by Sharon Sala
It was getting dark outside. He knew that when the sun went down, another breed of people came alive in this town.
His belly grumbled, reminding him that it was empty. But his appetite had just vanished. He grabbed a clean pair of jeans and a T-shirt, and headed for the bathroom. He didn’t have long to clean up from the grease and grime of the station and get out before someone would be knocking on the door. If he had to see the men who came knocking, then he’d have to fight. And he knew that it was futile.
A familiar glint of candy-apple red caught his eye. Chance turned away from the car he was servicing and stared. It was the same car. He hadn’t been mistaken. But this time, only the driver was inside. He watched her park at the pumps and get out, stretch, and look around as if she couldn’t see him servicing the other car. Her nonchalance was obviously an act, though. Tension radiated from every muscle in her body and she’d looked everywhere but at him. Eventually she’d have to. He was the only one on duty.
“You lost?” he called softly, and watched, fascinated by the way her long honey-blond hair fanned out as she turned. She smiled.
“No.”
Her honesty surprised him. He’d expected more of the same giggling and simpering as before. And then he remembered. She hadn’t been the one doing all the giggling. It had been her friends. She’d blushed. And she had exactly four freckles. At least that’s all he’d been able to see.
“What’ll it be?” he asked, as he handed the credit card back to his other customer and walked toward her.
Victoria caught her breath. It was like watching a cougar approaching and not being afraid. He moved slowly and steadily, his eyes fixed on his prey, with a fluidity of muscle and bone in perfect synchronization.
“Then, if you’re not lost, you must need gas.”
She smiled, and he forgot what he’d been about to say next.
“Yes, please. And I promise, this time, I really do need gas.”
Shared laughter rang out in the empty driveway of the station.
“My name is Victoria Henry,” she said softly, watching with renewed fascination as he filled her car’s tank and cleaned the windshield.
He stopped as the sound of her voice flowed over him like hot molasses. He turned and, for a long moment, just watched the play of emotions running across her face. He’d been right. She was more than naive. She was greener than new grass, and he had no business even contemplating what had just crossed his mind.
“Hello, Victoria Henry,” he said quietly. “I’m Chance McCall.”
It was all the opening she needed. By the time Charlie got back from lunch, Victoria had wheedled out of him the fact that he, too, was graduating from high school in a few short weeks. That he lived alone with him mother. That he didn’t know his father and never had. And that he’d worked for Charlie since he was thirteen years old.
Chance was stunned. He didn’t know how she’d done it, but he’d just told her more about himself in a few minutes than he’d told any of his classmates the entire four years they’d attended Odessa High School together.
He supposed it was because she was so different. She had no secrets. She had nothing of which she should be ashamed. She was who she appeared to be: a beautiful girl on the verge of womanhood.
Charlie pulled into the driveway and grinned. He tooted his horn at the pair who were leaning side-by-side against the shiny red Mustang. He honked again when they jumped apart in startled guilt.
“I know what you had for lunch,” Chance drawled, as Charlie came barreling across the driveway with a big smile on his face. “You’re supposed to eat your Wheaties at breakfast, not lunch. You don’t need all that pent-up energy this late in the day.”
Charlie hooted. “That’s not what I had, boy. And you know it.” He grinned and leered.
When Chance almost blushed Charlie knew it was because of the girl standing beside him. He relented. The boy was obviously smitten and he’d teased him enough. “Go on with you,” he said. “Go to lunch.”
“Oh good. If you don’t have plans, we can go together,” Victoria said.
A panicked expression froze Chance in place. If she went with him, then he’d have to offer to pay for her lunch and he didn’t even have enough money to buy his own. He’d planned on carrying out the garbage over at the Dairy Freeze in return for a burger and shake.
Charlie silently cursed himself for being unforgivably stupid. He knew what shape Chance’s world was in. He’d helped the boy bail his mother out of the drunk tank more than once.
“Say boy,” he said, before things got worse, “if you’ll do me a favor on your lunch hour, I’ll pick up the tab for you two at Henderson’s Drug. They’ve got a special this week on burgers. I forgot to get the parts for Mabel Geraldine’s car down at the auto supply. They know what I want. I called them earlier.”
Chance stared at the innocent look on Charlie’s face as relief overwhelmed him. The man was making up an excuse, and for the life of him, Chance couldn’t be mad. If it weren’t for Charlie, he’d have gone under years ago.
“No problem,” Victoria said. “We’ll take my car.” And then she looked at the hesitant, almost wary expression beginning to spread to Chance’s eyes. “But I’d appreciate it if you’d drive, Chance. I don’t know Odessa well enough to find the place you’ll need to go. Do you mind?” She held out the keys.
It was to his credit that his hands didn’t shake as he took the keys she dropped in his palm. Mind? He’d dreamed of owning a car like this one day. Driving it was just one step away from perfect.
“Here,” Charlie said, holding out a ten-dollar bill. “When you eat this up, you’ll have to quit. And as for the parts, just tell Pete to charge them like always.”
Chance took the money and tried not to let it show how much the gesture meant to him. He’d make it up later, when Victoria was gone. “Thanks, Charlie. We’ll be back later.”
“You’d better,” he teased, and watched Chance blush as Victoria slid beneath the steering wheel and then stopped about halfway across the seat. “I want you to close for me tonight.”
And so it began. The routine varied, but at least twice a week, Victoria Henry made her way to Odessa, to Charlie’s Gas and Guzzle, to see Chance. He knew one day that their relationship would end. That she would never…could never…live in the world in which he belonged. But for now, this taste of normalcy was sinfully addictive.
“Where you been keepin’ yourself, Chancey?” Letty asked, her voice already slurred from liquor.
“Busy,” he answered. He had no intention of going into details about his personal life with his mother.
“Don’t be smart with me, boy.” Her eyes watered as she tossed back a double shot of bourbon and she sighed as it burned all the way down.
The booze kicked in just about the same time Chance slammed the door shut behind him. She didn’t ask where he was going, and it wouldn’t have mattered if she had. He wouldn’t have told her.
He was almost thirty minutes late. What if she didn’t wait? What if…? He breathed a sigh of relief as he turned the corner and saw the shiny red car parked in front of the theater. She was there!
Victoria bit her lower lip as she saw him coming around the corner. He was almost running. Obviously the pickup was on the fritz again. It was a constant problem.
“Hi,” she said softly as she stepped out to greet him. He smelled so good she wanted to taste him, but kissing in public wasn’t something she’d been raised to do, so she simply stared instead.
He was wearing nearly new blue jeans, a snow white T-shirt, and the same old, curled-up at the toes, black boots. His hair was still damp from his shower, but barely combed, and it hung just above the neckline of his shirt in dark rebellion.
His glance grazed her face, slid down, and lingered at the generous curves below her collar. He resisted the urge to run his fingers down the slender legs emerging beneath her shorts, just to see if they were as silky as they looked.
�
��You ready?” she asked, tucking her arm beneath his elbow, and starting toward the theater.
“I’m always ready for you,” he teased, delighting in the blush he knew would sweep across her face and neck. He wasn’t disappointed.
The movie was all they’d expected. It provided everything they’d come to experience. Darkness and anonymity. A proving ground for the touches she needed, and the kisses he hoped to secure. A place where whispers and private moments remained just that. It was with no small amount of regret that they realized the show was over, and the theater was emptying.
Chance slipped his hand in hers as they exited the building, and started walking her toward her car. It was late, almost midnight. He knew she had a curfew. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have someone care where he was, or who he was with. He also knew that her parents didn’t have the faintest idea in hell that their daughter was out with a boy from the wrong side of town.
“I guess you’d better be going,” he said, as they lingered beside her car, each reluctant to be the one to break the closeness of the evening. “I don’t want you driving too fast on your way home, just to meet your curfew.”
Victoria smiled and leaned against him, taking advantage of the darkness to wrap her arms around his waist. She nuzzled her chin against his chest. “I like it when you worry about me,” she whispered.
“I always worry about you, Victoria,” he said. “I worry what’s going to happen when you realize that you’re tired of playing this game of hide and seek with your folks. And I worry how I’m going to face it when I know you’re not coming back.”
The low, even measure of his voice struck a chord of concern in her own heart. “It’s not a game, Chance. Don’t you ever say that to me again. And I wouldn’t be ‘playing this game’ if you’d just agree to come meet my family like I’ve been asking you to.”
He frowned. Meeting hers would mean that she’d have to meet his. It was unthinkable.
“I know your mother has problems,” Victoria said, and hugged him gently to ease her words. “You don’t have to spell out the extent of them for me to get the picture.”
“Problems? I don’t think I’ve ever thought of them as problems. She’s not…she’s just…hell, Victoria. She’s just not your type, that’s all.”
“She can’t be all bad, honey,” Victoria whispered. “She had you.”
Chance hugged her tightly. The praise was special because it was so rare in his life. But holding Victoria against him was causing a problem to arise that Chance couldn’t deny.
Victoria moved gently against his lips, aware of his condition, secretly satisfied that she’d been the one to cause it. But it was impossible to act on it. She had less than an hour to get home.
“I’d better be going,” she said softly.
Chance groaned, kissed the top of her head, savoring the smell of shampoo and perfume so he’d remember it when she was long gone. “I know. Remember what I said. Drive careful.”
“I promise. And I wish you’d let me take you…”
“We’ve been through all this, Victoria,” he said as he all but shoved her inside her car. “You’re not taking me home…ever. You don’t belong on my side of town. I won’t have someone ever say that I dragged you down to my level. Go home, girl. Go home, now.”
“Okay, okay.” She frowned as she slid in behind the steering wheel. She looked up at the tall dark man staring down at her with a fierce expression on his face. “You know what? I just realized something. I think you and my father would get along just fine. You know why? You’re just alike. I’ve never met any two men more hard-headed.”
She blew him a kiss to soften her words, and then drove away. Chance watched until her taillights blended into the busy traffic, and he could no longer see her. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and tossed his head back, savoring the clean, fresh breeze that wafted through the street, taking away the scents of the city. He started for home.
Every light in the house was on. Chance could see it a block away. Oh hell! he thought. Either she was having a party, or she had passed out again. He hastened his steps, drawn back into his sordid world just by proximity.
He burst through the door, ready to do battle if need be. There was no need. Whatever battles had been waged were long over. From the look of the place, Chance supposed it had been a battle of the sexes. Letty was passed out on the sofa, clothing awry, an empty bottle lying just out of reach of her hand. A twenty-dollar bill had been tossed across her breasts.
Tears threatened to erupt and then froze as hard as his heart. Chance brushed the money onto the floor, kicked the bottle out of reach, and bent down and straightened his mother’s clothing. A grim line formed between his eyebrows as he scooted his arms beneath her and lifted her to his chest. As usual, he was always surprised by how light she was.
Her bed was still made. Obviously they’d never made it to the back of the house. He laid her down, pulled off her shoes, and pulled the bedspread over her legs. He turned on the small table fan, positioning it so that she would get the maximum effect of the feeble breeze.
She moaned once, muttered a name Chance didn’t recognize, and then turned onto her side and curled up like a small child.
Chance stood back, looking at the woman who’d given him life, and wondered, not for the first time, how she’d come to be in this place…in this condition…and why she’d come here alone.
He walked through the house, turning out lights and locking doors and windows, and then headed for bed. The twenty-dollar bill still lay where he’d tossed it, the empty bottle and glasses making new stains on old territory. He pulled off his boots, slipped his shirt over his head, and dropped wearily onto his bed, suddenly feeling too tired and old for his years to bother with undressing further. He stretched out on his back, crossed his ankles, stared up at the water stain over his bed, and waited for morning.
12
“But I want you to take me to my prom, not some old boy my parents pick out.”
Chance’s lips thinned as his chin jutted in stubborn defiance. He and Victoria had been arguing this same subject for days. There was no way he could afford to take anyone to a prom. He hadn’t even gone to his own. It meant renting a tux, buying flowers and, even more importantly, what would he drive to get there? Victoria Henry wasn’t going to her prom in his pickup. Even if it was running. Even if she’d agree. And he damn sure wasn’t being picked up and driven in her car like a gigolo.
“Victoria! Dammit, honey. We’ve been all through this.”
“Yes, you have,” she said. “And I’ve listened, every time. But you haven’t listened to me. I don’t care what you drive. I don’t care what you wear. I don’t need flowers.” Her voice softened as tears flooded her cheeks. “I just need you.”
“Oh hell,” he muttered. “You don’t have to cry. Please, honey. Don’t cry!” He looked around nervously, convinced himself that they were alone in the station office, and pulled her into his arms. “You once accused me of being hardheaded. But I don’t hold a candle to you, girl. I’ll take you to your damn prom. I’ll wear a tux. And you’ll have a corsage. Just quit crying.” His voice softened. “Please.”
Victoria sighed, wrapped her arms around his waist, and sniffed. “Thank you, Chance. I don’t mean to be selfish. I just don’t want to attend an important event like my prom with anyone but you. If that’s bad, then sue me.”
He grinned, and then looked up and caught his boss waving at them through the window. He’d never hear the end of this.
“Come on,” he urged. “You’ve got to get out of here before I get fired. Charlie’s back from lunch and I’ve got work to do.”
“Okay,” Victoria said, tilting her face up for her kiss.
Chance looked back through the window. Charlie was still there, waving…and grinning. He looked down at Victoria’s waiting lips and cursed softly to himself. She was worth it.
He bent down, tasted the soft, supple curves of Precious Pink h
e’d watched her applying minutes earlier, and knew that it was not enough.
“You in over your head, boy?” Charlie asked, as they both watched the red car dart out of the driveway and move into the flow of traffic.
“Probably,” he answered. “I just agreed to go to a damn prom.”
Charlie Rollins remembered his own, remembered his daughter’s high school years, and knew that Chance deserved a memory worth keeping, too.
“Well, if you’re goin’, you’ll be needin’ somethin’ to drive. You close for me every night this week, and you can drive my Olds.”
Chance turned and stared. Charlie’s blue eyes got brighter and he fidgeted with the rag hanging out of his hip pocket.
“You don’t have to,” Chance finally managed to say, moved beyond words by the generosity of a man who was, by all rights, only his employer.
“I know that,” Charlie snapped. “That’s why I offered.”
Chance held out his hand. “It’s a deal.”
Charlie grinned. “Damn, but I like a good deal, don’t you, boy?”
Chance laughed. “Yeah, Charlie. And thanks to you, I just got one.”
Chance breathed a small prayer of thanksgiving that his mother had to work tonight. He didn’t want to explain what he was doing with his boss’s car, or why he was wearing a rented tux, or why he’d gotten a haircut. He glanced at the clock over the refrigerator, pulled nervously at the bow tie he’d finally managed to fasten, and opened the refrigerator door. The corsage was still there! A cluster of pale pink miniature carnations haloed with something the florist had called baby’s breath.
He hoped it would do. All Victoria had said was it needed to be pink. He grabbed the box off the shelf, checked his pocket for money and keys, and headed for the door. It was time!
The drive to Midland didn’t take long. But it might as well have been to the moon. The farther Chance drove from Odessa, the more he realized that he was in over his head. He’d never, not once in all his eighteen years, let a girl get to him like Victoria had. And to top it all off, they’d never even gotten close to making out. He frowned at the thought. Somehow, making out wasn’t a term he could associate with the tall, blond girl with flashing green eyes. Making love…maybe. But making out?
