Always and Forever (21 page)

Slowly, the heaving subsided and Melissa sagged against the car seat, her face pinched and white. Gently, Jory reached across, closed the car door, and stroked Melissa’s clammy forehead. Melissa’s eyelids fluttered open. “Sorry about that.” Her voice sounded raw and small.

“What’s the big deal? You think I’ve never puked before? Remember that time I had the flu? You were there for me.”

“True … we’ve certainly made some lasting memories.” Melissa made a stab at humor.

Jory threw the car into drive, checked for oncoming traffic, and lurched the car off the shoulder
and onto the road. Gravel spat from under the tires. “Do you feel better?”

Melissa eased upright and nodded. “Yes. Can we stop for a cold drink?”

“There’s a mini-mart up ahead. I’ll get us a couple of sodas.”

After they were back on the road Melissa asked, “Where are we?”

“Just driving around. There’s not much traffic out this way, and I thought you might not want to go home right now.”

“You’re right.” Melissa gazed out at her surroundings. “Wait a minute.”

“What is it?” Jory grew anxious, afraid that Melissa would be sick again.

“I’ve been on this road before. There’s a place off a dirt road … Ric brought me. There!” She pointed. “Turn here.”

Jory followed Melissa’s directions and maneuvered her car down a twisting dirt lane, draped with drooping tree branches. When she reached a small clearing, she turned off the engine and they sat in the summer quiet. A stream gurgled over rocks nearby. “Not bad,” she said.

“Put the top down. I need some fresh air.”

Overhead, Spanish moss hung from trees, and they could hear insects chirping. “Ric brought you here?”

“Yes, last spring. It’s sort of peaceful, don’t you think?”

“Sure do.” Jory sipped her soda. “What happened when he brought you?”

Mischief sparkled in Melissa’s blue eyes, letting Jory know that she was feeling better. “He asked to make love to me.”

Jory’s jaw dropped. “Really? What did you say?”

“I told him I’d think about it.”

“And?”

“And I thought about it.”

Exasperated, Jory squealed, “Don’t do this to me, Melissa Austin! What did you
do?”

“I told him no. It wasn’t right for me.”

“I don’t know what I’d say if someone I really cared about asked me,” Jory confessed, thinking of Michael. But then, he’d never ask her.

Melissa swirled the cola can, and Jory listened to the liquid slosh. “So who’s asked you who you
didn’t
really care about?”

“Are you kidding? I’ve been slapping guys’ hands away since eighth grade. Honestly, a girl gets a reputation for parties and good times, and guys think they can get away with anything.”

“Don’t tell me you’re giving up the party life this school year?”

“Maybe. My mother wants me to ‘get serious’ about my future.”

“What’s that mean?”

“To my mother, it’s being seen in the right places with the right people.”

“A party’s a party,” Melissa observed. It bothered Jory that everyone, even Melissa, had this image of her as frivolous and shallow. No wonder Michael thought of her as a silly kid.

“Don’t bet on it. I like to pick my parties and my friends. Mother thinks that the masses at Lincoln aren’t good enough for me. Or rather for our family’s position in Tampa.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean it like it sounded. You know I think you’re terrific.” Melissa plucked at lint on the upholstery. “I can’t wait for school to start because it puts me that much closer to college. That much closer to law school and a career.”

Jory felt pangs of envy. Melissa knew exactly what she wanted—if she could live long enough to achieve it. Jory didn’t know anything she wanted—and she’d probably live forever. She sighed, starting the car.

“Michael’s taking his balloon up this Saturday at dawn,” Melissa said. “Why don’t you come with me and help him launch it like we did last summer?” Jory’s pulse automatically accelerated and Melissa continued, tenderly, “Who knows? Maybe this time he’ll take you up with him.”

“Who knows?” Jory echoed, feeling her spirits soar.
To touch the sky with Michael
 … Well, perhaps she could think of
one
thing she wanted.

Jory shivered in the damp fog. Members of Michael’s hot-air balloon club scrambled to unfurl their nylon ships and launch them before the sun could rise. She nudged Melissa, asking, “Why’s Michael late? Will the fog keep him from going up?” Melissa had spent the night at Jory’s house, and the two of them had arrived at the field first.

“He said he’d meet us here,” Melissa said. “And this fog’s nothing. The sun will burn it right off. Besides, it’s a low fog and the balloons will be above it in minutes.”

Jory listened to the hiss of the propane tanks. She watched a balloon fill and rise like a colorful soap bubble. Once filled with heated air, the balloon strained against ropes as a ground crew held it to the earth and two people climbed into a gondola-shaped basket. Light from the headlamps of parked vans and trucks tunneled through the fog, making the seven-story-tall balloon seem like a ghostly galleon for aliens. “My hands are sweating,” she confessed to Melissa in a whisper.

“Why?”

“Because I might get to go up in Michael’s balloon with him.”

“Now that wasn’t a firm promise,” Melissa warned. “I said
maybe
.”

“ ‘Maybe’ was all it took for me to crawl out of bed at four
A. M
. and drive out here with you, wasn’t it?”

“If you do go up, don’t get sick like I always do. My stomach is definitely a landlubber.”

“That’s sailor talk—not ballooning,” Jory said with a grin.

“Nausea knows no distinction,” Melissa said, holding her palm against her abdomen.

Jory watched as another balloon rose, its pilot adjusting the smaller propane burner aboard his craft. The bright flame shot upward into the neck of the balloon. “You’re sure the fabric won’t catch on fire?” she asked, feeling apprehensive for the first time.

“Michael says that’s what keeps them up in the sky. When a pilot wants his balloon to go higher, he turns up the burner. If he wants to go lower, he lets the air inside the balloon cool naturally, or he releases it through a special valve.” Melissa punctuated her explanation with her hands as she talked. “It’s tricky though, because it takes time for the balloon to respond. That’s why these people have a pilot’s license.”

Surprised, Jory interrupted. “I didn’t know Michael had a license to fly.”

“It’s the law. And there has to be a chase crew—like us—on the ground,” Melissa continued. “In case a pilot gets into trouble with power lines or something.”

“The things I do for love …” Jory mumbled.

“Here he comes.” Melissa pointed to a pickup approaching over the bumpy terrain. The truck skidded to a halt and Michael jumped out and hurried to lower the tailgate.

“Oversleep, Big Brother?” Melissa needled.

“Beth overslept,” he corrected, his hands busy hauling out the massive nylon balloon from his truck bed.

“Beth?” Jory asked blankly in unison with Melissa. Then for the first time, she noticed the passenger inside the truck. A girl, blond and still sleepy-eyed, pushed the creaky door open and stepped to the ground. She smiled sheepishly. “Beth Collins. Are you Melissa?”

“Beth’s in my macroeconomics class at USF,” Michael explained as he worked to lay the balloon out on the ground. “I promised to take her up this morning.”

Jory felt twinges of hurt and jealousy. She exchanged glances with Melissa, who stepped toward Michael. “I thought Jory might go up with you.”

“Sorry, my basket can only hold two. Here, hold this rope while I drag the propane tank over.”

Jory shuffled out of the way, numb and embarrassed.
Stupid
, she told herself. How stupid of her to ever think she had a chance with Michael.

“Can I help?” Beth asked.

“Hold the other rope,” Michael directed, aiming the nozzle of the tank at the mouth of the balloon. He turned the valve, the tank hissed, and the yellow-and-red material fluttered and began to fill.

“How’d you get into hot-air ballooning?” Beth asked, her face pretty and attentive in the growing morning light. “I heard balloons like this are expensive.”

“I accepted it as a payoff on a bad debt that some guy owed me. I worked a whole summer and the guys construction company went bankrupt. He gave me the balloon to keep me from blowing his head off.” Michael grinned. Jory tried to ignore the way his nearness made her insides turn to jelly. He talked as he worked. “And yes, it is expensive. But it’s my only vice.”

By now, the balloon had filled, and its bright panels of fabric stretched and reached toward the sky. “It’s beautiful,” Beth shouted, holding fast to the rope.

“Come on. Get in the basket before we miss what’s left of the sunrise.”

With envy, Jory watched Beth scramble into the wicker gondola, followed by Michael. “Toss off the ropes,” he commanded Melissa and others who’d gathered to help with the launch. Michael released a blast of propane from the tank on board the balloon, and the great airship rose. “Hey,” he called down to Melissa. “You two will be my spotters won’t you? You and Jory follow in my pickup, and after we land I’ll treat everybody to breakfast.”

“Jory and I’ll follow,” Melissa shouted.

The balloon floated up, and as it climbed Jory felt her fantasies floating away with it.

“I’m sorry.” Melissa’s voice interrupted her thoughts.

Jory turned and forced a smile. “What’s the big deal? You told me all along that it was chancy that he’d take me with him.”

“I didn’t know a thing about this Beth.”

“Well, aren’t you always saying he needs more of a social life and I need to concentrate on guys my own age?”

“Yes, but … ”

“Then that’s just what I’m going to do.” Jory got inside the truck and slammed the door a little too hard. “After all, school starts in a few weeks and there’s a whole army of senior guys waiting to be conquered.” Suddenly, she half wished she’d gone to Europe with her parents.

“That’s the spirit,” Melissa said, sliding behind the wheel and starting the engine. “We’ll come back for your car later,” she added, putting the truck into gear and heading across the field.

Jory gritted her teeth as the vehicle bumped along, forced down a lump of bitter disappointment, and scanned the sky. The fog had evaporated and dawn had broken out in shades of pink and violet. The balloon floated on a hazy draft of warm summer air. She watched it recede, carrying her hopeless love for Michael along with it.

“You’re awfully quiet, Jory. And you didn’t eat much at breakfast. Was it because of Beth?”

Melissa’s question stirred Jory long enough for her to adjust her rearview mirror and realize that she’d passed her exit on the expressway. “It was gruesome,” she confessed. “I didn’t like sitting
there watching Beth make nice-nice with him. But its more than that.”

“Like what?”

Jory shrugged, not sure she was able to verbalize her churning thoughts. “I feel like Rip van Winkle. I woke up one day and discovered that life had passed me by and all I was was older.”

“I don’t get it.”

“You have all these dreams and plans, Melissa. I don’t have anything. No goals. No stars to shoot for.” She released a short, derisive laugh. “Do you know how awful it makes me feel to admit my mother’s right?”

“Geez, Jory, you’re seventeen. You’ve got a million years to make plans.”

Jory glanced toward her friend. “That’s what
I’ve
been telling
you
for years. But you kept telling me that life was more than one long party. That I needed to think about my future and college.”

Melissa flushed. “I’m not contradicting myself. You do need to think about those things. I guess I hate to see you down, that’s all. And all because Michael showed up this morning with a girl.”

“It just made me realize how I get focused on one thing and forget about everything else.”

“That’s not true. You’re just loyal.”

“I’m a dope,” Jory corrected.

“Well when school starts, something or someone will come along and make you happy again.”

Jory saw Melissa’s hand resting against the seat. It was thin and pale, and it reminded Jory of her best friend’s battle against cancer. Again, the
unfairness of life smacked her conscience. “So help me dedicate this year to ‘finding myself.’ Okay?”

Melissa poked Jory’s shoulder. “Only if you smile and tell me you haven’t given up on Michael.”

“But you’re
always
after me to give up on Michael.”

“I’ve changed my mind. Beth doesn’t deserve him.”

Jory slowed the car, taking an exit back toward north Tampa. “And you say I’m fickle,” she said. “Now that Brad’s graduated and Ric’s out of the picture, what’s Melissa going to do with her libido?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Melissa said. “I told you, it’s books and studying for me. College scholarships are my only true loves.”

Jory shook her head. “Which brings us full circle. Melissa chasing substance … Jory chasing rainbows.”

Melissa squeezed Jory’s arm. “Chase the rainbows for both of us.”