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Show All the Variables & Other Love Stories 50 To be sure, the gasps and chuckles were audible all down Main Street where the men stepped out of their businesses every day to watch Melissa walk to breakfast They had attended this particular morning with increased interest when they noticed both Jay Meeks and Beau Walker waiting at the bottom of the stairs. Beau stood slack jawed and red faced. Jay Meeks only shrugged, confused in his own right, and walked alongside Melissa down to the cafe. After breakfast, Jay Meeks was permitted what Beau Walker was not: she invited him upstairs, alone, to her boudoir. Whatever it was, it was bright. Even foiled by the midday sun, you could see something glow behind the draped window above the Army recruiters' office. Brighter than any heavenly body, it started off soft and swelled until it overwhelmed the horizon and shot, white hot, across the skies. Some kind of magic, they whispered, some kind of witch's spell. So bright and lovely it made the daylight sun seem dull. To look upon it would make you weep. Everyone did. All the folks of Alamosa that day looked up at the beautiful slash that effaced the heavens, and when they looked back at one another, tears streamed down their faces, and they couldn't stop weeping for the rest of the day. Whatever Melissa Johnson had up there that she thought to show only to Jay Meeks, it made everyone in Alamosa cry for want of love. If anyone was spurned, though, it was neither the sun nor Christ; it was Beau Walker. He had ample reason, everyone agreed. Something harmful came into his eyes, and every man feared it. He accosted them one afternoon outside the U.S. Army recruiters' office. Melissa had taken to walking with Jay to the market for her shopping, |
