Page 24 of Loan Wolf
“For guys with fragile masculinity.” Clara had to giggle.
“What are you here for, Clara?” Gabe asked frankly. “Is there a problem with your bike? Do you want to trade it in for a different one?”
“No, I love Daisy,” Clara said quickly. Why was she here? What was it about Gabe that made her want to be something more than pretty and discreet? “I want to get drunk and go skinny dipping and paint a penis on the back of the library.”
Gabe stared at her with a half smile for so long that Clara regretted her impulsive words, then he shrugged. “I’m not going to assist you in vandalism, but I’ve got some beer in the truck and I know a great place to go skinny dipping.”
He fastidiously cleaned up his painting gear before locking up the store. Clara didn’t even try to make conversation over the music. He didn’t open the truck door for her, and he didn’t open it for her when they got out of town.
“Where are we?” she wanted to know.
“Eagle Lake,” Gabe said, reaching into the back for a six pack of beer that even Clara knew was cheap.
Eagle Lake was actually smaller than Mueller’s Pond, but it was considerably less choked with weeds and far more appealing for swimming, with a gravel beach and clear water. Although it was getting dark, it was still hot. A thunderstorm was rumbling somewhere in the distance, but there was no promise of rain in the air.
Gabe popped a can open and handed it to Clara, leaning against the front of the truck with her. He left the keys in the truck and the radio tuned to a rock station.
“Oh, this is awful,” Clara couldn’t help saying. The beer was warm and tasted terrible. She swallowed it anyway, wryly mindful of Twiller’s lectures on keeping her body pure of poisons.
Gabe shrugged and took a swig. “It’s better than a punch in the dick.”
“Most things are, I imagine!” Clara had to laugh. “I’m crushed you won’t draw a penis on the library with me.”
“My graffiti days are done,” Gabe said. “I’m old and tired and responsible now.”
“You’re not any of those things,” Clara said confidently.
“Okay, maybe I’m just trying to keep you out of trouble,” he said with a chuckle.
“Maybe I want trouble,” Clara said, staring out at the water. There were no rumors about Eagle Lake granting wishes or causing transformations. She drank the beer with determination, because it was certainly nothing to savor, and Gabe handed her another. “Do you ever wonder if you’re doing the wrong thing with your life, but you’ve been doing it so long, you don’t know what else you’d do?”
“Having second thoughts about being a dancer?” Gabe asked shrewdly. He was still nursing his first beer.
“Third thoughts. Fourth thoughts. But how am I supposed to tell everyone I want to do something else when I don’t even know what it would be?” The frogs were starting to sing in the darkness and a few fireflies teased at the edges of Clara’s vision.
“You ever thought about doing a different kind of dance?” Gabe asked. “Spice it up a little? Be a stripper?”
Clara choked on the gulp she was taking. The beer was no better through her nostrils and Gabe had to pound her on the back.
“I did take a modern jazz class once,” Clara said when she could speak again. “I even performed in an Off-Broadway show. The critics panned it, and No-Mercy Twiller warned me that I could harm my reputation if I didn’t stay in my lane.”
“No-Mercy Twiller? Is that her name?”
“It’s Mercy Twiller, but yeah, that’s what they call her behind her back.”
“I kind of want to punch her,” Gabe offered.
“She studied with my mother,” Clara said, and she wasn’t sure why that choked her up. She drank the rest of the warm, terrible beer in the can she was holding. “She says I’m just like her.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to do just what she did,” Gabe pointed out.
“She died before she could reach her potential.” Clara could feel the warmth of the horrible beer in her belly and remembered that she hadn’t had anything to eat since her lunch with Gabe. She was used to eating on a strict schedule, carefully calculated nutrition with carefully measured portions. Everything had gone to pieces in Green Valley. “It was a tragedy. I have to be her legacy.”
“Bullshit.”
Clara blinked. “What?”
“Bullshit. Your mother is dead. My mother is dead. Dead mothers everywhere. That doesn’t mean we have to live our lives stapled to their graves.”
