Chapter Eight
Standing on the city street, her hand still stinging from that slap, Tracy fumed behind clenched fists and closed eyes. She measured her breaths carefully and tried to calm herself down. Why, of all the people at Sturgis, did Hoodoo have to show up? Even finding him in a crowd of a half-million people should have been impossible. How in the world they’d run into each other, not once, but twice, she’d never know. The universe aligning against her or some fool thing, she supposed.
Damn the man. Damn the bike, damn it all. She shouldn’t even have been there.
Joey had insisted she bring the thing and, of course, it had proved to be the belle of the ball. He’d actually thought she would ride it from Chicago to Sturgis like it wasn’t a fortune on two wheels. Besides, what was she going to do when she got there? Tie a tarp to the seat and make a lean-to?
There were only so many hotel rooms available in a small town, no matter how badly the populace swelled once each year. Those were sold months in advance; most of the people here this year would make reservations for next year before they left. She’d congratulated herself on the foresight of renting the toy-hauler. It wasn’t a big RV, but the back folded open to a ramp and the expensive bike nestled in like a little iron princess. She’d called the museum to ask if they would like a chance to show it the week of the rally and they’d all but wet themselves over the phone to say “yes.”
It was the first stop she’d made. Everything else was secondary, food, sleep, comfort, all of that was delayed until she could get the bike safely in the hands of the museum and only then could she relax. Frankly, she dreaded the trip home.
On the other hand, if it weren’t for the bike, she wouldn’t have the RV to sleep in at night. Although, with the amount of people there, getting hooked up to electricity or plumbing was not going to happen. It was still an effective place to have a moment to yourself for a good scream. Which was exactly why she headed there now. Shoving through crowds, registering very little of what she was seeing or hearing. She ignored the shouts, the lewd suggestions. Catcalls, whistles…she’d gotten her share of those since she’d reached puberty. In the biker world, men were little more than children sometimes when it came to a pretty face, especially when that pretty face wore more leather than lace.
At least, while Hoodoo was an exasperating man, he’d never been like that. Despite the fact that his wasn’t the first time he’d made her want to scream, she had to give credit where credit was due. He’d always treated her with a great deal of respect, even if she never just…well…never been important enough in his life.
She shook her head. No, Hoodoo would never change. He would always be…Hoodoo. Which was why, in short, she felt that desperate urge to let loose. Maybe throw things.
Not that everything about being with him had been bad. A good deal of it had been rather wonderful now that she took the time to think about it. Well, he’d certainly made her scream once or twice in something other than in exasperation. Despite the frustration, she smiled at the memories. When they’d first met, Hoodoo was using an expense account of a sort. His very wealthy friend had commissioned him to buy the bike and Hoodoo hadn’t exactly been tight with the money. That was one of his problems really – his heart was so large and generous sometimes that he gave to a fault.
Especially when it wasn’t his money to give.
She remembered how he’d bought that bike and then gifted it right back to her when he’d found out how much the bike had meant to her. It had been a wild, crazy gesture. One he definitely couldn't afford. Not that he’d made a habit of spending freely either. The Crocker had been an impetuous decision. When they’d been together he reverted to a more conscientious spending habit. That was fine with her, though. No one falls for a biker because he’s rich. Hoodoo, being the man he was, had been determined to pay back his friend and Tracy had offered to refund a great deal of the money. Most of it had gone to hospitals and doctors for her father, but together, they’d made a dent in the debt even if his friend had written off the amount and told them not to worry about it.
Must be nice to be able to afford to walk away from that much money.
But Hoodoo had the “bite of the proud in him” as his grandmother said. He’d never accepted that gesture. He would probably send his friend five cents a month if that was all he had.
Still, they’d had a fine time together, hadn’t they? Tracy paused outside her RV, one hand on the door to go in, the other shielding the sun from her eyes as she paused to look at the sky. The sun was brutal today, but not like it’d been in Arizona. She’d come to Phoenix, and spent two months with him there, in a place where sunlight itself seemed to carry weight. She hadn’t hated it exactly, though she’d never quite gotten used to the climate. Across from her, the next RV over, a couple kissed passionately, hands buried in hair, bodies entwined as the man’s hand came out and fumbled for the door of his own RV, keys falling into the grass only to be lost unnoticed as things escalated to the point where Tracy felt uncomfortable and threw herself into her own tiny space before someone could accuse her of voyeurism.
Inside and leaning against the door, Tracy found herself laughing through tears and wondered whether that couple were a Sturgis hook-up or something more. She wondered how anyone could last in such a lifestyle as this. Bikers were a crazy bunch. She’d seen so many couples who seemed to join together only to break off with the rise and fall of financial fortunes. Others enamored by the freeform lifestyle. For some, it was roving passion.
But for Tracy, hooking up with Hoodoo was about the smile. His zest for life. The way he’d looked at her. And if she were truly honest with herself, she admitted only in the quietest part of her soul that maybe she was a little bit shallow, that it had been the body that looked like it was hand carved from bronze, the sheer size of the man and… well… the sheer size of the man that had seized upon her feminine sense. Let’s face it, the man was every girl’s fantasy.
And for those two months, she’d lived that dream, although how anyone could survive in that heat still amazed her. And that was only April and May in Arizona. She’d fled before summer could truly peel the skin from her bones. Although truth be told, she would have stayed, even through that if things had been different. But being with Hoodoo was like being on a carnival ride. It was fun, thrilling and made your head spin. The problem was, sooner or later, you had to get off the ride and life had to return to normal.
She’d burned through the vacation time she’d saved over the years and had to return to work before they forgot she worked there. Then, too, her father, newly recovered, had gotten help from friends and family, but he wasn’t able to be on his own, not yet. He needed her, and she needed the…stability…of the life she’d always known.
So she had to go back home. But Hoodoo hadn’t been prepared to go with her. Hoodoo was an ace mechanic. He knew everything about motorcycles, could identify every nut and bolt. He was also the leader of… Tracy sighed. Even now, she didn’t want to admit that she’d fallen helplessly in love with the leader of a motorcycle gang.
It sounded so cliché, so… fifties. “Leader of the Pack” kept replaying in her mind every time Hoodoo’s name was mentioned. He didn’t have any other ties as far as she could tell. Phoenix was, by his own admission, where he landed because he could ride all year.
Tracy had made one big, fatal error. She’d asked him to come back to Chicago with her. And then expected that he would. After all, he could get work there. People needed their bikes and cars and whatever fixed in Chicago, too. There were a few months where there was too much snow to ride a bike, but normally…
But it was like trying to convince a cactus to move. Hoodoo had a name from New Orleans, had an accent from New Orleans, but his roots were firmly anchored in Phoenix and he refused to budge. He refused to think about budging. He claimed he had family there.
“That’s not family!” Tracy had said. Yelled, because she was hurt and it felt good to lash out. “It’s a gang!”
“It’s family.” Hoodoo said quietly. “Brothers and sisters. You don’t know how it is…”
But that’s where he was wrong. She did know. She knew all too well. Which came full circle again to Joey. Cousin Joey. There were those who called him “Parrot,” but in her own mind, Tracy called him “jail bird Joey.” If anyone wanted to know what it was like to be in a gang, Joey was the shining example.
Possession, distribution, violence. He’d been arrested a dozen times and never served any real time. Joey was a charmer, a fast talker and a scoundrel. He made a lifetime of empty promises and the latest, greatest promise he’d made was that this year at Sturgis, it was all over. This year, he found a job, he was selling his bike and going on the straight and narrow.
But he wanted one last fling. One last chance to be the reprobate drunken biker he’s always been and from there…
Tracy had called him a liar to his face. Joey swore on everything he held sacred.
Like pot and cocaine? What do you hold sacred Joey?
Her father had whispered in her ear. “If there is even a chance that a man’s life can turn around, isn’t it worth a risk?”
The risk was the bike. That damn bike. She possessed it at Hoodoo’s expense, couldn’t ride it without worrying that it might get damaged or hurt. The insurance on it was crippling. Joey… wanted to show it off. He wanted to ride it through Sturgis, to be seen.
“Small price to pay for a man’s soul, wouldn’t you say?” her father chided when she’d protested.
“Seriously?” She looked at him incredulously. “You don’t really believe that, do you? You know that he’s up to something…”
“Honey.” Her father chastised her. His face, never the same vibrant healthy look he’d had before he’d gotten sick, seemed paler, as though the effort of arguing was too great a strain. “Let him have a moment in the sun. Give him the chance.”
And so Tracy stood in the middle of an RV she couldn’t really afford to rent, taking time off she couldn’t afford, to baby-sit a bike she couldn’t afford.
And Hoodoo thought to warn her that Joey was unreliable? Now he chose to be jealous? He didn’t know who Joey was, he only saw her with another man… no, worse, his gang saw her with someone else and now they were spying on her.
She took a deep breath and counted to ten. Then twenty. By the time she hit three hundred, she was feeling… not better. Calmer. Too tired to be angry.
She was also hungry. She stared at the loaf of bread slowly going stale on the counter next to the jar of peanut butter she’d been subsisting on far too long. Maybe it was time she quit hiding, and ventured outside. It felt…scary. This world was proving to be too big for her. Maybe Joey had had a point when he’d said she’d become too homebound. Not that he’d used that term; he’d been a whole lot less flattering when he’d practically dared her to come.
That had been the final straw. Being thought to be a coward.
That in mind, she walked out of the trailer and strolled along the dirt to the road, looking for something fast and easy. It was only food after all. Maybe it was time to get lost in the crowd. Live a little. Take some chances.
Then she saw Hoodoo’s bike. And Hoodoo. And the inevitable gang with him.
You wanted to take chances.
Her hand went to her hair, wondering if she looked OK. Suddenly becoming a girl in her indecision. It was enough to make her laugh. But…
I would like to try again.
Tracy walked through the phalanx of the Gilas and slipped up to the man she’d fallen for once upon a time. The man she’d never really gotten over though she’d been the one to end it.
“Hello, Hoodoo,” she said.
Her voice only shook a little.