Glen and Sher were already at Burger King when Rick, a good looking fellow with blue eyes and a blond moustache accenting the northern Spanish features of his ancestors, ar-rived from the nearby Ford dealership where he was a lot manager. It was one of those moments that begged for a Kodak to prove the description later, the gal made such an unforgettable first impression. Sher sat like a homecoming queen gone bad in tight slacks with a cigarette lodged in the corner of her mouth, moving like a metronome when she spoke. She was neither warm nor particularly friendly.
The lunch, not surprisingly, went downhill from there. It seemed that Sharon didn’t really want anyone around other than her beau. She sat between the two bowling buddies, intentionally leaning forward to block Rick's view of his pal. It was obvious as could be. She didn’t want Rick involved in the conversation she was having with her new boyfriend.
Once or twice when Rick tried to wedge his way into the discussion, Sharon turned and glared at him. It was subtle and out of Glen's view.
Annoyed, Rick studied his watch as though he was concerned about the time.
“Oh, I have to get back. You guys probably have a lot to talk about,” he said, swallowing hard. He had lied to one of his closest friends. He didn’t have to get back to the car dealership for any reason at all. His lunch hour was far from over. He just couldn’t stand sitting there with Sharon for one more minute.
“She didn’t even have to talk, I just didn’t like her. I tried to be nice. I tried not to show my feelings. The way she looked, the glare, the stare. The way she carried herself like she was cocky,” he recalled later.
As the days passed into weeks of the spring and summer, Glen's circle of friends shrunk until it barely included anyone but Sharon. Old friends were set aside as the friendly fireman and his love took long drives together, went out to dinner, to the movies. Everything seemed to happen so fast.
Sharon complained she didn’t like her rental house. She didn’t like the neighbor's skinny mutt barking all hours of the night. It wasn’t a good place for Danny and Misty to live.
Glen offered Sharon and the kids a place to stay. They could move into his house on Columbine Court. The ranch-style home had a nice yard for the kids, was close to Sharon's job at the eye doctor's and would give everyone a chance to see if they could work things out. When Sharon agreed, Glen told friends he was the happiest man in the world. The haste of their living arrangement surprised many, but no one said a word to Glen about it.
No one wanted to ruin what happiness he had finally found.
Tara Harrelson was a typical teenager of divorce. Though she lived with her mother, she felt a special closeness for her father. The split of the Harrelson family had been hard on the teen. She harbored resentment and a little bitterness, and she rebelled. And even though the stirred-up feelings from her parents’ divorce had settled, she was still hurt that they could not be a family as they had once been. When it came to women and their interest in her father, Tara was fiercely protective. She wanted the best for her dad.
When she met her father's live-in, Sharon, for the first time,
Tara had a feeling that this former preacher's and doctor's wife was different from the others he had dated. She was nice, but a little pushy. It seemed to take no time at all for Sharon to force herself into their lives. In almost the blink of an eye, Sharon took over her dad's house. She posted religious verses throughout the house. She arranged the furniture the way she wanted it. She did a little magazine-inspired decorating makeover on a couple of the rooms. She allowed Danny and Misty to have the run of the place.
Soon after Sharon and the kids moved in, Tara found business cards from an optical company. The surname astonished her: SHER HARRELSON.
What is this? The teenager had not heard any talk of marriage. Not a peep. Her father and Sharon had just started going out. It was true that Sharon had moved into the house in surprisingly short order, but that didn’t mean the two were getting married. What Tara saw on the little card bothered her. Using another man's last name seemed inappropriate even to a sixteen-year-old who might doodle Mrs. So-and-So on the back of a Pee-Chee school folder.
“I think she just kind of pushed her way into his life. He just wanted to be loved,” she said later.
At first, at least on the surface, it seemed Sharon also wanted to be liked.
When Tara whined about wanting to drive her father's prized 1967 Camaro her pleas fell on deaf ears. It was Glen's pride and joy; he had lovingly restored the car with buckets of money and gallons of sweat. No way was he going to let a sixteen-year-old drive it.
It was Sharon who pressured Glen to give in.
Give the girl a thrill.