That first night at the Pioneer Hotel in Cornwall, Claire saw him standing alone at the end of the bar. Tall, strong, sandy-haired, and sad-looking. Stubble on his chin, a cigarette tucked behind his ear. The pack rolled into the sleeve of his white T-shirt. The filthiest fingernails she had ever seen. That gold ring gleaming against the brown skin of the ring finger of his left hand. He looked up and smiled tightly, shyly. She saw it, the idea of her, passing across his face. The blond girl with the pink shoes and her big, mean-eyed friend, parking themselves at the bar as if they were old enough to drink. He drained his glass and walked away. Out the door to the parking lot, into his truck before she could catch his eye one more time.
Before she could smile that smile again.
And just like it was in every corny movie she had ever seen, the sight of him had filled her up with fantasies of a new life. She thought she had seen her future when she saw that man at the bar. (Years later, in that shoebox house back in Preston Mills, tears would fill her eyes when she thought of it. How strong and pure her hope had been. How fully and simply she had expected a grown man to come into her life and take her away from this place. How she had expected to become something better.
But Darren Robertson was no prince.
He was hardly even a man. He was just a boy, transplanted from some other sad small town not much different from her own.)
Claire followed him out to the parking lot as though she were in a dream, as though the normal rules of life had been suspended. As though love at first sight were real. He looked at her through the windshield and shook his head. No way. He shooed her away with his hand, as you would a dog. She turned around and walked slowly back across the parking lot to the bar, her pink heels sinking into the soft mud, the street lights shining down on her like a spotlight. He would be back the next night. And she would be waiting for him, her Butter Cream hair perfectly teased and sprayed, her pink sweater straining across her chest.
And her heart bursting with fervent, crushing teenage love.