Page 8 of Second Chances

“Yes, please do!”

After they had gotten bottles of beer and wristbands, Charlotte, Amy, and Isobel stood on the line to enter the general admission area. “So, where are your new friends sitting?” Amy inquired.

“Oh, she said the VIP area, which I guess is over there.” Charlotte pointed to a fenced-in section with tables. “I think I see Trixie over there, in that group that’s standing.”

“Mmm, yep, I think that’s her,” Amy agreed.

Suddenly, the house lights dimmed as the opening act was announced, but the VIP section remained illuminated enough for Charlotte to see the table where Trixie, flanked by two men, had just sat down. She inhaled sharply before she could stop herself. The man sitting to Trixie’s right angled his head, and thanks to the lights from the stage, she recognized him. The man from the auto shop. Again.

“Lottie, what’s wrong?”

“It’s him.” Her joy at spotting him faded, however, as she watched the woman she had met earlier, Diadema, say something in his ear. Deflated, she followed Isobel through their entrance, willing herself not to look behind her for one more glimpse of him. Three couples surrounding the table made it clear that he was not available. Just her luck.

Almost Forty Years Ago

In a country field on the night of his high school graduation, Henry stared at his best friends, flabbergasted by the bombshells they had just dropped at the keg party celebrating the thirty-one members of the senior class. “Sorry, dude.” Kyle stepped up to the keg of beer. “They told me I didn’t have enough work experience. Bullshit, I know, since I’ve spent all my life working on our farm. I guess cleaning pig stalls counts for less out in Arizona.” Kyle shrugged, passing Henry a foamy cup of beer.

“Arizona?” Steve whistled. “I thought the Grand Canyon was in Colorado.” Although a hell of a football player, geography wasn’t in Steve’s wheelhouse—he had trouble finding even South Dakota on a map. “At least you got a reason,” Steve scowled at Kyle. “I just never heard back from them.”

“How long have you guys known about this? I thought we were all going together?”

Steve drank from the bottle of Boone’s Farm he’d brought. “Look, man, we didn’t want to upset you.”

“The truth is, we thought you would just end up working at your dad’s shop.” Kyle’s eyes wouldn’t meet his. “We didn’t think you were serious.”

Annoyed, Henry shook his blond head. He’d never been more serious, because there was no way he was spending another summer getting oil under his nails. College would be his chance to break away from the family’s auto shop, finally, and a grand adventure like working at the Grand Canyon for the summer with his best friends was the start of that. His older brother was content to toil at the shop, but Henry’s destiny was far greater. After graduating as the class valedictorian from Clover Lake High School with the highest GPA, Henry would be pre-med at the University of South Dakota in the upcoming fall.

How could Kyle and Steve be so dense? Over and over, Henry had reiterated how he couldn’t wait to get out of Clover Lake, and they had both agreed. Hoping that maybe they’d just gotten cold feet at the thought of striking out on their own for the summer, he tried convincing them. “Guys, come on, I’m sure there will be something there for you. Half of the kids hired will probably bail. Then they’ll need others to fill those positions.” He needed his best friends there. He’d never been good at meeting people, but they were social butterflies, easing his anxiety when things got too overwhelming.

“Even if I wanted to, I can’t.” Kyle tossed his empty cup behind him. “My dad told me I have to help on the farm this summer, since his hired hand quit last month.” It was common knowledge that Kyle’s dad, who’d never employed the same hired hand for longer than a year, had been upset when Kyle announced he was going to college in Brookings in the fall, instead of working one more year on the family farm. Henry wondered if Kyle would make it off the farm now at all. But what did Kyle mean when he said even if he wanted to? They had all wanted to, or so he thought.

“Okay,” Henry responded. “Steve, what about you? Maybe they just got mixed up with the notifications.” A look passed from Steve to Kyle, and Henry’s stomach sank, as did any hope of traveling to the Grand Canyon with either one of them.

“Sorry, dude.” Steve repeated Kyle’s earlier words. “I’m going to work with Kyle this summer on the farm.”

“What? You hate animals,” Henry pointed out, “and you don’t even live in the country!” Some summer this was turning out to be, over before it had even started. His best friends apparently still planned on working together, just not in the Grand Canyon, and not with him. Henry would have doubted his friends had actually applied for the positions at all if the three of them hadn’t filled out their applications at Henry’s dining room table last winter, mailing them together before going to the video store one Friday night. “Guys, we were ditching this place! We all agreed we wanted to see things and do something cool, not stay in this podunk town!”

Kyle rolled his eyes. “Clover Lake isn’t that bad, Henry. Stay here! We can go to the pool in the afternoons, before evening chores. Drink beer on the weekends, drive over to Beverley and cruise around, meet some girls.” Defeat stung his eyes, so Henry looked away. Another mistake.

Across the spitting flames of fire burning in a barrel on the edge of the field, she appeared. No surprise that she was there, since her family used to own the property until last year. The Sommers weren’t farmers but landowners and, tired of some family farms not paying their rent thanks to years of poor crops, had sold a majority of their fields to a corporate farm conglomerate. In no rush to plant any crops, the farms sat abandoned, making them the perfect place for the teenagers to party. Wearing a fawn-colored fringed tank top, a brown cowboy hat, and form-fitting Wranglers, DD Sommer tipped her head back, laughing at whatever her best friend, Nora Kinsale, was saying. She held a drink in each hand: a plastic cup filled with what he guessed was keg beer and a bottle of Boone’s in the other. Though he was in the same class as the girls, Henry didn’t run in the same social circles, despite Nora having dated his older brother, George, for four years. For almost his entire life, he’d had a crush on DD, since had entranced him from the moment she sat down next to him in kindergarten. Soft-spoken and more interested in studying than socializing, Henry had secretly pined for Clover Lake’s most popular girl, until his longing became more acute this year. His dream of ever dating her fizzled, however, as Dirk Timmons, the class jerk, flirted with DD on the sidelines of the football field while Henry played trumpet in the Clover Lake High School band. Dirk, whose father owned the grocery store in town, was the king of all sports, with a different girlfriend every season, but he had fixed DD in his sights their senior year. And why wouldn’t he? She was flawless. The couple had been steady since October, until the day tickets to the senior prom went on sale. Then, Henry, forever questioning Dirk’s intelligence, had found DD in tears in the basement of the high school one afternoon before band rehearsal.

“DD? Are you okay?” Worried about the girl with a personality as large as the Black Hills, Henry put his trumpet case down next to her on the floor.

“It’s Dirk. He broke up with me, in front of everyone in chemistry.” Henry had taken chemistry the year before, but Kyle had been in the class and described the event in full detail at lunch. “I just found out that he’s taking Alice to prom,” she wailed. Rivals for years, the feud between Alice Patterson and DD had intensified after Alice earned the coveted head cheerleading spot at the beginning of their senior year. “I can’t go by myself, Henry,” she wailed. “Do you know how humiliating it is for me to not have a date to prom? I was supposed to walk in the Grand March with Dirk…I even had our corsages picked out.” Glistening tears tracked her pink cheeks, and Henry studied her, unsure of what to do. “You probably don’t care about any of this. Too wrapped up in your books and music.” Big brown eyes shimmering in misery, DD tilted her head back to rest against the carpeted wall of the music room.

Henry’s eyes rested on her golden throat, and her elegance made it difficult for him to respond. At last he managed, “DD, it won’t be that bad. Kyle and I are going stag with Steve and his date.” Before he could give it a second thought, he offered, “You could come with us.” Henry allowed himself for the briefest of seconds to imagine walking beside her through the decorated archway the senior class had designed for prom. The theme was “A Night in Paris,” and as part of the prom planning committee, Henry had built a scaled-down replica of the Eiffel Tower.

Tucking a piece of glossy golden-brown hair behind her triple-pierced ear, his fantasy girl looked at him with watery brown eyes. “Do you mean, like, be your date?”

No, never in a million years would Henry ever have insinuated that the glamorous Diadema Sommer date him, son of a mere mechanic. Someday he would be a doctor, though a voice reminded him. Pulling his shoulders back, he rubbed his neck. “Would you want to?” he asked tentatively, drawing in a deep breath. “Would you go to prom with me?” Registering the shock that widened her eyes, his body immediately flushed with embarrassment as she gazed at him under her long, dark lashes. He rushed on, “Obviously, we would go as friends. This wouldn’t have to even be a date.”

Long, slim arms wrapped around his shoulders; her soft breath drifted across his neck. “Oh, Henry, you are so sweet. Thank you.” Before he could return her hug, DD pulled away. Pearly-white teeth glinted as she smiled, and he knew with certainty that anything she wanted, he would give her.

Then came prom night. Naively assuming his dreams had finally come true, Henry arrived at her house to pick her up, only to find DD already gone, having left fifteen minutes ago with Nora and George. Her mom informed him, “She said you knew she was riding with them.” Standing in the doorway, holding the small Eiffel Tower he had carved for DD, he was crushed, after anticipating the joy on her face for the intricate gift. Left with no choice but to leave it with her mom, he cringed as she carelessly tossed it on top of the washing machine. Dejected but not undeterred, Henry headed to the grade school gymnasium, where his date greeted him with a hug. His brother took him aside to apologize, explaining that DD told him she was meeting Henry at the prom, and Henry brushed it aside.

Dancing nearly every slow dance with her, holding her as close as she permitted, made the rest of the evening magnificent. Silently, patiently, he had waited years for her to notice him, and at last she was in his arms. As soon as prom ended, George and Nora left, but DD suggested they attend the post-prom party in the school cafeteria. After winning a set of golf clubs at the auction, he, DD, Kyle, Steve, and Steve’s date drove to the small cafe in Clover Lake for a late-night breakfast. Later, on her doorstep, he almost drowned in her glittery brown eyes. “I really appreciate you being there for me, Henry. You have always been so sweet…so kind.” Her soft lips grazed his cheek briefly before she flew up the stairs to her house, her beautiful face peering at him through the screen door before disappearing inside.

Elated, Henry called her house the next afternoon, but DD wasn’t home, her mom informed him. Or later that night, when he phoned again. The day after that was Monday, and for the first time, he strode into Clover Lake High School with a swagger, knowing everyone had seen her on his arm Saturday night. Sure, they hadn’t taken part in the ceremonial Grand March through the decorated archway, and they hadn’t posed for pictures as a couple in front of the eight-foot tall Eiffel Tower, but she had kissed him! Walking to his locker, ready to ask her out on an official date, he stumbled because there was DD, positively beaming. Chest swelling, he hoped she was thinking as much about their time together as he was, and he started toward her. Until he noticed Dirk Timmons with his arm around her. Dirk, the one who had dumped DD before prom, to take not just another date but her rival instead, causing her to cry. DD hadn’t spared Henry a tender glance in the weeks since, practically ignoring him whenever they crossed paths.