No Place Like Home by Barbara Samuel Page B

them, especially about Billy. He was just about the most gorgeous thing my friends had ever seen.” I closed my eyes with a happy smile, remembering the astonishing pleasure of that music. “And you know how good they were. I didn’t even notice Billy right away, you know? He was cute, but it was Michael’s voice that got me—it was like that Roberta Flack song. I stood there in the audience and just cried.”
    “Does Michael know this?”
    “Oh, sure. We’ve talked about it a lot.” I took a breath. “Anyway, they went into a set of heavy rock and roll, to get the crowd all hot, and I started dancing. When the set was finished, Billy came looking for me.”
    We were quiet, looking at the wide green lawns, the imposing columns, the very high schoolish look of it. “I partied with them, Billy and Michael, that night, and I went back every night after that until they left six days later.”
    Oh, the pain of those long weeks afterward, spending hours and hours on the phone long distance with Billy in some other city, my heart eaten up with jealousy and longing! He swore undying love for me, but even then I was smart enough to know he was tempted every single day.
    Which probably lent a good deal of triumph to what happened next.
    “About two months later, when I came out of school, Billy was waiting.” I could see the day so clearly, still. “I came down those steps, and it was a sunny day with a big wind blowing all these leaves into circles, you know? I didn’t see him right away, because I was totally miserable being in school after that big adventure in the summer. All the kids seemed so stupid and shallow.” I shook my head.
    “I remember that feeling.” He touched my shoulder, once and away.
    I pursed my lips, remembering, “There was a big knot of girls at the bottom of the stairs, and they were doing that giggle and point thing, you know, a sure sign there was some boy who thought he was the baddest thing around.” I glanced at him. “Are you getting how cool and together I was?”
    He chuckled.
    “So I look up, and there he is. Leaning against his motorcycle with his hair blowing all around him, his arms crossed. He even had on a leather jacket.” My heart rushed a little, like it had then. “I thought I could see his eyes, burning me across the whole lawn, and it finally hit me that the kids were all whispering his name, telling each other, ‘That’s Billy Jake, from the Lost Boys Band.’ And then they were looking back at me, waiting to see what I’d do.”
    “God, that was a stupid name,” Malachi said. “I tried to talk him out of it, but his agent just thought it was so damned clever, he wouldn’t listen to me.”
    I grinned. “Not as bad as Johnny Cougar.”
    “Huh. Mellencamp got it together eventually, though, figured out he was being used. Billy was never that smart.” He realized whom he was talking to and winced. “Sorry.”
    “You’re right. I knew it even then.” I shrugged and looked back at the grass, at a day more than twenty years in the past. “I hated Pueblo—it seemed so provincial and backward and blue collar . . . and Billy knew how I felt. He sat there on that bike, and I knew he’d come for me, that all I had to do to walk away was just get on that bike and ride away with him.”
    I looked at Malachi and smiled. “I remember exactly what he said, too.” I dropped my voice, let the southern drawl—did I mention I’ve always been a sucker for a man with a drawl?—slow my syllables, and said, “ ‘Come on with me, Jewel. I don’t know where we’ll end up, but you know where this road leads.’ ” So many years later, my breath felt short over the enormity of the decision I’d made so easily in that instant. “And he was right, so I put down my backpack, zipped up my coat, and I went with him.”
    “And I bet they swooned, those kids watching.”
    “Maybe,” I said, putting the car back in gear. “But I bet a lot more of them thought I was a