Chapter Five
Wills pulled Dorothy out of the line to greet the preacher at the door after church the next morning.
Jani’s family had stopped attending long ago.
“I need to borrow her for a minute. School stuff,” she said to Dorothy’s family—her dad with his straight brows, her very thin mom, and her three gigantic brothers.
“What school stuff?” Dorothy asked as they walked outside.
Wills led her to the street corner, trying to seem casual about it.
The street to the left was a dead zone, and as soon as they stepped onto it, Wills stopped.
Gram always got through the line quickly, because the parishioners ahead of her never wanted her angry with them for making her wait.
So this had to be done fast. “Will you cover for me if I say I’m spending the night with you tonight?
Your parents are leaving after church for that convention this week, right?
So Gram wouldn’t be able to check with them. And I don’t want Jani to know, either.”
“What are you up to?” Dorothy asked with a smile.
Wills didn’t smile back. She had a lot to lose if her grandmother found out and turned on her. No home. No money. She knew the sacrifices she had to make, but one night wasn’t too much to ask, was it? One night of secret freedom. “I’m meeting Jack.”
“Wills, no,” Dorothy said immediately. “Don’t do it.”
“I have to. If I don’t, I’ll go dead inside.” She took Dorothy’s hands in hers, imploring. “Wouldn’t you take the chance, if you knew it was the only chance you’d ever have?”
Dorothy stepped back and swatted at a bug flying too near her, attracted to the sweet scent of her hair spray. “Dean is my chance,” she said defensively.
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
“I know what you’re talking about. It may not be passionate, but Dean is my only way out of here and away from my family.”
That surprised Wills. This was the first she’d ever heard of Dorothy being unhappy with her family.
They’d always come across as absurdly close-knit, the way farm families tended to be.
“I thought you were marrying Dean because you weren’t going to inherit your family’s place because of your brothers. Otherwise, you’d stay.”
Dorothy rolled her eyes. “Oh, I’m not inheriting the family farm. That’s true. But it’s not because of my brothers.”
“What’s going on?”
Dorothy hesitated. “Don’t tell anyone this. Especially not your grandmother.”
“Okay,” Wills said slowly. “But I can’t guarantee she doesn’t already know.”
“No one knows, not even my dad,” Dorothy said. “My mom told me last year that she was leaving him as soon as I graduated. She said I should find someone to marry quick, because there was no way my dad would let me stay after she left, and I couldn’t go with her.”
Everyone could see that Dorothy’s mother was a shell.
She gave everything of herself and got nothing in return, but she was told to be grateful, because wasn’t it so easy, simply being a housewife and mother?
Wills was impressed by her bravery at leaving all she knew at her age, no money or skills, no safety net.
But Wills didn’t get why she wouldn’t take Dorothy with her if she thought her dad was going to kick her out.
Or why he would blame Dorothy, anyway. “I don’t understand. ”
“You don’t have to understand. It doesn’t matter. When I marry Dean, we’ll move to Georgia and I won’t have to worry about it anymore.” Before Wills could ask more questions, Dorothy said, “Of course I’ll cover for you. That’s what friends do. But only if you’re sure.”
“I’ve never been so sure.”
“Use protection,” Dorothy said seriously.
Wills shifted uncomfortably. She hadn’t thought of that. She hadn’t thought of any of the details. She suddenly felt a tinge of fear at the unknown, but she still put on a good face and said, “I’m not stupid.”
As they walked back to the church, Dorothy shook her head and said, “Neither is he. And you’re a shining example of his ability to talk anyone into anything.”
That evening Dorothy picked Wills up in her family’s farm truck, which smelled faintly of hay and manure.
Gram had agreed to let Wills spend the night on a school night because Wills told her that Dorothy’s new Bride’s magazine had come, and they wanted to go through it together.
Gram had already picked out Wills’s wedding dress.
It was sitting in a box in her closet. Terrence was supposed to propose over the summer.
The wedding would be in June of next year, and Gram had already booked the church.
Gram knew that if Wills wanted to experience anything remotely like what the excitement of planning a wedding would feel like, Dorothy was her only chance.
The plan was to shower and feather her hair at Dorothy’s, since Gram would get suspicious if she did either of those at home.
But when they got to Dorothy’s house, her brothers insisted on preparing dinner and eating with them.
Then they lingered to talk politely with Wills, as if afraid it would get back to Gram that they hadn’t been hospitable.
When they finally went to their rooms for bed, Wills barely had enough time to crawl through Dorothy’s window and take the snacks and blanket Dorothy handed her, before taking off at full speed, terrified Jack would think she’d stood him up.
It took her a while. She had to zigzag through dead zones, not wanting to take a chance on being seen.
She finally approached the crest of the hill near the cow pasture and saw his silhouette.
He was holding his guitar case and a paper bag, facing the direction of Dorothy’s house and scanning the field for her arrival, not realizing she would have to take such a long way around.
His expectation created an aura around him, like a lunar halo.
“Jack,” she called. She ran up the hill and stopped in front of him, breathless.
Love, according to her grandmother, was a weakness.
Wills wondered if this was what she meant, how jelly-legged and trembly she felt, like when you’ve been in bed with the flu for days and then try to walk.
“I’m sorry. I couldn’t get away until now. I was afraid you’d already left.”
“I would have waited until morning just to see you wild like this,” he said, his eyes all over her. “Look at you. Your hair actually moves. It’s like you took off your armor.”
She was suddenly self-conscious, years of her grandmother telling her to never be seen as anything less than perfect ingrained in her. “Don’t tell anyone. Westers aren’t supposed to show weaknesses.”
“And hair spray is your weapon of choice?”
“You can’t crack shellac,” she said.
He laughed and set down his guitar and paper bag, then took a yellow rose out of his shirt pocket and handed it to her with flourish, like a magician.
“I noticed Terrence didn’t give you a corsage for prom.
Shame on him.” She didn’t have a free hand to take it, so he relieved her of the red-and-black-checked blanket Dorothy had given her.
While he spread it onto the ground, Wills put the rose to her nose.
The reason Terrence hadn’t given her a corsage was because Gram hadn’t trusted him to choose the right flower.
This, to Wills, would forever be the right flower.
“I haven’t had to sneak out of a house since I was sixteen, but I managed to filch some wine from Penwell’s basement,” Jack said, pulling a bottle out of the paper bag he was carrying.
“It had an inch of dust on it, so I don’t think he’s going to miss it.
And here is what we call fine dining on the road.
” He emptied the rest of the bag as they sat. “Ritz crackers and spray cheese.”
“I have Hostess Fruit Pies, courtesy of Dorothy,” Wills said, handing him her bag.
He looked in the bag, and then laughed. “Did you know she also included condoms?”
Wills immediately took the bag back and looked inside. “Jesus, Dorothy.”
“How much did you tell her?” Jack asked, still laughing.
“Everything. She’s one of my best friends. I can trust her. But she obviously didn’t trust me.” Wills took out the fruit pies, then set the bag aside. Her heart was racing, as if she were still running. She didn’t know how to make it stop.
Jack uncorked the wine and poured some into jelly glasses. He handed one to her and said in a toast, “To the queen of Hen Town.”
She clinked her glass to his, her hand shaking slightly. “To the king of the road.”
They drank, and immediately gagged. “My God, that’s awful. Quick, we need to cleanse the palate.” He took the spray cheese and said, “Open up.”
She opened her mouth and he squeezed some onto her tongue before doing the same to himself, and then they laughed so hard they could barely swallow because it wasn’t much better.
After eating their royal feast, Jack put his head on her lap and strummed his guitar as they both stared at the night sky strewn with only a handful of stars.
That’s when her heart finally began to calm.
The music spoke to her, reminding her that there was nothing to be scared of because Jack was like music itself—something to get lost in and forget herself for a while.
She stroked his hair away from his face. “I have a question.”
He raised his brows.
“What did you and Andy Smooth fight about that made him leave you behind?”
He grinned. “I was badgering him about you and your family. I could tell it was a sore spot, but I kept poking it. He finally threw my things out of the van and told me, Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“You didn’t have to stay,” Wills said. “You could have hitchhiked out of here.”
“I was going to. But Principal Penwell offered to let me crash at his place overnight and then drive me to Chapel Hill himself. My plan was to grovel and get Andy to take me back, so at least I’d end up back in LA.
But then Penwell and I got drunk, and he talked about how Andy had been a lousy band teacher.
He said that even I could do a better job.
I said I only knew how to play guitar, so he said why not stay and give private lessons?
All I saw was an opportunity to take the money I’d get up front and leave anyway, without actually giving lessons.
It wouldn’t have been the first time I’d conned someone. ”
When she didn’t react, just continued to stroke his hair, he sat up and asked with amusement, “Does anything shock you?”
“I was raised by a morally gray person. I learned a long time ago that you can do bad things and still be good. It’s the quotient that matters. In the end, when you die and you’ve done more good than bad, maybe you didn’t lose the game.”
“I’ve never met anyone like you.”
“So why didn’t you take the money and run?”
He hesitated. “Because you signed up for lessons. I was crushed when you didn’t show up.”
“I was crushed when I couldn’t,” she said.
“Do you want a lesson now?”
Wills shook her head. “My interest was only in the guitar player, never the guitar.”
He threw his head back and laughed, wonderful and wild. “You’re a girl after my own heart, Wills!”
To that, she quickly said, “Don’t talk hearts.”
He reached for her hand and put it on his chest and said, teasing, “Don’t you want mine?”
“No,” she said, letting her hand drop. “You keep it.”
“Hey. Hey, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” She squeezed her eyes shut, making sure she wasn’t going to cry. Then she smiled. “Forget I said that.”
For a moment, neither of them said anything. Then Jack started gathering up their discarded food wrappers. “Come on. I’ll walk you back to Dorothy’s.”
That did her in. “What are you doing? Don’t you dare leave me until you have to.”
He stopped at her outburst. “But that’s only one more week, Wills.”
“I know that!”
He took a deep breath. “You make me want to be a better person. And a better person wouldn’t spend the night with you and then disappear.”
Wills gave a growl of frustration and it echoed over the field.
Clear across town, people awoke briefly from dreams they wouldn’t fully remember, only that they were about lost loves and missed opportunities.
“Why does everyone get a choice but me? I’ve been told what to do all my life.
And I accepted it because I have more than anyone I know and it would be greedy to want more.
But I don’t care now. I want you. I want this.
And if you, and this, can only exist for one week, then I’ll take it. That’s my choice!”
Jack stared at her and said, “You’re beautiful when you’re angry.”
“I’m serious, Jack.”
“I know you are,” he said, suddenly leaning in to kiss her.
She fell back as his hand smoothed its way under her shirt, making her stomach muscles contract.
He pulled back and looked down at her, his dark hair creating a veil around their faces.
“And I’m serious when I say, even if you don’t want my heart, it’s still yours. ”