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A Mother's Gift


Rozdział II

"He is so fine," Annabel Parker said longingly, fanning herself with a discarded flyer for Biscay's annual countywide bake sale as she and Holly walked down the cracked sidewalk toward Norwood's Auto Body and Repair. Summer had barely started and already it was a scorcher. "I mean, I know Tyler belongs to you and all, and you know how I think you two are the cutest thing ever, but puh-leeze! The way he looks in those jeans should just be outlawed!"

Laughing at her friend, Holly squinted in the June afternoon sunlight, watching as the owner of the jeans in question, her boyfriend, Tyler Norwood, bent determinedly over the open hood of a maroon Camaro, a serious-looking wrench in his hand. She and Tyler had been going out for so long that she'd stopped noticing things the way Annabel did.

A flash of Tyler's berry-red T-shirt - and the broad, strong shoulders underneath - caught her attention.

Well, maybe she hadn't completely stopped.

She lifted her long blond hair from her neck, letting the warm summer breeze tickle her skin. People always said her hair, shiny and the color of sun-kissed butter, was her best feature - people who hadn't heard her sing, that was. "So how are thing going with you and Billy?" she asked, curious.

Annabel sighed, her fingers playing with the rickrack hem of her homemade halter. "Just how they always are. Nowhere. I swear, what do I have to do, put up one of those flashing sings like they have outside the Dairy Barn over in Pearl Creek that says 'Attention Billy Franklin! I, Annabel Josephine Parker, am available!'?"

"That might be a good start," Holly said, laughing at the thought.

Annabel swatted Holly's bare arm with the flyer. "Now, just because you and your sweet little self snagged the finest guy in all of Biscay, Mississippi - all of Mississippi, for that matter - is no reason to make fun of the rest of us poor lonely hearts."

Tyler is the finest guy in all of Biscay, Holly thought proudly, her heartbeat speeding up as they drew closer to him. Tyler's lean forearms were glistening with sweat, his thick dark hair damp on his forehead. Taut, tan skin with muscles developed through hard work - not some Soloflex machine at a fancy health club like on the television. Tyler didn't run with Biscay's rowdy boys. He'd never stolen a hubcap; he'd never gasped while trying to inhale a cigarette and claimed it was fun. From all her mother had told Holly about character and being your own person, she had decided Tyler fit the bill. He was, her mother stressed, beautiful on the inside.

Not too hard on the eyes, either, Holly thought, flushing. Tyler was her first boyfriend. She'd done pretty darn good. Now that school was out, Tyler spent almost every day helping his daddy fix up cars. He had a knack for fine-tuning carburetors and tooling around with mufflers and rebuilding engines. It was a known fact that if your car was acting cranky, a visit to Norwood's Auto Body was the remedy. Not to mention that Norwood's was the only remedy - the next closest repair shop was twenty-five miles away.

"Hey," Holly said as the girls walked into the yard outside the shop, the smell of oil and gas assaulting their senses. An old blues song was playing on the shop's radio. "Need any help?" Tyler laughed, leaning over to kiss her cheek. "I want to get this car running again, not send it back to the shop." He smiled at Annabel. "Hey, Bel."

Annabel's face did that nervous twitch it did whenever she was around a boy. "Hi, Tyler." Then she gave Holly a wave. "I've gotta run. I'm supposed to baby-sit Charlize while my mom works an extra shift at the Piggly Wiggly." Annabel made a face. "She's going through a door-slamming phase." "Call me," Holly said as Annabel hurried off. She took, a seat on one of the old wooden stools just inside the shop. "Anything new?" Tyler shook his head. "Nah. Joe over there's been working on that old Caddy since last Tuesday," he said with a grin, jerking his head in the redheaded mechanic's direction. "I heard that!" Joe called, waving an oily rag at them.

Tyler Norwood has to be one of the nicest, cutest guys on the planet, Holly decided, watching him work. Actually she'd already decided that a million times before, but it was confirmed every time she looked at his face. Like most people in Biscay, Tyler hadn't had it very easy. His mother had died of a drug overdose when he was nine years old. He and his dad had been left to carry on. The job of raising Tyler had fallen squarely on Phil Norwood's shoulders.

Tyler's dad wasn't a bad guy, and no on could say he hadn't done his best, but he wasn't Mr. Mom. There hadn't been many homemade chocolate chip cookies or kisses on bruised knees for Tyler. Now that he was older, he was learning to help his dad run the business. Holly guessed that the love of cars must run in Tyler's family's blood. He worshipped them almost as much as his father did. Working on cars for Tyler was like breathing was for most people. He said he needed it to survive. And when you saw his expression after he'd gotten a Mustang to purr like a kitten - and took it for a quick, secret spin around the block - you believed him. "I'm gonna take a break, Joe," Tyler called over his shoulder, wiping his greasy hands on his old jeans. He and Holly walked to the shady elm out back of the shop.

"So what have you and Bel been up to today?" Tyler asked, lacing his fingers with hers. "Causing mayhem in the streets of Biscay?" Holly laughed, loving how her hand felt in his. "You know what terrors we are. Bel pressed her face against the Laundromat window and almost gave old Miss Lawrence a heart attack. She spilled bleach all over her dress when she saw Bel's fish face."

Tyler shook his head. "You better watch out or you might make the weekly paper." He bent down and grazed her lips with his. Holly could feel his breath on her face, and when they pulled away from each other there was a smile on his face.

"I like kissing you," Tyler said, touching her cheek.

Feeling shy, Holly leaned against him, his words - and his kiss - playing through her head like a movie. She had counted the days until freshman year ended, looking forward to the summer months, to the time when she and Tyler could hang out with all their friends. Shoot hoops over at the playground, play Frisbee in the meadow, eat cotton candy at the county fair, spend hours talking about nothing down by the river, just the two of them, when he wasn't busy with his daddy.

Holly had always thought having a boyfriend would be some great huge deal. "Don't get me wrong," she told Annabel, who hung on her every word. "It's cool. But it's not like it's the answer to all your problems or anything. I still get zits and do homework and stuff." Still, things were different with her and Tyler than they were for the other couples she knew. There had never been any big scenes or fights, no angry breakups or teary reunions.

"That's so high school," Tyler would say, shaking his head at the latest mini-drama.

"We're in high school," Holly would remind him, giggling. Tyler was a year older than she was. Her mother hadn't been too crazy about that. But once she had me him, well, shoot! Her mom loved him almost as much as Holly did, and Tyler felt the same way about Wanda. He'd spent hours sitting up with her, talking about school and friends and television shows as if she were his age instead of being Holly's mother. Sometimes Holly thought Tyler secretly wished her mother was his.

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Copyright 1999-2001 Autorzy: Michał & Dawid Sibilla