Page 6 of Love & Rockets

Chapter 2

Darla crossed her arms over her chest and the tailored white shirt she wore pulled tight at the seams. As she glared at Jake Dalton’s back, she tried not to notice how well his stark black tuxedo jacket clung to broad shoulders and tapered down to narrow hips in a perfect vee. He wore a tuxedo as easily as he might wear a second skin. She supposed, in a way, wearing a monkey suit was natural for him. The Dalton family was blessed. Not just with good looks and an unsullied reputation. They had brains and they weren’t afraid to flaunt them. Darla had always liked that about them. Even when Jake’s younger brother, Brian, was blowing the curve for the rest of them.

Young John Junior. That’s what Zelda Jo called Jake Dalton. Most of the time, Darla didn’t pay much attention to the older waitresses movie star comparisons. She had one for everyone. She’d dubbed Jake as John F. Kennedy Jr. long before Darla started working there, and there was no point in arguing. A late night internet search proved the comparison to be dead-on. There was no point in saying otherwise anyhow. Zelda Jo was the boss man’s main squeeze. And she kept twenty years’ worth of People magazine issues stored in the shed behind the barbecue shack.

With his lean, angular features, thick dark hair, and earnest brown eyes, Jake Dalton did indeed resemble the late president’s late son.

But Jake was alive. Very much alive. Handsome in a way that made a girl jittery, but always kind and respectful. Funny in an awkward sort of way. But sure of who he was. Even back in high school. That confidence was one of the things that appealed most to her. She’d had a major crush on him through her sophomore year, but he’d never noticed her. Of course, he was a senior. And, unlike his brother, Brian, he was popular. With both the boys and the girls.

Bet he noticed her now.

Mortification burned in the pit of her stomach with the heat of a thousand suns. Darla coughed up a silent laugh at her lame joke, then shifted her focus to the table beside her. The diorama of the solar system stretched the diameter of the seventy-two-inch round top. Splotches of the evening’s dinner dotted the heavy white linen. There was a large brown stain left from someone’s slopped mousse cup. Knowing Grace, she’d probably repurposed the glob as an asteroid, meteorite, or some other kind of space flotsam. And, from what she knew about Jake Dalton, he’d probably been able to give her terrifyingly bright baby the proper name. Not something silly like Andy Asteroid or Mario the Meteor. A scientific name. One more along the lines of Cassius or AvalonXJ5.

Darla’s cheeks flamed as she stared straight at the glowing papier-mâché sun. She closed her eyes and allowed the wave of pure mortification to wash over her. He’d done nothing more than take a few minutes out of his evening to talk to a little girl who’d spent almost two weeks getting the rings of Saturn right, and she’d stopped just shy of calling the man a pedophile.

This wasn’t the first time she’d fucked up royally. And given the poor impulse control she’d displayed, this screw up probably wouldn’t be the last. Still, she hated that she’d not only done so in front of Jake, but to him.

God, she hated working these things. Over the past dozen years, she’d grown accustomed to serving her former friends and classmates at The Pit, but these nights... This kind of work was totally different. At The Pit she’d learned to brazen out the stares and whispers by wearing her regulation T-shirts tight to fit her reputation and keeping conversation as short as her shorts. But she couldn’t wear her ‘‘Our sauce is the boss!” shirt to Mobile’s society galas. No. On nights like this, she was nothing more than another server in anonymous black and white. Even when offering her own father a tray of canapés.

Drawing a deep breath, she kept her focus glued on the tableau Grace had created. No sense in looking at the crowd. The festivities were winding down. Her parents were probably long gone. Not that she had any expectations as far as they were concerned. They hadn’t acknowledged her in almost fourteen years. She’d long-since given up hoping this shindig would be different.

She’d accepted this job so she’d have a little extra money to put in the dream jar they’d started when Grace was six and they’d set their sights on a week at Walt Disney World. They might as well have picked the moon.

Or Venus.

The thought tugged her lips into a rueful smile as she reached out to touch the planet some kid had painted neon pink and coated in a liberal dusting of glitter. She couldn’t help wondering if the student who’d decorated the planet had been a girl, or a budding good ol’ boy making an artistic statement about where girls belonged.

Seven years had passed since they’d glitter-painted an old pickle jar and seeded their dreams with a few crumpled ones from her tips. In all those years, they hadn’t traveled farther than her friend Harley’s Orange Beach condo. Gnawing her lip, Darla blinked back the sting of frustrated tears.

Space Camp was all Grace had talked about for the past two years. She’d saved every bit of birthday and allowance money she could. There was no way she could cover the cost of a week at Space Camp herself, and apparently her little girl had figured that much out. Usually, when Darla had to work an evening shift, Grace opted to hang out with her self-proclaimed grandmother, Connie Cade. But not tonight. Tonight, her daughter had begged to come with her and Darla had relented. For weeks, Grace had talked about little else than the It IS Rocket Science program. She’d considered and discarded at least a dozen project plans, collected all the data she could find on previous winners, and done her due diligence on the members of the Gulf Coast Young Scientists Foundation. Of course Grace knew who Jake Dalton was. Dr. Dalton. The man was everything her daughter hoped to be one day. Well, if she couldn’t be an actual astronaut, that is.

And Darla might have blown any chance Grace might have had of winning the scholarship she wanted so badly.

Trailing her fingertips lightly over the cloth, she snagged the tiny replica of Pluto from the edge of the table before heading toward the kitchen door.

She used only the very tips of her fingers to push on the swinging door, knowing Grace was most likely hovering on the other side. A startled gasp and the clatter of trays told her some of her instincts were still on key.

“All clear?” she asked before opening the door wider.

“I’ve got them.” Grace sounded breathless.

Darla peeked in to see her daughter crab-walking along the floor gathering round serving platters into a stack.

“Stupid place to put those,” she muttered as she shoved the stack onto the end of a butcher block worktable and scrambled to her feet. Color rose high in Grace’s cheeks. Those serious hazel eyes sparked with gold. “Jeez, Mom—”

Darla saw her daughter’s ire and raised her the mom hand. “Don’t start.”

“That was Dr. Dal—”

“I know who he was.”

“You embarrassed me!”

Those three little words took the starch out of any defense Darla might have presented. Like any woman who’d survived adolescence, she felt her daughter’s discomfiture keenly. “I’m sorry, sweets.”

“We were talking. He liked my Saturn!”

Desperation edged Grace’s voice. Every fiber in Darla’s body tensed. “Honey, I—”

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