Fortune (16 page)

Boyton, Illinois,
1984

B
eing thirteen did change Skye. In the weeks and months that had passed since her birthday, her contentment of that night had disappeared, replaced by a restlessness she'd never experienced before. She longed for something she couldn't name and was frustrated to the point of tears that she couldn't have it. She found herself happy one moment and sobbing the next, found herself gazing into the mirror alternately admiring her looks and despairing over them.

And she found herself wishing Chance would see how grown-up she had become, wishing he would start treating her like a real girl, instead of a pesky little kid or a baby who needed to be protected.

Suddenly, being Chance's best friend wasn't enough. Drawing and watching TV and waiting all day for him to come home wasn't enough. Not anymore.

Skye stood at the door of the trailer Chance had rented for them to live in, gazing out at the bright spring day. March had come in like a lion and, true to the old saying, was going out like a lamb. The six inches of snow they'd gotten only a week ago had already melted. Sunshine spilled through the trailer's tiny windows, thrown open to let in the warm breeze, a balmy sixty-eight degrees.

The town of Boyton, Illinois was, no doubt, kicking up its heels and celebrating the end of winter, Skye thought bitterly, gazing out at the perfect day. Of course, she wouldn't know. Because she was trapped inside this stupid, gray trailer.

Chance had found steady work at a small grocery store in town. The manager had directed him to a friend who had a furnished trailer for rent; the same man had had a car for sale, a fifteen-year-old Chevy Impala. The guy had taken two hundred dollars for it. Now they had wheels.

Skye knew Chance found it liberating, but it hadn't changed her life one bit. She was still stuck inside this ugly box, looking out at the rest of the world.

Skye began to pace. Frustrated. Bored. Angry with Chance for making her stay locked up all the time, furious with her mother for leaving her behind.

She wanted to go out. She was sick and tired of being alone. Of being trapped inside, like a butterfly in a jar.

It wasn't fair. Chance got to go out. Chance got to see people, and not just at work, either. Twice in the past week he had gone out with friends after punching out for the day. She had been alone even longer on those days; she had sat and wondered who he was with, and wishing she was out too. She had been angry. And jealous.

Skye stopped in front of the open door and gazed out through the screen, locked tight. It wasn't fair, she thought again. And she was sick of it.

But Chance refused to be reasonable. He didn't see how much more grown-up she was than when they had left Marvel's. She let out her breath in an angry huff. He treated her like a little baby. Ruffling her hair. Chucking her on the chin. Calling her kid and pest.

Why couldn't he see how grown-up she was? Why?

Skye resumed pacing. She saw him as an adult, and he wasn't
that
much older than she was. He was only eighteen, for Pete's sake. There was only five years between them.

His image filled her head and she ached, deep inside, ached in a strange way, one she didn't understand. She only knew she wanted him to see her as a grown-up. As a real girl, not a pesky little kid.

Screw it, she decided defiantly. Chance wasn't her boss. He wasn't her parent or even her brother. And if she wanted to go out, she would.

Grabbing her windbreaker and the key to the trailer's front door, she headed outside.

Skye's first foray into the great unknown went well. So well, in fact, she made it a daily ritual. Every morning, as soon as Chance left for work, she gathered together her art supplies, a jacket and something to snack on, and off she went.

Freedom was delicious. Heady and exciting. She felt alive again, for the first time in as long as she could remember. Everything felt new, too. Special and bright and wondrous. She imagined that she felt the way a baby might, seeing and exploring things for the first time.

Most days, like today, she took her sketch pad to the park, found a pretty spot and sat and drew for a while. After that, she just wandered. She'd had a few close calls; one with a mother in the park, one with a clerk at the corner drugstore where she had stopped in to buy a Coke. Both times she had come up with a neat and convincing lie for why she wasn't in school.

Chance she hadn't had to lie to. He didn't suspect a thing.

Skye stood, dusted off the seat of her jeans and tucked her tablet under her arm. Today it was too pretty to sit and draw; today she felt like exploring.

She did just that, following paths she hadn't noticed before, going deeper into the park, farther away from the most populated areas. As she crossed over an old stone bridge, she noticed a group of teenagers below. It looked as if they were just hanging out, and as Skye gazed down at them, one of the boys looked up. He was cute, really cute. Their eyes met. He smiled. Her heart did a funny little something, like a somersault, and she caught her breath. She sort of smiled back—she was so flustered, she wasn't quite sure what she did—then hurried over the bridge.

The boy was waiting for her. She made a sound of surprise and stopped in her tracks, uncertain what to do.

“Hi.” He smiled and took a step toward her. “I saw you up on the bridge, so I decided to come meet you.”

“Oh.” She folded her arms across her chest. “Hello.”

“My name's Kevin. My friends call me Kev.”

She swallowed hard. “I'm Skye.”

“And I'll bet your friends call you Skye.”

She laughed, relaxing a little. “You guessed right.”

“You going someplace?”

“Not really.” She shrugged. “I'm just hanging out.”

“Me, too.” He gestured toward the path. “You wanna walk?”

“Together?”

“Yeah.” He grinned. “Together.”

“Okay.”

They started off. “I haven't seen you around before,” he said. “You new in town?”

She glanced at him, then away.
He was so cute.
“I've been around awhile. I live with my brother. He works at Taylor's grocery.”

“What about your parents?”

She hesitated a moment, searching for the right answer, then lifted her shoulders. “They're…gone.”

“Hey, that's cool. I'm on my own, too. A whole bunch of us are.”

Skye didn't know whether to believe him or not. And she wasn't sure why he was being so nice to her. Boys usually weren't.

“How come you're not in school?”

She stiffened. “Why aren't you?”

He laughed and held up his hands, palms out. “Hey, be easy. You don't see me in school, do you? In my opinion, it's a total waste. Why don't we sit over there?” He pointed toward a bench under a big maple tree. The tree was only beginning to leaf out and as they sat beneath it, the sun filtered through the branches, warming them.

She unzipped her jacket. “It sure is a pretty day.”

“Sure is.”

She felt his gaze on her and embarrassed, laced her fingers together and looked at her toes. “I hate the snow. Too cold.”

“It was pretty gruesome this year.” He dug in his jacket pocket and pulled out a pack of Marlboros. “Smoke?” She shook her head and he lit one for himself. He inhaled, then blew out a long stream of smoke and looked at her. “How old are you, Skye?”

“Fifteen.” She cleared her throat, her cheeks heating at her lie. “I just turned in November.”

“No kidding? I just turned seventeen in November. What date's yours? Birthday, I mean.”

“The sixth.”

“Mine, too.” He put his arm around her shoulders. “We must be soul mates or something.”

Soul mates.
She liked the way that sounded. She liked the way he looked her in the eye and smiled when he talked to her. As if he thought she was special and mature, not some pesky little kid.

And she liked the way he put his arm around her shoulders, though it made her feel weird—warm and tingly and sort of nervous, but in a good way.

He laughed again and flipped his half-smoked cigarette into a puddle. “Come on.” He caught her hand and stood, bringing her to her feet with him. “I want to show you something.”

She held back, nervous. “What?”

“It's a surprise, but you'll really like it. I promise.”

“I don't know, I…I need to be home soon.”

“Aw…come on, Skye. Don't be a wimp.” He tugged on her hand again and flashed her a breath-stealing smile. “It won't take long.”

Skye thought of Chance. He would not like her talking to Kevin this way. And he certainly wouldn't have approved of Kevin's arm around her, though it had been perfectly okay.

Chance wouldn't approve?
she thought. Chance wasn't her father; it was none of his business what she did. She had absolutely no reason to feel guilty. He just didn't want her to have any fun at all.

She pushed the guilt away, and smiled up at Kevin. “Okay, but I really do have to be back home in an hour.”

It turned out that what Kevin wanted to show her was a sort of home for runaways, a big old Victorian house on the outskirts of town. Kevin told her that it had been abandoned for years, and insisted that if she would look past the rotting floor and crumbling walls, she would see that it was a really cool place.

Skye decided he was right. But it wasn't the house itself that she thought was neat, it was the other kids there. Kevin introduced her around, telling everyone she was fifteen. The group was pretty well split between boys and girls, and everybody was nice to her, really nice. They didn't question her age or her being there; in fact, she had never felt so welcome before. She liked the feeling. She liked it a lot.

When she had to leave to go home, Kevin walked her part of the way. He wanted to walk her the whole way, but Skye was afraid that somehow Chance would find out. And that was the last thing she wanted. If Chance found out about Kevin or her other new friends, he would keep her from seeing them again.

And she wanted to see them again. Especially Kevin.

“I'll go on from here,” Skye said, stopping at the bridge where they had met. “It's not far.”

“Are you sure? I don't mind walking you the rest of the way.”

“No. I don't want to take the chance that my brother…He's a little overprotective.”

“That's cool.” Kevin caught her hand. “Will you come by tomorrow?”

“I don't know. I—”

“Please?” He curved his fingers snugly around hers. “Pretty please?”

She caved. “All right, if you really want me to.”

“I do.” He leaned closer, so close she saw the flecks of gold in his brown eyes. “You sure are pretty.”

She blushed and averted her gaze, flustered by his words and by the way he was looking at her. “I'm not,” she murmured.

“You are. Skye?” She returned her gaze to his, her heart stopping at the look in his eyes. “If I tried to kiss you, would you let me?”

Skye stared up at him. She wanted to say yes, wanted to so badly she ached, but she couldn't find her voice. Finally, afraid he would change his mind, she simply nodded.

With a small laugh, Kevin kissed her. His lips brushed lightly against hers, once, then twice. Skye thought she had died and gone to heaven.

“I'll see you tomorrow, right?”

Skye blinked, embarrassed as she realized she had been standing there frozen, her eyes closed, lips still slightly parted.

She took a step backward, mortified. “Right. Tomorrow.”

“Great!” He backed away, laughing. “See you then, Skye.”

She watched him jog off, then with a giggle of pure delight, hugged herself. She had friends, she realized. She had a
boyfriend.
A real boyfriend who had held her hand and kissed her.

Feeling as if she had wings on her feet, she raced back to the trailer.

F
rom that day on, Skye spent every minute she could with her new friends. They laughed and talked; they went to the park and the mall and just hung out at The House, as they called the old Victorian. The other kids had discovered her ability to draw, and they had all begged her to draw them. Skye had been happy to comply; their interest in her art made her feel special.

But the best thing about the days spent with her friends was being with Kevin. He paid more attention to her than to anyone else. Most of the time he was either holding her hand or had his arm around her, and even when one of the other guys wanted him to go do something with them, he stayed with her. Skye had caught some of the other girls looking at her, their expressions strange; but Skye decided they were just trying to figure out the same thing she was—what he saw in her. Kevin was way too cute to be interested in her, but he acted as if he was, anyway.

She decided she must be about the luckiest girl in the whole world.

It hadn't taken Skye long to realize how her friends got by—they panhandled and shoplifted, and everyone shared with everyone else. Like a big family.

At first, knowing they stole things had made Skye uncomfortable, as did their smoking and drinking. Then she figured that as long as she wasn't actually doing that stuff herself, she wasn't doing anything wrong.

In truth, the way her friends lived seemed exciting to Skye, a lot more exciting than being cooped up alone all day, a lot more enjoyable than doing without until she and Chance scraped up enough money to buy whatever it was they needed.

But what she envied even more about her friends' lives was that no one ordered them around, telling them what they could or couldn't do. No one treated them the way Chance treated her, like a baby, like a stupid little pest who couldn't take care of herself.

Most days, she didn't even want to return to the trailer. Several times she had fantasized about not going back and had waited until the last possible second to leave The House, then had hurried home, arriving only moments before Chance.

He seemed to have noticed nothing out of the ordinary about her behavior. In fact, Skye had begun to believe he never looked at her at all.

But then, he was probably too busy looking at and thinking about that other girl, Skye thought, scowling into the bathroom mirror. That Cindy he worked with. Chance had told Skye about her. She was a checker at the grocery, a beautiful blonde, he had said. A couple of times, they had gone out for a quick beer together after work.

Skye brushed her teeth, furiously wielding the brush, thinking of what Chance had said about the other girl. Skye rinsed and spit, then rinsed again. That done, she reached for a towel, then stopped and turned back to the mirror. She studied her face. Oval-shaped, a nice nose and a mouth that was a bit too big; cheekbones that could be higher.

She leaned closer to the mirror. Her eyes were her best feature—bright blue, surrounded by dark lashes. Lashes that matched her eyebrows and hair.

She pushed her hair away from her face, tilting her head this way, then that. She wasn't pretty, not the way
Cindy
must be, but she wasn't gross, either. She wasn't ugly.

She let her hair fall, her frown deepening. Why didn't Chance like her? Why didn't he think she was…beautiful? Like that Cindy girl?

She knew he didn't, because of the way he treated her, like a stupid kid. She knew it, too, by the way he looked at her, not with admiration or awe or even as if she was a girl, but with a kind of humor. A kind of
tolerance.

She bristled, thinking of it. Kevin thought she was pretty. He thought she was sexy. Kissable. So why didn't Chance?

Skye closed the bathroom door and faced the long, narrow mirror attached to its back. She peeled off her nightshirt, then stared at herself. Stared hard.

Her breasts were depressingly small—no more than two tiny mounds tipped with pink. She touched them lightly and her nipples puckered up, tight and sensitive, the way they did when she was cold. She made a sound of surprise and ran her fingers over the sensitive pebbles again, liking the feeling, being almost superaware of them.

Cheeks burning, she moved her hand lower, across her rib cage—she was so thin she could count each rib—then lower still, to her waist. She drew her eyebrows together, studying her body. Was it her imagination or was her waist smaller than it had been? It seemed to dip in, her hips to flare out. She fitted her hands at each side of her waist, uncertain, then turned to the side, then the back, straining to see her reflection over her shoulder.

Her hips definitely flared, she thought, surprised, pleased. They hadn't done that before; she was certain of it. She had always been as straight and narrow as a board.

She faced the mirror again, hesitated a moment, then eased her underpants over her hips and down, then stepped out of them. Standing naked in front of the mirror made her feel funny, guilty and nervous. She had seen herself naked, of course, but she had never…deliberately looked at herself this way. And she had never stopped to wonder what others thought about her body or about how she looked compared to other girls. In truth, she had never really cared—not about how she looked, or about what others thought.

Now she did. Now she ached for people to think she was pretty. To think she was…sexy. Like the girls in the magazines and on TV.

Skye lowered her gaze, her cheeks burning. She was growing hair
there.
She wasn't sure how she felt about it; she knew it was part of becoming a woman, but it made her feel…weird. And it looked strange, kind of gross.

She touched herself there, then jerked her hand away, mortified. Good little girls didn't touch themselves, not deliberately. Her mother had told her that.

But her mother was gone. And she wasn't a little girl anymore.

Defiantly, she touched herself again, keeping her eyes fixed on her face in the mirror. She trailed her fingers across the surface of the V between her legs, over the sprinkling of crisp hair.

Goose bumps raced up her torso; her nipples puckered, aching. Skye caught her breath at the sensations. She touched herself again, her head filling with thoughts of Kevin, of his lips on hers, his body pressed close, so close against hers.

She closed her eyes and slipped her fingers between her thighs, stroking herself more. She was slick. And warm. Her heart began to pound; her breath quickened.

Skye moved her fingers back and forth. Suddenly, it wasn't Kevin she pictured in her head. It was Chance. Chance's hands. Chance's mouth. A sound escaped her, low and wrenching, as if she hurt. But she didn't hurt. She ached, in a new way, in a way that at once delighted and terrified her. In a way that felt both wrong and right.

She moaned and dropped to her knees, doubling over.

Stars exploded in her head.

Skye realized she was crying. She realized, too, what she had done to herself. What had happened. She curved her arms around her middle and squeezed her eyes shut, wishing for her mother, feeling young and scared and alone. More alone than she had ever felt.

Skye pressed her face closer against her knees. Why was this happening to her? Why was she changing? She didn't want to change; she didn't want to think about Chance in
that
way.

She wanted to go back. To the way she had been before her mother had gone away, to the way she had been the night of her thirteenth birthday. She had been so happy that night. Everything had seemed so right.

Now everything felt wrong. Now nothing seemed to fit.

Skye squeezed her eyes shut tighter, longing to be held and loved, the way her mother had once held and loved her. She longed for someone to assure her everything was going to be all right, that
she
was going to be all right.

Maybe if she wished hard enough, Skye thought, hurting, maybe then she could go back to the way she had been. To before, when Chance had been her best friend and everything had been good between them, to the time when everything had felt right.

But even as she wished as hard as she could, Skye knew that Chance could never be her best friend again. Today her feelings about herself and him had changed forever.

She and Chance could never go back.