Beau found it hard to swallow, attempting to empty his mouth to speak. “I was wondering if you recognized me at all, but I wasn’t goingtoask.”
Tara colored a bit. “I’ll admit that I didn’t recognize you at first, but I realized it later. Did you know who I was when we met in thecoffeeshop?”
As expected, Dixie immediately perked up and looked from Beau to Tara, her curls dancing around her ears with the motion. Thankfully, she saidnothingyet.
“I did,” he replied. “You haven’t changed since eleventh gradechemistry.”
Saying too much might have given himself away in that moment. Remembering such a fine detail might have come out as creepy or obsessive. Granted, Beau had been obsessed with her for a time. It was torture to leave Brooksdale, knowing that he might never have a chance with her again. Throughout his final years at Brooksdale High, he had never had a crush on anyone else but Tara. When he came back to town, he thought she would have moved away or it would have been unlikely that they would meet again inpublic.
If only they had met under othercircumstances.
Tara wiped her mouth on a napkin and smiled. “I can’t say the same for you. You definitely… Well, you know.” She made a gesture toward his chest and torso from across the table and he couldn’t help but chuckle at her loss ofwords.
“Yeah, I guess I did. And here I thought you nevernoticedme.”
She shrugged. “I notice a lot of things. Remembering them is thehardpart.”
He wasn’t sure whether to take that as a sort of consolation, that he wasn’t the only thing she was likely to forget, or an insult that he wasn’t memorable enough to stick in her mind as she didforhim.
“But to answer your question, yes, I went to work on the oil rig after highschool.”
Instead of asking why he had moved away, Tara proceeded to ask about the finer details ofhisjob.
He answered each question with complete modesty, though he could tell that she was hanging off his every word, even when he went into the complicated workings of what he did on hisoldjob.
Dixie soon lost interest in their conversation and began to look all around at the distracting carnival lights andsounds.
“I see Brooksdale hasn’t changed a lot,” he said, hoping to divert from himself for a moment. He was much more interested in hearing about her life after high school. Did she go to college? Why was she working at a dentist office when he knew her passion was for books and reading. She should have been working at the library, or maybe teaching English at theschool.
Tara tossed her napkin into the little box her chilidog had been served in. “No, it hasn’t. I mean, some of the stores on Main Street have changed owners and we’ve gotten a couple more fast food places, but other than that, it’s the same ole’ little town in the middle ofnowhere.”
She said it all with such a smile that no one would have to guess why she never left Brooksdale. She loved it here. It held no painful memories like it didforBeau.
He nodded and folded his arms over the picnic tabletop they sat at. “So what have you been up to? Since high school,Imean.”
Tara shrugged nonchalantly. “Not much. I never went to college. I got plenty of scholarships, but they weren’t enough to pay for the tuition I wanted and my parents couldn’t pay the difference. They’re living in Morrisville now, about an hour away. They moved there when my mawmaw got sick, but I stayed here. I’ve been working at the dentist for a few years now and I like itprettywell.”
There was hope in the way she never mentioned a boyfriend or marriage. That meant she was single, which lined her up nicely for his plan. God, how he wished he didn’t love his brother and niece so much. How he wished he wasn’t so selfless sometimes. By the way Tara looked at him now, he could have probably asked her to go with him behind the shooting gallery for a little making out and she’d skip with him all the way. But he couldn’thaveher.
“I’m sorry to hear your mawmaw got sick,” was all hecouldsay.
Tara didn’t go into too many details about her grandmother’s illness and, if it wasn’t for the way Dixie impatiently grabbed for their empty plates to dispose of them, they might have kept talking allnight.
His niece tossed their wrappers away into the metal barrel that was already swarming with flies, and came running back to wait for the two grownups to stand. Tara gave him a look that promised they could talk more later, and he sincerely hoped that theywould.
“Let’s go on the spiny ride!” Dixie offered, and she almost ran out into the crowdagain.
Tara was the one to hold her back with a firm hand grabbing her arm. It wasn’t every day Beau met someone quicker than him. “Word of advice, kid,” she said teasingly. “You just ate. Don’t go on any of those kind of rides for at leastanhour.”
Dixie looked a little dejected, but gave in. “What do you want todothen?”
Beau, playing the chaperone, hung back as the two ladies walked side by side toward a ring-toss booth. They talked softly and giggled as he slipped his hands into his pockets, enjoying thesight.
Everything was going great. Dixie already seemed to like Tara. Likewise, Tara seemed to get along well with Dixie. Perhaps working at a dentist office had something to do with that. She’d had to deal with nervous kids all the time and help to make them feel comfortable, while the doctor probed attheirgums.
Occasionally, Tara glanced over her shoulder to take a peek at Beau and caught him staring with a goofy grin. He didn’t even bother looking away, but neither did he feel any shame for admiring Tara. He couldn’t explain exactly what it was that drew him to her in the first place, not in school and not now. It wasn’t just that she was pretty. He had dated pretty girls before, but they had all been fairly shallow and wanting in the personality department. None could compare to Tara. He had always known her to be smart, witty, and exceedingly kind to everyone, even inschool.
Booth after booth, they played games and won prizes for Beau to carry. He sponsored their fun and was glad that he had taken out a couple hundred from the ATM before theycameover.
