Beyond Ordinary

How could a girl like her compete with a mind like his?

He’d perfected that brainy look to a fine art. For the first time, she found it attractive.

Damn, that bothered her.

She reached down to pull the lever that pushed her seat all the way back. Then she slipped off her red cowboy boots and leaned her feet on the dashboard, the vinyl warm under her soles, and wrapped her arms around her knees.

She caught Timm staring at the red polish dotting her toenails. Let him look. No way would he ever get to touch.

She used to like the jocks—big dumb boys who wanted nothing more from her than hot sessions in the back of their trucks. That was no longer true. She’d known some great guys at college attending on athletic scholarships—ambitious and self-disciplined guys, smart men who didn’t try to grab her in dark corners.

But then, Bozeman hadn’t been Ordinary. No one there had known her as Missy Donovan’s daughter.

“When you wrote that story,” she said, “you pretty much said Mama was too stupid to get a man without using sex.”

“We’re still on that subject?” He sighed. “Listen, I like Missy. She’s sweet and generous.”

“Did I hear a but at the end of that sentence?”

“Yeah. She isn’t too bright. Men have taken advantage of her over the years.”

Angel knew how…simple…Mama was, knew that she only wanted a man to take care of her and love her. Too bad so many of them had wanted only sex.

Then Timm said, “She took advantage of them, too.”

“And why not?” Angel went on the offensive. “She had no skills. She was poor. She had to survive.” So why did the way she chose to survive embarrass Angel so much?

“The town decided the second I was born to Missy that I was as cheap and easy as she was. Boys started sniffing around me before they were able to tie their shoelaces.”

What would sanctimonious Timm Franck know about growing up in poverty? About growing up in a town that saw only what it wanted to see about a girl? His family had been respected pillars of the community.

What if she gave in to the urge to grab his glasses from his face and crumple them in her fist? Man, she felt wound up, all of her emotions strung too tightly.

“Illegitimate, trashy Angel Donovan. That’s all the town ever thought of me.” She didn’t want a brainiac like Timm telling her there was no escape for a girl born into poverty to a woman who knew how to live off men, but not much else.

Angel needed to escape.

She’d tried to change while at college, in a new place where no one knew her, or her mother, or her mother’s reputation. Where there were no preconceived notions about her.

Neil had treated her like gold. He’d seen who she wanted to be, not who she was expected to be.

That hadn’t lasted, had it? She’d tried to be a better person. She’d failed. When you try so hard to change and it doesn’t take, it hurts so damn much. After Neil died, she’d felt vulnerable and uncertain. But here in Ordinary, she knew exactly who she was, who she was expected to be and how to act to get through every day.

In Ordinary, she was confident and tough.

She would deal just fine here until she could get grounded, get clear about who she wanted to be. Then she’d head out of town and reinvent herself again.

She wasn’t ready to quit. She’d come out of her mother’s womb a fighter. This was a temporary setback. Ordinary, Montana, the second I have enough money to leave, you can kiss my butt goodbye.

She felt Timm’s gaze on her as palpably as a touch.

“Why were you burning that bike?”

“Never mind.” She couldn’t talk about it. The words were too big, too enormous in their dark intensity, and clogged her throat.

She wanted to yell, to act out, to smash something.

That’s why she liked cool, logical math so much. It didn’t have miles of shit-kicking emotion attached to it the way everything else in her life did.

They traveled the length of Main Street, then turned and stopped in front of her mother’s house. What should she say? Thanks for stopping the only thing that could have eased my pain?

She slipped her feet into her cowboy boots. Offering him a terse “Thanks” she stepped out of the truck, dragging her saddlebags with her.

Behind her, Timm sped away.

She trudged toward the bungalow. The rosebushes that lined the walkway were well cared for, the green cushion on the wicker chair on the veranda well used.

Mama had done well for herself in the past five years. She’d nursed her former boyfriend until his death. Hal had left everything to her—the house and enough money to leave Missy secure for years. The first thing she’d done was pay for Angel to attend college.

Mama no longer had to depend on men—she had security. Yet she was on the verge of throwing it all away on another man. Somehow Phil Butler—a slimy example of the worst of his gender—had convinced Missy to marry him.

“Angel,” Mama had said in yesterday’s phone message, “Phil and me are getting married.”

Maybe that’s all Donovan women were good at—squandering their advantages when so close to success.

But Angel couldn’t figure out why Missy was so dependant on Phil. Why did she defer to him in her own house?

Angel knocked so she wouldn’t scare Mama, then used her key to enter.

“Is that you, Phil?” Mama called, her voice huskier with age.

“No. It’s me.” So Phil wasn’t home? Perfect time to confront Mama about him.

“Angel?” Mama rushed from the living room with a broad smile creasing her face. “Oh, honey, I wondered when you’d get here. You didn’t call.” She pulled Angel into a hug.

Angel filled her lungs with Mama’s scent—Avon’s Sweet Honesty and cigarettes. She’d missed this. She liked the perfume Mama had used all her life, but wished she would give up the smokes.

Oh, it felt good to be cradled in Mama’s arms. Mama might be the town tramp, but she’d always been a good mother.

Missy pulled away to look at her. “I missed you.”

“I missed you, too, Mama.” She fingered a lock of Mama’s hair. “Why did you go back to the blond?”

Missy had stopped dyeing her hair after Hal died. Now she was using again.

“Phil likes it this way. He says it makes me look younger.”

Phil was an ass. He was a big part of the reason Angel had come home instead of heading off to a big city, any city where people didn’t know her. The moment she’d heard her mother’s message, she’d packed her saddlebags and set out for Ordinary.