Tera pulled up to Les' mom's house at
about quarter to six, the dance started at nine so they were going to
grab dinner beforehand. She got out of her beat-up old toyota
pick-up, her dad's old truck, careful to protect her golden heels and
sweeping pale pink strapless dress and headed up the walk towards his
front door. Les was waiting in the living room and opened the door
before she could reach the front. He was hoping to dash out the door
quickly but his mom stopped him from doing so with a squeal and a
“where's the camera?” She made the two of them stand on the
porch and pose in their prom finery before heading out. Tera
awkwardly pinned a boutonniere on Les' coat, then they hurriedly scurried down the walk towards her truck.
A few minutes later, they pulled into
Olive Garden and after ordering two cokes and pasta, they caught each
other up on the latest news.
“You going up to Camp this summer?”
Tera wanted to know. Les nodded as he sipped a mouthful of coke.
“Me too.”
“When? What week?” Les finally
asked, after swallowing.
“I go up July 14th, the
same as last year,” she answered. His eyes smiled largely.
“Me too,” and she smiled back.
“So, we'll be up there again this year.”
Tera took a sip of drink and Les did
the same. He thought a moment, hesitated, and looked out the window,
pondering his next move. Finally he spoke,
“Do you know who else is going?”
Tera shook her head and took another
sip of coke. Les hesitated, sucked in air, and then blurted out,
“What about Ruby?”
Tera shrugged, tilted her head to one
side, and then said, “Yeah, I think so, the same time.”
She then sipped her drink again. Soda
in any fashion was not allowed in her house-hold and so any chance
she got to have some was a real treat. She'd pay for it later, when
she was up at 3 in the morning.
“Oh, I see,” and Les sipped at his
coke as well and he clasped his hands together underneath the table,
gripping them with some form of excitement. Maybe this would be the
year for them. But, then his eyes flashed back to Jess, who he'd
been now talking to on AOL the last week. She was fun to hang around
with and not to mention gorgeous. She also was easy to talk to and
had a lot of the same interests. Still something drew him close to
Ruby, some connection he could not yet really describe. There was
something about her that...when she looked at him, she looked into
his eyes and saw him, he felt, for who he was. No one else had ever
reached him like that, without words.
In her bedroom in a city nearby, Ruby
sat on her bed, guitar in her lap, angrily strumming, trying to rid
her mind of the image of Tera and Les together. She knew she could
never stay mad at Tera, that she had, in a very real sense, given her
permission or the okay for this to happen. And, she knew Tera was
true to her word in that it was “just as friends”. But, Ruby,
ever the worrier, couldn't help let her mind imagine all sorts of
scenarios of their night together, how'd they realize their feelings
for each other, get together, fall in love, get married, maybe, and
on and on it went.
Looking over her Rod McKuen book, she
sang out the same words over and over, trying to get the right tune
to match the right meaning,
“And so, this song, this song, this
song...has no words.”
Later, as Tera maneuvered her car
through the streets towards her school, Les sat in the passenger seat
looking straight ahead. His mind racked for something to say, but
nothing really came. Although with Tera, he liked not having to
think of anything to say, but just to sit and be himself. Not trying
to have to flirt or earn her approval, not having to choose between
her or anyone else. His mind flicked to Jess and he licked his lips,
closed his eyes, and Ruby's face flashed before him. He opened them
and looked over at Tera, who was adjusting the radio dials. Oldies
music flooded the car immersing from the station.
“What the world needs now is love,
sweet love,” crooned the singer emotionally.
“That's pretty much the truth,”
Tera exclaimed. Les nodded, agreeing with her. But, what kind of
love?
As the walked towards her school gym,
Les looked around at all the other students, foreign to him, dressed
to their nines in their formal gowns and tuxedos, the girls were
beautiful and the boys were all gangly skinny arms and pimply faces.
Les secretly hoped he looked nothing like this.
Tera cleared her throat as they waited
in the bustling line to enter the dance. Les looked at her and she
looked down at him, her blue eyes piercing.
“So, I've got a question for you,”
she began and he nodded, his head tilted with curiosity. “What do
you think of Ruby?”
So, this was it, Les thought. This was
the do or die, the tell or be silent. This was the first moment
towards making his choice...
“She's pretty cool,” was his reply.
“Oh,” came Tera and they moved up
in line.
“She's kind of quiet though,” Les
said, trying to keep the conversation going without seeming too
eager. “That's all right though. Why do you ask?”
“I just wondered, is all,” came
Tera's reply. And, then they were interrupted as some girls came up
from behind and called her name. She turned and smiled at the three
girls in line behind them and introduced them around to Les as
“Maggie, Deborah, and Karen”.
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