Dream & Dare (6 page)

While Bibi hovered over her crib, singing her to sleep, Lana sighed and rolled to her belly, hooking a chubby arm around the pink stuffed unicorn she always kept close.

She was such a pretty baby, almost ten months old now. Her flaxen hair was coming in with a soft curl, and Bibi reached into the crib and, very gently, let some of those curls circle her fingertips.

“Those are different words than the ones I know,” Faith said, quietly, standing at the open door. “They’re a little dark, aren’t they?”

Bibi smiled over her shoulder at her. “My mama used to sing it to me. Even when I was older, she’d sing it when I was sick or couldn’t sleep. I sang it to Connor when he was little. I never really thought about the words. I only think about the love.”

Faith walked in and stood next to the crib with Bibi, watching her daughter sleep. “She’s getting so big. Did Michael tell you she stood on her own today?”

“About the first thing out of his mouth when I got back. I’m glad he was here to see it. I thought he was gonna bust open with pride.”

“Yeah, he was. Her, too—she applauded herself. Stood up, let go, looked around at us grinning like a fool, then clapped so hard she knocked herself back on her little booty.”

Bibi laughed quietly and patted the little booty in question. “This girl is gonna run y’all ragged, you know that?”

Lana stirred, and both women stepped back quickly. In unspoken agreement, they tiptoed to the door and let the sleeping baby lie.

In the hallway, they could hear the low, happy sound of Demon telling Tucker a bedtime story, and Tucker interrupting repeatedly to ask his questions. Once he’d found his voice, that little guy had discovered that he liked to use it. Bibi and Faith smiled at each other.

This was a happy house. Even though she was only a guest, even though she no longer had a happy home of her own, Bibi took great comfort in the contentment and love surrounding her.

She needed it. The past week or so had been agonizing. Hoosier had taken ill, brought low by a virus, and it had been days since he’d even looked at her with recognition. For the first time since he’d woken, she was truly afraid she’d never get him back.

Faith put her hand on Bibi’s back. “Got a minute? I have something to show you.”

“Sure, darlin’.”

“Cool. I’ll meet you in the dining room. I need to run out to my studio for a sec.”

Curious, Bibi nodded. She stopped in the kitchen and poured herself a glass of wine from the box in the fridge. Demon came in and walked up behind her, kissing her cheek and taking the fridge door from her as she was about to close it. He leaned in and grabbed a beer.

“You have a beautiful family, Deme. I’m so proud of you.”

He blushed and beamed. “I don’t know how I got so lucky. I never had luck before.”

“Ain’t luck, honey. It’s what you deserve finally comin’ to you.

He didn’t look comfortable with that, but he shrugged without disagreeing. “Tell Faith I’m out in the garage working on Hooj’s bike.” All of Hoosier’s bikes had been destroyed in the fire, including his first bike, the one he’d still been riding when she’d met him. A 1970 Sportster custom chopper. A few weeks back, Demon had found the same stock bike at an auction and was working on restoring it and replicating the customization.

Biting back tears, Bibi nodded. “I’ll let her know. You’re a good man, Michael.”

He cocked his head at her use of his name. Only Faith called him Michael, and Bibi couldn’t recall the last time she herself had. But it had felt right in the moment, so now she only smiled.

He went out the back, and she headed to the dining room to wait for Faith.

Who was carrying a cardboard box, about medium-size, when she came in. “Michael in the garage?”

Bibi nodded. “Yep. What you got?”

Setting the box on the table near Bibi, Faith said, “This was in my mom’s stuff. When we were moving her and selling the house, I opened every single box, so I thought I knew what was in here. But I just actually went through it a couple of days ago, and it’s different from what I thought. I thought it was family photos—and it is. But it’s your family. I don’t know why Mom had it, but this is all you and Hooj and Connor. Some of us, too, but with you guys.”

She unfolded the flaps of the box, and pushed it toward Bibi. Peering in, Bibi could see that it was full of photos, framed and loose, and even a couple of albums. “What the…?”

Then she saw a glittery silver envelope, and she remembered. “Oh, stars. I remember what this is. This is the stuff I gave Margot when she threw us a twenty-fifth anniversary party. God, that was almost eighteen years ago.”

“You gave her all these family photos and she never gave them back?”

Bibi shrugged. “Honey, you’ve seen our house, I got pictures to spare. They’re everywh—” Remembering that she had nothing,
nothing
, she cut off abruptly and put her hand over her mouth to block the sob that had threatened to explode from her lips.

Faith reached out and put her hand over Bibi’s. Only that touch, no words.

When Bibi was in control again, she nodded at the box and whispered, “This is all I have left now. Oh, God, Faithy, I’m so glad you found this.”

Together, the emptied the box, spreading everything across the table. When the box was empty, without saying a word, they both began sorting the photos out. Faith picked up the envelope first. She opened it and slid out a pearly-white card. The party invitation.

“Wow. This is fancy.”

“It was a fancy party. Your mama loved to throw parties, and she did that one up big. At a hotel and everythin’.” Bibi laughed, remembering, and took the invitation from Faith’s hands. Embossed silver script on pearlized paper. “We got thrown out of the hotel around…two in the mornin’, I think? When the boys started to get rowdy. We finished the night at Denny’s and all crashed at the Motel 6 next door. That was a great party.”

She set the invitation down and picked up a square, badly-framed color photo. From her old Kodak 110 camera. Her and Hoosier and Gina, in the living room of that grungy apartment. The wall in the background was covered in band posters, stickers, and LP covers. They’d done that like wallpaper over that room, stapling and nailing new things up all the time, right over what they’d put up before. Like the walls of the clubs they hung out at.

She remembered the day that picture had been taken. Blue had been the one behind the camera.

Faith leaned over and looked. “Is that you? Oh my God, that’s you! You were totally a punk! When were you a punk?”

Bibi looked up to see Faith goggling at her. “Hooj never got it, either. But I liked that scene. I really did, for the most part.”

Faith pulled an old eight-by-ten in a cardboard folder frame from a stack she’d made. She opened it. Bibi recognized the photo from the frame and cringed. When Faith held it out, Bibi knew what she was going to say.

“This girl is not a punk. She’s adorable, though, with her Dorothy Hamill hair.”

It was a homecoming dance photo. Standing under a white wicker arch covered with plastic ivy, Bibi wore an electric-blue taffeta dress, cocktail length, with sleeves so big and puffy they brushed her earrings. And dyed-to-match pumps. Joel, standing behind her with his arms stiffly around her waist, wore a white tuxedo, with tails, and a ruffled shirt in the same electric blue as her dress. They’d thought they were the bee’s knees. Oh, God, the late Seventies.

She was wearing a gardenia wrist corsage, too. Mercy.

“No, she wasn’t a punk. She was a good girl. More or less. Except for the fornicatin’, that is.” She grinned and winked, and Faith laughed.

“I have to say, Beebs, I don’t see you in either of these. I mean, it’s you, and you’re gorgeous. But that’s not how I know you.”

“People change.” She shrugged. “I guess maybe I changed more’n most. Most of my life, I was kind of…well, you know how a mushroom don’t really have a taste of its own? It just tastes like whatever you put it with. That’s what I was like. When I was little, with three big brothers, I was a tomboy. I wanted to fit in with them, so I did the stuff they did. Then I got to middle school and started noticin’ boys that weren’t my kin, and wantin’ ‘em to notice me. They liked girly girls. So I started likin’ pink and wearin’ pretty clothes. My mama and daddy liked it better when I ‘acted like a lady,’ too. It made me feel good that I was doin’ what people wanted. It made me feel funny, too, but I never could understand what that funny feelin’ was, so I ignored it. Then I came out to California with Joel”—she tapped the photo, and before she could continue, Faith cut in.

“Wait. Are you saying you got to California because you followed a boy? You?”

Again, Bibi shrugged. “Like I said, honey. I changed. A lot. The girl who left Natchez was just a girl. In love with a boy, and couldn’t see anythin’ but him out in front of her.”

“What happened with Joel?”

“Exactly what you’d expect. Didn’t work out. The girls in California turned his head, and then I was just the same ol’ Bibi he’d known his whole life and been with since the ninth grade. That’s how I ended up meetin’ my friend Gina, and she was a punk, so I picked up her flavor.”

“And Hooj?”

“Like you see there, I met him in those days, and I fell for him the first night I met him. I don’t know if it was love at first sight, but it was close. When people talk about that, I know it’s real, because there ain’t been a day since that I haven’t loved that man with all I have. Even when I wanted to kill him in his sleep.”

“Did you pick up his flavor, too?”

“You know, I don’t know. I guess I wanted to. He didn’t much like when I made myself up like that”—she tapped the photo from the old apartment, and though she’d dressed that night for the club in the clothes she liked, fishnets and boots, a fake leather corset over a tattered tee, her hair was soft and her makeup lighter than she’d worn before Hoosier—“and I started doin’ things different right away ‘cuz of that. I was so young. So much younger than him, and I guess I had a little hero-worship thing goin’, even though I acted belligerent half the time. I thought of myself as ‘feisty.’ But the God’s truth is, he wouldn’t let me. He made me figure out what I wanted for me.”

“He’s only eleven years older, right? Not that much.”

“Now, those years are nothin’, but I was twenty when we met. You know it’s different when you’re young. Even five years can be a big gap.” She eyed Faith pointedly. Faith and Demon had five years between them, and when they’d first met, those five years had been insurmountable. “Back then, those eleven years were like an ocean of experience and life he’d had that I knew nothin’ about. I didn’t even know what it was that kutte he wore meant, but I knew he knew so much more about everythin’ than I did, and I knew there was somethin’ dark about him. He intimidated me, truth be told.”

“Was he harsh to you?” Faith’s brow creased with concern.

“God, no. But he was…firm, I suppose. Instead of tryin’ to make me do what he wanted, though, he made me do what
I
wanted. And you know, I’d never thought about that. Not really ever. I grew up thinkin’ I’d get married and have babies. Women’s lib wasn’t somethin’ that ever made it to my neck of the woods, so it never occurred to me that I’d do anythin’ else. Even when I was livin’ with Gina, I was just livin’. Not thinkin’ about anythin’ but payin’ the bills, havin’ a good time when I could. I never had a dream of my own. Like I said, I was a mushroom.” She smiled. “But Hooj can’t stand mushrooms.”

~oOo~

Hoosier smiled when he saw her the next day. For the first time in more than a week. Bibi had to stand in the doorway and collect herself for a moment, because relief and love hit her so hard it almost knocked her down.

“Hey, Biker Boy.” She came to his bed and kissed his forehead. Cool. No fever. She sniffed away her tears and kissed his mouth, rejoicing when he kissed her back, his lips pursing lightly. “Remember how I used to call you that when I got pissed?” Opening her handbag, she pulled out a little set of photographs she’d clipped together from the box Faith had found. “Look what I got. We didn’t lose everythin’ after all. Faith had some set aside.”