The Good Life

The Good Life - By Jodie Beau





PROLOGUE



It was late August. The air was warm and humid. Even at 3:30am it was still over eighty degrees. The young couple lying in the bed of the pickup truck threw their blanket off of them in an attempt to cool down. The move was a little risqué since they weren’t wearing any clothes underneath.

They had come to the lot near the airport after the bars closed because they needed a place to be alone. She lived with her parents, and he shared an apartment with her older brother. There was a super-icky factor about being caught naked by any of those people. They preferred not to risk it. It was more fun to chance being caught by the police instead.

The lot was deserted; the restaurant it belonged to closed hours earlier. The girl had discovered the location about five years ago, shortly after she got her driver’s license at sixteen. It was serendipity, she’d thought at the time, having just learned the word. That was before the movie came out and everyone else learned it, too. A happy accident it was.

The engine had been overheating on her old POS Buick and she’d pulled into an empty run-down parking lot next to a boarded-up restaurant to give it a drink. As she lifted up the hood, a plane flew right over her head after take-off. It was so close she felt she might have been able to touch it if she jumped high enough. She’d never seen a plane so close before and was amazed by its size and power. The best part of all was the blast of air she felt. It was only enough to mess up her hair and blow her skirt up a tad, but that small blast of air gave her a huge rush of adrenaline and she was hooked.

For the next few years she parked in the lot quite often. She would come after school and lie on the hood of her car while she listened to music and studied. Sometimes she watched the planes and fantasized about being on them, especially if they were going to New York City. She’d been fantasizing about New York City since the first time she’d seen the movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s when she was nine. The city seemed so alive and the people who lived there so glamorous.

One day she would live there, too. One day she would be glamorous. She would wear liquid eyeliner and big sunglasses and smoke cigarettes out of one of those long cigarette holders. She would attend the best parties, wear the best clothes and would make walking in high heels look easy. She would make it happen. One day. New York City was her soul mate. She knew they would eventually meet and live happily ever after.

It wasn’t that she didn’t like Michigan. It was fine. It had four distinct seasons, five Great Lakes and one fantastic hockey team. It was home to her family and friends and a perfect spot for watching planes land. Even if the abandoned restaurant was now reopened and the previously vacant lot was now occupied during business hours, she could still use it as a secret place to hang out with the boy late at night. Because Michigan also happened to be the home of one really sweet boy with a smile that made her heart do somersaults. And when she was lying under the stars with him in the back of his truck, she had no thoughts of moving to New York to flutter around the city in a tiara. As she watched the planes fly above them, she didn’t think about where they could take her one day. She only thought about where they could go together. The only place she cared to be was in his arms. But she seriously needed to cut that shit out. It was totally cheesy, and people all over the world would be swallowing their own vomit if they knew what she was thinking.

This was only a summer fling. That was the plan. They were only hooking up because he was her safety guy. You know, like a safety school is not your first choice but it’s a sure thing? A safety guy was a guy who was sure not to hurt you. He was her safety guy because it was a sure thing she would not fall in love with him.

And that’s not what’s happening now, she told herself.

It didn’t matter anyway. She was leaving for North Carolina the next morning to begin her final year of undergrad at UNC and this – whatever it was – was over.

“I was kinda thinking…” he said. He had one arm under her neck and one arm under his head and looked as cool and laid-back as the Marlboro man used to look back when smoking was still cool. “It might be fun if I drove down with you tomorrow. I’ve never been to North Carolina, and it’s so long for you to drive by yourself.”

A sunny 700-mile road trip with him sounded absolutely amazing to her. Since classes didn’t start until Monday, they could take their time, maybe stop at a flea market, and eat lots of gummy worms and rock candy. She could show him the mountain that looked like a giant boob with a nipple on top. She could introduce him to her friends at UNC and spend just one more night in his arms. Yes, it sounded like the best frickin’ idea ever.

“I don’t think that would be a very good idea,” she lied. “That’s something boyfriends and girlfriends do, you know?”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he said. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

It was too dark for her to see the disappointment on his face. But when he pulled his arm out from under her and let her head hit the hard plastic of the bed liner, she could feel it, the difference.

He sat up and tossed over her Carolina-Blue tank top and they got dressed in silence.