Love In a Small Town (15 page)

"Logan," he looked at him intently, "let me give you some hope, here." Logan's return gaze was so needy. "Sarah is very loyal to her friends. Sometimes to an unreasonable degree. She told me the TAMs—as you call them—were the only kids in the school to offer her friendship before you came along. Being unaccepted is a new and frightening experience for her. She's grateful for that and won't leave them without very convincing proof that they're doing her harm.

"On the other hand, she's very committed to her friendship with you. She told me you two are BFFs. I wouldn't worry too much about—what's his name—Jim?"

Reassured, Logan replied, "Jim Holder. I guess I understand. Sarah's so afraid of being alone. She told me she doesn't know how. I'm used to it because I've always been different, and always been ragged for it, but for her, it's hard."

"I had no idea it was this bad. I'm glad she can count you as a friend."

"Yeah." They sat in companionable silence for a minute.

Since their conversation began, David had wondered what about the boy seemed so familiar. Hell. Logan was him at this age. He'd bet on it.

"Logan?"

"Yes, sir?" He squirmed, alarmed, glancing at David intently, with eyes that saw more than you wanted to reveal.

"What did you mean when you said you were different? How did you mean, different?"

He fidgeted. David could see he was considering his options, always expecting the worst from any adult.

"I'm not a freak, sir," he said hotly.

"I never suggested you were. Why would I think that? What I see is a normal boy who's in some distress because he had an argument with his new girlfriend."

Logan looked startled at the use of 'girlfriend.' Haltingly, but with some trust in his eyes that gladdened David, he began, "Well, I'm really smart—more than anyone else in the school, even when I try not to let it show. Honest, sir, I'm not boasting."

He studied David intently, obviously expecting some sign of disbelief. With none apparent, he added, "The teachers just kind of ignore me."

Keeping his head down, he idly picked at the soggy napkin in front of him, until, with a defiant look, he confessed the rest.

"I'm also not good at sports and stuff like that, so the kids make fun of me. My clothes aren't cool. They don't like somebody who looks different. I like stuff they don't understand, like physics, and advanced math, and Shakespeare." He shrugged and inhaled, resentment building in his voice.

"I can't do anything about being smart. I like learning stuff." He glanced at David to assess how he was doing.

David's smile was sympathetic. "Would it surprise you, Logan, if I told you I know how you feel, because I've been there?"

Clearly Logan wanted to believe him, but wasn't quite convinced.

"If you don't mind my asking, Logan, do you know what your IQ might be?"

"A couple of years ago the school tested me and the principal got real excited. She wanted me to go to a special school they have at the University, for smart kids." He squirmed.

David sympathized. He knew the feeling. "How did the test go?"

"I tested out at 180, but that was as high as the test went."

"Why didn't you want to go to the school?"

"Well, I did." The resentment was still there, smoldering in his eyes. He tried to make light of it by smiling and shrugging his shoulders. "I'll tell ya, it's hard to think about two more years in the school here. I get tired of the teasing, and the classes are kind of boring."

"So, why are you here?"

More fidgeting. David waited, knowing Logan wanted to escape, but couldn't until he fixed things with Sarah. Shame showed on his face as he chose his next words.

"Uh, my dad didn't want, uh, didn't think I should. He's away a lot, so there'd be nobody home with my mother, and she's sick, sort of. I have to be home to help my mother."

David hoped he was quick enough to quell the shock and anger he felt on Logan's behalf before it showed on his face. Damn it. Sometimes there was no justice. It wasn't fair that this kid had to make that kind of sacrifice to care for his mother who was a drunk.

David tempered the sympathy in his voice because he knew Logan hated it. "Sarah explained the problem with your mother, Logan, and I'm sorry. It would have been great for you."

"My dad even taught me how to drive and I have a special license so I can take my mother shopping and to the doctor. I can drive a stick shift. He taught me how on an eighteen-wheeler."

"But you're only fifteen."

"You can get a driver's license in Arkansas when you're fourteen if you can prove special circumstances." He flushed, remembering those "special circumstances."

David considered Logan's story. He couldn't prevent his outrage on Logan's behalf, and at the injustice of the sacrifices the kid was expected to make. He'd never had much sympathy for addiction of any kind, but realized his attitude came from his belief that he was smart enough to handle anything that came his way. The arrogance of the intellectually gifted, he supposed.

"When I was a kid, I tested out at genius level and hated it. You have me beat by a couple of points on the IQ, but I know what it's like to be isolated by your intelligence. It's a special kind of loneliness if the kids around you can't accept you, and they treat you like a freak. I had the advantage that money buys, so my parents saw to it that I had special tutoring while I went to special schools."

"Did it help?"

David's smile mocked himself. "No. I wanted friends, like everyone else. While kids my age went to football games, I studied quarks."

"Yeah, they're kind of weird, aren't they? The quarks, I mean," Logan agreed, relaxed now. "I like math. It's dependable and predictable. There's no deceit in math. It makes sense out of life. It's the only constant truth." He sighed.

"Anyhow, that's what made Sarah mad. I told her it was dumb to care what other people said and she thought I was saying she was dumb." Logan's misery overwhelmed him. "That isn't what I meant, sir," he pleaded, taking refuge behind his Pepsi.

"She'll get over it. Trust me. Sarah's one of these people who have a need to take care of others, so she can't stay mad." His statement was prophetic. The door to the kitchen opened and Sarah stood there holding a bottle of water and a bowl.

"Hi. I brought pretzels. I'm sorry I yelled at you, Logan. I was upset about what kids at school were saying, and my dad being mad at me." She gave David a pleading look as she sat down. "It got to be too much."

"You're mad at Sarah, sir?" Logan, aghast, couldn't keep the disapproval and shock out of his voice.

David's laughter exploded spontaneously. It couldn't be helped. The boy was clearly smitten with his daughter.
Damn!
He wasn't ready for this.

"My dad found out about the tattoo." She sounded sorry.

Clearly upset with her, Logan said, "I told you not to listen to what Ashley says. It gets you into trouble, every time. That was a dumb thing to do."

His tone was so proprietary; David had to stifle another laugh. "You've seen this tattoo, Logan?"

He was as outraged at the notion as an elderly aunt, which added to David's mirth.

"Oh, no, sir. I wouldn't. It's on her hip."

"Sorry, Logan, I didn't mean to insult you."

Studying Sarah for a few seconds, and considering the situation, he said, "Okay, I guess you've got enough to worry about without me being angry. You're off the hook about the tattoo, but don't do it again. It's going to be harder for me to trust you from now on."

He stood. "I'm going to finish dinner. You're invited, Logan. I'm making moussaka with eggplant instead of potatoes. Are you up for it?"

"Uh." He was clearly torn.

"I'd guess you've never had eggplant?"

Sarah hastened to explain, an apology in her voice, David noted with some irritation. "It's Dad's favorite vegetable. We have it a lot."

"I've never eaten it. I'm sure my dad doesn't know what it is, and my mother doesn't cook."

"Then consider this a learning experience."

"Sure. I'll go home and check on my mother, first." He turned to Sarah. "Oh, yeah. I didn't tell you the librarian ordered a book for us on Shakespeare's flowers from the inter-library loan. We'll have it tomorrow."

"What's that about?" David asked.

"Sarah's science project, sir. Sarah's making a perfume using flowers mentioned by Shakespeare in his writings, and is doing a paper on it."

"I told you about Lynn teaching me," Sarah added. "It was Logan's idea. He knows about Shakespeare."

David decided dinner could wait a bit, and sat down again. "How long have you been reading Shakespeare, Logan?"

Dismayed, he watched the kid's expression shutter again and hastened to put him at ease. "I discovered Shakespeare in my early teens. I loved the words—the way he used them made you see in a new way."

"Yes, sir. I guess I started reading him when I was about eight."

Logan was eager to talk now. David relaxed. He'd have to take great care with the boy's fragile self-esteem.

"Do you have favorite passages?"

"I like the sonnets, sir. My mom gets sick a lot and it makes her feel better when I read Shakespeare to her. I wish I could see a play sometime."

"There are tapes and DVDs, Logan. Watch those," Sarah said.

"Uh, we don't have a VCR or DVD player."

"Then we'll rent some and you'll come over here and watch, right, Dad?"

"Of course. Any time, Logan. Do you have a favorite?" he asked, meaning a play.

"A sonnet, sir?"

He sounded too eager to share for David to correct him, so he said, "I know the ones I like. What's yours?"

"Some of the stuff he writes… it's like he's right there in the room with you. In Sonnet 143 he talks about a mother who sees something she wants and leaves her baby to chase after it, while the kid cries. It ends with:

'So will I pray that thou may'st have thy Will,

If thou turn back and my loud crying still.'"

The image of Logan, yearning for a parent's presence, wanting to be held and loved, while reading that to his passed-out mother, tore into David's soul. Choking down emotions threatening to overwhelm him, and vowing that he was going to watch out for this boy, he stood, saying, "Dinner will be in half an hour." To himself, he added,
You've just made another BFF, kid—me.

Logan, seemingly unaware of the reaction he'd triggered, stood and picked up his backpack. "I'll be right back." He headed home, across the yard.

Lindsay wielded her duster like a weapon of destruction, thrusting with determination and force, between the bottles of bubble bath on her store shelves. The action reflected her belligerent mood while she argued with herself.

David had been in her mind since Saturday night. She'd accomplished nothing all week. Invoices needed to be paid, product ordered, the screw-up on her phone bill taken care of—all the myriad problems attendant to managing a thriving business—and she had done nothing except think of that man.

He made her yearn for closeness, to be held by another and feel the warmth. The notion frightened her. She couldn't ever put herself in that position again—of being vulnerable to the possible cruelty of another man.

I don't need this. It's simple. A no-brainer. I'll just refuse to go out with him again. You're falling for him,
her inner voice warned.
You know he's attracted to you. Stay away before you get in over your head.

Unfortunately, while telling herself this, she was dusting the Kama Sutra
s
ection with all its different flavors of love oils, conjuring up visions of sexual foreplay she'd only read about in romance novels.

Lordy, woman, you don't really believe all that, do you? Normal people can't possibly do those things, but it might be fun to find out
.

The unexpectedness of that thought brought doubts coursing through her, recalling the nightmare of her marriage: being held against her will, subjected to his brutality, smothered under the weight of another body. She immediately rejected the memory. It was time to put all that behind her and lose the way it inhibited her dreams of love and having a family. She wasn't a fearful teenager anymore.

She fixed her mind on an image of David.

She'd been the victim of her own youth and naiveté for too long.

I have no reason to be afraid of David. He isn't like the other few dates I've had over the years who assumed dinner and conversation was a prelude to bed.

Recalling Saturday night, she admitted the closeness of being held, while dancing and later, made her feel safe and contented. How she missed being held since her mother died. It had been such an important part of their relationship.

With the drug salesman it was the hands roaming everywhere, pushing and squeezing. She recalled her anger and his shock at her reaction. The 'cold bitch' epithet he had thrown at her when he literally evicted her from his car onto the driveway by her house. He smelled distressingly of menthol from the Noxzema he used as shaving cream. Why didn't men think about how they smelled when they went on a date?

She smiled at that. David's natural odor was sun-warmed skin with the hint of cedar from the cologne he wore. It reminded her of clean lakes, and fresh breezes, but there was something dry there, masculine.
Essence of eggplant?
Laughing at her joke, she decided she'd ask him the next time she saw him.

Yes, she would see him again, and maybe they'd kiss again and the same thrill would shoot through her, like the last time, and he'd hold her close so she could feel his strength instead of her fear.

Why would David think she was anything special? She was maybe passably pretty, but not beautiful, and her figure wasn't great. She wasn't fat, but she wasn't in shape, either. Not like Janine, who devoted hours to working-out, only so she could appeal to a man. Why should she, since she didn't want the attention?

Well, maybe she could care a little more. Nothing she could do about her breasts, just your average B-cup, but the waist could be thinner and the tummy had begun to droop, just a bit.