I Was Here(13)

             “Not yet,” I tell Richard, and then I’m up out of my seat and over at the bar where Ben McCallister is standing, drinking another beer and talking to a group of people who are telling him what a great set it was. I march up to him, but once I’m standing right behind him, so close I can see the vertebrae in his neck and the tattoo atop his shoulder blade, I have no idea what to say.

             But Ben McCallister seems to know what to say to me. Because after a few seconds’ chitchat with the other girls, he turns around and looks at me: “I saw you out there.”

             Up close, Ben McCallister is much prettier than any boy has a right to be. He has what I can only assume are Irish good looks: black hair, skin that on a girl would be called alabaster but on a rocker is just perfectly pasty. Full, red lips. And the eyes. Meg was right. They look like contacts.

             “You saw me out where?” I ask.

             “Out there.” He points to the tables in the club. “I was looking for a friend of mine; he said he’d come, but it’s impossible to see anything with the lights.” He mimics shielding his eyes against the glare, just as I’d seen him do from the stage. “But then I saw you”—he pauses for a beat—“like maybe you were who I was looking for.”

             Is this what he does? Use this line? Is it so rehearsed that he even plants the little eye shield squint-into-the-crowd thing during the show? I mean, it’s a great line. Because if I was in the crowd, then it’s like, Wow, you were looking for me. And if I wasn’t, well, then you said that nice thing and what a sensitive rocker you must be to believe in something like fate.

             Is this the line he used on Meg? Did this work on Meg? I shudder to think of my friend falling for this crap, but then with Meg far away from home, with glitter dust in her eyes and guitar fumes up her nose, who knows?

             He takes my silence for coyness. “What’s your name?”

             Will my name ring a bell? Did she mention me to him? “Cody,” I say.

             “Cody, Cody, Cody.” He gives my name a test drive. “It’s a cowgirl name,” he drawls on. “Where you from, Cowgirl Cody?”

             “Cowgirl country.”

             His smile is slow, like he’s intentionally rationing it. “I’d like to visit Cowgirl country. Maybe I can come and you can take me for a ride.” He gives me a meaningful look, in case I haven’t caught the double entendre.

             “You’d probably get bucked right off.”

             Oh, he likes that. He thinks we’re flirting, the dickwad. “Would I, now?”

             “Yeah. Horses can smell fear.”

             Something on his face falters for a second. Then: “What makes you think I’m scared?”

             “City dicks always are.”

             “How do you know I’m a city dick?”

             “Well, we’re in a city. And you’re a dick, aren’t you?”

             A flurry of confusion passes over his face. I can see he’s not sure if I’m just a violent flirter, the kind of girl who’d be hot, if a little angry, in bed, or if this has actually passed over into something else. But he arranges his face into the lazy wannabe rock-star slackery smile. “Who exactly have you been talking to, Cowgirl Cody?” His tone is light, but underneath it’s laced with something less pleasant.

             I make my voice go all breathy, the way Tricia does so well. “Who have I been talking to, Ben McCallister?” I lean in close.