Hope Entangles: A New Adult Romantic Comedy (Book 2 of 3) (2 page)

Bette pulled her arm from around me and
shook Darla’s hand. It was funny, but I got the distinct impression
that the two women were quite literally sizing each other up. Like
two prize fighters entering the ring.

Oh boy…

“
I’m Bette La Belle,” my
neighbor said, smiling, her voice dripping honey. “Hope’s neighbor
and best friend.”

Darla’s smile intensified. If they’d
been a couple of guys they would have been trying to crush each
other’s hands.

“
I’m so glad to meet you.”
Darla held up the large paper sack she had in her hand. “Thank
heavens I brought enough for three.”

***

The Gyros were from a little mom and
pop place downtown call De Petro’s, and they were to die for
delicious. Darla had brought three gyros and three large fries. She
had them put the creamy sour cream and ranch sauce on the side so
they wouldn’t get soggy, and they were piping hot.

Of course, as fast as Drew drove they
wouldn’t get a chance to get cold.

I got out plates and the ketchup, and
Bette found a gallon of peach iced tea in my pantry and poured
three glasses over ice. Darla dished out the eats and we dug in.
Once they started eating the girls ratcheted down their sweet as
pie glaring contest.

“
These gyros are fantastic!”
I told Darla as I luxuriated in the spicy deliciousness.

Bette held up a fry with a dollop of
ketchup on the end. “And these fries are divine…so
crisp.”

Darla lit up at the praise. “I’ve been
going there since I was in high school. You can’t find a better
gyro within the city limits.”

Bette nodded her head and gave Darla a
real smile.

I sighed and relaxed. They weren’t
going to fight after all.

We ate. Darla talked about how grateful
she was that I was taking her out to practice driving. Bette gave
me a raised eyebrow and a taunting smile. She knew I was in for
it.

Then she asked our young third a series
of questions that didn’t seem to be leading anywhere.

Where is your family
from?

Antonio.>

Do you work or go to
school?

Shack—I mostly sell smart phones and contract plans—and I’m going
to school for business: marketing and management.>

How did you meet your fine
young beau?

Darla smiled:

looking for ice cream salt—you know, for making it homemade—and a
new rifle mount for the wall of my bedroom (
holy hell, she had a gun…
) and he
helped me find both…and weaseled my number and a date out of me for
good measure.>

I cut in, afraid where Bette might be
going with these seemingly innocent questions.

“
So when are you scheduled
to take the test again?”

Darla washed down the last of her gyro
with a sip of tea. “Two weeks. It’ll be my tenth time. The ladies
at the DMV say if I fail one more time it’ll be the county
record.”

Bette got this funny look on her face,
as if she were about to laugh or cry or something.

“
You’ve really failed the
test nine times?”

Darla eyed her empty plate. “I don’t do
so great at the parallel parking…the cones…or the highway.” She
fidgeted and looked miserable. “I just get so
flustered.”

Bette shook her head in disbelief. “So
why doesn’t your boyfriend teach you?”

Darla sighed and bit her lip. Lord, she
was adorable.

“
He gets all anxious when I
get behind the wheel of his
precious
truck. I don’t get ten yards before he starts in
that I’m going too fast, too slow, I’m hitting the brakes to hard,
I almost side swiped a parked car…”

She put her hands on her hips and shook
her head. “I’m afraid if I try and have him teach me anymore we’re
gonna have a really big fight and break up.”

Bette just stared at Darla… and then
looked at me with one of her seldom shown moments of
speechlessness. I could tell by the look on her face, she’d given
up trying not to like Darla.

Bette got up and swung her purse over
her shoulder. “Okay then, ladies… let’s hit the road.”

Darla and I stared at her for a dim
moment before she snapped, “Well, come on. You can’t take Hope’s
old clunker and expect to learn anything but calling
AAA.”

I shot her a hard look.

“
Come on, honey bun. You
know that old clap trap heap of crap is on its last
legs.”

Darla’s eyes were round as saucers.
“You mean you want me to drive your Cadillac?” She glanced out my
kitchen window to where Bette’s Caddy was parked.

Bette practically purred as she shot
Darla with a knowing grin.

“
You’ll love it. It’s like a
Barcalounger on wheels.”

Chapter 2

I’d always suspected that Bette loved
to live life on the edge. She had more ex-husbands than I had pairs
of shoes, and now that she was single again she had a stream of
male suitors coming and going like worker bees at a
beehive.

I’d also noticed that she preferred to
sweep out her own gutters, which she did in her bare feet,
practically dancing around as she swept.

On those days I opted to go inside. I’m
afraid of heights, and watching her up there is just too precarious
for me to stand.

But when she handed over the keys to
her pearl white, shiny, brand-new Cadillac to a nineteen year old
driver she’d only known for twenty minutes, I knew she was a true
adrenaline junky. I bit my lip as my stomach tried to flip over on
me. It felt like I was on a rollercoaster, and we hadn’t even
gotten into the car yet.

After Bette had made the offer to take
Darla out driving, she’d high tailed it over to her house to stow
away her perishable Piggly Wiggly items. It had taken her all of
five minutes, and she came out of the house chatting on her phone,
smiling and shooing us to her Caddy.

Presented with the keys, Darla
hesitated and gulped. Bette gave them a little shake and when they
clinked like bells Darla lunged for them and ran for the driver’s
seat.

“
Are you sure you want to go
through with this?” I whispered into her ear, trying not to look to
obvious about it.

Bette smiled as she slid her sunglasses
back on. “Driving is the most important skill a young woman can
have. Otherwise she is consigned to being a passenger in life, and
winds up subservient to others for transportation.”

I blinked at her. I’d never pegged
Bette as a women’s lib type.

Bette sighed, her smile turning
brittle. “My parents refused to let me learn to drive. And my first
husband kept with the tradition.”

I gaped at her. Since the day I’d met
her, Bette had never let anyone tell her what to do. And if they
tried she dumped them or divorced them. “What changed?”

Her smile turned all Bette again. “My
husband was much like Darla’s beau. Controlling, protective of his
shiny new car—he had a Porsche—and completely unable to see me as
anything but a stay-at-home wife.

“
I siphoned off some money
here and there and paid a guy I knew from high school to teach me.
I kept it a secret, but ended up buying myself a used car once I
had my license.”

She laughed and gave a derisive snort.
“An El Camino. When Travis found the white and rust beast parked in
the driveway he had a fit. That I’d gone against his edict and
gotten my license, and had brought such an eye-sore
home.”

I smiled. I could so see her doing
that.

“
After he saw I wouldn’t be
cowed, and that I wasn’t going to get rid of the rust-mobile—even
after he offered to buy me a shiny new Mustang—he started staying
late at work more often, coming home with perfume and lipstick
smudges on his collar, and being a right distant shit to
me.”

“
So you filed for
divorce?”

“
No,” she said as she took
me by the arm and led me to the now idling Cadillac. “I took the
rust-mobile to follow him and caught him on film going to a sleazy
motel with his bleached blonde secretary.” She gave me a wink.
“You’re not the only photographer in the neighborhood.”

And there was where her love for
eavesdropping and spy-games came from.

Bette opened the back passenger door,
holding it open for me.

I stared at the swank
leather upholstery and then imagined Darla and Bette in the front
seat, hands clasped in a
Thelma and
Louise
hold as the Cadillac flew into the
Grand Canyon.

Bette snapped her fingers in front of
my face. “Earth to Hope: Get in.”

I plastered a smile on my face and
dropped into the cool, buttery soft seat of Bette car. I pulled on
my seatbelt as Bette shut the door. The air conditioning was on
already—thank heavens—and Bette made getting into her seat look
like a graceful dance move she’d picked up from a prima
ballerina.

“
I’m nervous,” Darla said,
her hands on the wheel in a white knuckled grip. She seemed unable
to pry her eyes from what was straight in front of her.

“
Don’t be,” Bette said,
placing a perfectly manicured hand on the younger woman’s shoulder.
“I’m fully insured.”

Darla giggled anxiously.

“
Plus,” Bette crooned as she
riffled through an assortment of CDs. “We have tunes!”

Born to Be Wild
started to play and I felt my stomach flip over on
me again.

Darla’s hands came off the wheel and
she started to hyperventilate. “I c-c-can’t d-d-do
this!”

Bette ejected the disc, pulled out a
white paper bag and upended it, making its contents of insurance
papers and registration forms fall into her lap, and then handed
Darla the bag. “Breathe in this.”

Darla took the bag and started huffing
noisily into it.

I felt my stomach turn over again. We
were doomed.

And then a twisted, almost
happy thought came to me.
If Darla kills us
while learning to drive, at least I won’t have to think about Jake
anymore…

Bette riffled through her CDs and
finally pulled out a mixed tape one. It lacked any artwork and had
“Bad Mood” scrawled in black marker across its front.

Oh god…

Bette popped it in and a few
beats later Carrie Underwood’s
Until He
Cheats
came rolling out of the
speakers.

Darla stopped hyperventilating and
smiled, her dimples in full glory as she turned to us. “I love this
song.”

“
Who doesn’t?” Bette purred,
and then casually pointed toward the road. “Let’s hit the road,
shall we?”

***

It was one of those moments in life
that seemed to never end.

First Bette directed Darla onto the
freeway. Her advice was, “Blow everyone’s doors off. The sooner you
pass them, the sooner you get where you want to go.”

I probably put permanent nail marks in
Bette’s leather seats, but at least I kept my gyro down.

Darla wove in and out of traffic like
Danica Patrick during a NASCAR race. Turned out she was really
rather good at it. I shook my head in disbelief as we made it to
the other side of San Antonio without crashing or being molested by
the highway patrol.

Next came parallel parking. Somehow
Bette found a street in the suburbs that was completely deserted.
It was still morning, so most people were probably at work, or out
running errands.

Bette and I got out and acted as place
setters for where Darla needed to fit the white Caddy between. She
ran over the sidewalk that first time, but after that she seemed to
get the hang of it. Then Bette moved the program a couple blocks
over and Darla practiced sliding the Caddy into a spot flanked by a
Saturn and a Volvo. She executed the move perfectly all ten times
Bette had her do it.

From there our little field trip moved
to an abandoned Circuit City parking lot. There we acted as cones
as Darla navigated a makeshift maneuverability course.

I admit feeling the icy fingers of
dread run down my spine as she backed up towards us… but she
skillfully drove the huge, honking beast of a car through the
course without batting an eyelash.

She was getting pretty good.

When Bette and I got back in the car
Darla was all smiles. Bette was on her cell phone again, chatting
away and smiling. “Oh, thank you Ray. I can’t tell you how much I
appreciate this. We’ll be right there.”

She gave Darla a solemn look. “One more
stop and we’ll head back.”

That one more stop was the highway
patrol barracks on New Braunfels Avenue. Bette had Darla stop and
Bette got out and sashayed in through the front doors. No more than
a minute later she came out arm in arm with a tall, heavy set man
wearing a rumpled shirt and a loosened tie. He also had a
clipboard.