Calvin rubbed his hand across the back of his neck, where embarrassment burned. He glanced out the front window at his father’s ancient, two-toned pickup truck in the driveway. “It doesn’t look like much, but Dad keeps it going.”
Mrs. Varnell kept smiling. “Won’t you sit down? I believe Stacey’s fixing her makeup. She might be a few moments.”
Calvin stepped toward the leather couch, but the rattle of the patio door beyond the dining room drew his eyes that way. Officer Varnell, dressed like an ordinary person in grass-stained sneakers, jeans, and a baseball cap, strode into the room. The combined scent of grass clippings and gasoline preceded him. Stacey’s father nodded at Calvin in greeting. “Cal.”
“Sir.” He reached out his right hand.
“Stan!” Mrs. Varnell’s gasping outburst froze both of them. “You’re tracking grass and dirt onto the carpet.”
Officer Varnell glanced down at the floor, where bits of green and dusty gray were pressed into footprints through the vacuum tracks. “Cost of a manicured lawn.” He smirked and winked at Calvin.
Stacey’s mother scuttled away as Officer Varnell claimed his recliner.
Calvin wavered at the arm of the sofa. Despite the man’s macho joke, Calvin balked at the idea of getting chummy with him, anticipating a lecture the moment he relaxed.
“No motorcycle today?” Officer Varnell asked.
“Uh, no, sir.” It had been so tempting to grab his helmet and ride, but today had to be all about Stacey. Everything he did had to be with her happiness and security in mind, so she would know he loved her, that she didn’t have to change anything about herself to be attractive to him.
The vacuum cleaner roared. Mrs. Varnell maneuvered the machine over the mess her husband had created. Calvin watched as she, seemingly not content with clean, pushed the vacuum in straight lines to match the other lines from her previous cleaning. She even vacuumed her own footprints.
Yeah. Easy to see where Stacey got her super-neat habits.
“Hello!” Stacey called over the noise of the vacuum.
Calvin turned and stared.
She wore a lace top showing a sliver of flesh below the hem. A heart-shaped cutout in front revealed cleavage he had only imagined before. Her short black skirt hugged her hips. Her legs—Calvin had no idea she was that thin. Had he ever seen her bare legs before? He jerked his gaze to her face.
She’d stopped wearing the Zoe-inspired gaudy makeup colors a week ago, but whatever else she’d done today was … he didn’t know how to describe it. Beautiful. And her hair swirled about her face in big, soft waves. She could be a dancer in a music video or a model on a runway. Was she taller? He glanced down at her high-heeled sandals. She’d painted her toenails dark red. Calvin couldn’t remember seeing her toenails before. In any color.
A sharp squeak and thump of the recliner signaled her father’s reaction. “What … are you wearing?”
“Oh, sweetheart, you look beautiful!” Her mother left the vacuum cleaner to rush over. She brushed Stacey’s hair off one shoulder. “But isn’t this just a camisole? Shouldn’t you have a jacket in case you get chilled? What about that pretty dusty-green jacket you made? Though that might be a little too country to go with this look. I have a black cardigan that should fit you.”
Stacey eased her mother’s hand away and edged toward Calvin. “It’s fine, Mom. We have to go.”
“No, no. It’ll just take a moment to go and fetch it. Renee, dear,” she called toward the steps. “Would you run to my closet and get my black sweater for Stacey? The one with the little pearls and the three-quarter sleeves.”
Renee appeared at the top of the stairs, her arms crossed. “That outfit rocks. Let her go.”
Calvin took a step backward. The thoughts in his head stalled, unable to go one way or another in the debate. Taking a stand against Stacey’s parents would be bad. But he’d never seen Stacey look like this. All the puffy sweaters and handmade flowing blouses, topped with jeans and sneakers or boots—all of that stuff was gone.
It tickled—the tantalizing thought that this was his girl. Farm boy with a fashion model. Amazing. He dumbly held out his flowers.
Stacey clasped his forearm and urged him away, as if she didn’t see the gift. “Let’s go.”
People moved around him. Voices talked over each other. Stacey fled out the front door.
“Uh, I gotta go.” Calvin pointed his thumb at the door.
With Stacey gone, her father turned a hard gaze toward Calvin. “Your driver’s license still provisional, boy?”
“Oh. Uh, I—”
“Have her home by eight thirty. So you’ll be legal driving home.”
“Yes, sir.” Calvin kept his arguments to himself and backed toward the door.
Stacey had already climbed into the truck and sat waiting for him. Aware that eyes might be watching them through the front windows, Calvin handed his flowers over to her with only a smile. She accepted them with less.
Keep smiling. Calvin crossed his arms on the table and held his breath as he voiced a most-dangerous question. “Aren’t you hungry?”
Stacey turned her head to look at him. She’d been peering all around the Arby’s restaurant since the moment they’d walked in, her shoulders hunched and her hands clasped in her lap. “Oh! Are you finished already? You must have been starving.”
A roast beef sandwich and curly fries didn’t take long to eat.
Stacey nudged the stuff in her salad bowl with her plastic fork. She’d scavenged all the lettuce out of the bowl, then cut the rest into little pieces and shoved it up against the sides so the middle of her bowl was empty. He’d watched her do it.
How could her parents, with all their rules and interfering, not notice how Stacey ate her food? How had Calvin missed it for so long? Maybe it took knowing the truth before anyone could see her clever deceptions.
“Are you ready to go?” she asked.
“No hurry.”
She pressed her fingers to her shoulders and gazed around again. “It’s freezing in here. Are you cold?”
“Uh-uh.”
She rubbed her arms. “This top is a little skimpy. Maybe I should have worn my jacket. Not Mom’s cardigan, though. That would have been … wrong. Just wrong.”
With her arms crossed that way, Calvin noticed that at least she hadn’t lost much weight in her—He cleared his throat and turned his attention to her salad bowl. “What is that, chicken?”
“Yes. You want some?”
“No. It just looks good.”
Stacey picked up her fork again and speared a tiny chunk of meat. She wiggled her eyebrows at him and slipped the bite into her mouth. As she chewed, her red lips pressed and relaxed. Calvin wondered if the taste would linger there. She touched a napkin to her mouth then wadded it up.
She’d done the same thing the last time she had supper at his house, and somehow the dog under the table got a treat.
“Excuse me. I need more napkins.” Stacey slid out of her seat and went to the condiment table.
As soon as her back was turned, Calvin glanced at the floor under the table. Clean.
Stacey returned with a small pile of napkins in her hand. She could have carried a baseball in the gap between her knees.
Calvin buried a hand in his hair and slouched in his seat. “Uh, bike’s running pretty good now. And I was thinking … about that camping trip.”
“Oh.” Stacey pushed a dainty bite of salad between her lips and looked out the window.
Stupid, stupid. Too soon to bring it up. But now the subject was out there, and Stacey waited for him to say more.
“Dad says I can work in the auto shop this summer. He’ll pay me to do tune-ups and oil changes. But he said I could have some time off before I start.”
She nodded and dabbed. Wadded the napkin and squeezed it together with the first. Had she always done that?
“You’ll be working full time, then?” Another bite, another dab.
Calv
in stared at the growing ball of napkins on the table. Something pink soaked through the thin paper. Not lipstick; a bit of tomato. She was spitting each tiny bite into the napkins.
Calvin’s sandwich felt like a lump of lead in his stomach. He toyed with the box that had held his fries.
“Calvin?”
“Huh?”
“I asked if you’re going to be working full time.”
“Oh. Yeah. I mean, as long as there’s enough work. Dad’s not going to pay me to stand around if there aren’t any jobs I can do.”
How was it possible to feel so much desire and disgust at the same time? None of the websites mentioned what to do in this situation. Calvin looked out the window. His father’s rusty pickup was the only vehicle in the parking lot that didn’t shine in the sun.
“Zoe showed me a brochure from a fashion design school in California,” Stacey said, filling the awkward silence with a change of subject. “She so wants to get out of here, but California? That’s too far. And besides …” She reached across the table and stroked the backs of his fingers. “I wouldn’t want to be that far away from you.”
Oh, super. Make him feel guilty just when he was talking about going somewhere without her. He scowled. “I don’t get why Zoe thinks y’all have to go to the same college.”
Stacey withdrew her hand. “Well, we’re both going for fashion design, and it’d be nice to know someone already when we get there.”
“Yeah, I get that. But all the way to California? Why does she have to dictate your life? That’s what I wanna know.” Warning. Danger. He’d dropped the everything-is-wonderful act.
She pulled her hands beneath the table, staring downward. “She doesn’t. She’s my friend, Calvin. She doesn’t judge me.”
“Judge you? What—?”
“I don’t want to talk about it, okay? Can we talk about something else?”
Calvin sighed. “Sorry. I guess I don’t quite get the whole BFF thing with girls.”
“It’s the same with you and Tyler.” She toyed with her salad, pushing the bits around.
“Tyler doesn’t care where I go to college. I mean, yeah, it’d be cool if we went to the same place, but if we don’t, that doesn’t mean we’ll stop being friends.”
Stacey raised her shoulder in a half shrug. “Maybe that’s because you’ve known him so long. I don’t have any lifelong friends like that. I don’t have anyone who really knows me and would even think about me a year from now if I left.”
He wanted to protest, to point at himself and ask if he didn’t count. Don’t argue. Be encouraging. He slid his open hand across the table. “Stace, come on. You’re pretty, talented, and smart. And funny. You make people laugh. Everyone I know likes you.”
She didn’t take the hand he offered.
“Know what? The other day when you wore that sorta tight purple shirt, Tyler said you looked pretty hot.”
Her eyes widened. “Tyler Dorset said that about me? Half the girls in school would die if he even said hello to them.”
And Tyler would probably die of embarrassment if he’d heard Stacey say that.
Her smile grew until her eyes sparkled. The dimples he loved weren’t completely gone. “Tell him I said thank you.” In a flurry of movement, she swept the wadded-up napkins onto their food tray, tossed her salad bowl on top, and grabbed his sandwich wrapper and fry cup. “Where to next?”
Calvin couldn’t move. Stacey could have been holding him pinned down in the booth instead of rushing to the trash bin and depositing their tray on the stack. Yeah, he’d encouraged her all right. Saying she looked good made her dump the remainder of her salad in the trash. He’d encouraged her to keep doing the thing he wanted her to quit.
Way to go, idiot.
But if she wanted to be beautiful, how was he supposed to let her know she already was if he couldn’t compliment her?
She walked back to the table swinging her hips. Or swaying on those spiky heels. The reason didn’t matter. He’d rather have her waddle like a penguin than starve herself to be thin. Well, maybe not waddle.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
Calvin pulled himself across the booth seat. “Nothing. Let’s go.”
Chapter 20
The graphite image, depicting an old man with a lined face sitting in front of a building with weathered siding, didn’t look like anything created by something as simple as a pencil. Stacey stared. The beautiful drawing confronted her. If she had that much talent, could make something look so perfect …
“That’s pencil?” Calvin leaned in closer.
Stacey pulled on his arm. “Stand back and look at it.”
He backed up. “It looks like a picture, I mean, a photograph.”
The artist had rendered the texture of the old man’s coat, individual broken threads along the tattered lapel. Amazing. And the eyes looked alive, like they would follow Stacey when she moved away.
Calvin slipped his hand behind her back and guided her to another frame filled with confidence-crushing perfection.
“Know what?” he said. “I’ll bet your drawings will hang here someday.”
How sweet was he? “Oh, come on.” She pressed her shoulder into the space beneath his arm and brushed her hand across his chest.
“Why not?”
Why not? Because Daddy would call it foolish. Mom would sweetly point out every little flaw. Even if Stacey worked alone, their voices would haunt her. What if she failed? What if all the people from her past had told the truth and she’d never amount to anything?
Besides, showing her work in a local art gallery meant she’d still be … here. Still in Stiles County or maybe living in an apartment in Rocky Mount. Her drawings weren’t good enough for New York galleries. Or Raleigh. Or even Rocky Mount.
Stacey sighed. “To be that good I’d have to study fine art, not fashion design.”
“Would that be so bad?” He gestured toward the next drawing. “You could do this.”
Stacey took the drawing in, though the gentle image clawed at her heart. An old woman this time, her gnarled hands knitting an afghan. She could envision the woman’s slow movements, stitch by stitch, and imagine the clicking of her needles. She could feel the soft yarn warming her lap.
A desire crept into Stacey’s heart, a longing to feel a pencil in her hand and the textured surface of a clean sheet of Canson paper beneath her fingertips. To fill the empty space with something meaningful, something worthy of Calvin’s awe.
She swallowed. “Daddy says artists don’t make much money.”
A soft grunt showed what he thought of this. “They should. How long did it take this artist to draw that?”
“Hours and hours. Days.”
“My dad charges seventy-five dollars an hour for labor. ‘Course, that pays for the building and utilities and all that other stuff too. Not just what he makes.”
“No one would pay me even twenty dollars.”
“I would.” He swung her around to face him. “More than that.”
She wanted to cry. He was so sweet. Although he’d gotten angry with her at the restaurant—she could tell from the way he pulled his hair at the table and his silence in the truck—bringing her to the Imperial Arts Center in Rocky Mount was an act of love. When she first met him, Calvin didn’t know a thing about art. He was learning just for her.
She toyed with a button of his shirt. “You’re biased.”
“Hey, I’m serious. I think you’re incredibly talented. Too good for fashion school.”
Stacey edged closer to him. His smile widened and his eyes took on an almost sleepy expression. Like he wasn’t just saying those things to be nice. Like she was special to him. Like he wanted her. His fingers caressed her lower back, brushed the line of bare skin.
He laughed and turned away. Flustered again. Too cute.
Calvin guided her toward the other end of the large, brick-walled gallery and gestured toward a sprawling metal sculpture.
“Now this
… I could make this. A few exhaust pipes, some old bike spokes—”
Stacey lightly smacked his stomach. “It’s abstract.”
“Ya think?”
She wanted him to look at her again, with his eyes all sultry and his fingers moving in little circles, the silky lining of her top sliding against her skin. Instead he was making jokes.
She pressed her cheek against his shoulder. His cologne was faint, not enough to cover up the earthy smell of him she’d grown accustomed to. The two scents enticed her to breathe in. She did and then gently blew against his neck.
Calvin flinched. “Stop that. It tickles.”
She grinned and tilted her head. “You like it.”
“Hee-yeah! A little too much.” He pulled away but took her hand. “What’s in this room?”
Exasperating.
Calvin walked, dragging her behind him, their arms fully extended. She whimpered, but it didn’t help. Mr. Proper Behavior was putting up a fight. Yet she’d put a crack in his defenses. The way he’d looked at her—she’d see that look again before the day was done. She wouldn’t go home without it. She’d put all thoughts of Flannery and that stupid camping trip right out of his head.
Stacey refused popcorn at the theater, and Calvin didn’t say anything. At least he understood she couldn’t eat junk food while on a diet. All she needed was a large cup of ice water to keep her stomach feeling full during the movie.
He held her hand as they walked through the lobby, cradling his popcorn in the crook of his arm and clutching his drink cup in that hand. The buttery smell multiplied inside the darkened theater. She inhaled it, and her mouth watered. It smelled heavenly. Could she be satisfied with just the aroma? The old Stacey craved satisfaction. She willed her stomach not to gurgle in desire as Calvin led her to a seat halfway back. As he got settled, she plopped down and sucked water through her straw.
Be strong. Be beautiful. Power is resistance. Giving in to food is weakness.
She was seeing the rewards of all her work in the way Calvin looked at her.
He laughed through the idiotic comedy. His hands stayed busy with the popcorn, his eyes and mind on the screen. Did he notice she didn’t laugh as much? Was the theater so dark that it hid her struggle from his view?
Running Lean Page 18