Hot Shot

by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

  The woman who was coordinating the wedding arrived shortly before noon, and for the next few hours she and Susannah busied themselves double-checking arrangements that had already been triple-checked. She sat for the hairdresser who arrived at two, but the style he arranged was too fussy. After he left, she brushed it out and made a simple coil at the nape of her neck. At three o'clock she put on her antique lace dress and fastened a little Juliet cap to her head. While she secured the Bennett family choker around her neck, she watched through the window as the guests arrived. And then, when it was time, she went downstairs.

  "My little girl," Joel whispered as she approached. "My perfect little girl."

  Moments later the trumpets sounded, heralding the beginning of the ceremony.

  Cal was smiling at her as she approached. The minister began to speak, and she tugged surreptitiously on the pearls. Why couldn't she breathe? Why was the choker so tight?

  The ceremony continued, and the noise of the lawn mower that had been bothering her grew louder. People were turning their heads and Cal's eyebrows drew together. The minister had just begun to address her when she finally recognized the sound for what it was. Her gasp was drowned out by the noise of the Harley shooting into the garden.

  "Suzie!"

  She spun around and saw his black hair flying in the breeze like a pirate's flag. He looked magnificent and appallingly dangerous-a dark angel, a wicked messiah.

  "What's the matter?" he called out. "Forget to send me an invitation?"

  As he taunted her from the seat of his Harley, the long-ago chant of the balloon man began to beat in her ears.

  "Come on, Suzie. Climb up on the back of my bike."

  She pulled away from Cal and pressed her hands over her ears. "Go away! I won't listen to you! I'm not listening to you!"

  But Sam was a man with a vision, a child of the middle class, immune to the rules of upper-class propriety, and he paid no attention to her entreaty. She stumbled away from the altar, trying to distance herself from all of them.

  "Follow me, babe. Leave all this and come with me."

  She wouldn't do it. She wouldn't go to the end of the drive. She wouldn't unlock the iron gates. She was a good girl. Always a good girl. She wouldn't ever, ever again run off with a clown-faced balloon man.

  All my balloons for free. Come and follow me.

  Her father was untangling himself from the rope garland that cordoned off the end of his row, coming to rescue her, to protect her and keep her. To keep her at Falcon Hill. To keep her with Cal. She saw Paige's shocked face, Cal's appalled one. She clawed at her neck so she could breathe, but the choker was no longer there. A sprinkling of pearls had scattered over the toes of her wedding pumps.

  "Hop on my bike, babe. Hop on my bike and follow me."

  She felt the pull of his sun, the light of his vision, the blazing glory of his challenge. A yearning for freedom burst inside her like a rocket-born rainbow. She heard the rage of proper angels in the outbursts of the people around her, but the call of a leather-clad devil spurred her on. No more. No less is more. Not ever. From now on more is more.

  She began racing toward him, flying along the pristine white runner and crumpling it beneath her feet. One of her shoes came off. She kicked off the other. The little Juliet cap blew away, tugging free her careful hair.

  Paige's voice rang out over all the rest. Paige-proper Paige-calling out in horror at the unforgivable act her sister was committing. "Susannah!"

  Joel shouted her name and rushed forward. Paige cried out again.

  Sam Gamble threw back his head and laughed at them all. A strand of black hair blew in front of his mouth and stuck to his bottom lip. He gunned the Harley. Held out his hand. Come on, babe. Come-on, come-on, come-on.

  She lifted the lace skirt of her dress high up on her thighs, revealing long thin legs and a flash of garter blue. Her auburn hair flew out behind her. She reached for him. Reached for her destiny and felt his tight grip pulling her into the future as she straddled the Harley.

  She wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her breasts against his jacket. The Harley roared to life between her thighs, its vibrations shooting high up inside her, filling her full to bursting with new life.

  At that moment she didn't care if all the balloons in the world would someday burst around her. She only cared that she was finally free.

  Chapter 8

  For several moments the wedding guests stood frozen like well-dressed figures in a modern tableau vivant. Cal Theroux was the first to move. White-faced and humiliated, he shoved a path through the crowd and disappeared. Joel, looking neither right nor left, made his way to the house with rigid dignity.

  Paige was too stunned to move. The breeze picked up a cluster of feathers from her boa and blew them against her cheek, but she didn't feel anything. Her world had tilted, shifting everything it contained so that it could never resettle in the same position.

  She shook her head slightly as she tried to reconcile all that she knew about her cool, perfect sister with the woman who had just fled her wedding on the back of a Harley. As she stared at the crumpled aisle runner and the place where the grass had been trampled down, she realized that she hadn't known her sister at all.

  The idea terrified her. She immediately shoved it away and let a clean, pure surge of anger take its place.

  Susannah had lied to all of them. She had a secret life, a secret self that none of them had ever suspected. That image of cool perfection had been a sham. How clever her sister was, how deceitful. She had manipulated them so that she remained the favored daughter while her younger sister was the outcast.

  Paige nurtured her anger, clasping it to her breast and hugging it close. She let it fill every pore so that there was no room left for fear, so that no place remained inside her where she might hide other lies-lies about herself.

  Sounds began to work their way into her consciousness-exclamations, muted conversation. The guests had formed animated groups, and at any moment they would begin to descend on her. They would ply her with questions she couldn't answer and pour buckets full of pity over her head. She couldn't bear it. She had to get away.

  Her battered VW was parked in the motorcourt among the Jags and Rollses, and she wove her way along the perimeter of the garden toward it. But before she slipped around the corner of the back wing, she slowed and looked back.

  The groups were still huddled together. Heads were moving back and forth as everyone offered an interpretation of what had just happened. She waited for the men to reach for their pens so they could calculate the effect that this might have on the price of FBT stock.

  As she watched them, she could feel the blood rushing through her veins like a river on a rampage. Her ears were ringing. This was it! This was what she'd been waiting for. All her life she'd been waiting for this chance.

  Hesitantly, she slipped her tawdry boa from her shoulders and let it fall behind an urn of roses. Then, with her heart in her throat, she began moving toward the guests. When she reached the nearest group, she gathered her strength and spoke.

  "It seems a shame for all this food to go to waste. Why don't we move toward the reception tent?"

  Everyone turned to her, surprised.

  "Why, Paige!" one of the women exclaimed. "Poor dear. What an awful thing."

  "None of us can believe it," another interjected. "Susannah, of all people."

  Paige heard herself replying in a smooth, careful voice that sounded a bit like her sister's. "She's been under a lot of pressure lately. I-We can only hope she gets the professional help she needs."

  An hour later, with the small of her back aching from the tension of fielding their questions, she said good-bye to the last of the guests and entered Falcon Hill. The house enveloped her-comforting and suffocating at the same time. She walked through the deserted rooms on the first floor in search of her father and then climbed the stairs. The door to her old bedroom was shut. Nothing was there for her and she felt no
temptation to go in.

  Susannah's room was neat as always. The suitcases for the honeymoon waited by the door like abandoned children. Paige stepped into the adjoining bath. The marble tub and sink were immaculate. No auburn strands of hair clung to the sides, no smears of makeup spoiled the ebony surface. It was as if her sister never used the room, as if she somehow managed to emerge into the world clean and perfect-without any effort on her part.

  Her father's bedroom was as orderly as Susannah's and just as empty. She found him in a small study at the back of the house, which overlooked the gardens. He was standing at the window, staring down on the shambles of his daughter's wedding.

  Her stomach pitched. "Daddy?"

  He turned his head and gave her a calm inquisitive stare, as if nothing of any import had happened. "Yes, Paige?"

  Her fragile self-confidence deserted her. "I-I just-wanted to see if you were-were all right."

  "Of course. Why wouldn't I be?"

  But as she looked more closely, she could see his pallid complexion and the harsh brackets at the corners of his mouth. His weakness gave her a sudden spurt of strength. "Would you like me to fix you a drink?"

  He gazed at her for a moment as if he were making up his mind about something, and then he nodded stiffly. "Yes, why don't you do that?"

  She turned to leave, only to have him speak again.

  "And Paige. That dress is quite ugly. Would you mind changing it?"

  Her first reaction to his criticism was the familiar defen-sive surge of anger, but almost immediately the anger faded. He wasn't sending her away. He wanted her to stay. Now that Susannah was gone, she wasn't an outcast anymore.

  It took her only seconds to make her decision. Slipping out into the hallway, she went to Susannah's room and removed the thrift-shop dress. Five minutes later she descended the stairs wearing one of her sister's soft Italian knits.

  The world flew past Susannah's eyes like a carousel spinning out of control. The wind tore at her hair, snarling it around her head, whipping it against Sam's cheeks. Her dress had ridden up, and the tops of her legs chafed against the rough denim of his jeans, but she didn't notice. She had moved to a point beyond simple sensation. As she clung to his waist, she prayed the wild ride would never end. The motorcycle was a magic chariot that held time at bay. As long as the machine kept moving, there was no yesterday, no today, no tomorrow.

  Sam seemed to understand her need to fly. He did not take them due south, but zigzagged across the peninsula, showing her a familiar world from a different perspective. The San Andreas Reservoir flashed by, and later the bay. They roared through quiet neighborhoods and ran with the wind along the highway. Eighteen-wheelers sped by them, tossing grit and belching blast-furnace gusts of air that stole her breath. Car horns blared at the lace-clad runaway bride perched so incongruously on the back of a Harley-Davidson. She wanted to ride forever. She wanted to race through time into a different dimension-a world where she had no name. A world where actions bore no consequences.

  South of Moffet Field, Sam pulled off the highway. Before long, they were passing industrial parks and strip malls. Then he began to slow. She pressed her cheek against the back of his shoulder and closed her eyes. Don't stop, she prayed. Don't ever stop.

  But he did. He kicked off the engine, and the bike became still between her thighs. Turning, he pulled her close against him. "Time to get a move on, biker lady," he whispered. "Your man is hungry."

  She made a breathless, frightened sound. Was he her man? Oh, God, what had she done? What was going to happen to her?

  He let her go as he got off the bike, and then he held out his hand. She grasped it as if his touch could save her.

  "It's a new world," he said. "We're walking into a new world."

  More accurately, they were walking into a Burger King.

  Susannah's eyes flew open as she became aware of where they were. The asphalt of the parking lot was warm beneath her stockinged feet. She was barefoot. Oh, God, she was barefoot in front of a Burger King! A hole had formed in her silk stockings over one knee, and a small circle of skin pushed through like a bubble on bread dough. Sam pulled her forward, and she saw faces gaping at them from the window.

  Her frightened reflection stared back at her-rumpled lace wedding dress, auburn hair hanging in rowdy tangles, thin nose red from the wind. Panicked, she grabbed at his arm. "Sam, I can't-"

  "You already have."

  With a tug on her hand, he thrust her through the door into the burger-scented heart of middle America.

  A gaggle of teenage boys interrupted a burping contest to stare at them from an orange booth. She heard laughter at the spectacle she was making of herself. The soles of her stockings clung to a sticky spot on the tiled floor. A group of six-year-olds celebrating a birthday party looked up from beneath crooked cardboard crowns. One of them pointed. Throughout the restaurant, patrons abandoned their french fries and Whoppers to stare at Susannah Faulconer. She stood there and tried not to let the enormity of what was happening sink in.

  Good girls didn't get themselves kidnapped. A society bride didn't flee her wedding on the back of a Harley-Davidson. What was wrong with her? What was she going to do? She had humiliated Cal. He'd never forgive her. And her father…

  But what she had done was too monstrous, and she couldn't think about her father. Not now. Not yet.

  Sam had stopped at the counter. He turned to her and studied her for a moment. "You're not going to cry, are you?"

  She shook her head, not able to speak because her throat had closed tight. He didn't know her well enough to know that she never cried, although at that moment she very much wanted to.

  "You look great," he whispered, his eyes sweeping over her. "Loose and sexy."

  A thrill shot through her, the sensation so intense that she forgot for a moment where she was. No one had ever called her such a thing. She drank in the sight of his face and wondered if she would ever get her fill of looking at him.

  He gave her a crooked grin and glanced up at the menu board. "What're you going to have?"

  Abruptly, she remembered where she was. She tried to take courage from his complete disinterest in the opinions of the people watching them. He had called her loose and sexy, and with those words she wanted to become a new person, the person he was describing. But words weren't enough to make her into someone else. She was still Susannah Faulconer, and she hated the spectacle she was making.

  He ordered and picked up their food. Numbly, she followed him to a table by the window. Her appetite had deserted her, and after a few bites she abandoned any pretense of eating. Sam reached for her hamburger.

  As she watched his strong white teeth rip through the bun, she tried to tell herself that no matter how frightened she was, anything was better than dying a slow death of old age at twenty-five.

  Susannah had somehow imagined Sam living in a small bachelor apartment, and she wasn't prepared for the fact that he still lived with his mother. The house was one of the small mass-produced ranches that had sprung up in the Valley during the late fifties to house the workers who had flooded to Lockheed following the launching of Sputnik. The front was faced with green aluminum siding, the sides and back with dingy white stucco. Tarpaper topped with fine gravel covered the roof. It sparkled faintly in the fading sunlight.

  "The light's not on," Sam said, gesturing toward the garage that sat off to the side along with a ragged palm. "Yank must not be here."

  "Does he live here, too?" she asked, growing more nervous by the minute. Why couldn't Sam have lived by himself? What was she going to say to his mother?

  "Yank has an apartment on the other side of town. Mom's in Las Vegas with a girlfriend for the next couple of weeks. We have the place to ourselves."

  That, at least, was a relief. She walked behind him to the front of the house. Next to the door stretched a long opaque window with vertically ridged glass. The caulking around it had loosened and cracked. Sam unlocked the door and went insi
de. She followed, stepping across the threshold and directly into the living room. She caught her breath.

  The decor was a monument to bad taste. Ugly gold shag carpeting covered the floor. An aquarium filled with iridescent gravel sat next to a Spanish sofa with dark wood trim, brass nail heads, and red velvet upholstery. Sam flipped a wall switch, turning on a lamp made up of a wire bird cage filled with plastic philodendrons. Nearby, occupying what was obviously a place of honor, hung a full-length oil painting of Elvis Presley wearing one of his white-satin Las Vegas outfits and clutching a microphone with ring-encrusted fingers.

  Susannah looked over at Sam and waited for him to say something. He returned her stare, his expression belligerent as he waited for her to make a comment. The look of challenge in his eyes and the stubborn set to his jaw touched her. She wanted to go to him and lay her head against his shoulder and tell him she understood. A man with so much passion for elegant design must find it unbearable to live in such a place.

  She asked to use the bathroom. Decals of fat fish were stuck to tangerine tiles. She took off her torn stockings and stuffed them into a plastic wastebasket. A smaller painting of Elvis done on black velvet regarded her from the wall behind the toilet, LOVE ME TENDER was written in glitter ill script across the bottom, except some of the letters had worn off so that it read love me ten. Not one, she thought as she washed her hands, avoiding her reflection in the mirror. Don't love me two or three. Love me ten.

  She found Sam in the kitchen. He offered her a can of Coke and a pair of gold sandals with a plastic daisy at the apex of each thong. "They're my mother's," he said. "She won't mind."

  She slipped into the sandals but politely refused the Coke. He studied her for a moment, then picked up a handful of hair next to her cheek and closed it in his fist. She felt dizzy with his closeness, as if she were racing toward the edge of a cliff.

  "You have beautiful hair," he whispered. He brushed his thumb over her lips. Her breath quickened. The amber flecks in his eyes glowed like the fireflies she had once trapped in a jar as a child. When Susannah wasn't looking, Paige had opened the lid and dumped the insects on the ground, then squashed them with the soles of her sneakers so that their crushed bodies left a yellow phosphorescent streak in the grass. Afterward, Paige had cried so hard that Susannah had thought she would never stop.