OCR Text |
Show All the Variables & Other Love Stories 47 and lovely. She kept her skin moist and white, in an array of exotic summer dress, shining in the gory sun like opal. She went around barefoot, a toe ring glaring in the sun, which seemed obscene to the better ladies. Her hair was slick and dark, perfumed, bundled tight against her scalp with some oriental looking sticks. She smiled at everyone, didn't seem to notice the young men gawking at her all the time. Rambled off to the cafe to eat a bowl of fresh fruit and read the morning paper. Every noon the men would come out to watch her soft stride along Main Street. Beau Walker was no exception. No stranger to the fairer graces, he had no qualms about offering his services to any lovely girl. Beau asked Melissa for a date right off She graciously declined. "Beau Walker, you are too sweet," she said, "but my father has sent me here on a probation, and I want to stay on his good side, you understand, which means no boys." Indeed, the Governor had already charged Beau's father, Sheriff Riley Walker, with his daughter's welfare, something everyone knew. "Aren't you the sheer image of your father," Melissa said to Beau. "I'm sure you're a gentleman same as him, I feel safe already, just knowing you're here." And Beau smiled tentatively, shocked as hell at the rejection (a phenomenon he was not naturally accustomed to) and wringing his oafish hands so as to avoid his broken heart. Beau solemnly swore to himself that he was, indeed, a gentleman just like his father, and set himself to every awkward chivalry on Melissa's behalf. He escorted her to and from the market where she did her shopping. Came for her on Sunday afternoons and invited her for a platonic walk in the park. Did her heavy lifting, her handy work, anything she would let him do-even her swearing, which was fine, since she cared little for it. On every encounter he solicited her for affectionate company, and she politely |