and the headboard. She accepted the plastic wineglass and sipped. The wine tasted, even felt good, on her tongue and throat, after the way they'd made love. It was a good combination, she thought, sex and wine. Probably people had been enjoying it for centuries.
Yancy stood up from the bed and stared down at her with a combination of admiration and careful consideration, as if pondering whether to ask her to pose for a photograph.
Then he turned and walked from the room.
'Aren't you going to have a glass?' Pearl asked.
'First the surprise,' he said, glancing back at her over his shoulder.
Pearl sighed, sipped, and waited.
It was such good wine, and strong. And relaxing. She tilted back her head and breathed deeply of the scent and warmth of both their bodies, and felt contentment. Yancy, she had to admit, knew how to treat a lady.
When he returned to the bedroom, still nude, he held one hand behind his back. Carrying something as he approached the bed.
Pearl smiled at him, but he didn't smile back. He had an odd, serious look on his handsome face. Seriousness didn't look right on him, like a hat that was way too big.
'Yancy?'
He raised his forefinger to his lips to signal silence and then sat down near her on the bed.
He brought his hand out from behind his back.
With a crash of knowledge that took her breath away, she saw what he was holding and knew exactly what it meant.
He opened the small, square box with rounded corners, removed a diamond engagement ring, and slipped it on her finger.
45
Holifield, Ohio, 1996
Summer and Saturday night at Holi-Burger. It was the place to cruise. The restaurant itself was a glass and brick box of a building, mostly glass, brightly lighted inside. It was as if it had been set up as a display case to show the workers in their yellow T-shirts buzzing about like bees behind the counter, and the two lines of customers waiting patiently to pick up or place their orders.
The restaurant was set in the center of a large blacktop lot. Parking spaces were marked with yellow lines along the lot's perimeter, leaving room to drive in a circle about the building without going out onto the county roads or the street of small commercial buildings that bordered the north side of the lot. Always there was a trickle of show-off vehicle traffic at Holi-Burger, but especially on Friday and Saturday nights.
Holi-Burger was neither a drive-in nor a drive-through. Though there were a few tables inside, most of the food served there was carryout, and people usually ate it sitting in their parked cars. Those who wanted to watch the cruisers would back their cars into parking spots.
The vehicles that were actually owned by teenagers were usually customized. Cars were chopped to create lower roof-lines or raked forward on jacked-up suspensions. Pickup trucks sported oversized knobby tires that looked as if they belonged on a tractor. The family cars borrowed for the night were generally less interesting, the newer ones looking as if they'd just been driven home from the dealers.
Jerry Grantland sat parked in his mother's eight-year-old green Chevy Impala, definitely not cruiser material. It was scraped and dented along one side from when it had been sideswiped two years ago. Jerry's mother, Miriam, had chosen to keep the insurance payment and leave the car unrepaired. It ran just as well with its exterior damage, and she needed the money.
Idly chewing on a cheeseburger and sipping a large fountain Coke from a soggy waxed cup, Jerry watched the slow and proud parade of vehicles. As a vintage red Mustang went past, its driver, a fat kid with a military buzz cut, glanced over and gave Jerry the finger. The gesture of disdain was for no reason Jerry could figure out. Most of the other drivers stared straight ahead, imperious in their art projects on wheels.
A jacked-up Ford pickup cruised past, deep maroon and gleaming in the sodium lights rimming Holi-Burger's lot. Adam Clement was behind the steering wheel. He was a year older than Jerry, tall and painfully skinny, with scruffy blond hair and thick glasses with oversized frames.
Jerry paused in his chewing and sat forward. Someone was in the truck's high cab with Adam. As it rolled past, Jerry caught a glimpse of the passenger. A girl. He could tell that much by her size and hair. And she looked like Chrissie Keller.
Chrissie had been hanging out with Adam and his group lately, so maybe the two of them were going together.
Jerry didn't see what Chrissie saw in an awkward beanpole like Adam. And it wasn't as if he was a genius. Adam was always getting special help, and he spent more than his share of time in detention. So what was the appeal? Jerry didn't think it was Adam's truck that Chrissie liked. But then with girls, women, who could tell?
Jerry waited patiently for the maroon truck to come around again. The Chevy's windows were down, and he could hear revving engines, voices, a cacophony of music from radios. Someone had the Indians' ballgame on the radio, the announcer's voice somehow finding its way through the muted riot of sound. A huge summer moth lit on Jerry's left elbow. He flicked it away and drew in the arm he'd had propped out the window.
He got a better look at the maroon truck this time around and was pretty sure Chrissie was in there with Adam.
In fact, absolutely sure.
But he was wrong, and he found out immediately.
A gray Voyager minivan bounced over the concrete lip of the driveway and rolled to an open parking space about fifty feet from Jerry's. Chrissie got out, waited for a break in cruise traffic, and strode quickly and purposefully toward the restaurant. She was wearing a white tank top, cut-off jeans, and what looked like floppy rubber thongs, the kind with the little strip of rubber that went between the toes. Her brown hair bounced as she walked. The way the jeans were cut so short, it made her tanned legs look incredibly long.
Jerry was one of the few people who could tell the twins apart within seconds rather than minutes. He'd spent plenty of time observing-studying-them. Chrissie walked gracefully but with a slight forward lean and her elbows tucked in farther than Tiffany's.
Jerry had been so sure, even though he hadn't gotten a clear look. But he had no doubt now that it was Tiffany in the truck with Adam.
He watched Chrissie enter the restaurant and join the line at the counter where orders were placed.
Jerry took a deep breath, climbed out of the Chevy, and jogged across the lot toward the restaurant.
He was able to be next in line, right behind Chrissie, standing so close he could smell her perfume or shampoo. Better than that was the faint heat and scent of her perspiration.
She pretended she hadn't seen him, but when it was impossible to ignore him any longer she glanced at him, nodded, and turned away again.
He didn't know what to say, so said simply, 'Chrissie.'
She turned back to look at him. 'Hi, Jerry.'
His throat was tight, and he had nothing to say. 'Got the minivan, I see,' was all that squeaked out.
She didn't bother answering his inane question.
'There's a, uh, dance next Saturday,' Jerry managed to say.
Golden legs moved at the bottom of his vision as she shifted her body to look at him. 'No, Jerry.'
'Why not?' he asked. 'Really, why not?'
'Why not what?'
'Why won't you go out with me?'
'I don't want to.'
'But-'
'Drop it, Jerry.'
'I mean, really?'
