Sunset People. Herbert Kastle

her.

      Later, half-dozing in the back seat of the car, her luggage jamming her into one corner, she thought of how someday Freddy would go to the movies in Massachusetts where his college was, and he’d see her dancing and singing and acting. Then he’d come home on vacation and try to visit her at the studio where she’d be working, but her agent wouldn’t let him get near her dressing room. Her famous actor sweetheart, or maybe a rock star like Rod Stewart, would walk out with her, past Freddy, who would look at her, tears streaming down his face, and whisper. “I’ve always loved you, Cloris darling, you know that. My parents forced me to go to school so far away, and forbid me to write or call you. I meant all those things I said on your Sweet Sixteenth, when you gave your virgin self to me. I want to marry you, if you’ll only accept me.”

      She would turn to her famous escort and say, “Did you hear that, Rod honey?” and walk off, pealing laughter.

      Or maybe she would forgive him, a little, and allow him to date her once in a while.

      She remembered her Freddy. She remembered loving him. And her seventeen-year-old heart ached and she wanted him more than Rod Stewart or Burt Reynolds or anyone on God’s earth. Wanted him as she had once wanted the father who had used his officer’s status in the Army Reserve to run away from a marriage that had stifled him to a “small war” that had killed him.

      She put her head down in the seat so neither Verna nor Buddy could see and cried very quietly.