Chapter 14 - Bonnie

Chapter 14

Bonnie

Phoenix, Arizona, 1974

Dale Waller got Bonnie fired from the Playboy Club.

Bonnie had worked there for only a few months, drawn by the sizable tips Dee was earning. Dee had turned out to be something of a surprise. Once she hit twenty-one, all that baby fat melted plain off (probably because she couldn't even afford a soda at Bob's Big Boy and Bonnie could no longer afford to spot her one, now that she had a kid to feed), and it turned out that Dee was statuesque as all hell. She'd been scouted one day when she was wrestling the snot monster into a trolley down at the Alpha Beta market, with the guy asking her flat out what her measurements were; Dee had told him to buzz off, but he'd still given her his card.

And before you could say Hugh Hefner, Dee was earning enough to move out of her sister's place and leave the snot monster behind.

"You should do it, Bonnie," Dee told her. "And wouldn't it be a blast to work together?"

Bonnie was dubious at first, but Dee swore the guys weren't allowed to date a bunny, let alone touch one.

"It's classy," Dee said. "The mayor was there last night." She looked Bon up and down. "And your measurements are alright. Hell, you wouldn't even know you'd had a kid."

Bonnie took a good, hard look at her situation. She was earning only $61.50 a week, up from the $57.50 of five whole years earlier, and still living in Pa's trailer in Shitsville, but now with a kid. A kid who went through bread and bananas and milk like nobody's business. Hell, if Bonnie didn't do something soon, Sandra was going to spend her entire childhood in the same crappy trailer that Bonnie had grown up in, wearing the same kind of homemade clothes and patched-up shoes, and thinking a glass of milk and a banana was a treat, not a staple. And Bonnie would get old, and her life would be over, and she'd still be listening to Mrs. Chisum's soaps blaring over from her trailer, because the old woman would probably live to be a hundred. And so would Pa. He was so pickled he barely seemed to age, preserved like a goddamn onion in a glass jar.

Bonnie desperately wanted to get a better job, but the economy was in the toilet, and she didn't have any education, or any prospects. Her brothers had come back from Vietnam and settled in California and Oregon, and pumped out kids of their own, so they were no help at all. So sure, Bonnie didn't want to dress up like a bunny and smile at men like Doc Slaughter, but what choice did she have? She didn't want to live in Shitsville either.

So Bonnie squeezed herself into one of those corseted satin bunny suits, her boobs shoved just about all the way up to her chin, and tottered about on her first pair of stiletto high heels, fetching drinks for Doc Slaughter, and the mayor, and a bunch of city councilmen, and even the cop who'd arrested her and Jimmy Keays in that Caddy a lifetime ago. And trying to smile the whole time like she was having the best day of her life.

The club itself was a fine enough place to spend a shift. It was on the eighth floor of Mayer Central, with huge plate glass windows looking out onto Camelback Mountain and a terrace with a view right down the valley. There was always a jazz act playing, top-shelf booze being served, and the air-conditioning was good enough to stop the clouds of cigarette and cigar smoke from choking her to death. The guys stared but didn't touch, just as promised. Now and then, someone got too many drinks in them and tried to get handsy, but the manager dealt with it so quickly Bonnie barely noticed it happening. This was a classy joint. You had to treat the ladies like ladies. Even if they were dressed up like sexy pets, with their breasts hanging out.

Some of the guys developed sweet little crushes. There was one man, Dale Waller, who worked in town planning, who came every Thursday lunch shift, and he was polite as anything, studiously avoiding looking at her rack, while blushing profusely. He hated everything about the club, except for Bonnie. The first time he'd come, he'd been reluctantly dragged there by his boss, and he'd been itching to leave from the moment his butt hit the seat. He'd turned the color of ketchup and stared at his hands and just looked like a kid caught doing something he shouldn't.

Bonnie thought he was cute. For a guy who came to the Playboy Club.

"I'm guessing we won't be seeing you back here," she teased him, as she handed him a souvenir matchbook on his way out, amused by the way he almost fell down the stairs backing away from her.

But she was wrong. He came inching in the following week, blushing that red that made her think of ketchup squirted on a hot dog, and sat down, awkward as hell. He mumbled a drink order and kept his gaze on the tabletop. Except now and then he'd dart glances at her and turn even redder.

"You got an admirer there, Bonnie," Dee laughed, when he came back the following week. And the week after that.

"Trust me to get an admirer who can't even talk to girls in a club like this, where they're paid to listen," Bonnie said ruefully. Besides, she wouldn't date a man who came to a place like this. Not in a million years.

Dale would order one martini and nurse it for exactly one hour, trying to snatch a minute or two with her as she passed his table.

"You know if you ordered more drinks I'd be back here more often," she teased him.

He went redder than normal when she teased, his ears going the color of Twizzlers. He was a big guy, built like a linebacker, stuffed into a white shirt and tie and a checked sports coat. His hair was buzzed like the guys from the naval base, and he wore a gold pinkie ring that caught the light when he played with the knot on his tie. Which he did a lot, like it was choking him.

Bonnie liked Dale. He was nice. And he tipped well. Not as well as some, but better than others. He was reliable. Like a family car: a Buick Estate or a Ford Fairlane or something; no Caddy, but he'd get you from A to B in comfort and never break down. Bonnie got comfortable enough with him that she'd strike up a conversation, ignoring his Twizzler-colored ears, and passing the time with a friendly chat. She didn't even mind his minimal replies. Dale wasn't much of a talker.

"You ever think it's weird how much a guy will pay to look at a girl?" she asked Dale one afternoon, when the club was quiet, and she had time to hang about his table. "Don't you think it's odd? There was a guy yesterday who slipped me twenty dollars and I didn't do anything but smile and ask him how his day was going. So, all he was paying for was the look of me."

"Men always want what they can't have, I guess." Dale stole a glance at her.

Bonnie knew about wanting what you couldn't have. She was always wanting what she couldn't have. New dresses, her hair styled by a fancy hairdresser, a decent trailer in a park as fancy as the other Gardens, a color TV. Jimmy Keays.

She still had dreams that Jimmy came back and told her that it had all been a terrible mistake. He'd roll into town, in those aviator sunglasses, his hair swinging at his neck, and he'd give her that grin that said life had no boundaries, and he'd say, Hey, Bon. What you been up to? She woke up from those dreams crying fit to die. Crying like she hadn't cried since he'd left her. Those dreams seemed so real, and she was so completely happy in them, a happiness so bright and hot and pure that it made her remember a time when she was loved, and life was looking on the up.

But she couldn't have Jimmy, and that was that. There was no point in wasting her life away wishing for it, was there? And hell, she was only twenty-three years old. Far too young to be on the shelf. So, she let herself enjoy flirting with Dale Waller, who made her feel better than she had in years, less like a tired, directionless single mom and more like a cheeky young thing with prospects.

The biggest problem Bonnie had with her new job was getting someone to sit for Sandra, especially when Jimmy's grandparents went back to Minnesota for long stretches. She wasn't about to leave Sandra home with Pa when he was drinking, and the club wouldn't let her skip out on shifts just because she couldn't get a sitter. Which was why she had to take Sandra to the club a couple of times, squirreling her away in the kitchens and telling her not to make a peep. Sandra was a good kid and would curl up in a chair, drawing on her secondhand (and slightly busted) Etch A Sketch, and then she'd fall asleep. She's an angel, the other girls would coo. And mostly she was, although she'd sure be ratty when Bonnie woke her up to take her home.

The problem was Sandra was a talker. She was four, and talked a mile a minute, like some kind of wind-up toy that never wound down. And she went and blabbed everything about the club to Jimmy's parents, the next time they came to town for one of their visits with their unexpected grandchild.

Jimmy's parents, Don and Louise Keays, hadn't come to the wedding, so they'd met Bonnie only after everything had gone to hell. They didn't like Bonnie, and they certainly didn't like Shitsville, but Sandra was their blood, so they towed the line in order to see their grandchild. They thought Bonnie was a big part of the reason that Jimmy had gone off the rails, but as far as Bonnie could see, Jimmy had never fit on any rails in the first place. The straight and narrow wasn't his scene. After the baby was born, his parents were prone to suggesting that Sandra would be better off with them in Minnesota. Which, Bonnie swore, would happen only when hell froze over, but the Keayses sure got frosty enough to freeze hell when they heard about the Playboy Club.

They accused her of gross indecency and threatened to lawyer up. Bonnie couldn't afford a lawyer to fight them off and she was complaining about it to Dale one day at work, standing with her tray on her hip, getting pretty Twizzler-red herself as she worked herself into a state.

"Strikes me," Dale rumbled, "is that what you need is to prove you can provide a stable home, just as good as the one they've got up there in Minneapolis."

"Oh, trust me, Dale, my home is plenty stable." The trailer was rusted to its damn blocks and certainly wasn't going anywhere.

"I mean, you might want to consider a husband."

"I had a husband, that's what got me into this fix in the first place."

"But you don't have a husband anymore . . . ," he said, risking another glance. His glance snagged on her pushed-up-to-her-chin boobs and he flinched, like he'd put his hand on the stove. He had very nice pale-blue eyes, she noticed, the same kind of blue as washed-out denim.

"No, I don't. Again, Dale, that's part of what got me into this fix in the first place, the whole having a husband, then not having a husband thing."

"I'd do it," he blurted.

Bonnie frowned at him, not following. "Do what?"

"Marry you."

Bonnie was amused. "Have you had more than one of those nasty cocktails today? What's got into you?"

"It's not the cocktail. It's you. I can't stop thinking about you." Oh, he was so earnest it hurt.

"You don't even know me," she scoffed. But she remembered meeting Jimmy, and the feeling of not caring whether she knew him or not. She'd wanted him. Bonnie felt the old thrill as she thought about it, and she examined big-shouldered, barrel-chested Dale Waller, as though for the first time. He sat here every Thursday, come rain or shine. Was he feeling that thrill over her?

"I want to know you," he said determinedly.

Everything about Dale was earnest and determined. Bonnie wondered if he was always like that, or if it was just the overwhelming effect of the Playboy Club. The sight of pushed-up boobs and a bunny tail did strange things to men.

"Well, I'd recommend you get to know someone before you go proposing marriage all over the place," Bonnie suggested, reaching out to give him a soothing pat on the back.

"Can I get to know you, then?" he blurted.

Bonnie gave him an exasperated look. "Honestly, Dale, what's got into you? You know bunnies aren't allowed to date the clients."

"But I mean, would you," he stammered, "if you weren't a bunny and I weren't a client?"

Bonnie considered it. "You know what, Dale, just maybe I would." She was in the stage of life where a Buick might be just what she needed. God knew, she wasn't getting any other kind of ride. "But unfortunately, I am a bunny, and you are a client." She scooped up his empty martini glass. "You sure you won't have another?" He didn't. Because he never did.

* * *

Bonnie guessed she'd seriously underestimated Dale Waller. It was his mild-manneredness that tricked her. She didn't quite realize the depths it hid. Or the determination. He was like Clark Kent, his cape bundled up out of sight.

The thing was, Dale had taken to driving her home sometimes. The first time, he'd been waiting for her in his car as she came out the back door of Mayer Central, in her jeans and jacket, her bunny tail hung up for the day. She'd been shocked to see him there. Partly because he was in a purple Dodge Challenger, which wasn't at all what she expected. The Challenger was surprise enough, but purple? He just didn't seem the type. But also, she was shocked because clients weren't supposed to approach bunnies, and Dale had struck her as a man who followed the rules. But, of course, that was before she knew about the purple Challenger.

"Hey ya, Dale," she'd said, keeping it light, as she zipped her jacket up to the chin to keep out the fall chill. She gave him a wave and started walking.

"I can give you a lift home," he called, as his car came cruising along beside her.

"You know I can't say yes." It would have been creepy if another customer followed her like this, but it somehow wasn't with Dale. There was just a trustworthy kind of vibe about him.

"It's a lift, not a date," he said patiently.

And wouldn't you know, it started to rain right then. And Bonnie was tired, and Shitsville was a long walk home, and she didn't see much point in getting wet and cold when there was a purring Dodge Challenger right here next to her, with a nice man offering to be her knight in shining armor.

"Fine," she said, getting in, "but don't tell anyone." She considered asking him to drop her on the corner around the street from the trailer park, but it was pelting down by then . . . Besides, what did she care what Dale Waller thought? He'd seen her dressed up like a pornographic rabbit, how much lower could it get?

"I should warn you," she said, "that I live in Shitsville."

He hadn't heard of it. But then, no one who didn't live there had. To his credit, he didn't flinch when they turned down the drive and all the dilapidated trailers rose into view.

"Thanks, Dale. That was sweet of you," she said, sliding out of his car once he'd stopped in front of her depressing little trailer.

Dale didn't protest. He just gave her a wave good night and waited there in the car until she got in safe. And then he showed up after her next shift, to do it again. And the shift after that. And because it was a cold and wet October, and he was sweet, she kept accepting his lifts. And then, because it seemed rude not to after a while, she started asking him in.

"You're big. Are you a giant?" Sandra asked the first time she met him. She was sitting at the chipped Formica table eating the SpaghettiOs that Cora Buck's oldest kid, Tina, had heated up for her. Tina was picking Sandra up from preschool and getting her fed before Bonnie got home, for ten bucks a week. Ten bucks that Bonnie could afford now she had guys tipping her twenty dollars just for copping a look at her boobs.

"Not a full giant," Dale rumbled in his usual sweet way. "Only part giant."

And then he'd pulled up a chair next to Sandra and hung out. He didn't talk much, but he didn't need to; Sandra talked enough for everyone. Bonnie paid Tina and sent her home, and then whipped up an omelet for her and Dale, and her heart melted a bit when Sandra asked to swap some leftover SpaghettiOs for some of his omelet and he did it.

He was just so nice. He never made a move, never so much as tried to kiss her. Just drove her home and sat with Sandra for a bit, listening to her talk about preschool and Sesame Street and random obsessions, like the fact snails could live up to twenty years.

"Is that true?" Dale asked Bonnie.

"How the hell would I know?" she asked, exasperated. "You see any garden around here, let alone any snails?"

Sometimes he'd eat the food Bonnie offered, but mostly he shook his head and said he'd eat at home. He didn't want to take food off their table.

"Where's home?" she asked once.

Home, it turned out, was Royal Palms Estates, in a whole three-bedroom house.

"You live there all by yourself?"

He grunted, never much for talking, but certainly not one for talking about himself.

"Wowee, a Dodge and a house. You're doing alright for yourself, Mr. Waller."

He turned ketchup red again and she laughed.

"You and Sandra wouldn't want to come to my place for dinner tomorrow, would you?" he asked them nervously one hot Friday afternoon. It seemed to have taken him a lot to build up the courage to ask them. "It's going to be even hotter tomorrow. We could barbecue."

Sandra's eyes lit up. "Barbecue!"

Dale cleared his throat, looking even more sheepish. "We could eat out by the pool . . ."

"You have a pool!" Sandra squealed, just about falling off her chair with excitement.

"You have a pool?" Bonnie echoed.

Dale nodded sheepishly, as though a pool was something to be embarrassed about.

Bonnie watched Sandra launch herself at Dale, who caught her, looking awkwardly delighted by her affection.

"I love pools," Sandra was telling him, squishing his face between her palms until he looked like a fish. "My grandparents have a pool!" And then she was off and running, telling him all about how she could swim better than any mermaid and maybe even as good as a dolphin, but not as good as a whale.

Dale's faded denim eyes met Bonnie's and as she looked at his face, squished between her daughter's hands, she felt a soft uncoiling. Not a thrill exactly. Not lightning. But something warm, like sliding into a hot bath.

* * *

The next evening, Bonnie and Sandra were waiting in their bathing suits, towels and potato salad packed. Impatient, Sandra ran off to stand out front of the trailer, just about hopping on the spot, she was so excited.

"Who is this guy?" Pa asked from his chair in front of the television. He was slurry from a hot afternoon of drinking.

"Just a friend. You've met him, remember? The big guy who drops me home after work?"

Pa grunted. "Men aren't ever just friends."

Bonnie didn't want to hear it. She fetched him another can of beer from the refrigerator and put her sunhat and shades on, heading out to join her daughter. "Try and put yourself to bed before you pass out," she told him, letting the door slam behind her on its hinges.

Bonnie was feeling oddly nervous. She fidgeted with the button on her jean shorts, which she had on over the new blue-and-white-striped one-piece swimsuit she'd bought that morning. She was too proud to wear the slightly threadbare red and white bikini Jimmy had bought her all those years ago. And it didn't seem right—like she was being disloyal to Jimmy. Even though he was nowhere nearby to be disloyal to.

Every time they heard a car, Sandra pogoed up and down, but there was no sign of the purple Challenger. Hot and growing bored with the waiting, Bonnie didn't really register the bronze Buick until it had pulled to a stop right in front of them. But she sure leapt to attention when she saw who was bashfully climbing out from behind the steering wheel.

"I knew it!" she blurted. This big, solid, reliable Buick was exactly what she'd imagined he'd drive.

He was blushing again as he approached them. Bonnie had never seen him out of his work clothes before. He was in a pair of tan shorts and a pale-yellow polo shirt with an orange and brown stripe across his broad chest.

He wasn't cool in the slightest, especially compared to Jimmy. But there was something about him, and Bonnie felt her heart kick up as he approached.

"What happened to the purple car?" Sandra asked, disappointed.

Dale cleared his throat. "Well, uh . . ." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I might have borrowed the Dodge from my buddy Joe." He met Bonnie's gaze, searching to see if she minded. "I thought you'd like it."

"Sure, it was cool," Bonnie said shyly, shrugging. "But I like this just fine."

"You do?" He seemed genuinely worried. "Because, uh, this is my actual car."

"Are you kidding? I've never owned a car in my life. This is luxury."

As he took the shopping bag containing the potato salad and a bottle of soda from her, he gave her the sweetest smile. And then he opened the door for her kid, like Sandra was a princess and this was a golden carriage. Bonnie felt a pang, remembering the days when she'd dreamed of buttercream-yellow Cadillacs. She'd been young and stupid. From where she stood right now, this Buick was just peachy.

"And now for the queen," Dale said, closing the door on Sandra, who was bouncing up and down on the leather back seat. He opened Bonnie's door for her and bowed. He was a doofus, she thought fondly. A really nice one.

"Can we put the radio on?" Sandra asked, leaning over the bench seat as Dale took the wheel.

"Well, sure, Princess. What do you want to listen to?"

"I like David Cassidy and The Partridge Family."

Dale shot Bonnie a lost look. She laughed and took over the radio dial. "We'll put it on the pop station, kiddo, and see what happens."

"Right, everyone buckled up?" Dale asked.

Sandra settled back and sang along to just about every song: The Jackson 5, Sonny and Cher, Elton John. Bonnie didn't know how she did it, but she remembered the lyrics to everything. The kid was only in preschool, for Pete's sake.

"She likes music, huh?" Dale said. He relaxed as he drove, and he was smiling as he listened to Sandra belt out the words to "Crocodile Rock." "Are you going to start her on an instrument?"

Bonnie looked at him like he'd grown a second head. "Sure. She can learn piano on the family baby grand." She gave a tight laugh.

He registered her sarcasm but didn't respond to it. "I learned piano," he told her mildly. "And then guitar. I was in the school band." He grinned. "For about five minutes."

"You were that bad?"

"Nah, it clashed with football practice."

"I knew it." Bonnie laughed. "I picked the Buick and the football." She swiveled on the bench seat and sized him up.

"You've been thinking about me, then," he teased nervously.

He was flirting with her. It was a nice surprise that he could flirt. "Yeah, I've been thinking about you. I see you just about every day."

"What else have you been thinking?" He had a pretty great smile, with lots of white even teeth.

Well, right now, she was thinking about his arms, as she watched the muscles flex as he turned the wheel. But she wasn't telling him that, at least not yet. "I've been thinking your house probably has a palm tree or two, given it's in Royal Palms Estates."

"Try a bunch of them," he said, pleased. "Big ones too."

"And I've been thinking it sounds like a big house for a man alone," she prodded. "Seems like the kind of house that would hold a wife and kids."

"No wife," he said firmly. "And no kids."

"I've been thinking it's strange there's no wife. And no kids." Bonnie straightened as she realized they were reaching Royal Palms Estates. There was a sign at the entrance to his suburb, and he sure wasn't lying about the palms. The place bristled with them. Their fronds streamed in the hot summer breeze, pretty as streamers against the steely blue sky. Wowee. If Jimmy's grandparents' place put Shitsville to shame, this place put their Gardens to shame. Look at these houses with their luscious green lawns.

"I guess I never met the right girl," Dale said gruffly, answering Bonnie's question as he pulled into the driveway of a low ranch house. It was custard yellow, with a big pink hibiscus bush by the front door; rising behind it were almost a dozen elegant palms, swaying in the breeze. The car rolled to a stop under an open carport, and the shade was thick and cool.

"You have a puppy!" Sandra tore away from the car and bolted to the sliding doors, through which they could see a big chocolate-colored dog, its tail wagging wildly as it watched them through the glass.

"That's Oh Henry," Dale told her, ambling over to the door. "You know, like the chocolate bar?" He slid open the door and the dog bounded out, firstly jumping up on Dale and then sniffing Sandra and making her giggle.

"Heya, Henry," Sandra said, running a tentative hand over his head. He licked her.

"Not Henry," Dale corrected pleasantly. "Oh Henry, like the chocolate bar."

Sandra and Oh Henry the chocolate bar of a dog were clearly taken with one another.

"Is he safe with kids?" Bonnie asked. He was a big dog, part Labrador by the looks of it, but also something else. He had big, floppy ears and a slightly shaggy tail, which was decidedly not like a Labrador's.

"I don't know," Dale admitted, "I don't think he's ever hung out with a kid before. We'd best keep them with us."

Bonnie hovered, keeping a close eye on the dog, but it just followed along, its tongue lolling and its eyes rolling with pleasure whenever Sandra scratched at its ears.

"You want to see the house?" Dale led them inside. He showed them a kitchen that looked like something you'd win on a game show, an open living room with sliding doors onto an actual garden, two empty bedrooms, which had large windows looking out onto the front lawns, and a third bedroom, his, which featured a big bed and inbuilt wardrobes. It looked like he'd just moved in, but he said he'd been there more than a year.

"Mom, he has a bath! Just like in Gran's trailer!" Sandra was taken with Dale's bathroom. She slid open the glass doors to the shower and stood in there, admiring the yellow tiles with their brown and orange floral patterns.

"It's a beautiful house, Dale," Bonnie told him admiringly. "You're lucky."

"But where's the pool?" Sandra left the shower, pushing Oh Henry out of the way, and stared up at Dale. "You said there was a pool."

"So I did." Dale offered her his hand. "Come this way, Princess."

Bonnie followed them slowly, Oh Henry plodding along after her. Gosh, this was a house and a half. One day, Bonnie promised herself, one day she'd have a house like this. Imagine waking up in a room like Dale's bedroom every morning, she thought, with its big picture window to the side of the house, looking out onto a grassy area with a palm tree spurting from the center, sunshine splashing in, turning the whole room golden.

She heard Sandra squeal with delight and sped up, not wanting to miss the pool. She stepped out of the sliding doors, onto a concrete patio, and her heart soared. Oh my.

It wasn't a big yard or a big pool, but it was perfect. The pool was a glittering bright aqua oval, lined with palms. The patio was under a striped awning and was just big enough to hold a picnic table and a barbecue. Over the back fence Bonnie could see other houses just like this one, with the mountains a pastel haze beyond.

"Mom! Look!" Sandra grabbed her by the hand and pulled her to the pool. "He doesn't have to share it with anyone! Not like Gran and Pops. He gets it all to himself."

"I can see that," Bonnie laughed. "He's a lucky man, isn'the?"

"Can we swim now?"

Bonnie glanced at Dale. "I don't know when we're eating . . ."

"God forbid I make her wait." Dale grinned. "You get in with her, and I'll get cooking. I'll give a yell when it's ready."

"Are you sure? I should help. . . ."

"Get in, Bonnie honey," he laughed. "You're my guest."

Bonnie honey. She liked the way he said it. And she liked being taken care of. No one had cooked for her like this before. As she and Sandra splashed in the pool with Oh Henry the dog, Dale fired up the barbecue. He brought out a transistor radio and tuned it to the station Sandra had enjoyed in the car, and popped the tabs on a couple of beers, passing one to Bonnie. He mixed up a jug of Kool-Aid for Sandra, smiling as he listened to her sing to the dog. Bonnie watched him surreptitiously as he set the table and brought out her potato salad and a green salad that he must have tossed himself. When the hot dogs were ready, they sat under the awning, watching the evening sky streak hot pink and burnt orange, eating to the sound of the Top Forty countdown on the radio. Sandra managed to correctly guess most of the Top Ten, much to Dale's amusement.

"You should be a disc jockey, kiddo," he said admiringly, passing her a napkin to mop the ketchup and mustard off her face.

After dinner, they swam as the pink sky darkened, and the moon rose like an orange ball into the starry sky.

"This has been the best night of my whole entire life," Sandra declared with a weighty sigh, when Dale finally bundled them back into the Buick to take them back to Shitsville.

"I'll take that as a challenge," Dale told her lightly. "Let's see if we can top it next Saturday. If that's okay with your mom?"

That was just fine with Sandra's mom. Bonnie hadn't thought she could ever be happy again after Jimmy Keays, but here she was, nothing but smiles. Because of slow and steady old Dale Waller.

Sandra was asleep by the time they got back to Shitsville. Bonnie stayed in the front seat after Dale turned off the engine, wondering if he'd try and kiss her. She was planning to let him if he did. She'd sure liked the look of him in his bathing suit tonight. Lord, when he'd come out in just his shorts after dinner she'd gone hot all over. He'd once reminded her of Clark Kent, but stripped off like that he was nothing but Superman. The muscles on the man . . . Bonnie felt something awaken in her at the sight of him, something she'd thought dead and gone.

So she waited on the bench seat of his Buick, sure that he'd make a move.

"Thanks for coming tonight," he said huskily.

He wanted her. She knew he did. It was in the slow thickening of the atmosphere between them, and the way his gaze clouded as he met her eyes. She could see his breath catch unevenly.

"I had a wonderful time," she murmured, inching ever so slightly closer.

But to her surprise, he inched back. And glanced at Sandra. "Guess we should get her inside, huh?" He cleared his throat.

And that was it. No kiss. After he'd gone, Bonnie lay in her bed, in the room she shared with Sandra, and stared at the ceiling, unable to sleep. She hadn't quite realized how much she'd wanted his kiss until she hadn't got it.

He had a long, thin upper lip and a plump lower lip. She'd studied his mouth as he failed to kiss her goodbye. How had she never noticed how sexy it was before? Or how sexy the shadow of his stubble was, or the square cut of his jaw . . .

If he didn't kiss her next time, she might have to take matters into her own hands.

* * *

That was about the time the shit hit the fan. Bonnie's manager at the Playboy Club happened to look out an upstairs back window just in time to see Bonnie climb into Dale's reliable Buick the first evening she worked after their barbecue. How was she to know the men's room had a window to the back of the building? The little girl's room sure didn't.

If she'd had a phone, it would have been ringing by the time she got home. But she didn't, so she didn't know she was fired until she turned up for work the next day.

"He just drove me home," she told her manager, exasperated. "Since when is that a crime?"

But the club rules were firm. No dating. And no one believed her that Dale wasn't a date. He was just a friend. One with beautiful, faded denim eyes and lips she'd started dreaming about.

"Guess I should have hit you up for a date," she told Dale dryly, when he arrived to check on her at the trailer, worried because she hadn't been there when he came to pick her up after work. "Since I got hanged for it anyway."

He took the whole thing harder than she did. "I didn't mean to get you fired."

Bonnie rolled her eyes. "You also didn't not mean to get me fired," she said. "I mean, you did turn up and offer me a lift all those times, and you knew the rules too." She was angry-cleaning the piece-of-shit trailer, while he sat at the Formica table with a mug of instant coffee. She wasn't angry-cleaning at him exactly. Just near him. Because he got to go home to Royal Palms Estates, didn't he? While she was stuck here in Shitsville, without rent money. And he hadn't even kissed her. She'd been punished for something she hadn't even got to enjoy.

"I'll fix it," Dale rumbled. "I will."

"Did you go to college, Dale?" Bonnie asked abruptly, dropping into her dad's old brown chair, her arms full of Sandra's thrift shop Barbie dolls. She'd been thinking about the state of her life lately and the dead ends it had thrown up as she tried to navigate it.

He blinked and nodded, unsure about her change of tack. "Arizona State."

"You played football?"

He nodded.

"Go Sun Devils," she said dryly, flopping back in the chair and looking at the ceiling. "I can't even imagine what college must be like. I never knew anyone who went before."

He sat there nervously, uncertain where she was going with this.

It was kind of nice to have someone just sitting there, listening to her.

"What the hell am I going to do now? Work at the diner out on the interstate, or down at the Spotless Sudz?" Just like her mom. And then what? She'd get wrung-out like an old sheet, just like her mom, and skip out on Sandra?

Never, she thought fiercely. She would never leave her kid. She wasn't like her mom, not one bit. And she wasn't staying here in Shitsville, and neither was Sandra. She was getting out of here.

"I can fix this," Dale told her. "This is my fault. Let me fixit."

And the next day he turned up on her doorstep, smiling broadly, holding a bunch of red carnations, and telling her he'd gotten her a job in the clerical pool in the town planning department, where he worked.

"The clerical pool?" Bonnie was astonished.

"You said you worked for a dentist once? So you can type and file? You can do clerical . . ." His blue eyes pleaded with her. "It's my fault you're in this situation. Please let me do this for you."

Bonnie accepted because she was desperate, and because the job paid well. And because Dale said he'd drive her to and from work every day, and her heart turned over at the thought of working in the same building that he did. There was one thing she was certain of, and it was that she wanted to get to know Dale Waller better.

"You can't pick me up every day, I'm not even on your way," she said, but she didn't mean it. She wanted him to pick her up in that bronze Buick every day for the foreseeable future. God help her, she was catching feelings for him, and they hadn't even kissed.

"Bonnie, no matter where you are, you're always on my way," he said, and he was too earnest for it to be a line. He meant it.

"Jesus, Dale." Bonnie put her hands on his chest, grabbed his shirt and yanked him close. "When in hell are you going to do it?"

"Do what?" He seemed genuinely bemused.

Bonnie swore and then she kissed him, hard.

He made the most adorable little moaning sound, like he was melting. And then he kissed her back. And he kissed like he'd been saving it up for a good long time. He all but hauled her off her feet and bent her backward. Bonnie felt like she'd been hit by a Mack Truck, and it was only in that moment she knew why he'd held off kissing her for so long. Because once he started, he wasn't stopping.