Sunglasses 1: The Girl with the Dino Tattoo

[ A/N - Welcome to the first chapter of Sunglasses in the Rain! As always, the first entry is free to the public. I hope you enjoy this slice-of-life romance with a mystery at its center. ]

The first time I laid eyes on Mel was one year ago. It was the first Friday of April, just before ten o’clock, and I still remember how cold that night was. Of course, I didn't know her name was Mel. She was just “sunglasses girl,” or maybe “cute sunglasses girl.”

Damn. Hard to believe it's been an entire year.

The last time I saw Mel was—

No, hang on. None of this will make much sense without everything that happened in between. Some of it will be hard to believe, but every word is true. I'll try not to ramble. Mel says I ramble when I'm nervous, and right now I'm terrified. Just…bear with me.

This whole thing kind of makes me think of Walt’s tattoo.

Walt’s this old guy who works at the Quad A. He’s been there so long that his body’s the color of wheat dust. Anyway, Walt has this discount tattoo. It’s a crude arrow looping back on itself with blotchy words on top: “The beginning is where you start.” I can’t decide if that’s profound or asinine, but it still pops into my head every so often. Am I rambling already? Fuck.

Look, let me ease into this, okay? I'll start at the beginning. That first Friday of April, one year ago. The night Mel Wade stopped for gas.

As I said, it was a little before ten, and I know that because I was getting ready to close. I’d swept the aisles, straightened the snacks, and sorted all the misplaced bottles in the drink cases. I was running a cleaning rag over the hot dog rollers when the growl of an engine carried through the front window.

At first I assumed it was another wannabe road warrior tearing ass through our section of Highway 281. Drywell’s main road was a two-lane blacktop in the middle of nowhere, and since its goal was to get drivers somewhere as fast as possible, 281 was arrow straight. It’s typical for sports cars—and giant raised pick-ups—to blast down the highway late at night.

But as the engine shifted down, and then down again, I cursed. A last minute customer. Turning off the hot dog grill, I threw down the rag and glanced outside. A roadster swerved off the highway and stopped at the second of our two gas pumps. Of course she would pick pump two.

She?

I frowned. What put that in my head? The car was genderless, a compact two-door with a late seventies or early eighties vibe. Sort of odd-looking. It had the squarish front of a muscle car and the shortened rear of a hatchback. I’d seen a lot of vintage cars on TV, thanks to Grams, but nothing like this. Maybe it was the color? No…the car’s timeworn yellow hue wasn’t really girly, just sunny.

The door opened, and a woman stepped out.

A little tremor shot down my spine. Neat coincidence. I watched her breath stream out in the cold as the she walked around the hood. She had a trim build and clothes that were way too light for early April.

The woman did an abrupt little halt in front of the pump. I saw that stumble most days, the “oh shit this ancient pump doesn’t have a card reader” double take. Classic. Her head turned toward me in the main building.

I was next to the door, so I’m sure she spotted me. I would like to say that our eyes met, but that would have required me seeing her eyes.

This girl was wearing large aviator shades on a moonless Kansas night.

Another strange flutter went through me, more thrilling than eerie. Who was this strange woman? I watched her shoulders lift in a sigh, and then she was on her way over.

The bell jingled as she tugged the door open. I’d already backed way up. I didn’t exactly have a hulking build, but a lot of women were understandably nervous walking into an isolated gas station late at night.

Not sunglasses girl. She just seemed mildly annoyed. 

“Do you take cards?” The huskiness in her voice surprised me. Power in a small frame—like her car and its growling engine. I could listen to that voice read all seventeen names in the nonexistent Drywell phone book.

“Hey,” she said. “You with me, man?”

I mentally scrambled to shake off my reaction. “Cards! Yes. We sure do.” I gave my best harmless smile. 

She nodded and pulled out a no-nonsense velcro wallet. I took in her clothes again, a dark long-sleeved shirt and faded capris the color of tired prairie grass. The only thing on her feet was a pair of Chucks. No socks. How was she not freezing?

“Here.” She cocked a hip and held out a card. Her capris seemed to enjoy clinging to those hips as much as I probably would have.

I blinked. “Oh, I’m, uh, I’m sorry. We need to pump the gas first.” Dammit. This customer needed help, not a creeper store clerk distracted by a woman shifting her weight. “Sorry,” I repeated.

She sighed and put her wallet away. “Be right back.”

“Actually…” I gave her a pained smile. “We both have to go. The lever on pump two is busted.”

“Seriously?” she muttered. I couldn’t tell whether she was addressing me or just commenting to herself, so I stayed quiet. She shook her head. “Let’s just get it done.”

I grabbed my coat and we both pushed out into the cold air. The wind gusted as we started walking. I shivered, checking on her.

She had a scarf on, but it wasn’t a real scarf, just a jaunty pink deal stuffed into the neck of her shirt. It was sexy and suited her, but it conserved zero heat.

“Do you want to get a jacket from your car?” I asked uncertainly.

“I’m not cold.” Her mouth tightened, and she quickly added, “I mean, I have a good heater on the road. I can deal for a couple minutes.”

“All righty.” All righty? When the fuck had I ever said that?

She crossed her arms and nodded at the roadster. “What now?”

“Is ‘87’ okay?” I asked. She nodded and I pulled the gas nozzle loose. Apparently I had decided to pump her gas, even though I had never done that for a customer. Better just roll with it.

I took a single step and halted. Where was the gas panel? My eyes roamed over the matte yellow finish. Nothing. Maybe beside the hood? Nope. Was it on the other side? This was why I should never pump anyone’s gas.

“Under the license plate,” she said.

I shot her a grateful look and wandered to the rear of the hatchback. There wasn’t much of a trunk with the angled glass, but I could see luggage in the back seat—not that I was snooping. Before pulling the plate down to access the gas cap, I saw she was from Missouri. Only because it was right there. I wasn’t snooping.

With the nozzle in, I turned to her. “Okay, now just flip that metal lever up. You have to hold it.”

She moved beside the pump, found the lever, and flipped it. The aged pump seemed to gather itself as a motor in its innards juddered to life. I squeezed the handle, and the analog mechanical numbers began rolling with audible clicks.

“My name’s Calvin,” I said impulsively.

“I know.”

“You do?”

“Your tag.” She nodded at my name badge.

My surprise turned to chagrin. “Ha. Right.” Despite her brevity, sunglasses girl didn’t strike me as rude. Her vibe was more…remote than anything else. “I go by Cal,” I added. Tonight, my vibe was “awkward.”

She hesitated. “Mel.”

“Hey…Cal and Mel.” I smiled. “Three letter names unite!” I shot up a little solidarity fist. Jesus. What was wrong with me?

Her lips quirked in amusement and I felt an outsized flood of relief. “If only I knew a ‘Joe’ and an ‘Ivy,’ ” she said. “We’d be unstoppable.”

“Yes! Exactly.” I chuckled.

The pump continued to gurgle and click. Her head turned and we both watched the numbers roll up without talking, though somehow it wasn’t uncomfortable. I took a chance and shifted my attention from the pump gauge to her.

Mel’s casual clothes were loose, but I still got a sense that her body was lean and neat. In contrast to her spare frame, she had a strong jaw and a soft wide mouth. Every other feature was sharp: cute nose, arched eyebrows, and defined cheeks. She was saved from harshness by a mass of luxuriant brown hair in the messiest pony tail I’d ever seen. And her eyes…okay, I had no idea what her eyes looked like. 

I bet they were as gorgeous as the rest of her.

“That’s enough.”

I jumped and stopped squeezing the handle. She was looking at me with one angular brow arched. Busted. My ears warmed, burning in the cold air.

“I don’t need to fill it up,” Mel explained. She dropped the lever and the pump shut off. She’d been talking about gas. God, I hoped that was true.

What was wrong with me? I don’t ogle every cute girl who stops for gas! Was this some inner well of loneliness spilling over in the most embarrassing way possible? I slotted the nozzle back in its holder. 

Now I was grateful we couldn’t make eye contact.

I led us back into the warmth. Moving quickly behind the counter, I set the lone credit card machine on top of the battered Kansas lottery mat and held it down while she swiped it.

“Our internet is garbage. Give it a sec.” She didn’t reply. For some bizarre reason, I was desperate not to end this encounter on a humiliating note. Say something, my brain begged. Something witty. “So…you like to wear your sunglasses at night?” 

She gave me a flat look. “ ‘Sunglasses at Night.’ Corey Hart. January, 1984. Good one.” My insides withered. 

“Not the most original comment, huh?” I said.

“Not by a long shot, Cal.” It was weirdly nice hearing her say my name.

What happened next was unusual for me. Instead of wanting to sink into the floor, I felt like I’d been turned loose. I’d botched my shot at…at what? Not a date, obviously, but I’d botched something. And now I had nothing to lose.

I grinned. “In my defense, we only got that song here a couple weeks ago.”

A surprised snort shot out of Mel’s mouth. Her generous lips curved into a reluctant smile. “Oh yeah?”

I nodded. “Takes stuff a long time to reach Drywell. But we’re not completely clueless. I’ve heard some good things about this Vanilla Ice guy.”

She laughed, and that pretty much topped off my happiness meter for the weekend.

At that moment the credit card machine finally spat out a receipt. Her full name was Mel Wade. Not that I was snooping. “Here you go. Thanks for shopping at Oz Gas.”

She grabbed it with a precise clamp of her thumb and index finger. “Thanks.” Her head tilted. “You guys know that Oz wasn’t in Kansas, right?”

“One moment.” I grabbed a dry erase marker from beside the register and turned around to the shift board. I added a hashmark to a row stretching across the top margin, right beside the words “Oz Location Advice.” I gave her a thumbs up. “That makes it an even twenty for the year. Nice.”

Mel winced. “Not the most original comment?” she guessed. It was good knowing I wasn’t the only one who could be embarrassed.

I laughed. “Not by a long shot. But lucky for you, the twentieth person to say it gets one of Mrs. Wagner’s homemade boiled cookies. It’s tradition.” It was a tradition I’d just started, but she didn’t need to know that. I picked up a large brown disk, shiny with cling wrap, and passed it over the counter.

She took it. “Thanks?”

“It may look like a cow pie, but it tastes like heaven.” I wasn’t being mean. Mrs. Wagner used that exact phrase on the label. It was a hundred percent accurate.

“Okay…” She gave a bemused laugh.

We stared at each other a few more seconds, long enough for me to wonder if Mel might also be reluctant to end this chance encounter. Then she shook herself, and raised her hand in a farewell wave. When I spotted the tiny little tattoo on her inner forearm, I couldn’t help but excitedly point.

“Dino!”

She blinked, and then looked down at her arm, where the purple-pink mascot had been lovingly rendered. “Uh, yeah. Heh. You like the Flintstones?” 

“I like the cereal.” I wasn’t about to admit I’d seen every season of the show, another legacy of growing up with Grams. “It looks cool.” It was slick and professional. Miles apart from Walt’s.

“Thanks.” She took a few steps and turned back at the door. “It was nice to meet you, Cal.”

“Nice to meet you too, Mel.” I smiled.

She pushed a few flyaway strands behind one ear, nodded again, and exited into the frigid night. I watched her walk back to her car and get in.

The roadster’s engine rumbled. Its high beams switched on, and the car rolled onto Highway 281. I squinted, following the red rectangles of its tail lights as they receded into the distance. And Mel Wade drove out of my life as easy as she’d driven in.

It would be crazy to miss someone after a five minute encounter, right? Right.

I missed her.