Footloose (9 page)

Covered in dust, he went old-school with break dancing, spinning on the ground until the frustration left his body and he collapsed, utterly exhausted and drained of emotion. He'd danced through most of his anger, but his body was still filled with energy. He jumped when Ariel stepped out of the shadows.

“What are you doing here? Did you follow me? I thought I was alone.”

“Not in this town, you're not. There's eyes everywhere.” Her voice softened. “So what was all that?”

“All what?”

She mimicked some of his dance moves. “All that stuff.”

“Just letting off some steam,” Ren said. He felt naked in front of her. Exposed. How long was she watching him? “I'm sure you got your own wicked ways.”

“What's that supposed to mean? You think I'm a slut or something?”

Ren laughed to break the tension. She was ready to fight. “I think you been kissed a lot.” He picked his shirt up off the dirty floor and put it on. “Where's Lugnut?”

“You mean Chuck?” she asked, as if she didn't know exactly who he was talking about. “He doesn't own me. He acts like he does, but he doesn't.” She moved closer. “You think I'm small town, huh?”

He leaned in. “I think Bomont is a small town.”

Their bodies hung there, inches from one another. It was a different game of chicken than the one Ren had played with her boyfriend.

Ariel was the first to blink. “You wanna see something?”

Yes, he most certainly did.

Chapter 14

Ren drove behind Rusty's car as they headed out of the scrap yard and made a left onto the rural highway. He had to wonder how Ariel had time to get the car and still follow him. Probably had her own set of keys. It seemed like the kind of thing Rusty would do for her friend. It wasn't fair to think Ariel took advantage of people all the time. Jumping to conclusions, the way everyone did with him. Ren didn't really know her well, but he thought he might understand her. She wasn't the tough girl that she pretended to be. He could see the truth in her eyes: the brief flash of fear when her father showed up at the drive-in. The few glances Ren caught when she was ignoring him, as if she didn't want him to talk to her, but she didn't want him to stop trying, either.

He pulled in behind her when she stopped off the side of the road in a clearing. Nothing but trees around as the sun started setting on the late autumn afternoon. For a brief moment, Ren wondered if this was some kind of a trick—that Ariel was leading him into a trap where he was about to get jumped by Chuck and his friends. But it was an easy thought to dismiss. Ariel wouldn't do that; now that she was finally looking at him, he could see that in her eyes, too.

But it didn't explain why she'd led him through the trees all the way out to an abandoned rail yard. All the decaying old railcars gave the place the feeling that it was haunted. Little bits of Bomont, discarded and forgotten.

But Ren wasn't thinking about the past as the sky went deep purple with sunset. He focused on Ariel and the soft hand she held out to help him into an empty railcar. The place was cool and dark. Ren worried about what she had in mind. Not because he wasn't ready, but because he wasn't sure
they
were. He didn't want to just go for a tumble with Ariel, to use her and be used by her. He wanted to know her first. Find out what made her so different from everyone else in this town. Then maybe some tumbling would be fun. He was a gymnast, after all.

A propane lantern sat on top of an old wooden cable spool. Ren wondered if they were crashing somebody's home as Ariel lit the lamp. Ren was awestruck as the lamplight revealed the boxcar's secret: a mural of graffiti art, song lyrics, old photos, and poetry covered the walls.

The photos showed different people in a bunch of different clothing styles, obviously from different times. Handwritten messages were everywhere. Some of the graffiti was beautiful; some was just scratched-out names and symbols. This was not the work of one person, or even a dozen.

“Everybody calls it the yearbook,” Ariel explained. “I don't know when it started. Maybe about ten years ago.”

A piece of writing caught Ren's attention. “What is all this?”

“Some are songs. Lyrics. Quotes from books. Stuff we're not supposed to read.” She pointed to another spot on the wall. “There's some old folk songs and blues lyrics here.”

Together, they read the words to some kind of odd cheer about feeling fine and cherry wine while laughing at the absurdity of the chant that was littered with “oh yeahs.” And then suddenly their faces were inches away from one another. Her perfume was all he could smell, her eyes all he could see.

“You want to kiss me?” she said.

Ren was cool. “Someday.”

She didn't like that. “What's this ‘someday' shit? Look, I don't know what kind of city girls you've had experience with, but let me assure you, I can keep up.”

He wasn't about to play her games. “You know, you got everybody else in this town fooled but me.” His response startled her. “Yeah, you get wild and rowdy. Hanging out at the dirt track, thinkin' you're hard-core. But you're just scared. I see it, because I know.”

He'd found out who those five kids in the memorial were; he knew one of them had been her brother. Wes told him about it; it explained why the reverend felt the way he did. It also explained some of the connection Ren shared with her. “I know what it's like to lose somebody you love. I know what it's like to feel alone. And pissed off.”

Ariel's expression softened. She was actually listening to him.

“So, yeah,” he continued. “You and me could tumble right here in this railcar. But that sweat's gonna dry, and you're still gonna feel like dirt. That's Chuck's job to do. Not mine.”

He'd struck a chord. That much was clear in the mix of emotions on Ariel's face. The mask had slipped, but she was quick to replace it. “Well, don't get all heavy on me.”

She was deflecting, but Ren could still feel the emotions underneath. He could see her in a way that most people probably didn't. It was wonderful and terrifying at the same time. A train whistle off in the distance was the only sound between them.

Ariel broke the spell. “Hey, did you hear that?” She hopped out of the railcar. The rumbling of the train got louder as it approached. “Come on! Hurry!”

Ren followed her through the winding maze of cars, wondering what all the excitement was about. It was probably the same train that cut through Bomont a few times a day. “Wait up! Where you going?”

He lost her around one of the corners, and doubled back in the direction she must have gone. Another corner and he found her again, standing beside the train track.

“Sometimes after football games, we'd all come out here,” she said with newfound energy. “Just a few of us. And when the train came we'd go at it like crazy.” She smiled. “But most of the time, we'd just stand here and scream.”

Ariel moved onto the tracks, standing between the rails, directly in the path of the oncoming train.

“Hey, stop fooling around,” Ren said. The train was getting closer.

Ariel ignored him, throwing back her head and letting out a Heaven-splitting scream. The sound was almost drowned out by the deafening noise of the train horn.

She wasn't getting out of the way.

The train got closer. And closer.

Ren dove for her, pulling her off the tracks. They landed hard on the gravel on the other side of the train moments before it rumbled by. The horn belched curses at them, as the engineer must have seen what had almost happened.

Ariel was on her back, laughing. Ren stood up and reached a hand out to her. “Let me take you home.”

•  •  •  •  •

Ariel slipped quietly into her dark house, carefully closing the front door behind her. It was the least late for curfew she'd been in a long time. It was also the one time she was actually afraid of getting caught. Funny, because she didn't really do anything that would get her in trouble tonight, certainly not compared to the things she did on other nights. It was almost expected that Daddy was waiting at the top of the stairs for her.

“It's hard to impose a curfew on the young people of my congregation when I can't even enforce it in my own home,” he said, looking down on her in every way.

Ariel didn't say anything. There was nothing she could say that wouldn't start a fight. She kept her head down, focused on the stairs.

“Have you been drinking?” he asked.

“No.”

“Have you been smoking anything?”

She finally looked up at him to see the familiar disappointment in his eyes. “I wasn't smoking, drinking, dancing, or reading any books I'm not supposed to. I'm just late.”

“Who dropped you off just now?”

Ren's name was out of her mouth before she realized her mistake. Just because she hadn't done anything worth lying about didn't mean that honesty was the best policy.

“I don't want you to see him again,” her father said.

“Why?”

“Because I've heard he's trouble.”

“Trouble?” She let out a small laugh. Ren was the least trouble she'd ever been with. “Well, Daddy, man born of woman is of few days and full of trouble. Job 14:1. You know, from the Bible?”

Ariel pushed past her father, but he grabbed her arm before she could end the conversation. “Your behavior lately has been downright atrocious. And it seems to have started just as Ren McCormack arrived in town.”

She just looked at him. He was so clueless about what the past few years of her life were like. “Ren's the least of your worries,” she said. “Sometimes trouble's right under your nose.”

She broke free and went to her room, shutting her door, closing him out. The reverend refrained from going after her.

Chapter 15

“Come here a sec, Ren.”

That didn't sound good. Uncle Wes's voice was in parent mode. It wasn't a tone Ren had heard much in his life, but he knew it well enough to understand that something was up. Ren figured he knew what it was.

“Willard's waiting for me,” Ren said as he stepped into the living room.

Uncle Wes was in his armchair with a beer in his hand. He motioned for Ren to sit on the couch. Wes had come home from work early. He'd been there for almost an hour now, probably waiting for Aunt Lulu and the girls to go out running errands before having this talk.

Ren sat down and braced for the worst.

“Reverend Moore came to see me at the lot today.”

“Did he?” Ren said. Yep. It was exactly what he thought. This was ridiculous. They were only a half-hour late for curfew. That was nothing. Certainly not enough to require a face-to-face meeting to discuss the situation.

“Yeah,” Wes said. “Are you pursuing his daughter? Ariel?”

“Pursuing?” Ren asked.

Wes nodded. “You know what I mean. Are you interested in the reverend's daughter?”

Only a few sentences in, and Ren already hated this conversation. “What if I am?”

Wes leaned back in his chair. “If you are, you could be asking for a world of trouble.”

“Look, Wes, I don't think—”

“No, Ren,
you
look. I know this move ain't been easy on you. I know you miss your mother. I miss her, too. But things are different here.”

“Yeah. People keep telling me that.”

“You go after the reverend's daughter, and you open yourself up to even more gossip and prying eyes. Shaw brought up the thing at school with the drugs.”

Ren was glad he told his uncle about the joint in the library that morning. He wasn't about to repeat the mistake with the ticket. “I told you—”

“I know you better than that,” Wes said. “Look, I wasn't there when you needed me. I get that it wasn't easy taking care of your mom, keeping the house clean and cooking the meals while you went to school. Going to your job
and
dealing with her doctors. Getting that special driver's license at thirteen so you could take your mom to dialysis. You had to grow up fast because your father was a deadbeat and your uncle was too far away to help. I probably still could have done more than I did.”

This was the last thing Ren expected. “Uncle Wes—”

“Now, just let me get this out, Ren,” he said. There was a tear in his uncle's eye. It made Ren uncomfortable. “I should've been there for you. And I got to live with that. But you gotta live with it, too. Just because you were forced to be an adult up in Boston doesn't mean people are going to see you the same way down here in Bomont. They just gonna think you're too big for your britches. They already do.”

“Are you saying I can't go out with Ariel?”

“I'm saying nothing of the kind,” Wes assured him. “I just want you to be careful. More careful than you've been. This town will give you enough grief on its own. You don't need to go inviting more of it.”

Ren relaxed a bit. None of this solved his problems, but it was nice to hear. “So, what did you tell the reverend?”

“Just what I told you,” Wes said. “Though I may have added something about his daughter being a bit of a troublemaker herself.”

Ren wished he hadn't said that last part. It wouldn't make things easier for him and Ariel. But still, it was nice to know his uncle had his back. “Thanks, Wes.”

“No need to thank me,” Wes said. “That's what family does. Now, go get your friend. It ain't nice to keep people waiting.” He took a swig of his beer, grabbed the remote, and turned on ESPN, effectively ending the conversation.

Ren stayed on the couch and watched his uncle for a moment. The teary eyes were gone. His full attention was on the TV, as if their talk didn't just happen. That was fine with Ren. Better that way, really. No reason to dwell on it.

•  •  •  •  •

By the time Ren picked up Willard and filled him in on what happened, Ren had worked up his anger again. It only got worse as they took the VW to the do-it-yourself car wash. He scrubbed the car so hard he worried he'd punch right through the metal.

Ren threw the rag down into a puddle of soapy water. “I don't believe this town. I bring Ariel home past her curfew last night, the next morning Reverend Moore is all up in my uncle's grille. Making threats.”

“He made a threat?” Willard asked.

“He made his point,” Ren said.

“You know what it is?” Willard said. “You got an attitude problem.”

“
I
got an attitude problem?” Ren was astonished.

Willard nodded. “Every chance you get, you bad-mouth this town. I know we're small time, but we got satellites and cell phones just like everybody else. We've seen some progress.”

Ren was having none of it—but he decided to let it pass. Willard wasn't to blame for his trouble. “Don't talk to me about progress,” Ren said. “I've been here two months and I haven't seen one wet T-shirt contest.”

“I know,” Willard said, playing along. “What's up with that?”

“I'm sure there's a law against it. Maybe we could find a loophole.” Yeah, Reverend Moore would love that.

“If you got a petition, you got my signature,” Willard said, laughing.

But Ren suddenly had a thought. “You know, that's not a bad idea. We could challenge the law.”

“Huh?” Willard dropped his sponge. His mind was probably filled with women in wet T-shirts. But that's not what Ren meant.

“A
dance
,” he said. “Organize our own dance. I'm not talking about some drunken kegger or free-for-all orgy—”

“Why not?” Willard asked. He wasn't taking this seriously at all.

But Ren was. He was deadly serious. “No,” he said. “I'm talking about a respectful, formal dance. One that's not held in a church.”

“You could have it at the Bomont lockup,” Willard said. “ 'Cuz you gotta remember, what you're talking about is against the law.”

Ren's mind was already past that problem. Judge Joey and Officer Herb had already proven that the law in this town might be strict, but it wasn't final. “Let me tell you something about laws. They're meant to be challenged. Nothing's set in stone.”

“The Ten Commandments were,” Willard pointed out. “What's your smart aleck reply on that?” He was laughing, proud of himself for coming up with that one. Almost begging Ren to put him in his place.

Ren turned the hose on Willard, spraying him with cold water as he shouted, “Let my people go!”

Willard threw up his hands to block the water. “Quit it! Quit it! Stop!” But Ren wouldn't stop, so Willard just gave in and let the water run down his body. “All right, you wanted a wet T-shirt contest? Have at it!” Willard did a little dance as Ren hosed him down.

They finished up with the car, then drove it around town to dry it off, talking through Ren's dance idea. He didn't have the first clue how to go about getting a law overturned.

When he got home later, he thought about asking Wes and Lulu, but it was too early to bring them in on something like this. He wanted to get all his ducks in a row before creating any trouble for Wes so soon after his run-in with the reverend. This was something Ren had to do on his own for now.

He started the next day in his free period, heading back to the library. He walked up to the librarian's desk with the swagger of a man on a mission. It was all about asking the right questions.

“Can I help you with something?” Mr. Parker said. He was already on guard.

Ren's eyes scanned the library stacks, as if he were trying to figure something out. “I don't know if this would be in self-help or how-to, but I'm looking for books that can help me build my own meth lab.”

He cracked a smile when Mr. Parker's eyes bugged out.

“I'm just messing with you,” Ren smiled at him. “You wouldn't happen to have city records down here—like, local ordinances?”

The librarian's eyes squinted with suspicion. “What do you want with those?”

A direct answer had been the last thing Ren expected, so this came as no surprise. “I want to read them. Isn't that what you do in libraries, other than get high?”

Ren knew he was pushing it, but he wanted to keep the librarian off balance. Didn't need him asking too many questions. The plan must have worked, because Mr. Parker pointed him to the right books and left him alone to do his research, although he kept an eye on him. Ren started with the city ordinance books at the top of the stack. He wasn't sure what, exactly, he was looking for, but he began with what he knew. The accident that killed Ariel's brother and the other kids happened three years ago. All the laws came into effect after that. It was best to start with the wording of the laws, then go back and see how the other ones were changed.

The legalese in the book wasn't half as bad as some of the stuff he'd had to go through for his mom when she was at her sickest. The language of the law was pretty straightforward and direct. There were several routes he already thought he could pursue.

Once he'd thoroughly examined the law, he moved on to researching the procedures for overturning it. This was also easy enough to understand, but it didn't answer all his questions. Suddenly, he felt like the librarian's eyes weren't the only ones on him. There was a closer presence. Two, in fact.

“Look at the little bookworm,” Rusty said lightly. She and Ariel were standing over him. He'd been so wrapped up in the books that he didn't even notice them. It was the first chance he'd had to talk to Ariel since he dropped her off the other night.

“Don't get him mad,” she said. “He'll start dancing.”

He let the comment slide. “Did you get in trouble?”

Ariel shrugged. “I heard my dad went down to your uncle's car lot. Sorry about that.”

“What are you doing?” Rusty asked, pushing in on Ren, trying to see what he was reading.

He shut the book. He wasn't ready to let anyone else in on the plan. “It's top secret.”

“C'mon,” Ariel said in a playful tone. “You can tell us.”

“Did you find that National Geographic book with all the topless tribal women?” Rusty asked. “That floated around the school for decades. My dad can describe it in frightening detail.”

Ariel slipped in to read the spine of the book while Rusty distracted Ren. “
Civil Ordinances of Bomont.
”

With the cat partially out of the bag, Ren opened the book. He didn't need to tell them exactly what he was up to, but it wouldn't hurt to get their opinion on something. “There's a procedure when you want to challenge an ordinance, but it requires a petition and a public forum. That's just to get a vote.” He flipped through the pages, looking for the information he needed. “Zoning restrictions … Spousal rights …”

“Wait a sec.” Rusty leaned over him now. “Are you trying to overturn the ban on public dancing?” Willard must have given her a hint. It was too big a leap to make without information.

“No, he's not,” Ariel said with certainty, until she saw the expression on Ren's face. “You're not, right?”

He grabbed one of the books he'd gone through earlier. “I've counted at least five ordinances that have been overturned in the past ten years. Why can't we do the same?”

“You know if you challenge the ordinance, you'd be going up against my father,” Ariel said. Ren couldn't tell if she thought that was a good or a bad thing. Maybe she didn't know, either.

“I'd be challenging the law. There's a difference.” Ren caught the meaningful look the two girls shared. Maybe Willard was right; Ren could come off like he was against the town. He certainly would have his reasons, but if he was going to get support for this measure, he needed allies.

“I'm not just trying to stick it to this town,” he said. “I can understand all these other rules, up to a point. But dancing in public? It's bullsh—” Mr. Parker's eyes were on all three of them. Ren lowered his voice. “It's wrong.”

Rusty took a seat beside him with newfound excitement. “Well, I think if you're serious about this, there's one thing we have to do. And it's crucial.”

“What's that?” Ariel asked, joining in.

Rusty's grin lit up the library. “Research.”