Sugar Daddy's

5

CHAPTER 5

The surprising thing about a makeover is not how you feel afterward but how differently other people treat you. I was accustomed to walking through the school hallways without being noticed. It threw me off balance when I walked through those same hallways and boys stared at me, remembered my name, fell into step beside me. They stood at my locker while I fiddled with the combination lock, and took the chair beside mine in open-seating classes or during lunch. The banter that came so easily to my lips when I was with my girlfriends seemed to dry up when I was in the company of those eager boys. My shyness should have discouraged them from asking me out, but it didn't.

I accepted a date with the least threatening of them all, a freckled boy named Gill Mincey, a fellow sophomore who wasn't much taller than me. We were in earth science together. When we were assigned as partners to write a paper on phytoextraction—the use of plants to remove metal contamination from soils—Gill invited me over to his house to

study. The Minceys' house was a cool old tin-roof Victorian, freshly painted and refurbished, with all kinds of interesting-shaped rooms.

As we sat surrounded by piles of books on gardening, chemistry, and bioengineering. Gill leaned over and kissed me, his lips warm and light. Drawing back, he waited to see if I would object. "An experiment," he said as if to explain, and when I laughed, he kissed me again. Lured by the undemanding kisses. I pushed aside the science books and put my arms around his narrow shoulders.

More study dates ensued, involving pizza, conversation, and more kissing. I knew right off I was never going to fall in love with him. Gill must have sensed it, because he never tried to push it further. I wished I could have felt passionately about him. I wished this shy. friendly boy could be the one to reach inside the part of my heart that was held so tightly in reserve.

Later that year, I discovered life sometimes has a way of giving you what you need, but not in the form you expect.

If Mama's pregnancy was an example of what I might go through one day, I decided having children wasn't worth it. She swore when she'd carried me, she'd never felt better in her life. This one must be a boy, she said, because it was an entirely different experience. Or maybe it was just that she was so much older. Whatever the reason, her body seemed to revolt against the child in her belly as if it were some toxic growth. She felt sick all the time.

She could hardly force herself to eat. and when she did. she retained water until the lightest touch of your finger would leave a visible depression in her skin.

Feeling so bad all the time and having great washes of hormones in her system made Mama peevish. It seemed nearly everything I did was an unholy irritation. In an effort to reassure her, I checked out a number of pregnancy books from the library and read helpful quotes to her. "According to the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, morning sickness is good for the baby. Are you listening, Mama? Morning sickness helps regulate insulin levels and slows your fat metabolism, which ensures more nutrients for the baby. Isn't that great?"

Mama said if I didn't stop reading helpful quotes, she was going to come after me with a switch. I said I'd have to help her up from the sofa first.

She returned from each doctor visit with worrisome words like "preeclampsia" and "hypertension." There was no anticipation in her tone when she spoke about the baby, when it would come, the May due date, the maternity leave from work. The revelation that the baby was a girl sent me over the moon, but my excitement felt inappropriate in light of Mama's resignation.

The only times Mama seemed like her old self were when Miss Marva came to visit. The doctor had commanded Miss Marva to stop smoking or she would eventually drop dead from lung cancer, and his warnings worried her so much, she actually obeyed. Dotted with nicotine patches, her pockets filled with teaberry gum, Miss Marva walked around in a constant low-level temper, saying most of the time she felt like skinning small animals.

"I'm not fit for company," Miss Marva pronounced, walking in with a pie or plate of something good, and sitting next to Mama on the couch. And she and Mama would b***h to each other about anyone and anything that had stepped on their last nerves that day, until they both started laughing.

In the evenings after I'd finished my homework. I would sit with Mama and rub her feet. and bring her cups of soda water. We watched TV together, mostly evening soaps about rich people with interesting problems, like being approached by the long-lost son they never knew they had, or getting amnesia and sleeping with the wrong person, or going to a fancy party and falling into the swimming pool in an evening gown. I would steal glances at Mama's absorbed face, and her mouth always looked a little sad, and I comprehended she was lonely in a way I could never ease. She was going through this experience by herself, no matter how much I wanted to be a part of it.

I returned a glass pie plate to Miss Marva on a cold November day. There was a frosty snap in the air. My cheeks stung from the occasional whip of a breeze unimpeded by walls, buildings, or trees of appreciable size. Winter often brought rain and flash floods that were referred to as "turd-floaters" by exasperated residents of Welcome, who had long protested the town's badly managed drainage system. Today was a dry day, however, and I made a game of avoiding the cracks in the parched pavement.

As I neared Miss Marva's trailer I saw the Cates pickup parked alongside it. Hardy was loading boxes of artwork into the truck bed, to cart it to the gallery in town. Miss Marva had been doing brisk business of late, which was proof that Texans' appetite for bluebonnet paraphernalia should never be underestimated.

I savored the strong lines of Hardy's profile, the tilt of his dark head. A flush of desire and adoration swept over me. It was that way every time our paths crossed. For me, at least. My tentative experiments with Gill Mincey had brought to life a s****l awareness I had no idea how to satisfy. All I knew was that I didn't want Gill, or any of the other boys I knew. I wanted Hardy. I wanted him more than air and food and water.

"Hey, you," he said easily.

"Hey yourself."

I passed him without stopping, carrying the pie plate up to Miss Marva's door. Marva was busy cooking and greeted me with an unintelligible grunt, too involved in her task to bother with conversation.

I went back outside and found Hardy waiting for me. His eyes were such a fathomless blue I could have drowned in them. "How's basketball?" he asked.

I shrugged. "Still terrible."

"You need more practice?"

"With you?" I asked stupidly, caught off guard.

He smiled. "Yeah, with me."

"When?"

"Now. Right after I change clothes."

"What about Miss Marva's artwork?"

"I'm going to take it to town later. I'm meeting someone."

Someone. A girlfriend?

I hesitated, smarting with jealousy and uncertainty. I wondered what had prompted him to offer to practice with me, if he had some misbegotten idea we could be friends. Some shadow of despair must have crossed my expression. Hardy took a step closer, his forehead scored with a frown beneath the rumpled silk of his hair.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Nothing, I...I was just trying to remember if I had any homework." I filled my lungs with the biting air. "Yes, I need more practice."

Hardy gave a businesslike nod. "Bring the ball. I'll meet you in ten minutes."

He was already there by the time I made it to the basketball hoop. We were both dressed in sweatpants, long-sleeved tees, and ragged sneakers. I dribbled the ball and passed it to him, and he executed a flawless free throw. Jogging to the basket, he retrieved the ball and passed it to me. "Don't let it bounce so high," he advised. "And try not to watch the ball while you're dribbling. You're supposed to keep an eye on the guys around you."

"If I don't watch the ball while I dribble, I'll lose it."

"Try it anyway."

I did. and the basketball bounced out of my control. "See?"

Hardy was patient and relaxed as he taught me the basics, moving like a big cat across the pavement. My size allowed me to move around him easily, but he used his height and long reach to block most of my shots. Breathing fast from exertion, he grinned at my frustrated exclamation when he obstructed yet another jump shot.

"Take a break for a minute." he said, "and then I'll teach you a pump fake."

"A what'1"

"It'll throw your opponent off long enough to give you a clear shot."

"Great." Although the air was chilled by the approach of nightfall, the exercise had made me warm and damp. I pushed up the sleeves of my tee and pressed a palm against a stitch in my side.

"Heard you were going out with someone," Hardy said casually, working the ball into a spin on the blunt tip of his forefinger.

I shot a glance at him. "Who told you that?"

"Bob Mincey. He says you're going with his little brother Gill. Nice family, the Minceys. You could do a lot worse."

"I'm not 'going out' with Gill." I made little quotation marks in the air with my fingers. "Not officially. We're just sort of..." I paused, at a loss to explain my relationship with Gill.

"You like him, though?" he asked with the kindly concern of a bie older brother. His

tone made me feel as irritable as a cat being dragged backward through a hedge.

"I can't imagine anyone not liking Gill," I said shortly. "He's real nice. I've got my breath back. Show me the pump fake."

"Yes, ma'am." Hardy motioned me to stand beside him, and he dribbled the ball in a semicrouch. "Say I've got a defender standing over me, ready to block my shot. I have to fake him out. Make him think I'm taking a shot, and when he takes the bait, it throws him off position, and then I've got my chance." He raised the ball to his sternum, sold the move, and made a smooth jump shot. "All right, you try it."

We faced each other while I dribbled. As he had instructed, I kept my eyes on his instead of focusing on the ball. "He kisses me," I said, still dribbling steadily.

I had the satisfaction of seeing Hardy's eyes widen. "What?"

"Gill Mincey. When we study together. He's kissed me a lot, in fact." I moved from side to side, trying to get around him, and Hardy stayed with me.

"That's great," he said, a new edge to his tone. "Are you going to take a shot?"

"I think he's pretty good at it too." I continued, increasing the pace of my dribbling. "But there's a problem."

Hardy's alert gaze found mine. "What is it?"

"I don't feel anything." I raised the ball, faked the move, and took the shot. To my amazement the ball went through the hoop with a silky swish. It bounced in diminishing strikes on the ground, unheeded by either of us. I went still, cold air searing my superheated throat. "It's boring. During the kissing, I mean. Is that normal? I don't think so. Gill doesn't seem bored. I don't know if something's wrong with me or—"

"Liberty." Hardy approached and paced slowly around me as if a ring of fire separated us. His face gleamed with perspiration. It seemed difficult to wring the words from his own throat. "There's nothing wrong with you. If there's no chemistry between you, that's not your fault. Or his. It just means.. .someone else would suit you better."

"Do you have chemistry with a lot of girls?"

He didn't look at me, just rubbed his nape to ease a pinch of tension in his neck muscles. "That's not something you and I are going to talk about."

Now that I had started along this line. I couldn't stop. "If I was older, would you feel that way about me?"

His face was averted. "Liberty," I heard him mutter. "Don't do this to me."

"I'm just asking, is all."

"Don't. Some questions change everything." He released an unsteady breath. "Do your practicing with Gill Mincey. I'm too old for you. in more ways than one. And you're not the kind of girl I want."

Surely he couldn't mean the fact that I was Mexican. From what I knew of Hardy, there wasn't a bit of prejudice in him. He never used racist words, never looked down on someone for things they couldn't help.

"What kind do you want?" I asked with difficulty.

"Someone I can leave without looking back."

That was Hardy, offering the brutal truth without apology. But I heard the submerged admission in his statement, that I wouldn't be the kind he could leave easily. I couldn't keep from taking it as encouragement, even though that wasn't what he intended.

He looked at me then. "Nothing and no one is going to keep me here, do you understand?"

"I understand."

He took a ragged breath. "This place, this life...Lately I've started to understand what made my dad so mean and crazy he ended up in jail. It'll happen to me too."

"No." I protested softly.

"Yes it will. You don't know me, Liberty."

I couldn't stop him from wanting to leave. But neither could I stop myself from wanting him.

I crossed the invisible barrier between us.

His hands lifted in a defensive gesture, which was comical in light of the difference between our sizes. I touched his palms, and the taut wrists where his pulse rampaged, and I thought, If I never have anything from him except this one moment I am going to take it. Take it now, or drown in regret later.

Hardy moved suddenly, catching my wrists, his fingers forming tight manacles that kept me from moving forward. I stared at his mouth, the lips that looked so soft. "Let go," I said, my voice thick. "Let go."

His breath had quickened, and he gave a slight shake of his head. Nerves were jumping in every part of my body. We both knew what I was going to do if he released me.

Suddenly his hands opened. I moved forward and pressed my body against his, length to length. I gripped the back of his neck, discovering the embedded toughness of his muscles. I tugged his head down until his lips caught mine, his hands remaining half-suspended in the air. His resistance lasted for a matter of seconds before he gave in with a rough sigh, putting his arms around me.

It was so unlike what I had experienced with Gill. Hardy was infinitely more powerful, and yet so much gentler. One of his hands slid into my hair, his fingers cradling my head. His shoulders hunched over and around me, his free arm clamping across my back as if he wanted to pull me inside himself. He kissed me over and over, trying to discover every way our mouths could fit together. A gust of wind chilled my back, but heat surged wherever I touched against him.

He tasted the inside of my mouth, his breath coming in scalding rushes against my cheek. The intimate flavor of him confounded me with desire. I clung to him tightly, shaken and aroused and wanting it never to end. desperately gathering every sensation to hoard as long as possible.

Hardy pried away my clinging arms and urged me back with a forceful push. "Oh,

damn," he whispered, shivering. He moved from me and grasped the pole of the backstop, resting his forehead against it as if relishing the feel of chilled metal. "Damn," he muttered again.

I felt sleepy and dazed, my balance wavering in the sudden absence of Hardy's support. I scrubbed the heels of my hands over my eyes.

"That won't happen again." he said gruffly, still facing away from me. "I mean it, Liberty."

"I know. I'm sorry." I wasn't, actually. And I must not have sounded too sorry, because Hardy threw a sardonic glance over his shoulder.

"No more practicing," he said.

"You mean basketball practice or.. .what we just did?"

"Both," he snapped.

"Are you mad at me?"

"No, I'm mad as hell at myself."

"You shouldn't be. You didn't do anything wrong. I wanted you to kiss me. I was the one who—"

"Liberty," he interrupted, turning toward me. Suddenly he looked weary and frustrated. He rubbed his eyes the same way I had rubbed mine. "Shut up. honey. The more you talk, the worse I'll feel. Just go home."

I absorbed his words, the inexorable set of his face. "Do you... do you want to walk me

back?" I hated the thread of timidity in my own voice.

He threw me a wretched glance. "No. I don't trust myself with you."

Glumness settled over me, smothering the sparks of desire and elation. I wasn't sure

how to explain any of it, Hardy's attraction to me. his unwillingness to pursue it, the

intensity of my response...and the knowledge that I was never going to kiss Gill Mincey again.