Tiger Moths (9 page)

Casey growled, “Just who are you, little man? And what do you think you are doing with my guitar? Nobody touches my guitar, not my girlfriend, not my brothers, not my mother. You’re dead, kid.”

And with that, in a flash, Johnny’s night ended. The last thing he saw was four hairy knuckles coming at him, then darkness.

Hours later Johnny awoke in the most pain he had ever experienced, without remembering what caused his misery. The only good thing about the pain was that it proved he was not dead. There was no way death could make one’s head throb like this. Johnny really did not want to open his eyes, but he knew he had no choice. Chiefly because he had no clue where he was, or how he got there. Anticipating the inevitable result, he slowly opened one eye.

He had been right in dreading the outcome. The steams of sunlight filtered through his half-opened eyelids like cattle prods to his fragile head. What was worse, the payoff was not worth it. He still remained clueless. Through the blur he could make out the outline of a small nylon tent, but that told him nothing. He could barely move his neck, and when he moved his hand across his face, his fingers were caked with crusty, dried blood. He hurt from the base of his neck to the top of his head; but it was his nose that cried for mercy. It even hurt to breathe.

The tent door flap parted. The light filtered in like a howitzer to his fragile face. He gasped reflexively from the sudden painful blast.

“Please, please close that thing.” Even his voice provided yet another source of pain.

“Oh my, you are in bad shape, aren’t you?”

The soothing feminine voice was as unexpected as it was welcomed. It did not make him hurt less, but it did wonders for his spirit.

The tent flap closed abruptly and he could make out the outline of a beautifully shaped and quite attractive body.
Wow, what a regrettable way to make a first impression
, he mused.

“You put on quite the show for us last night, Johnny. I just came to check on you. We thought Casey had killed you, the way you just went down and didn’t move.”

It was the sweetest voice he had ever heard, but he could not make his mind put the events in sensible order. “Who? What?” He tried to raise his head, but fell back in misery. Nothing about the previous night was coming back to him, except seeing Buck, chugging a lot of beer, looking up at the stars, and … and singing?

“Was I singing?” he questioned hesitantly.

“Oh, were you ever singing. You were singing for all you were worth, but that wasn’t the problem. Your crime was picking up Casey’s guitar. That’s what nearly got you killed out there.”

“Casey Capps, the team’s starting fullback? The man with his sights set on the pros next year? That Casey Capps?”

“Well you have retained some memory; that’s a good sign.”

He thought she was smiling at him. “I can’t believe I did that. I would have decked me too if somebody messed with my guitar -- well if I had one anyway. I gotta go apologize. Man, I am so sorry.” He rubbed his nose. “So, so sorry. That was not cool at all.”

“Yes, well, don’t worry about Casey.” Her voice soothed him.

Johnny suddenly realized he had been talking to one of the prettiest girls he had ever met, and did not even know her name.
Man, what an idiot you are, Johnny Clark.

“Here, now this will help the swelling.” She lifted an ice pack and deftly placed it on the bridge of his nose. The weight of the pack made him wince, but he was regaining his composure now, and willed the pain away for the moment.

“Say, you do that like you know what you are doing,” he whispered.

“Yes, well I should. I grew up in sports and my dad is the assistant coach for the football team. I’ve done ice packs and Ace bandages for quite a while now. Oh, I’m Kayla, Kayla Green.”

“Kayla, it’s very nice to meet you; I’m…”

“I know who you are, silly. You’re Johnny Clark. Everyone knows who you are now.” She smiled.

The smiled helped, but her words were mortifying. Yep, now he would forever be known as the jerk that messed with Casey Capps’ stuff and got decked. “AHH…” is all he could manage to say.

“Johnny, really, don’t worry about it. Casey is an okay guy, but everyone knows he is a bully sometimes and a big baby about his guitar. He’s not even very good at it. It’ll be okay; you’ll square it with him and it will be fine.”

“Oh yeah, you sound pretty sure about that, but I just don’t know. I might as well prepare myself for a world of grief about this.”

“The guys will give you a hard time about it, no doubt, but it’ll work out. Believe me; I know how these guys are. Some of them thought it was a real hoot when it happened. Well they did once we found out you were not dead. A fatality would have spoiled a really good party, you know.”

The more he watched and listened to her, the more he wanted to know about her. Her chestnut hair was tied up in a tight pony tail so that the sharp features of her face were easily seen. She had dimples when she smiled, and she was so easy to talk to, as though he had known her forever. He thought for a moment that he could just fall in love with her right then and there. How could he be thinking such things about someone he just met? Yet his mind refused to let go of the thought that perhaps taking that punch was going to pay big dividends for him after all. He could tell his kids that his disjointed nose led him to meet and marry their mother.

“Besides” –she went on cleaning the blood off of his face- “no one knows Casey better than me. We’ve been together for over a year now. He’s really not a bad guy.”

His thoughts burst in his mind, leaving a gloomy disdain for his incredibly bad timing. His next thought made that completely inconsequential for the moment.

“Kayla, you are Casey’s girlfriend? What are you doing here? You’ve got to leave now, or I do. What are you trying to do, get me killed for good?”

“Relax, Johnny. Casey knows I am here. Like I said, we really thought you were hurt bad. He is still pissed about the guitar, but he never really meant to lay you out cold like that. This is our tent that you are in. He had to get back to campus. I stayed behind to help you out. Oh, and to show you no hard feelings, Casey left you something. Lay still; I’ll get it for you.”

Johnny lay motionless. He could not imagine what this surprise might be. Unless it was a shovel with which he was supposed to dig his own grave.

“Now close your eyes. I want to see the full effect,” Kayla said as she returned to his side.

“Yep, a guilty man, getting ready to reap his consequences,” he sighed.

“Okay now, just know that it is a second that he doesn’t use anymore, but it still sounds good. Go ahead, open your eyes.”

“Oh my gosh. Kayla, you’ve got to be kidding me. A guitar? For me? I mean, I can pay him for it when I apologize to him.”

“Oh no, you’ve paid enough already.” She laughed.

“He wanted to give this to me after I…”

“Well the truth of it is I made him come up with something to give you. Told him I was going to report his assault on you to my dad if he didn’t. I got his attention real fast. But he is the one who came up with giving you the guitar. He heard everybody talking about how into the music you were, so he thought you might like it.”

“Like it? I love it. I’ve wanted a guitar for most of my life. I always had to borrow one when I wanted to play. I don’t believe this. It’s great.”

She looked as if she had never seen such a smile on the face of a grown man before. He thought for a moment that he was going to wake up from a wonderful dream. Then, it was all made real when she leaned over and kissed his cheek delicately. “And that’s my gift to you.”

He blushed, though undetectable through his dark tan. “Thank you. My first hit song shall be dedicated to you, Kayla Green. The woman who nursed me back to health and gave me a second chance.”

N
ASHVILLE
, T
ENNESSEE
, 1988

Dale doodled vigorously on her desk calendar with her right hand, turning the pages of the thick contract with the other hand. A mild headache had seeped into her day. It was no wonder; her teeth had held this clenched position for most of the two-hour teleconference she was trying to wrap up.

“Al, I told you this merger is worth millions of dollars, but it has to be done right. I’m not going to sell my client out just to make you happy. Look, the limited liability clause stays, period. Also, we want residuals in place as we discussed and international rights split 50-50. Now that’s the final offer. Take it or find someone else to do business with.”

“Dale, you are not being reasonable. We both know your client has to have this deal or he will go under.”

“Better he go under with dignity than prosper without honor, Al. Listen, I know what you are saying, but I just cannot in good conscience let him sign your offer. It will hurt so many innocent people.”

“Okay, fine, I’ll talk to my people and see what they say, but I think you’ve just found the deal breaker on this one.”

“I’ll live with it. Call me when you know.”

Dale cradled the phone and breathed deeply.
Dad, I know this is what you would do.
She had done the right thing, but at what price? After several years as an attorney for one of the largest corporate law firms in Nashville, she had hoped it would get easier, or at least more tolerable. It did not. The legal issues she loved, but the ethical stretches wore on her every day. This time she may have gone too far for the partners to pardon her. It could be her last stand. She knew it, and she needed a sounding board.

The phone rang again.
Wow that was fast, Al.

“Hey, hey, Dale, what’s up, girl? Gracie and I are down in the lobby. We wanted to know if we could come up and see you. Gracie loves the view from your bastion of corporate life.”

“Laura, hey, just who I needed to hear from. Sure, I can’t wait to see you two. I’ve got some M&Ms with Gracie’s name on them. Come on up.”

“I swear, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you represented the American Dental Association and got a cut from them. You give my kid way too much of that stuff.”

“You know that’s what godmothers are for, don’t you? See you in a bit.”

Dale hung up the phone and ran her finger around the photograph she had put on her desk when she set up the office. She was smiling happily, as was Laura, and between the two of them sat a pink-clad infant named Gracie.

She remembered it all clearly, how she had been crushed by the betrayal only to find out the betrayal was not what she thought it was. Or at least it did not involve who she thought.

Only by the supernatural hand of God did she endure the weeks and months after that heart-stopping phone call. She had reached Jason later that day and confronted him with a simple question.

“Is is true, Jason? Are you married?”

Jason looked stricken and did not immediately answer. When he did, it was with tears in his eyes. “Yes, but…”

He stopped because they both knew there were no “buts” as far as Dale was concerned. She believed firmly in moral absolutes and he knew this well.

For her part, Dale had walked to the door and opened it. Without saying anything more, she asked him to leave and stay out of her life. Her pain was etched on her face, and her heart felt like it would never love again.

It was Laura’s pregnancy and her increasing stirrings of the Holy Spirit that sustained her. Together the women grew in spirit and in truth, and soon it became Laura who was praying for Dale more than the other way around.