had found Nicholas when he wasn't looking, when he had made a conscious decision not to look ever again. Not after Janey. It had taken too long to get over Janey, longer even than Cynthia.
He remembered he had scared Janey, too. And now Beth. She had gone off with Mitch because he seemed 'a little less scary...sometimes'. And because Mitch would help her where he could not. With the money and ring, Mitch could buy for her what Nicholas had refused to buy -- a way out of her predicament -- an end to the life that grew within her.
Nicholas suspected it was not his baby she carried, but he had craved the hope of it. A future. Something beyond the darkness that always called to him. A way to a different kind of magic than the one he always sought. But Beth had been in control all along, and just as he had started to feel the crazy part of him, the scary side, slip away, she had left him.
"Gotta go," she said. "Ha ha."
"Mister, if you order me a burger and a Coke, I'll sit with you and -- who knows?" she had said softly with her baby lisp on the night he met her. He remembered how her voice had jolted him out of his reverie, and, at first, for just a second, he had thought it was Janey's.
He had rolled the window down all the way to talk to her, and she had leaned on her elbows to meet him eye to eye. "Are you hungry?"
"A little." She looked half-starved with her large, hazel eyes and sunken cheek s. She was dressed in some man's old dress shirt, her father's he had supposed at the time. The shirttails stopped just short of her ragged-denim knees. She had a yellow scarf tied around a pert, if scraggly, red ponytail, and she carried a purse that seemed large enough for her to sleep in.
"Get in." Nicholas turned on his headlights to summon the carhop and leaned over to unlock the passenger door for her. "Do you want french fries, too?"
"Yeah, thanks," she said as she scrambled in, pushing her purse to the floor between her legs. There was silence while she settled herself, rooting in the vast caverns of her bag for a coral lipstick, then spreading and blotting it on her lips. A pot of rouge appeared next. Contorting apples into her thin cheeks she patted them with the coloring, blending it lightly over the bridge of her nose and dabbing it on the tiny cleft of her chin. She disposed of her Juicy Fruit gum in the foil wrapper she fished from her shirt pocket, pulled the scarf off, and quickly brushed through her hair until it crackled with static and wisped about her neck in soft, sunset-colored clouds. She studied herself critically in the visor mirror then turned to smile at him. "Don't let the freckles fool you. I'm old enough."
Nicholas frowned and gave his order into the crackling speaker before he responded. "Old enough for what?"
"You know. Whatever. I'm not a street beggar. I intend to pay for my dinner."
"Do you have a name?"
"Elizabeth Barrett Browning," she said, surprising him.
"Oh, a poet."
"Yeah, limericks mostly. I not only write them. I inspire them. Or so I am told."
"And what's become of Robert Browning?"
"A discarded muse. I got tired of counting the ways."
Nicholas appraised her breasts, which made barely perceptible bumps in her loose shirt, and her tiny wrists, which jingled with charm bracelets. "How old is old enough?"
"I could lie and say I was eighteen, but let's just say I'm getting there. Look, if you want your fee up front, we better start now. I like my burgers hot, and they serve fast in this place."
"What is the going rate? Do I get a little more for the fries?" He was amused by her businesslike manner. He was used to shy innocents. She just had the looks of one.
"Nope, one payment for all I can eat." She had unbuttoned her shirt and was wriggling out of her jeans when he stopped her.
"I'll wait. I prefer dessert to appetizers."
"Fair enough. If you trust me. I could just eat and run, you know."
"That would be all right, too."
"Suit yourself, mister."
"Nicholas."
"Is that a first name or a last?"
"First."
"You can call me Beth."
Their meal arrived and Beth attacked it with unrestrained eagerness. "I'll take the onions off. I have to stay kissing-fresh for you, and I'm all out of