came up around the back of his neck. "You can always return to the great American novel first thing in the morning."
Actually, he wouldn't return to the writing for another sixteen hours. One of the housekeepers, a Russian girl who had come over on a temporary work visa became homesick and had to be sent away. Along with his regular chores, Reese was cleaning rooms and changing linen until the boss was able to hire and train a replacement. Not that he felt any great compulsion to share the Scenic View Inn housekeeping agenda with Cassie Moffat.


"About your literary masterpiece…" It was two-thirty in the morning. Cassie pulled her sweaty body away. There was no air conditioning. The room had never been intended as an accommodation, and now, even in the middle of the night, the temperature was a steamy eighty degrees.
"There is no book," Reese explained. "I write a few pages, throw them away and start over again."
"How long has this been going on?" When there was no immediate reply, she drummed her fingers on his chest and added. "I think you need a new hobby."
"I know it's late, but you're gonna have to leave."
"Yeah, the East Biddeford biddy." Cassie rose up on her hands and knees straddling him. Her full breasts hung down like udders. "I'm the town slut, you know."
"Don't say that!"
"Well it's true." She rolled over on her back. "What are you doing in the fall?"
"I'm studying at Boston College."
A sliver of light from the rear window sluiced across the room, outlining her Rubenesque body in silhouette. "And those snooty Ivy League professors are going to teach you how to write like Shakespeare?"
"More like Raymond Carver," Reese corrected.
"Never heard of him." Cassie smelled of rancid sweat and some equally pungent musk oil she slopped on like deodorant. She wasn't bright. She had no class whatsoever. But Reese liked her; for no good reason and, against his better judgment, he had a soft spot for the chunky girl with the questionable morals.
"He publishes in the New Yorker. Everybody wants to write like Raymond Carver."
She reached down and flicked his limp genitals playfully with a poised thumb and forefinger. "And what about Reese Donaldson - does he want to write like Raymond Carter?"
"Carver," he corrected, "and, no, not particularly."
Cassie gestured with a wag of her head in the direction of the wastepaper basket. "Your scribbling… you agonize then throw it in the trash and start over. It's no different than what I do." Cassie's lips parted in a roguish smile.
"Your logic eludes me." He wanted to kiss her again but resisted the urge.
"In the D Street projects, half the tenants are underemployed; the rest draw welfare checks. Nothing ever changes. I came to Maine looking for something… I don't know what."
"Tabula rasa," Reese offered.
"What the hell does that mean?"
"It's a Latin expression. You wipe a slate clean and start from scratch."
Cassie nodded. "Yeah, that sounds about right. Every time I sleep with some Prince Charming wannabe, it's like you with your writing. If things fizzle out and the guy's a turd, I shrug it off and start over again."
Reese considered the mixed metaphor but let it slide. "So where does it get you?
A guttural sound welled up in her throat. She leaned forward, her sweaty breasts coming to rest on his chest. Cassie's lips pressed up against his ear, the girl whispered, "That part I haven't figured out yet."

It had grown quiet out in the streets around the motel. All the vacationers were bedded down for the night. A solitary light was burning in the main office where the night clerk was hunkered down watching late-night TV or playing video games. "You can't stay the night." Reese repeated a bit more forcefully. She clearly was in no hurry to leave the Scenic View Inn.
"The D Street Projects, where I grew up, is a lovely working-class, Irish-American neighborhood," she said. The tone was self-mocking.
"Yes, I know. You already told me." Cassie moved up to Maine from the Dorchester Heights, West Ninth Street section of South Boston. The federal government tried to integrate the Boston's public schools back in the nineteen seventies by bussing underprivileged black students in from the ghettos of Roxbury and Dorchester, but that didn't go over so well. Many of the schools in 'Southie' were atrocious, far worse than those in the poorest Negro sections!
In the street an eighteen wheeler rumbled past the Scenic View Inn. She waited until the sound died away before continuing. "The MBTA trains run from Ashmont straight through to Park Street in downtown Boston. We lived near Andrew Station, and I used to ride into the city from there." Cassie nuzzled his arm with her chin. "I would see these hoity-toity professors in their tweed jackets with the leather patches on their sleeves, commuting into Boston. Is that what you want? You want to become one of them?" Her tone had turned noticeably more caustic as she finished. The sarcasm caught him off guard and he had to collect his wits before replying.
"I just want to write fiction, that's all." Reese had a mental picture in his mind's eye of the fossilized old fogies with their PhD's and academic tenure. No, he didn't want any part of that stultified malarkey. "I'm giving you the bum's rush. You got to go home now."
Cassie crawled off the side of the bed and threw her clothes on in less than a minute. Then she came back and kissed him on the lips in that breezy, infuriatingly distracted manner that made Reese's head spin and let herself out without another word.


In the morning, Mrs. Fitch, the owner of the Scenic View, stopped by Reese's room before breakfast. "Another Russian's flown the coop… ran off with one of the Canadian guests." She was a dour woman, emaciated with pale skin and platinum-colored hair so light that it made her look as though she had gone prematurely white at forty-five. "For the next week or two, I need you to clean rooms full time. My daughter, Felicia, will be helping out until we set things right."
Set things right… Did that mean sending away to Russia for more Slavic girls on work visas or would she try her luck with the Cassie Moffats of the world? Reese wasn't sure which was the lesser of two evils. "What's with all the paper?" She gestured at the overflowing wastepaper basket.
The question caught Reese off guard. "I'm trying to write something."
"Which tells me nothing at all." The tone was abrasive - tactless and dismissive all in the same breath.
"Creative fiction."
"And how's that going?"
"Not well."
She glanced about the room in a distracted manner. Mrs. Fitch was always