Struck by Lightning. Christa Maurice

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      “Good, because I’m starting to think I imagined the whole thing.”

      Lew shoved his plate back and leaned his elbow on the table. “Why are you so interested in this one?”

      “This one?”

      “This girl. You’re wrapped up in pursuing a girl you can’t find. Why?”

      Dan looked down at his plate. He’d asked himself that same question many nights as he’d fallen asleep and over many Meechan’s burgers. He’d dated prettier women, more exotic, exciting women, but something about this one wouldn’t let him go. The amused glint in her eyes when she teased him about his job within thirty seconds of meeting him. Or maybe it was her scornful smile as she challenged him to her experiment. Or the fact that she sat down on the push bumper of the engine and started wringing out her long black hair like she felt more at home there than he did. Or the nagging feeling in his gut that there was something more here. Something significant, larger than life. Like she had dropped into his world and fit perfectly as though she’d been made for him, the way her wet hair smelled and the satin of her skin. That little catch in her breath in the moment before they kissed. She wasn’t too hot or too cold or too hard or too soft. She was just right.

      But he couldn’t tell any of this to Lew without getting seriously ridiculed, possibly for the rest of his life. “She’s a challenge. I mean, how many women walk away from Dan McWilliams?”

      “Yeah.” Lew stood up and dropped a couple of bills on the table. “I gotta get to the junkyard. See you later.”

      Dan grunted. She couldn’t have moved away. She had to be here someplace. It was just going to be a matter of time before he found her again.

      * * * *

      Rebecca sat behind the desk with her chin in her hands, staring out the window. For five weeks now she’d been living like a hermit. Other than one foray to the Salvation Army for supplies, she’d been staying home working on new stuff when she wasn’t drawing the hero in her sketchbook. She’d been walking to the gallery the long way down Market and carrying her lunch so she wouldn’t need to head to Meechan’s and risk being spotted on the street. Now she was starting to miss Billy’s chocolate shakes. The hero hadn’t been on the street for a couple of days. Maybe he’d given up. She couldn’t stay in hiding forever, assuming he was still looking for her. He’d have to be nuts and she didn’t need another nut in her life.

      Unless he was still looking for her because he’d felt something in that ridiculous kiss too. Felt that mad surge she couldn’t entirely convince herself was electricity in the air from the storm.

      Who cared if he felt something? She hadn’t. It was just electricity. Lightning. A Romeo like that needed to be put in his place. If he was intent on pursuing her, then it was her duty to womankind to remind him that he wasn’t God’s gift.

      But he couldn’t still be looking for her because that would be maudlin and she really wanted a milk shake. She picked up the phone.

      “Meechan’s,” Billy answered.

      Rebecca smiled. So far the fates were with her. Billy was working. “Hi Billy, I need to place a carry out order.”

      “Okay.” Billy always sounded so happy. Thirty-five and mentally handicapped, Billy’s entire job had been taking phone orders and ringing register until Max discovered his gift for milk shake making about a year ago.

      “I need a cheeseburger, jojos and I want you to make me one of your special chocolate milk shakes.”

      “Really?”

      “Yes, really. You make the best milk shakes in town, Billy.”

      Billy giggled. “You want peanut butter in it? It’s good with peanut butter.”

      Rebecca hesitated. She really only wanted a plain-Jane chocolate milk shake, but she never could resist Billy’s excitement. “Sure Billy. Peanut butter would be great.” Peanut butter would be fine and nothing would ever be as bad as the tuna salad milk shake incident last spring. That had been her own fault. She’d told him anything he ate with milk would probably be good in a milk shake. Then she found out he ate everything with milk, after the tuna salad milk shake, but before she ended up with a spaghetti milk shake.

      “It’ll be all ready in fifteen minutes. Are you coming over?”

      Rebecca often wondered how he thought anyone would get their carry out order if they didn’t come get it. Meechan’s didn’t do delivery. Billy tried once and got lost going to the bank at the end of the block. “I’ll be over in a few minutes.”

      “Okay. Bye.” Billy hung up.

      Rebecca hung up the phone. She no longer entertained the hope that they would train him out of hanging up on people. Rubbing her hands together greedily, she checked the time. Fifteen minutes between her and her chocolate peanut butter shake and the sure knowledge that it was once again safe to walk the streets. She opened her sketchbook. She’d started this one about a year ago when she, Bess and Max were planning the gallery. There were floor plans and notes interspersed with her drawings of trees and flowers because she and Bess had been in a heavy landscape phase, which Bess had not yet left. Rebecca flipped forward to two whole pages of calculations determining what she needed to live on and what she needed for the gallery so she could ask her parents for a loan. The math was wrong in a couple of places. The paper was water stained and thin from crying and erasing. Then the sketches picked up again for a while until she’d discovered high art and started drawing thumbnails with supply lists beside them. Then pictures of the hero. Dozens of them, from all angles. Did he really did look like this or had her memory reshaped him?

      She left the book open on the desk and picked up her keys and some money for lunch. The weather had remained at the same level of unbearable hot since June. School started next week and for the first time in her life, Rebecca had no classes to attend. The first loan payment to her parents was due that day though. She had it and most of the second one too, not due until Thanksgiving. A gallery in Chicago had contacted her about doing a show with a few other up-and-coming artists. She was succeeding beyond her wildest expectations.

      Succeeding as a con artist, instead of as an artist. Too much time alone these last few weeks had given her lots of time to reflect on that. She pulled open the door of Meechan’s mumbling under her breath, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the biggest fraud of all.”

      The place was jammed like always. About a quarter of the people she knew and another quarter knew her. The rest just came to see what all the fuss was about because Meechan’s was famous citywide. Billy looked at her blankly when she stopped at the register.

      “I called in a to-go order a few minutes ago. Remember, Billy?”

      He brightened. “I remember you now. You haven’t come to see me for a long time. Where’s Max?”

      “Hasn’t he come to see you either? I’ll tell him you miss him.”

      “Tell him I have a new secret recipe for my shakes.” He leaned over the counter and whispered, “I’m going to put soda pop in them.”

      “That’s a good idea, Billy.” A good idea that several other places had already had, but good nonetheless. “I’ll tell Max.”

      “I’ll СКАЧАТЬ