Hot Shot

by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

  He was filling her with his words just as earlier he had filled her with his sex. He was filling up her body and taking it over. The words caught her, heaved her about in their undertow and made it hard for her to breathe. But for all his talk, Sam didn't really understand what it meant to dare. He had nothing to lose. He lived in an ugly little house with a painting of Elvis Presley on the wall. He owned a stereo system and a Harley-Davidson. When Sam talked about not being afraid to dare, he wasn't risking anything. She-on the other hand-was risking it all.

  He touched her. He cupped her face in his hands and stroked her cheeks with his thumbs. The wave washed her up on shore, and she experienced that helpless feeling women throughout the centuries have known when they realize that loving a man means loving his vision as well, that it means traveling across oceans, across continents, that it means being uprooted from family and giving up the safe for the unknown. "I-I need to think about this. Tomorrow, while you're at work, I'll think about it."

  "I'm not going to work tomorrow."

  "Why not?"

  "I quit. I'm in, Suzie. I'm in all the way."

  "You quit your job?" she said weakly.

  "Last week. Now how about you? Are you in or out?"

  "I-I don't know."

  "Not good enough."

  "I need time."

  "There isn't any."

  "Don't do this, Sam. Please don't badger me like this."

  "I want to know, Suzie. Right now. Make up your mind. Are you in or out?"

  She felt as if she were eons older than he was instead of only a year-millennia older in experience. A lifetime of dinner-table conversations drifted back to her. She saw hurdles he couldn't imagine, difficulties his visionary's eyes hadn't begun to glimpse. Everything she had learned from the day she was bom urged her to tell him she couldn't help him and then to run back to Falcon Hill and beg her father's forgiveness.

  But she loved him, and she loved the new spark he had ignited inside her-a spark that had been lit by his reckless energy, a spark that wanted to grow brighter and become stronger. A spark that was urging her to follow this restless young man she had so unwisely fallen in love with right off the edge of the earth.

  When she finally spoke, her voice was shaky and barely audible. "I'm in."

  Chapter 10

  Yank's Duster coughed like an emphysema victim as Susannah drove north to Falcon Hill several days later. She had owned high-performance automobiles all her life, and until this moment she hadn't realized a car could behave like this one. She thought about using the car as an excuse to go back, but then imagined how Sam would scoff at her if she returned without getting the things she needed.

  Each day it had grown more difficult for her to live without her possessions. Sam had given her money to get a new prescription filled for her birth control pills, and although that had been her most pressing need, it was only one of them. She needed her reading glasses and her driver's license. She needed clothes to replenish her borrowed wardrobe. No matter how much she wanted to avoid it, she hadn't been able to postpone going home any longer.

  The gates loomed ahead of her. Sam had given her the small electronic gadget he had used to release the locks, but she didn't need it. It was Thursday morning and the gates were open for a grocery delivery. As she turned into the drive, she remembered the newspaper gossip column from last Sunday's paper that she had stumbled upon. It had contained a sly account of what had happened at her wedding and was accompanied by a picture of herself and Cal "in happier times." Sick at her stomach, she had tried once again to reach her father, this time at his office. His secretary had pretended not to know who she was and informed her that Mr. Faulconer was currently out of the country.

  Her trepidation grew as she parked the Duster in the motorcourt and climbed the front steps to the house. While she waited for someone to answer the bell, she wished a familiar household retainer would appear-one of those mythic housekeepers of fiction who would welcome her home with a tart scolding and a warm plate of cookies. In reality, Falcon Hill's current housekeeper had a small tattoo on the back of her hand and had only been with them a few months.

  The slim hand that opened the door, however, bore no tattoo.

  "Paige?"

  "Well, well, the runaway bride returns."

  Susannah was astonished to see her sister, but even more surprised to see that Paige was wearing one of Susannah's own silk dresses instead of her customary blue jeans. Antique gold earrings glimmered through her hair. They were the ones Joel had bought Susannah as a high school graduation present.

  A smirk distorted Paige's pretty mouth. "I can't believe you have the nerve to come back."

  "What are you doing here?"

  Paige's eyes skimmed Susannah's tidy hair and untidy outfit, then flicked to the battered Duster in the driveway. "Falcon Hill is my home, too. Or have you forgotten that?"

  There was an expression of such smugness on her sister's face that Susannah felt sick. "I'm just surprised, that's all. Is Father home?"

  "Luckily for you, no. You've been declared persona non grata for the rest of your natural life. He's left orders that your name is no longer to be spoken in this house. You're being disinherited, spurned-I actually think he's trying to find a way to un-adopt you. Right out of the Old Testament."

  Susannah had known it would be bad, but not this bad.

  Like someone deliberately probing a sore tooth, she inquired, "What about Cal? How is he?"

  "Oh, he's just peachy-considering the fact that he's been publicly humiliated. It's a miracle the newspaper story hasn't gotten bigger play, but you've still managed to make him look like the Bay Area's biggest asshole."

  Susannah didn't want to think about what a terrible thing she had done to Cal. She couldn't bear any more guilt.

  "Actually, it's been pretty interesting around here. It's starting to feel as if you never existed. As if you never came into our lives."

  Susannah didn't want to hear any more. She moved forward, ready to slip past Paige and get what she needed, but Paige sidestepped, blocking the way. "You can't come in, Susannah. Daddy's forbidden it."

  "But that's ridiculous. I need to get some of my things."

  Triumph glittered in Paige's eyes. "Maybe you should have thought of that before you ran off with your stud."

  "He's not a-"

  "I thought you were a virgin. Isn't that a hoot? If you had to have a toy boy, Susannah, you could at least have been nice enough not to wave him in Daddy's face."

  Susannah mustered her dignity. "I didn't mean to hurt anyone. I just couldn't help it."

  "Don't tell me you couldn't help it!" Paige's smugness dropped away, and for a few moments she looked as befuddled as a child. "I thought I knew you, but that's not true at all. The person I knew wouldn't have run off like that. God, Susannah…" And then her hostility slipped back into place like the click of a lock. "Not that I care."

  Susannah tried to make her understand. "I couldn't stand it any longer. I love Father, but I felt as if he was choking me to death. And Cal was becoming an extension of him. They were making me feel old. I'm only twenty-five, but I felt like an old lady. I didn't really expect either of them to understand, but I thought you would."

  "I don't understand any of it. All I know is that perfect Susannah isn't so perfect anymore. For the first time in my life, Daddy has stopped waving all those unlimited virtues of yours in my face. Do you know how long I've waited for this? He talks to me at dinner now. He tells me about his day. He doesn't even miss you, Susannah!"

  Susannah felt weak under the strength of Paige's antipathy. A bittersweet image passed through her mind of a crayon picture Paige had drawn when she was in kindergarten. The two of them had been holding hands and standing together under a rainbow. Whatever had happened to those two little girls?

  "We're sisters," Susannah said. "I've tried to watch out for you."

  "Half sisters. And you're not the only one who knows how to play Lady Bountiful.
Wait for me here. I'll put some of your things together and bring them out to you."

  Before Susannah could react, the door to Falcon Hill had been firmly slammed in her face.

  Paige delivered Susannah's possessions in two shopping bags from Gump's. She had included the reading glasses and driver's license as well as miscellaneous pieces of clothing, none of it Susannah's best. There was no jewelry, nothing of monetary value. When Susannah returned to the Gamble house, she put the clothes neatly away in Sam's closet and tried not to dwell on Paige's vindictiveness.

  While the printed circuit boards were being finished, Sam had been trying to raise money to buy the parts they needed. He brought his former coworkers to the garage and enveloped them with his rhetoric, speaking of a new society in which ordinary people would have the power of the universe at their fingertips. Exactly what they were to do with that power, he never defined. Gradually Susannah realized that he had only the vaguest idea himself what ordinary people would really do with a computer.

  Even as she stood mesmerized at his side, she found herself growing increasingly uneasy. Not only didn't they have a definable market for their product-they couldn't even tell future customers what to use it for. By the weekend he had raised less than eight hundred dollars. It was only a fraction of what they needed.

  She spent all of her spare time at the local library reading everything she could find about starting a small business.

  She wanted to learn as much as possible so that she could set her discoveries before him as small gifts of her love. But it didn't take her long to discover that they weren't doing anything right. They had no money, no denned market for their product, no experience. None of them were college graduates. Every piece of evidence pointed to the fact that they could not possibly succeed.

  She read about venture capitalists-that unique breed who made fortunes from financing risky new businesses. But she couldn't imagine interesting any reputable venture capitalist in backing a three-person operation being run out of a garage that was partially occupied by the Pretty Please Beauty Salon.

  In the evenings while the men worked, she curled up on the old floral sofa in the garage and made her way through one business- or economics-related book after another. Occasionally they needed an extra set of hands and she was called upon to fetch a part or hold a light. When Yank wanted something from her, he tended to call her Sam.

  "Hand me that jumper, Sam," he would say. Or, "Sam, how about a little more light."

  The first few times she had corrected him, but he had looked at her so blankly that she had finally given up. He couldn't seem to comprehend the simple fact that she existed, let alone that she had become a fixture in his life. He was the strangest person she had ever met-so absorbed in his work that he seemed to inhabit an entirely different dimension of reality from everyone else.

  Another week slipped by. The printed circuit boards were to be ready the next day. They had enough money to pay for them, but that was all. Where were they going to find the thousands of dollars they needed to purchase parts for forty boards? Without collateral, Sam couldn't get credit from any of the suppliers, and none of the banks would talk to him.

  "They're all morons," he complained to Susannah as he paced back and forth across the garage, growing more agitated by the minute. "They wouldn't know a good idea if it hit them on the head."

  It was past midnight and she was tired. Still, she tried to make him see the situation realistically. "Sam," she said gently, "you can't really expect them to lend you money. Setting aside the issue of collateral, all they see when they look at you is a wild-eyed biker."

  He shoved his hand impatiently through his hair. "Don't start with all your uptight crap again, all right? I'm not in the mood."

  His attack was unfair and it hurt, but she had no idea how to defend herself, so she retreated like a turtle ducking into its shell. As she picked up the book on production efficiency that she had been reading, she tried to make excuses for him. He had been working hard. He hadn't meant to attack her. But the words on the page in front of her wouldn't focus. She kept remembering the night at the playground when Sam had asked her if she had the guts to put herself to the test. Did she have the courage to stand up for herself or was she going to spend the rest of her life nodding her head in agreement to the opinions of every man she met?

  Hesitantly, she closed the book. "I think it's important for us to deal with reality. The world as it actually is-not as you think it should be." Her voice sounded tentative instead of assertive, as she had intended.

  He spun on her. "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "It means that appearances are important. I love the way you look and the way you dress. I love your hair. It's part of you. But hard-headed businessmen don't tend to have much patience with nonconformists."

  His lips tightened scornfully, the lips that had kissed her so passionately that morning. "Appearances are shit, Susannah. They don't mean anything. Quality means something. Ideas. Hard work. That's all that counts."

  Her brain was calling out alarms and her stomach had begun to twist into its familiar knots, but still she forced herself to press on. "Appearances mean something in the business world."

  "Maybe in that phony FBT world, but that's not what I'm about. I want success, but I goddamn well won't sell my soul for it. That's your territory, not mine."

  Failure pressed in on her. Some people were good at confrontation, but she wasn't one of them. Her fingers crept toward her book and her lips began to frame a retraction. But Sam hadn't finished with her.

  "You know, you're really starting to piss me off. You're a goddamn snob. If you want to go around looking at the labels in people's clothes before you talk to them, that's your business, but don't expect me to buy into it. And another thing-"

  "These decoder chips are out of tolerance, Sam," Yank said from the workbench.

  Susannah felt a rush of gratitude for the timeliness of Yank's interruption. Although he had been standing right in front of them all evening, she had once again forgotten he was there. As Sam went to help him, she quickly gathered up her book and retreated to the house. She would pretend to be asleep when he came in so she wouldn't have to deal with any more conflict. She had tried to hold her ground, but Sam was like a steamroller mowing her down.

  Ever since she had moved in with him, she had slept nude, but now she found an ugly cotton nightgown Paige had packed for her and she slipped into it. As she went into the bathroom to brush her teeth, she thought of her father's icy silences and Cal's cold withdrawal. She tried to find comfort in the fact that at least Sam expressed his anger openly.

  The bathroom door banged open. "What the hell happened to you?" he inquired angrily.

  She spun around, her hand flying to her throat. "I-I was tired. I decided to go to bed."

  "The hell you did. We were in the middle of a goddamn fight, and you ran away." He pushed himself into the small room. She waited for the tiled walls to bulge outward from the strain of trying to contain all the energy that he brought with him.

  "Arguing never solves anything."

  "Who says? Who comes up with shit like that?"

  "I don't want to fight."

  "Why not?" He glared at her belligerently. "Are you afraid you won't win?"

  "I'm not a fighter. I don't enjoy conflict."

  "You're an asshole."

  She was stunned by his attack. Nothing in her life had prepared her for this kind of overt hostility. A surge of anger, dark and ugly, began to creep through her. She didn't deserve this. She loved him, and he had no right to say these things to her. Her anger frightened her as much as his attack, and she realized that she couldn't deal with either one. She had to get away from him. She had to escape before something terrible happened. Rushing to the door, she tried to push past him.

  He caught her arm and pulled her around. His lips had narrowed into a hard line, and his expression was tight with anger. "You're a real chickenshit, you know that? A little mou
se afraid of her own shadow."

  "Let me go!" Her own anger was growing bigger and stronger, taking over her body like a foreign virus.

  "No. I don't like scared little rabbits."

  "Stop it! Let me go!"

  "Make me."

  "Don't do this!" she shouted. "Don't you treat me like this. I don't deserve this and I won't stand for it, and you can just go to hell!"

  He laughed and dropped his head to her mouth. "Better. That's lots better." Her lips were already parted in indignation and he slammed his teeth against hers.

  She couldn't breathe. She tried to shove him away, but he pinned her against the vanity. She struggled, pushing at his chest with the heels of her hands. And then something strange began to happen inside her. A heat was building there, a dark excitement. She parted her lips and thrust her tongue into his mouth.

  The heat turned to fire. He pushed up her cotton nightgown. It bunched around her waist as he lifted her onto the edge of the vanity. He opened her legs and stepped between them. She felt him fumbling with the front of his jeans, and she began pressing hard against him. He grabbed her knees from behind and lifted them higher. She cried out as he thrust inside her, then she locked her legs around his waist so she could take him all.