The Baby Bargain

A YEAR AGO TODAY, St. Patrick’s Day, he and his dad had sat here in this booth, eating bacon cheeseburgers. Guys’ Night Out, his dad had called it, and he’d ordered the jumbo basket of onion rings, then winked at Sean, both of them knowing that if they’d brought Dana along, she would have fussed about too much grease and cholesterol.

That was the last meal they’d ever shared. Sean had slept over in town that night with the Wilsons, though he’d protested that he was old enough to stay by himself out at the Ribbon R for a three-day weekend. “Or you could take me with you,” he’d pleaded, not for the first time. “It’s not like missing one crummy Friday is going to hurt my grades.” He’d been a straight-A student last year in ninth grade, when things like that mattered. Seemed to matter.

If you’d taken me along…He’d never have let it happen. Somehow Sean felt that if he’d been with them, he’d have known not to cross that hillside. Or if it had happened—the avalanche—he’d never have quit—never, ever, never—till he found his dad and dug him free. Not like Dana, who hadn’t dug deep enough, fast enough, long enough. Stupid, gutless Dana, who quit and skiied off for the help that came too late.

Quitter. Anger felt like a lump of smoldering charcoal in his stomach, gray-white dust over a ruby center. He picked up his glass of soda and took a tiny sip—had to make it last—then jumped as Judy, the night waitress at Moe’s Truckstop, loomed up behind him.

“Here, you’re done with that, kiddo.” She reached for his plate, which still held a curl of limp lettuce and a slice of tomato.

“Am not!” He caught hold of it and glared up at her. He didn’t have enough money to order anything else, but he was darned if he’d leave yet. The Ribbon R was nothing but an aching and an emptiness. Nobody but Dana and her loudmouth baby waiting there for him.

“Suit yourself.” Judy shrugged and turned to welcome the group coming through the arch from the front room—the convenience store Moe ran—of the truck stop. “Sit anywhere you like,” she called, and headed toward the counter where she kept the menus.

Kids from school, Sean realized, watching them as they chose the big circular booth on the far side of the café. Seniors. They didn’t spare him a glance. The biggest guy, a football jock, maneuvered his date with a possessive hand at the small of her slender back.

The skin on Sean’s palm tingled as if it slid across silk. He curled his fingers hard around the feeling, making a fist, as the jock’s date smiled up at him and edged into the booth. She wore a long, slinky yellow dress, with a dyed green carnation pinned between her breasts. Sean swallowed with an audible gulp, wondering if she had let the jock pin it on her—the lucky stiff—then jumped as the three boys at the table swung their heads to fix him with cold, unblinking stares.

Caught me looking. Wishing. He turned back to his plate and hunched his shoulders. With the girls’ giggles sounding like sleigh bells behind him, he felt his face grow hot, then hotter. Frantically he grabbed his drink and rubbed the misty glass across his cheek. Oh, no, was the back of his neck turning red?

“California,” one of the guys jeered, not bothering to lower his voice.

Almost a curse word, Sean had learned since he’d moved here from San Diego two years ago. Coloradans thought Californians were buying up every last acre of their lousy state that the Texans hadn’t already grabbed. Though who in his right mind would want it? If I had my way, I’d go back to San Diego in a heartbeat. He would, too, any day now, as soon as his mother felt well enough to take him. A wave of emotion swept through him, like a black hole yawning wide; greasy slopes led down into his own private darkness. He closed his eyes tight and waited for the feeling to pass.

“Sean?” Judy patted his shoulder. “Your mama’s on the phone.” She nodded toward the corridor that led to the rest rooms and the pay phone.

“My—” Hope flew up like a startled bird—then fell as he realized. “My stepmother, you mean.”

“That nice, nice lady named Dana, who your daddy liked enough to marry—yep, that one. She wants you.”

“Tell her I’m not here,” he blurted desperately.

“Ha! I’m not your press secretary, Mr. President. Tell her yourself.”

He kept his eyes on his sneakers as he casually crossed the room, but he stole a glance over his shoulder as he reached the hallway.

The three girls in the booth were all primped up, wearing fancy dresses in bright colors. The St. Patrick’s Day dance was tonight, he remembered. Another reason he’d felt blue today. I wonder if I’ll ever have a date. The few friends he’d made in his first year at the high school he’d lost, because he just couldn’t make himself care. The only girl he really talked to was Zoe, but she was a senior and his boss on the yearbook. The head editor. Nobody a sophomore could ever date.

The receiver of the wall-mounted pay phone dangled at knee level. He sighed and picked it up. “’Lo.”

“Sean?” Dana’s low voice hummed with tension.

“Yeah.” He should have just hung up on her. He sighed again and swung around to slouch against the rough plaster.

“You…didn’t come home.”

Yeah, no fooling, Sherlock. He didn’t say anything.

“Did you miss your bus?”

I gave it a miss, right. If there was one day of the year he couldn’t stand the sight of Dana…that he needed to spend by himself, this was it. Crappy St. Patrick’s Day. “Looks like it, doesn’t it.”

He heard her sigh down the telephone line. “I can’t pick you up, Sean. We have guests tonight—for the whole week—skiers. I’m just about to put supper on the table.”

“Doesn’t matter.” In San Diego he could have taken a cab home, the way his mother always did when she’d partied too much. In Trueheart, Colorado, it’d be easier to catch a coyote and ride it home. Or hitch. “I’ll manage.”

“Judy gets off work at ten. She said she’d be happy to give you a ride.”

No way. He’d rather walk ten miles in the snow and slush than listen to one of Judy’s pull-up-your-socks pep talks. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll manage.”

“Sean, honey, please. Come home. I know what you’re—”

“No. You don’t.” He replaced the receiver on its hook with stony deliberation—it was that or smash it against the phone, then keep on smashing till he held nothing but splinters. No, you don’t. He was standing, staring at his fingers curled around the black plastic, when an icy draft brushed his cheek.

Someone coming through the fire exit at the end of the hallway, he saw from the corner of his eye. She slammed the door behind her and stood panting, one hand pressed to her throat—long, tall Zoe Montana, reminding him of a Christmas tree with her shiny green dress and her carrot-red hair. He felt better already, just looking at her.

“Oh, rats!” she said. Her fine, goldy-red eyebrows drew into a scowl. “You didn’t see me.”

“I didn’t?” She was hard to miss. She was taller than his five foot six-and-a-half inches by several more, though he was all muscle while she was all freckly skin and bones—most of that leg, like one of those big wading birds. A stork on fire, the captain of the football team had called her once in the cafeteria, and everybody had laughed.

She let out a long-suffering sigh, the way she did when one of the airheads on the yearbook staff failed to meet a section deadline, and hooked a thumb at the door to the ladies’. “Is anybody in there?”

“Uh, don’t think so.”

“Thank God.” She slipped around the door and vanished.

Sean crossed his arms, leaned back against the wall and waited. Zoe Montana was maybe the only person in True-heart worth talking to.

She came out a few minutes later, looking less wild eyed. More like the yearbook editor about to give her most junior photographer a shooting assignment. But then, Zoe’s assignments were always interesting. She was the smartest girl—the smartest person—in their whole regional high school, and that probably included the teachers.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. And in a long, silky dress. She always wore slacks or jeans to school, with bulky sweaters and funky lace-up knee boots. Or clunky Steve Maddens, which raised her height to over six feet, when she was in a mood to kick butt. Idly he lifted his fingers, shaping a square to frame her, and wished he had his camera. It was the first time he’d ever realized Zoe was more than funny looking. Snckk. He took a mental photograph.

“Is there anybody out there?” Zoe nodded toward the café. “Anybody from school, I mean?”

“Some jocks and jock-bunnies, eating supper before the dance.” The dance that Zoe must be going to, also, Sean realized with quickening interest. He didn’t know she had a boyfriend. Who would be sharp enough to keep up with her?

“Shoot. I’m dying for a cup of coffee.” She sagged back against the opposite wall.

“Then come have one with me.” He was astonished at his own daring—then his heart sank as he remembered. Crap! He had less than a dollar left.

“Thanks, but…” She shook her head. “I’m not in the mood for company.” Her eyes sharpened on his face. “I mean the kind of company in there.” She crossed her forefingers between them. “No clowns tonight. Not one more.”

“Oh.” He had clowning down to an art form, but he didn’t think she meant him. Still, Sean felt like a bozo, with nothing more to say. “I guess you’re going to the dance?” He threw out the question at random.

“I guess I’m not.”

“But you’re all…” He waved his hand, taking in her finery. She even had boobs, he realized, stealing a peek at the gap between the long lapels of the coat that matched her party dress. Not honkers, but somehow right for Zoe. Her clothes had always disguised them before.

“The creep stood me up—okay?” she said between clenched teeth.