The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes Read online

  ‘So,’ Pauline said. ‘What’ll it be?’

  Crash said, ‘Two hamburgers, one medium well, one medium rare, pickles on both, cheese on the medium well, fries, two Cokes, one diet, with water chasers. Wait fifteen minutes then bring a chocolate milkshake. Large.’

  ‘Hungry, are you?’ Mare smiled at Pauline. ‘I’ll have-’

  ‘I just ordered for you,’ Crash said, looking impatient.

  ‘That’s what we always got. Can we finish our conversation now?’

  ‘Well, I’ve changed,’ Mare said. ‘You leave a woman alone for five years, she’s gonna change.’ She smiled at Pauline again. ‘I’d like ketchup on the medium rare burger and a lemon slice in the Diet Coke and in the water, please. And make the shake a strawberry.’

  ‘I like chocolate,’ Crash said.

  ‘Then get your own,’ Mare said, and he ordered a chocolate shake.

  ‘Not much of a change,’ Pauline said to Mare.

  ‘Thank you,’ Mare said, and Pauline topped up Crash’s coffee cup and left.

  Crash picked up the sugar dispenser. ‘She’s right. Adding lemon doesn’t change the basic order. I still know you. And you are something to me, damn it. You’re-’

  ‘You do not know me,’ Mare said, staring at Crash’s coffee cup.

  ‘You ran five miles this morning and waved to Mother at the tattoo parlor,’ Crash said, getting ready to pour sugar into his coffee but keeping his eyes on her. ‘Then you came here and had orange juice and a doughnut for breakfast. Why are you making this so hard? Why do there have to be so many secrets and so many rules and why does everything have to be so damn hard?’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’ Mare stared at the coffee cup until it sparked blue, and then she slid it over two inches as Crash glared at her and poured sugar onto the table where the cup had been.

  ‘And I know you. I’ll bet you five bucks that you’re wearing blue lace under that god-awful coverall. You always wore blue lace under anything butch.’ He grinned at her then, for the first time since he’d come back, and she lost her breath because she’d forgotten how his smile lit up his whole face.

  ‘I am not wearing blue lace,’ Mare lied, and tried to think of anything besides how good it felt to have him smiling across the table from her again. Like how easy it was to move things like muffins and coffee cups and how hard it was to move little things like sugar grains. She stared at the sugar and began to separate out grains, biting her lip as she concentrated.

  ‘I can see the lace.’ Crash put the sugar dispenser back. ‘Right there at the top of your zipper.’ He picked up his spoon, looked down for his cup and saw the pile of sugar instead, and said, ‘What the hell?’ as Mare looked down to see her zipper had slipped enough for a flash of blue lace to show at the top.

  It looked pretty good so she left it.

  ‘You peeked so that’s cheating,’ she said. ‘No bet. There are many new things about me.’

  Crash shook his head, cleaning up sugar as he spoke. ‘Nobody knows you like I do, Mare. I know you, the real you, the part that doesn’t change. There’s nobody else in the world like you. And I know because I’ve looked.’

  ‘Knew me, maybe,’ Mare said. ‘But not anymore. There’s a lot new about me, like…’ Her voice trailed off as she realized there wasn’t anything new if you didn’t count being able to move sugar granules. ‘I have a new tattoo,’ she lied, and watched with satisfaction as his eyebrows went up.

  ‘Where?’ he said, grinning, and the light in his eyes made her want to grin back at him. ‘Give me a map and a flashlight. I’ll find it.’

  Kim sang on in the background and Mare thought, Do not get sucked into him again, he left you, and said, ‘You’ll never know. So why did you come back?’

  ‘For you,’ he said, and she went very still. ‘I miss you, Mare. I’ve been everywhere and seen everything, but there’s nothing and nobody like you.’

  Mare took her hands off the table and put them in her lap. ‘Oh.’ Concentrate on the sugar. She tried to make the sugar swirl, thinking of each separate grain. It gave her a hell of a headache but that beat heartache any day. I love you so much. I never stopped loving you. I never will stop loving you.

  ‘I didn’t have anything when I was here.’ He pushed his coffee cup away to lean across the table to her. ‘I was just Crash the Loser who almost killed you on my bike on your prom night. But things are different now. I’ve got my own business in Italy. I was roaming around over there and I met this guy, he’s as nuts about bikes as I am, and Mare, the Italians, they really know motorcycles, they’re an art form over there, and this guy, Leo, he loves the old ones and he’s been restoring them and he showed me how.’ Mare nodded and Crash went on. ‘I’ve been working on this bike for you. It’s back in Italy, all done, ready to go. Here.’ He got out his wallet and took out a photograph and handed it to her.

  The bike was a thing of beauty, a moped on steroids, sleek and black with a baby blue tank and seat and piping.

  ‘It’s a Kreidler Florett,’ Crash said. ‘Built in 1964, 49cc, but it moves like you wouldn’t believe. Lightweight but fast, just like you. Took me a long time to find all the parts but it’s cherry now…’ His voice trailed off.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said, trying to keep her voice flat.

  ‘The Florett is considered the best 50 cc bike ever made,’ he said, pulling back, clearing his throat. ‘It’s a real collector’s bike.’

  ‘I like the blue,’ Mare said.

  ‘It’s your color,’ he said.

  ‘And the logo thingy, that’s cool.’

  ‘That’s the Florett logo.’

  Mare nodded. ‘The seat looks like leather.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Baby-blue leather.’

  ‘Yep.’

  Mare nodded again. The bike was perfect. She handed the picture back to him, glad she had her sunglasses on. Her eyes were probably glowing.

  Crash put the picture back in his wallet. ‘The thing is, I have a business there. I just bought a house. And it’s beautiful there, you’d love it. I can just see you riding that bike through the hills, and the Italians, they’d love you. I can take care of you now, Mare.’ He swallowed and then took a deep breath. ‘I think we should try it again. I’ll do better this time. Come back with me.’ He looked into her eyes, the blue depths of his aching with honesty. ‘We belong together. Come to Italy with me, Mare.’

  Yes, she thought, but she sat back and tried to be cool. ‘Just like that. Five years go by, you don’t call, you don’t write, and just like that it’s “Come to Italy with me.”‘ God, yes.

  I know’ He ducked his head a little. ‘I was going to try to take it slow, but we never did that.’ He looked at her, solid as ever. ‘We were always going ninety miles an hour, Mare.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s how we hit the trash can,’ Mare said, trying not to think, Italy. With Crash. She stared at the sugar dispenser, watching the granules inside start to stir. Italy. Where the sky was as blue as his eyes and he’d built a perfect bike just for her.

  ‘I know you need time to think about it,’ he said. ‘I have time. I don’t have to leave until Monday-’

  ‘Monday?’ The sugar dispenser rocked as Mare sat up, and she slapped her hand over it so Crash wouldn’t notice. ‘You think I can decide to just run off to another country with you in a weekend?’ She leaned forward, trying to make him understand. ‘I have a job here, I just got offered a great promotion, I’m on my way to the top, Crash. And by the way, have you met my sisters?’

  ‘You’re twenty-three,’ he said. ‘You can leave your sisters. I want to show you Italy. I can take care of you, Mare.’

  ‘You can’t.’ She took her hand off the sugar dispenser where the sugar granules were heaving on their own now, peppered with little blue sparks, probably because her heart was beating like crazy because she was leaning so close to him, kissing distance, and the excitement had to go somewhere. I can move that