The Big Beautiful by Pamela Duncan

Author:Pamela Duncan
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780440336822
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2007-03-27T00:00:00+00:00

24

DENNIS HAD NOT BEEN cool in high school, in spite of the fact that he rode a motorcycle. A motorcycle was supposed to mean automatic cool, but his was a spindly old Japanese job that had belonged to his grandpa and was more moped than motorcycle. But it was the ’70s, when gas went up to a dollar a gallon, and riding the motorcycle was just cheaper than driving his mother’s Oldsmobile. Even then Dennis had a good head on his shoulders, didn’t want to be spending all his money on fuel. With the motorcycle he could get back and forth to school and still have money for more important things, like dating, not that he did much of that. By the time he graduated, he’d saved enough for a used car of his own to drive to mortuary school.

This time, though, this time the motorcycle was cool, a new Harley Fat Boy, black and chrome. It had cost a fortune, but he could afford it. He’d had too many years of being thrifty, never spending a dime on anything unnecessary. And now it was sinking in, the truth of that old saying, you can’t take it with you. As he roared down I-40, Dennis grinned behind the faceguard on his helmet. The good thing about running away from home in your forties was you could afford to do it in style.

Riding on the interstate was good because, as long as he kept moving, the wind kept him cool. The leather jacket and helmet were necessary protection, but every time he stopped at a light, the sweat started. By the time he got to the beach, he’d have to take a shower before he went to see Cassandra. He didn’t want to show up dripping and stinking, although that might be more manly. No, he wanted to roll up cool as a cucumber and watch as she took in the motorcycle, the leather, the Darth Vader helmet. He wanted her to wonder who in the world it was, wanted to see the shock on her face as he lifted the helmet and showed her the new and improved Dennis, the Dennis who was more than a match for that big fisherman or any other man who tried to take his woman.

His woman. Boy, she’d hate that. “I don’t belong to you or no man,” she’d say. It was one of the things he admired most about her, her fierce independence. But part of their whole problem was her refusal to accept that loving somebody meant belonging, maybe not to them, but at least with them. If she’d just quit resisting long enough, she’d see all it really meant was being wanted, accepted, cherished for who she was. It meant having one person in the world that put her first and vice versa. That was all it was, that simple and that complex. Like his mama and daddy. They’d become like puzzle pieces, still individuals but fit together so close, smoothing each other’s bumpy edges, making a complete picture.

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