Read Small Town Trouble for Free Online Page B

potential fact, saddle up and ride life’s pony. Even in the worst case scenario, there are still surprises along the trail.
    Take Nancy Merit, for instance. A Southern storm trooper of love, she’d gotten my heart thumping with real verve, like it hadn’t thumped in a long time. Nancy Merit was a woman who made for great general distraction, even when she wasn’t around. Unexpected bonanzas like her cause one to reexamine the whole high school graduation theory. I had to admit that when I didn’t allow the complications of pesky old reality to interfere with what I had going with Nancy Merit, I felt plenty zesty.
     
    Sitting across from Amy Delozier Smith that evening in a dimly lit corner booth at Sparkie’s Lounge all these years later made me feel pretty zesty, too.
    Amy looked great. I’d almost forgotten her gray-green eyes and her playful smile. She wore casual but expensive clothes and an annoyingly large, humping diamond ring. Her honey-brown hair was pulled back in a short, loose ponytail, giving her a kind of Grace Kelly Goes Kicky sort of look. Maybe I was in an Alfred Hitchcock movie. She smelled good, too. But something was different about her.
     
    Amy and I shared a double cheese pepperoni pizza and drank Little Kings while Mario Lanza sang Because You’re Mine . Amy told me the story of her nose job. I just couldn’t understand it.
    “What was wrong with your other nose?”
    Amy drank her Little King straight from the bottle, which kind of surprised me for a dentist’s wife.
    “Nothing, if you like turkey beaks.” She grinned in a way that warmed me all over.
    “Wait a minute. You had a great nose.”
    “Thanks, but you have a lousy memory.”
    She chewed her pizza and eyed me with a wicked little look that made me think she might be flirting. The new nose was certainly adorable, but it made her look a little more like Marlo Thomas than was probably a good idea. I would’ve preferred the original. The whole nose job thing had probably been the dentist’s idea. From the looks of things, I wondered if he’d suggested breast implants, too.
    Luckily, talk concerning Dr. Doug Smith had been limited. She didn’t seem much more interested in the dentist than I was. I told Amy about life in Gatlinburg and the Little Pigeon Restaurant. She told me about teaching French part-time at the community college and playing lots of tennis.
    Right or wrong, as things progressed, I decided that Amy was flirting a little so I plunged ahead. Why not?
    “It’s fantastic to see you again, Amy. Sometimes I really miss the old days.”
    Then she stopped chewing and stared at me as if I’d just admitted that I ate dog biscuits.
    “You’re kidding,” she said.
    “No, really.” I took a casual swig of beer. I could do casual. “Don’t you?”
    “ Mon Dieu !” She took a third slice of pizza. “I hated high school. Ugh, adolescence. Disgusting.”
    I matched her slice for slice.
    “But you’ll have to admit that junior high was worse.”
    Like a hypnotist, I wanted to take her back, way back.
    She considered this a moment, pizza sauce in the corner of her mouth, then she said, “You’re right. High school was miserable. But junior high was hell.”
    “Amy,” I began, and my heart pumped a bit faster as I ventured out into the murky waters of early sexual stirrings, wondering if Amy might take my hand and wade out with me, “I think my favorite summer was the one we spent hanging around your grandpa’s farm. Remember the hayloft?”
    Dum da dum dum.
     
    Maybe I’d pushed her too far. Amy’s eyes got a little dazed, and she had a funny look on her face. She laid the pizza slice down and wiped a napkin across her mouth. I couldn’t tell if she was going to cry, throw up or just what. Ironically, Mario Lanza was singing Because You’re Mine again.
    Apparently Grandpa Delozier’s place had been on Amy’s mind lately, too, but not for the same reason. Over another round of Little Kings Amy