a different person. The ride from Eagle Lake into town was short, but it took me on what was to be the first step of the longest journey of my life.
With my arms around his tree-trunk middle, I dared to press myself against his back, and then he wasn’t the only one who was lost. I was, too. I grew dizzy with his smell and with the feel of the wind in my face and the roar of the motor in my ears.
At that point, I didn’t know anything but his name, and that he rode a Harley, was in the Navy and had ocean-blue eyes. It’s funny that I could see a blue ocean in my mind’s eye, because the only saltwater I’d ever actually seen was the gray-brown Gulf of Mexico from the seawall of Galveston during wild-girl weekends from college.
Yet though I knew little about him, I understood something deep inside—this chance meeting was changing the course of my life.
I pointed the way to Alamo Drive and wondered if he was amused by the quirky names of things—the Halfway Baptist Church, Adam’s Ribs B-B-Q and the Celestial Café, the filling station with its hand-lettered sign, “We sell gas to anyone in a glass container.” Until I went away to college, this had been my whole world. It was imminently, almost oppressively safe, as small and tightly knit as a Catholic school uniform.
Back then, the sight of a Harley roaring across the courthouse square brought on glares of righteous disapproval. People in those parts still talked about hippies and beatniks as though the countercultures were still a threat. Maybelle King came out to stand under the awning of Eve’s Garden Shoppe, planting her hands on her hips in consternation. I laughed aloud. No one knew it was me on the back of the bike, but I wouldn’t have cared if they did.
Buddy Plawski’s house came up far too quickly, in the neighborhood where I grew up. When I got off the Harley, I still felt the buzz of the motor deep in my bones. Alamo Drive hadn’t changed in decades, and for all I know, it’s still the same: a quiet lane shaded by live oaks and lined with genteel Victorian-style houses and white picket fences.
After Steve parked the bike and took off his helmet, he looked around with a puzzled expression.
“Not what you expected?” I asked, handing over my helmet.
“It’s fine. I can’t imagine growing up here.”
“Where did you grow up?”
He had such a fine, gentle smile. “Honey, you don’t want to know.”
“What, is it a secret?”
“Nope. Just depressing.”
“I’m a very cheerful person. Bet I can handle it.”
He also had a long, slow way of eyeing me that made my spine tingle, I swear it did. “I bet you can, too.”
But he didn’t say anymore. Instead he said, “Let’s talk about you, Grace.” And with almost embarrassing eagerness, I told him the sum total of who I was—born and raised in Edenville, the only child of parents who expected much of me, the only grandchild of a widow who expected nothing but love and honesty from me. Twenty years old, a business major at Trinity.
In turn, he told me virtually nothing. This was surprising to me. Most men would be quick to whip out their most impressive credentials and most women, myself included, would be quick to be impressed.
However, at that moment, I had nothing from him, nothing but that brand-new incessant tingling inside telling me to step through the door he held open.
“Thanks for the help,” he said.
“You’re welcome.” I racked my brain, trying to figure out a reason to linger.
“Didn’t you say you lived near Bud?”
“Right down the street.” I pointed out my house.
“What are you doing tonight?” he asked.
The girls and I planned to see the brand-new movie Back to the Future at the Lone Star Drive-In and stuff ourselves with popcorn and syrupy Dr Pepper.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Let’s go out,” he said.
“I thought you were here to see Buddy.”
That unforgettable grin flashed. “Not anymore.”
Chapter Seven
As I got ready for our first date, my parents bombarded me with questions. They were convinced that I had ruined any chance I had at a decent future by dumping Travis Hunt, and they were determined to dislike anyone else I might bring home. I had no answers to the questions they fired at me, so I dodged them, saying simply that tonight’s date was someone I’d met recently and that they’d meet him when he came to pick