Runaways (25 page)

“Geez, will you all stop! I
am not
going on a date! I'm just going to help him fix our car,” I cried, desperate to have them drop the subject. I couldn't hide the flames that lit up my cheeks and Crystal couldn't help but poke fun at me.

“Hmm . . .” she said. “Methinks the lady doth protest too much!”

As they sat there giggling at me I wondered,
What if Raven was right? What if Todd really did like me? Would I let him kiss me as Butterfly had asked?

With all these thoughts and questions swarming in my head I barely heard Todd's car as he pulled into the driveway of the bed and breakfast. My legs were trembling as I went out to meet him and, when I turned back toward the house, I saw Crystal's, Raven's and Butterfly's faces pressed against the window.

They all looked so worried, as if they could see into my future. As if what they saw scared them.

“S
o what's it like to be an orphan?” Todd asked as we drove to his dad's station.

“Well, I never knew who my father was and I have no idea if I have any brothers or sisters.”

He nodded.

“How about your mother? Did you know her?”

“Not really. This ribbon,” I said, showing him the ribbon tied around my wrist, “is the only thing I know came from her. She had tied it in my hair when she gave me up and someone had the sense to save it for me. It used to be bright red, but the color's badly faded,” I added.

We pulled into the garage and got out. He unlocked the door and raised it. It rattled on its runners and stopped. Then he flipped a switch and the neon lights blinked a few times before illuminating the inside of the garage where Gordon's wagon was parked. The hood was up. Todd went to
his workbench and studied the water pump for a few moments.

“How was your father?” I asked. He didn't look up to respond.

“He was sleeping when I got there and was still sleeping when I left,” he said. He plugged in a light and brought it over to the engine. I held it for him and he studied our broken water pump again before choosing his tools almost the way a surgeon would choose a scalpel.

“I guess you've been working on cars all your life.”

“From the moment I could hold a wrench,” he replied. “I don't think I was more than fourteen before Dad started to leave me in charge of this place. He'd go off and do something for someone, which was usually followed by a visit to the tavern. It was always supposed to be a quick cold beer, but it always turned out to be hours. The work would pile up. People would be furious about their cars not being done, and I had to make up stories.

“You know what?” he said pausing and turning to look at me.

“What?”

“You and I aren't that much different. I had a father and a mother, but it was as if I didn't most of the time. I cooked for myself, took care of my own clothes and cleaned the house after my mother left. I even wrote my own excuses for school when I was absent,” he added with a smile. “Being here all the time, I learned to forge Dad's signature real good. Now, people think of this place more as mine than Dad's. He doesn't care.” He thought a moment as if he were deciding whether to say something else, and then he returned to his work.

“I understand what you're saying,” I told him,
“but at least you didn't have to live in a state-run facility.”

“I guess you girls had it real bad in that home, bad enough to run off like this without any money, huh?”

“We had some money,” I said and told him about Sunshine. He listened and worked. Soon the broken water pump was out and he was fitting the used replacement into the engine.

“The road's no place for you, Brooke. There's lots of stuff like that going on. I hope you find what you're looking for soon and settle down,” he said.

“Me too.”

He wiped his hands on a rag.

“Want a cold drink? I've got some soda or even a beer, if you want that?”

“I'll take a soda,” I said. He went to the office and returned with two Cokes. We sat on a bench and looked at the station wagon.

“So whose Buick is that?” he asked.

I was silent.

“It's not one of yours if you're all foster children, right?” he pursued with a gentle smile.

“It belongs to the creature who runs the house with his wife,” I replied.

“Gordon Tooey?”

“Yes. How did you know that?”

“I looked at the registration in the glove compartment,” he replied and drank from his Coke. “Serious business, stealing a car.”

“Now you can appreciate just how desperate we were,” I said.

“Yeah, but how's Gordon going to take it?” he asked with a wry smile.

“Not well,” I said. “Crystal's afraid he might be coming after us.”

“You guys really are on the run.” He took another sip of his soda and looked at me. “You don't look like an outlaw,” he kidded.

We stared at each other for a long moment. As I measured him, he was measuring me in just about the same way, I thought. I wondered if I reminded him of someone. Neither of us seemed intimidated or embarrassed by the other's long gaze. It made me feel warm and comfortable rather than self-conscious now. I liked the way his eyes softened and moved ever so slightly as he washed them over me with care that suggested he wanted to commit me to memory forever and ever.

He looked away, toward the door and the night sky.

“Beautiful night,” he said. “It's actually my favorite time of the year. Late spring here is warm but not yet so warm it's uncomfortable or too humid. I tend to take more time just staring at the stars or watching birds. I like it, but I also hate it.”

“Hate it? Why?” I asked quickly. “You sound almost poetic when you talk about it. Crystal would love to hear you.”

He laughed.

“Poetic, huh? My old English teacher would topple over in hysterics if she heard you say that.”

“Why did you say you hate it?”

“I don't know. I guess it's because I feel lonelier than I do other times of the year,” he replied, putting his bottle down and returning to the car.

I sat there watching him replace the broken hose, feeling my own heart palpitate in ways and rhythms I had not felt before. I rose and stood beside him as he struggled with a rusted bolt.

“Don't you have a girlfriend?” I blurted out, and
then quickly wished I could take the words back. It was one of those questions you don't want to ask because you dread the answer, but a question you know you have to ask.

“Did,” he said. “We broke up about three months ago. She was rushing me into something I wasn't ready for,” he added before I could ask why.

He sprayed the bolt and worked it out much easier, holding it up as if he had extracted a gold nugget.

“Ta-da!” he said. I smiled and he suddenly looked very serious. “You've got the cutest nose I've ever seen,” he said. It was a compliment that seemed to fall out of the darkness, completely unexpected, stealing my breath for a moment. “I guess you've heard that before,” he added, turning back to the engine.

“No,” I said softly. “Never.”

He looked over at me like he didn't believe me and then went back to work. I watched, but my heart was pounding so hard, I didn't think I could hold the lamp steady enough. He didn't seem to notice how much my hand shook. Finally, the used part was installed.

“Time to test our work,” he declared. “Go start the engine.”

I did so and he watched it run.

“How's the gauge doing?”

“It's back to normal,” I said. “We'll have to wait and see though.”

“Why don't you let it run for a while,” he suggested.

After a few more minutes, he asked me again and I told him it was fine.

“You girls lucked out,” he concluded. “You can turn it off,” he said and I did.

He began to clean up.

“So where do you think you'll end up?” he asked.

“We want to go to Los Angeles. We hope we'll find an inexpensive place to live and find work. Crystal wants to get back to school and we want to find a dancing school for Butterfly,” I told him.

“Butterfly? The little one?” I nodded. “She seems so fragile, too fragile for this sort of thing.”

“You're right, but she's got us to protect and watch over her.”

“Is it enough?” he followed quickly. “Sorry,” he said, “but I tend to be brutally realistic sometimes.”

“It's all right.” I took a deep breath. “I don't know all the answers, Todd,” I said. “I know that we hated where we were and what was happening to us. We felt trapped. We felt as if we were merchandise left on a shelf, merchandise no one would want to take home with them. Maybe we were crazy. Maybe we were just a bunch of stupid girls, but we took charge of our lives, even if it's only for a little while, and that felt good. When I first drove out of there . . .”

“What?” he said, holding his smile.

“I don't know. I felt so free, so powerful. I just felt . . . alive. I guess I sound stupid.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “You sound pretty wonderful to me.”

I felt my face warm. Why did I have to blush so much?

“I can understand how you felt.” He walked to the doorway and I followed alongside. For a moment he just stared out at the road, the woods and the bushes. “This place sometimes puts me in a strange, sad mood, as if I've got to run fast to catch up with the best things in my life, things that are all
slipping away from me. I feel the same sort of panic you felt. I feel trapped and alone.”

He stepped out and we walked as he continued.

“Sometimes, I see a car with out-of-state plates go by and I think about just walking away from here, getting into my car and driving until I run out of gas. Wherever that is, I'll stay and make a life for myself,” he said, looking out at the darkness.

There was a flatbed truck beside the garage. It looked like something from the sixties, rusting, missing a rear tire, the passenger side window shattered.

“Why don't you do just that?” I asked softly. His voice and mine were barely above a whisper now. He shrugged.

“Dad, I guess. I'm all he has, even though half the time, he doesn't even know I'm around. And then I think, what will I have out there? At least here I have something. It's not much, I know, but it's mine and I'm my own boss. Not many guys my age can say that,” he added.

He boosted himself up onto the flatbed and sat, his hands on his lap, his head a bit bowed. I stepped on the bumper and jumped up beside him with such ease, he laughed.

“You're pretty nimble.”

“I can stand on my head,” I bragged, “but don't ask me to do it,” I followed quickly.

The two of us looked at the dark street. It was still, quiet.

“Not much traffic goes by here this time of the night, does it?” I asked.

“No.” He leaned back on his elbow, found a dried piece of grass on the flatbed and put it into his mouth. “What about you, Brooke? Did you leave a boyfriend back there?”

“No,” I said quickly.

“C'mon, there must have been a few,” he insisted.

“Well, no one important at least,” I admitted finally.

“What do you mean? How can that be?” he kidded. “How could boys resist falling head over heels for you?” Something in his eyes turned serious, and I knew he was paying me another compliment.

“I used to ask myself that every day,” I joked back, suddenly uncomfortable.

He laughed harder and then suddenly stopped and fixed his gaze on me. In the darkness, his beautiful ebony eyes glistened. When he turned, his body moved closer to me. We were only inches apart. I didn't turn away as his lips drew closer. We touched, almost as if by accident at first, tentative, soft, quick, and then he shifted his weight and kissed me harder, longer, his hand going to my shoulder to hold me to him.

“I like you, Brooke,” he said. “I like you a lot.”

“I like you, too.”

“I'm glad your car's water pump broke,” he whispered.

We kissed again and then we lay back. He had his arm outstretched so that my head rested on it and when I turned, I turned into his chest. Above us the stars blinked like candles in the dark. It made me dizzy to lie there, feeling his heartbeat as well as my own. His lips were on my forehead and then slowly traced the bridge of my nose, paused at the tip, kissed it and moved to my lips again. This kiss was long, softer, warmer. I felt the heat rising up my legs as if I had lowered myself into a warm bath.

I put my fingers into his hair and combed through it, moving down the back of his neck. I heard him moan and felt his excitement building. He moved closer, his right hand sliding down my arm and under to find my breast. I turned into him and buried my face against his chest. He kissed the top of my head and then nibbled gently on my ear. It sent a delightful chill down my spine.