Drag Strip Date is a 60,000 word romance novel I’ll be posting in installments.
Here’s Installment 1. You can read all the installments at once by going to the button *DRAG STRIP DATE above.
Synopsis:
Darla Rigs is a freshly minted medical doctor with a bright future. She’s escaped a bad relationship and moved to Victoria, British Columbia. But now she’s met Luke Bertolucci, a philosopher/stone mason. Darla likes Luke a lot, but will she be able to put the past behind her and start fresh?
———————————————————————————————————————————————
DRAG STRIP DATE
about 60,000 words
by Jerry Donaldson
Installment #1
It was 7 pm and she knew he wouldn’t be late; he was reliable. Reliable and gentle, but not predictable and staid. She liked that about him, liked it a lot. This evening she wore a short, tight skirt and a crisp white blouse, because she knew he liked that. She felt cool, slim and elegant and that’s the way she liked to feel. So it was all good.
From the corner booth at Nick’s Cafe she watched through the plate glass the officer workers rushing for home way-late; and the skater kids on their battered boards, rolling in pairs amongst grumpy, harrumphing after-dinner shoppers. And the young lovers, hand in hand and smiling, bound for the beach down past the end of the narrow road. They would sit on the white sand and watch, rapt, the great ocean, mother Pacific, take the sun to her bosom as the world turned dark blue, warm, and sweet.
And then there he was, striding tall, blond and boyishly handsome on the sidewalk. He winked at her through the glass, knowing right where to look for her because the corner booth at Nick’s was where they always met. Then he was out of sight for a moment, and then he was coming through the door, and then he was sliding into the booth, sliding along the soft, red bum-worn leather, sliding right up next to her. And then he was kissing her.
The slow-burning fire in her gut flared hot and she he felt the gentle, pure heat rise to her lips. Then, as her left hand slid behind his neck and pulled his lips hard against hers, her right hand reflexively clasped shut the open collar of her blouse, as if to contain the fire before it engulfed her.
Then her right hand dropped limp into her lap and her left slipped gently from his neck to his shoulder. She reluctantly allowed his lips to leave hers. He dropped back against the seat cushion, took a deep breath and stared across the crowded cafe.
Dazzled, she thought. He’s dazzled! And he was, no mistake at all about that. Anyone could see it!
“Hi, Darla,” he said, “How was your day?”
“Much better now, kind sir,” she replied. “And you?”
“What can I say? I put in a full day’s work with nothing but you on my mind! It was torture! Dark and gray and seemingly endless torment! But now I’m here with you and the sun has returned to my sky. ”
His right hand reached for hers. She felt the horny, work-hardened calluses on his stone mason’s hand, and the fire within her banked to a warm, comfortable glow. He turned his smiling, sun-bronzed, outdoorsy face to hers and their eyes met. He had violet eyes, just like Elizabeth Taylor. Stunning, mesmerizing eyes. When they’d first met at the shopping plaza across the road (was that really only a week ago?) she’d assumed he wore tinted contacts. The foolish affectation of a flyweight; not manly at all! But, as it turned out, his eyes were the real deal.
But what about the rest of him? His name was Luke, she knew that. She also knew there was a powerful, animal attraction between them. It was mind-blowing, really. A moth to his flame, that’s how she felt. And that’s why she hesitated, why she held back. She’d been badly burned before, and she was now determined to be responsible and sensible; determined to make her choices wisely.
It’s like buying a car, she thought in her less romantic moments. You have to look beyond the flash and glamour, beneath the red paint and the soft, deep bucket seats. You must resist the satisfying rumble and throb of the engine transmitted through a cherry-red nail-polished hand grasping the shifter. Not give in to the breathtaking rush of speed and danger on an open highway.
Because that way, she thought primly, is the road to ruin.
She was not at all confident that things would pan out with Luke. Because for one thing he was a stone mason, a tradesman. And she was a freshly minted doctor, an MD bound for glory in her father’s footsteps. They were worlds apart. And she had history, a history of bad relationships that she was determined not to repeat.
He’d been repairing the low rock wall in the parking lot in front of Stalk’s Supermarket when her bag of groceries had split wide open onto the pavement. He’d helped her gather it all up, and he’d laughed at her obvious discomfiture. Then he’d offered to buy her lunch to make up for it, and against her better judgment she’d accepted. Since that day they’d met for coffee after work five days straight, and they’d talked about things: about him, about her, about the state of the world, the usual stuff. He seemed well-informed and articulate. But, she thought, anyone can stay current. The news is everywhere. All you need is an IPad and you can sound like Brian Williams, for gosh sakes.
But then, this time yesterday, here at the corner booth at Nick’s Cafe, there was an event, a game changer. An older man with grey hair and a tweed jacket had stopped by their table.
“Excuse me dear lady, terribly sorry to intrude,” he’d said to her in a clipped British accent. “I need a word with your tablemate.” He’d looked like one of the professors from the nearby university. Which, of course, he was. She’d nodded, and the polite stranger had turned to Luke.
“Hello young Mister Bertolucci, “he’d said. “I’ve your doctoral dissertation in the trunk of my car and it will save me a trip if I return it to you here, as long as that’s not a bother.”
“Not at all, Professor MacDougall, I’ll come out and grab it from you. And may I introduce my friend Darla Riggs?”
The older man turned to Darla. “I’m charmed, Miss Riggs.” In the European manner, he waited for her to extend her hand before offering his.
“I’m pleased to meet you, sir,” she’d said. And as the two men left the cafe she’d thought: This is an interesting turn of events. But I need to be careful.
Because, Darla had always liked bad boys. From high school though university and med school and pretty much right to the present day. Her ex, Conor, was a bad boy, and she had lived to regret that relationship. Bad boys were trouble, and she sensed a bit of bad boy in Luke Bertolucci.
She’d met Conor at a kegger in her first year of undergrad at the University in Toronto. He’d been charming and outrageous, and pretty much from that night they’d been an item. Darla’s best friend Lily was very frank in her appraisal of Conor from the beginning. The day Darla introduced Conor to her best friend she’d been aware that the two were like oil and water. At the beginning of the relationship Lily had expressed her concerns.
“My old boyfriend Roger knows Conor from way back,” Lily had said. “He’s bad news.”
”What do you mean?” Darla had asked.
“Roger says Conor drinks too much and picks fights in bars. He borrows money from friends and family and doesn’t repay it. He lies a lot,” Lily had said. ”And he fancies himself a ladies’ man. He will screw around on you behind your back.”
“Oh, fiddlesticks,” Darla had said. “He’s a lot of fun to be around and he takes me to nice places. He’s promised to be faithful. And, he explained all about the trouble with his family. He’s just misunderstood, is all. They are all too hard on him, won’t give him a chance.”
”And the fighting?”
“Anyone can have trouble in a bar. Conor sticks up for himself. He’s not going to let anyone push him around.”
“And the drinking?”
“Conor and I have talked about that. He drinks a bit sometimes when he is stressed. Perfectly natural. He’s promised me to take it easy on the drinking, and I believe him.”
“Well, okay,” Lily had said, “I’ve said my piece. Just be careful, is all.”
Of course, Lily had been right. Darla and Conor had moved in together at the end of her second year of undergrad and the relationship had been stormy. Conor worked in a bar, bartending and bouncing, and he often arrived home very late at night after work, drunk. Then he would wake up Darla and demand sex. And, at the beginning, Darla had been willing to accommodate him most nights.
“Because,” she explained to Lily at the time, “he is just so good at it. Maybe I’m sleepy and I’ve got an early morning, and I don’t really want to do it, but he is so persuasive. He starts running his big, hard hands all over me, sliding them up underneath my nightclothes and talking dirty and I can’t stop myself. And it’s over pretty quickly, and then we snuggle and he falls asleep. I watch him for a while in the dark, and then I fall asleep too. It’s just so hot.”
“I see,” Lily had said at the time, but Darla was pretty sure she didn’t.
Other times Conor had been rough with her, although he had not struck her until right at the end of the relationship, mid-way through Darla’s last year of med school. He was suspicious and controlling, and he had a way of belittling her in public. All textbook abuser behaviour, Darla could see now with the wisdom of hindsight.
And the end was bad. It was around Christmas and Darla needed to study for exams. Over the years Conor had become more and more resentful of Darla’s education and the demands it placed on her time, time that he felt should be devoted to him. As the stresses of school increased, and Darla was often unwilling to accommodate Conor’s late-night advances, and he’d become more and more demanding. And the drinking continued, if anything becoming worse rather than better.
He began staying out all night, sometimes not returning home until the afternoon of the following day. Afterwards he was always apologetic and full of excuses, and Darla would accept his promises to do better. And then he would do it all again. He began to get physical during the arguments that were by then an almost daily occurrence. Once he pushed her hard across the tiny kitchen of their apartment, causing her to stumble and fall. On two or three other occasions he’d grabbed her forearms and shaken her while screaming into her face. And she’d forgiven him. She’d made excuses for the bruises on her arms when Lily spotted them in the change room at the gym. Lily accepted the explanations, or said she did, but Darla knew Lily was suspicious. And Darla hated that she was now reduced to lying to her best friend. She sensed things between Conor and her were coming to a head.
Finally, one night he’d me home long after midnight, drunk and in a worse mood than usual. He’d wanted sex. Darla had resisted his advances, and he’d hit her, hard, square in the face, before stomping out the door. That brought her to her senses. She’d stuffed a few things in a gym bag, grabbed her phone and taken a cab to her sister Carol’s, where she’d stayed the night. The next morning she’d ignored the dozen or so increasingly agitated and threatening voice mails he’d left on her phone. That afternoon Carol took her to see a lawyer, and the next morning her lawyer obtained an emergency court order evicting Conor from the apartment and ordering him to have no contact with her. During the court application Darla had had to testify, to explain to the judge what had happened and why she now feared for her safety. Her lawyer and the judge were both men, and Darla was embarrassed beyond words that her story had to be aired in open court. But, speaking her truth and hearing herself saying the words somehow made it all real, as if she had up until then been living a strange dream, or watching someone else’s life unfold.
“That’s what many women experience,” Mr. MacDonald, her lawyer, had told her after court. He was a small, neat man in his sixties. ”I’ve been doing this a long time, and I think it’s perfectly human to rationalize or explain away the abuse while it’s happening. Getting it off your chest in court is the start of the recovery process. Speaking about it makes it real.”
Darla was so grateful to Mr. MacDonald after court that she thought she would cry.
“I can’t thank you enough,” she’d told him, standing on the courthouse steps after the hearing.
“Well, you’re not out of the woods yet,” Mr. McDonald had said. “Often a court order is not enough to keep an abuser away. Please watch your back, and stay in groups of people as much as possible. Phone the police if you think you are in danger, or if he contacts you at all. Change your locks and phone numbers. Stay off Facebook for a while. And feel free to call me if you need to.” He’d handed her his card, and then he’d taken his leave. Darla had watched his neat little gray-suited figure walk down the courthouse steps and flag a cab. She had then returned to her sister’s townhouse.
Darla’s sister, Carol, was understanding and helpful throughout the entire process. Carol took the week off work and screened her calls. The sisters were certain Conor knew where Darla was staying, but over the next five days Conor was not heard from, and Darla began to believe that perhaps this was it, that he would just stay away and leave her alone.
Carol and Lily were Darla’s two main supports. Carol and Darla had always been very close. Lily came by after dinner for tea each of the five nights Darla spent at Carol’s. Lily then went home to care for her own family, and the two sisters stayed up late talking. On the first night Darla had cried all evening.
“Why am I so stupid,” she’d asked Carol, clutching a damp Kleenex. “Lily warned me, but I wasn’t listening. I thought I could change him. I believed him, dammit!”
“Sis,” Carol had said, “you’re getting angry and that’s not a bad thing. Remember, none of this is your fault.”
“But I picked him,” Darla said. “It’s as if he had a sign around his neck saying ‘abuser’, and I said ‘that’s the guy for me’. It’s all so clear to me now.”
“Hindsight is 20/20,” Carol had said. “Now you have to move on.” Darla was grateful that Carol did not dwell on Darla’s arguably poor judgment. Carol had been married to her high school sweetheart, Dave, for about three years, and the marriage ended without any children having been born. Apparently the divorce was a mutual decision. Carol had never shared much about the end her marriage, except to say, “High school was over. We moved on.” Darla was certain there had been no violence in Carol and Dave’s relationship. Dave was a quiet, introverted fellow who played viola in the symphony. He didn’t drink or drug, and his only vice appeared to be the viola. He practised and rehearsed constantly, so maybe that was the problem.
And so the months and years passed. Darla finish med school and her residency and now she worked in a clinic in Victoria, British Columbia. The Garden City, 3,000 miles away from her old life, and from Conor. At least, she assumed Conor was still back in Toronto. She’d received a couple of weepy messages from him via Facebook about six months ago, which she did not answer, and nothing since She had elected not to block him, reasoning that it was better she know what he was up to. Every now and then she’d visited his Facebook page, but there was not much there. Conor was not a big Facebook user.
So, now that was all in the past, Darla thought, and a new relationship with Luke Bertolucci the stone mason/philosopher seemed possible. Five minutes passed while Luke spoke to his professor outside the café (she watched them through the window), and then he was back.
“Right, then,” he said, sliding into the worn red leather booth, “where were we?”
(to be continued)
On The Beach 