Neal! Thurmond’s coming!”
Neal turned to see the bathroom door partially open, with T. J. Sweet’s head poked through the crack. She grinned. As her best friend, T. J. always watched her back, but sometimes she went a little overboard with the bodyguard routine.
“So what? That little toad of a principal wouldn’t be caught dead coming into the girls’ bathroom. He’s scared spitless that somebody might slap a sexual harassment lawsuit on him. Shut the door.”
T. J. came into the room and let the door close behind her. “What’s gotten into you, Neal? If he nails you for smoking, you’ll be suspended. Not the best way to start out your senior year.”
Neal waved the cigarette at the mirror and gazed at her reflection through the smoke. “My point exactly. This is my senior year, and I intend to make the most of it. Now, what do you think of this outfit?”
T. J. stared at Neal as if seeing her for the first time. “Where did you get that? You look like a hooker.”
“Exactly.” Neal straightened one sleeve of the tight black sweater and pushed the waist of her leather miniskirt down below her bellybutton. “It’s time for some changes, my friend. Michael Damatto won’t be able to resist me in this outfit.”
“Mike Damatto? That biker who rides the red Harley and works at the garage?”
“He’s not just a biker,” Neal shot back. “He’s . . . complex.”
“He’s wild, you mean. And he’s twenty-three.”
Neal turned toward T. J. and shook her head. “Since when did you turn into the Church Lady? You sound like my grandmother.”
“I just want to graduate, OK? And your grandmother would drop dead on the spot if she saw you dressed like that.”
“She’s not going to see me. I’m meeting Mike in exactly”— she looked at her watch—“fifteen minutes.”
“In fifteen minutes we’ll be ten minutes into Lit class, remember? And if—”
A banging on the door interrupted them. The principal’s wheedling voice came through the closed door. “Miss Sweet, I know you’re in there. Open up.”
T. J. opened the door a crack. Neal could see Thurmond’s round, red face on the other side. The veins in his neck bulged against his collar, and he tugged at his tie as if he were choking.
“Is something wrong, Mr. Thurmond?” T. J. asked in a high-pitched childish singsong.
“I . . . I thought I saw Miss McDougall come in here,” he stammered, sniffing the air like a dog trying to catch a scent. “Has someone been smoking?”
“Smoking?” T. J. said in her best innocent tone. “Why, I don’t know, Mr. Thurmond. Surely not. This is school property, after all. Smoking is strictly forbidden.”
“Indeed it is,” he huffed. “What about Miss McDougall?”
“Yes, sir, she’s here with me.” T. J. leaned closer to him. “We’ve got a little problem, sir.”
“Problem? What kind of problem?”
“Nothing serious. Just a little”—she lowered her voice to a whisper—“female thing. Neal Grace was—well, caught unawares, if you catch my drift.”
Thurmond jerked back as if he’d been snakebit, and his face turned from its normal red to a shade somewhere between fuchsia and purple. Neal escaped into one of the stalls, overcome with laughter.
“Oh. Well . . . ah, yes. I see,” the principal said. “Take your time, both of you. No rush. No rush at all.” He disappeared, and Neal could hear his wing tips on the stairs as he bolted for the safety of his office.
She came out of the stall and gave T. J. a high-five. “That was brilliant! Total genius! Thanks so much. I gotta go.”
“Go? Go where?”
“I told you, Teej, I’m meeting Mike Damatto. He’s probably waiting for me behind the gym right now. I’m going to be late.”
“But what about Lit class?”
Neal laughed. “I’m ditching Lit, of course. And Biology. And Study Hall. See you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” T. J. frowned. “But—”
“Gotta run. Oh, by the way, I’m leaving a message for Mom telling her I’m having dinner at your house and studying with you tonight. If she calls, cover for me, OK? I’ll come by later and tell you all about it.”
“This is not a good idea.”
Neal ran a hand through her hair. “This is my one big chance with Mike Damatto, T. J. Believe me, it’s a very good idea.”
The bar was dark and smoky, and the beer was lukewarm. Neal didn’t really like beer, but Mike had brought it to the table, so she sipped at it and pretended to be enjoying herself. In one corner, a jukebox was playing a morose country song, its rhythms punctuated by the clack of pool balls from the next room.
“So,” Mike said as he wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, “pretty cool place, huh?”
Neal looked around. “Yeah, it’s great.”
It wasn’t great. Not even close. Every time Neal moved her feet, her shoes stuck to the floor. And she didn’t even want to think about what kind of unidentified protein might be lurking amid the chips or chopped up in the salsa. Her beer glass had an old lipstick stain on the rim, and she gingerly turned it around to drink from the other side.
The place was a dive, but that didn’t matter. She was on a date with Mike Damatto. He had a face to die for, and a body to match. Muscled arms. Great abs. A square jaw and a shock of dark hair that punked up over his forehead. His eyelids drooped perpetually at half-mast—what T. J. called “bedroom eyes.” Now those eyes were watching her with a smoldering intensity as he drank his beer and ordered another.
The tattoo on his right forearm—a snake coiled to strike— had a banner below it that read, Dangerous. But he wasn’t, Neal thought. Or maybe just a little dangerous. She had to admit that danger was what had drawn her to him in the first place.
Neal had always been exactly what her family expected her to be—a good student, honest, respectful. But since her father’s death and, more recently, her grandmother’s stroke, something dark and troubling brewed inside her, an anger she couldn’t articulate. She felt as if she might explode at any moment.
Dad was gone. Mom was always busy. Granny Q was of no use to anyone. She couldn’t take it anymore.
And then she met Mike.
Their initial meeting back in July had been purely coincidental, although Mike insisted on referring to it as “good karma.” She had picked up T. J. and the two of them were headed for the stadium to take in a Saturday afternoon baseball game. Neither of them liked baseball, and Asheville’s minor league team, the Tourists, was having a pretty miserable season. But a friend of T. J.’s from another school had promised to hook them up with a couple of cute guys.
Neal had just turned the corner a block from the stadium and was looking for a place to park when the oil light on the dashboard flashed red. She knew enough about engines to realize this was bad news, so she immediately pulled into the garage on the corner and turned off the engine.
A mechanic sauntered out. The patch on his grease-covered overalls read, Mike. He looked them over and grinned. “We close at two on Saturday,” he said, glancing at his watch. “But if you’ve got an emergency—”
“The oil light came on,” Neal said as she got out of the car. She turned to T. J. “You go on ahead and meet Katie and the guys. I’ll call Mom and catch up with you later.”
“You sure?” T. J. frowned. “I can stay with you.”
“Yeah, go on. Maybe this won’t take too long.”
Neal watched as T. J. set off on foot in the direction of the stadium, and when she turned back, she found Mike staring at her. “What are you looking at?” she demanded.
“Nothin’,” he drawled. “Nothin’ but the girl of my dreams.” He raised one eyebrow. “Oil light, you said?”
The problem with the oil light turned out to be a short in the electrical system. In thirty minutes Mike had it fixed and was closing up the shop. While she phoned her mother to get a credit card number to pay him, he washed up and stripped off the coveralls to reveal an awesome buff body in black jeans and a black sleeveless T-shirt. She couldn’t take her eyes off the snake tattoo on his upper arm, the way it writhed when his muscles flexed.
“You can leave your car parked here while you go to the game,” he said. “Or you can take a ride with me and we can get acquainted.” He pointed toward a red Harley with bright chrome parked at the side of the building.
Neal hesitated. “They won’t miss me for a while,” she said at last.
They roared through town on Mike’s motorcycle, detoured to the drive-through window at Backyard Burgers and bought Cokes, then went to the park and sat at a shaded picnic table. Neal told him about her father’s death and her grandmother’s stroke—the first time she had been able to confess those feelings to anyone. Mike talked about how his father had abused both him and his mother and then abandoned them, and how his mom had worked herself to death trying to make ends meet. Despite everything, he said, he was determined to be a success. He was saving money to buy out the owner of the garage.
“My father would have helped you,” Neal said. “That’s what he did—helped people start their own businesses.”
“I coulda used his help.” Mike shrugged. “Now that Mom’s gone, I don’t really have anybody who believes in me.”
The words came out of Neal’s mouth before she had time to think about them: “I could believe in you, Mike.”
“I’d like that,” he said. “I’d like that a lot.”
Every chance she got all during July and early August, Neal had dropped by the garage to talk to Mike. His boss called her “jailbait” and tried to run her off, but she kept coming back. She couldn’t help herself. For a long time after Daddy’s death and Granny Q’s stroke, she had felt like a zombie, just going through the motions, but her conversations with Mike Damatto made her feel like a real person. He liked her. He needed her. And now— maybe thanks to the miniskirt and new hairdo—he was beginning to regard her with a different kind of interest.
She knew her mother would not approve. But she was seventeen— old enough to know what she wanted. Old enough to make her own decisions. And apparently, if the expression on Mike’s face was any indication, old enough to attract a real man rather than the stupid, immature high-school boys her mother thought she went out with.
Something nagged at the back of Neal’s mind. A warning. Questions she couldn’t—or didn’t want to—answer. Why Mike? Why now? Did she really want him, or did she only want something different?
She pushed the questions aside. Mike was staring at her, his eyes dark and brooding.
“So,” he said, “you want to get out of here? Go somewhere?”
“Like where?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. My place, maybe?” His mouth turned up in a slow, seductive grin.
She stubbed out her cigarette, forced down the last swallow of beer, and got unsteadily to her feet.
“Sure,” she said. “Why not?”