2 Dancing With Death (2 page)

    
Great. Now she was blind, deaf, and dumb. How could she volunteer to be the driver for a road trip when she couldn’t see?

~

    
The day of the road trip dawned grey and cloudy. Betty dragged herself around her bedroom, trying to get the motivation to throw a few last items in her suitcase. It was one of those mornings where nothing seemed to go right. First she’d overslept, then she’d stubbed her toe, lost her keys… it was as if the universe had decided she wasn’t supposed to go on this trip. Of course, she told herself, that feeling of foreboding had absolutely nothing to do with her own misgivings.

    
While Betty was back to being able to read on the computer screen, anything more than three feet away started to get blurry, and anything more than 10 feet away was just a blob of fuzzy color. She couldn’t read the band and musical posters on the wall across the room, let alone exit signs. Driving in this condition was stupid, and Betty knew it.

    
But diabetes had already taken so much. She couldn’t eat her favorite foods, she was tethered to a blood sugar meter, she always had be on the lookout for sharp changes in mood or balance… her life had become constant vigilance. Giving up chocolate ice cream should be enough of a sacrifice, enough of a trial to ensure that she would pass through diabetes with flying colors. Giving up driving, her ability to function and do her job, her ability to move farther than five miles? That wasn’t okay by any stretch of the imagination. This wasn’t L.A., where she’d been able to reach everything she needed by public transportation and cab. This was a sprawling town in North Carolina far from any major city hubs. The grocery store alone was fifteen miles away!

    
So, no. Betty was not going to give up driving. She’d practiced around town, and so long as she didn’t go at breakneck speed she could still identify hazards on the road. As long as someone else navigated, she’d be fine.

    
Her friends would never have to know how helpless she’d become.

    
Betty drove slowly on her way to Clarise’s house, becoming familiar with the way her eyes were working that day. It seemed like every day she woke up with a different type of vision, or vision loss. Thankfully, her depth perception wasn’t off. If it had been, humiliation and frustration or no, Betty would’ve refused to drive.

    
When she arrived at Clarise’s house, Betty pulled up in front of the house and honked the horn before getting out to help with bags. Almost immediately, the screen door slammed open. Clarise flew down the stone pathway, a blur of cheery red cardigan sweater, designer jeans and black leather ankle boots.

    
“Betty!” Clarise exclaimed. “What on earth took you so long? Bill’s been here for
ages
waiting.” She flung her arms around Betty and squeezed. “This is so exciting!”

    
When she pulled back, Betty could see that Clarise’s brown hair was swept back in a pony tail, her cinnamon skin glowing and reddened by excitement. Betty raised an eyebrow. “It’s morning,” she said dryly. “Did you expect me to be on time?”

    
Clarise laughed, a giddy, burbling sound that had Betty smiling in response. Betty felt some of the tension leaving her. Clarise was right, this would be an adventure. A good adventure… one she intended to fully enjoy. Wes and Bill appeared on the porch.

    
“Load it up!” Betty called. “We’re on our way!”

CHAPTER 3

    
 
“Look!” Clarise called out. “Only a hundred miles left to Hale Falls!” She bounced up and down in the back seat. “Oh, this is so exciting! I can’t wait! All those dancers, with the beautiful dresses and… and… oh, this is so exciting! Don’t you think so Wes?”

    
Wes, or Sergeant Wes as most people in town called him, grinned at her. “Sure is,” he said.

    
Betty glanced at him in the rearview mirror. She still couldn’t get used to seeing him out of uniform. In a police uniform Wes looked… well, somewhere between bumbling and handsome, but not quite either. His beard was always just a little scruffy, and he had a slight beer belly. He tripped over his own feet, and stumbled over his words when he was nervous. Betty had a vision of him trying to talk a kidnapper out of a hostage situation, and the kidnapper laughing in his face. Which would be a mistake. Wes was also an excellent shot.

    
But out of uniform, features that made Wes look like a soft cop simply made him look… comfy. The heat was blasting in the car, so Wes had taken off his jacket, showing a tight-fitting blue t-shirt. Wisps of his brown hair kept on falling into his eyes.

    
“How do you think we’re going to do?” Clarise continued. “Wouldn’t it be great if we placed? I think we could place. Don’t you?”

    
Wes chuckled and grabbed her hand, kissing her knuckles. “I think we’ll have to see what happens. Me, I’d be happy not to tumble over my own two feet.”

    
Clarise flapped a hand at him. “Oh, you’ll be fine. I have two left feet, not you.”

    
“Then it’s a good thing that in ballroom it’s the guy’s job to make the girl look good,” he said. Clarise mock-glared at him, and he rushed to add, “Not that it’ll take much work with you!”

    
Betty forced her eyes back onto the road, smiling. It was so wonderful that Clarise and Wes had finally stopped dancing around each other. For a while there it’d been like a soap opera, where the two main characters dance around each other until the audience is just about ready to hit them over the heads and lock them in a room until they figure things out.

    
Thankfully, Betty hadn’t had to resort to such drastic measures to make her two friends see reason… though it had been a near thing.

    
It was nice to see Clarise so happy.

    
As for her own love life… Betty glanced over at Bill. Bill had his head tipped back, eyes closed. It was possible he was sleeping, though Betty doubted it. More likely, he was deep in some meditative thought and didn’t feel like sharing with the world. Or he was just listening to the banter behind their seats and resting his eyes.

    
She didn’t think he was avoiding her.

    
No, his breath was steady and slow. His eyelids fluttered just a bit. His mouth was parted ever so slightly. He was asleep. Betty smiled. Goodness, he was beautiful. Maybe guys didn’t like to be called beautiful, but sometimes there was just no other word that fit. She’d liked Bill for years, since they’d both been in the drama program at college. She couldn’t believe that now, years later, they were on a weekend-long double date.

    
Bill was just about six feet tall, with the chiseled, ruggedly-handsome look that most actors dreamt of. She was a short, pudgy diabetic. What on earth could he see in her?

    
Hopefully, she wouldn’t make a complete fool of herself this weekend. It was the first real chance she and Bill had had to be away from the prying eyes of the town.

    
Betty took a deep breath. Everything would be fine. She was sure of it. She brought her eyes back to the road just in time to see the first snowflake land on the windshield. Then another. Then another. The snowflakes melted as quickly as they appeared, sending little drops of water towards the edges of the windshield in rivulets.

    
“Snow!” squealed Clarise giddily. “Wes, look, it’s snowing!”

    
Bill jerked awake. “Huh— what’s wrong?” he asked.

    
Wes clapped him on the shoulder. “Nothing’s wrong. Breathe. Look out your window.”

    
It must just be a flurry, Betty thought. They were in North Carolina, for goodness’ sake!

    
“Oooh…” said Clarise, “Look at all the mountains.” She snuggled up to Wes in the backseat, putting her head on his shoulder. “It’s perfect,” she murmured. “Just like a fairy tale.”

    
Betty looked over at Bill, raising one eyebrow. She understood that Clarise was feeling high on life, but Betty didn’t see how snow amounted to a fairy tale. Although, admittedly she couldn’t see the mountains Clarise had been talking about. In fact, until Clarise mentioned it Betty hadn’t even registered that they had been steadily moving up an incline. She’d been so focused on the road in front of her that she hadn’t even attempted to take in the scenery. Now, she flicked her eyes towards the edge of the road, trying to decipher the blurs.

    
A few feet past the guard rail, the ground dropped away into what had to be a beautiful panoramic vista. But the clouds made everything different shades of grey, especially farther away. Try as she might, Betty couldn’t tell clouds from mountaintops.

    
“Betty!” Bill yelled just as a horn began to blare. “Look out!” Betty jerked her attention back to the road, and stopped breathing. Right in front of their car was a sixteen-wheeler rig, rolling downhill at sixty miles an hour. Its headlights were blinding, even in the middle of the day. Betty couldn’t move, couldn’t think.

    
The horn was so loud.

    
Clarise screamed.

    
Why wasn’t the truck getting back into its own lane? What was it doing in hers?

    
 
Bill lurched over to her side of the car, grabbing the steering wheel and swerving the car to the right.

    
Oh. She had been the one in the wrong lane.

    
Betty attempted to breath normally. She couldn’t stop shaking.

    
“Jesus!” Clarise swore. “That was close.”

    
“Betty!” Bill demanded, keeping his hands on the steering wheel. “Betty listen to me. You need to pull over to the side of the road. There’s a shoulder up ahead you can use.” His voice was so calm… she had a strange desire to start laughing, just to see how Bill reacted. How could he be so calm? “Just start slowing down,” Bill coached. “Ease off the gas pedal.” Unthinking, Betty did as she was told. “That’s it. Now, see the shoulder?” Betty did. Just a little farther up the road. “Pull into that.”

    
“Okay,” Betty replied. She blinked, and focused.

    
They rolled onto the side of the road, dirt crackling under the tires. When they had stopped, Betty leaned forward, placing her forehead on the steering wheel and breathing deeply. In through her nose… out through her mouth… in through her nose… out through her mouth.

    
They were okay.

    
She sat up and opened her eyes, looking around at the other passengers. Clarise and Wes were both pale. Bill was looking at Betty with concern, his brow furrowed.

    
“Is everyone okay?” Betty asked.

    
“We’re fine,” Wes said from the back seat. “Just a little shaken. What about you? Are you okay? What happened?”

    
Betty gave a self-depreciating laugh. “I got distracted by the scenery.” Now that the panic had ended, guilt was coming forward to swamp her. “I’m so sorry! Are you sure everyone is okay?”

    
“Betty,” Bill said. “Everyone else is okay. What about you? Do you want someone else to drive? If you’re too shaken, it’s okay. I’d be happy to take over for you.”

    
There it was. The perfect out. The perfect reason for her to get out from behind the wheel.

    
But then he’ll think I’m some frilly girl in need of rescuing, thought Betty. She completely ignored the gut feeling that told her he’d think no such thing. This was about her self-sufficiency! She already felt like a thrice-damned damsel in distress, with the way she’d frozen up during the crash. If Bill hadn’t acted, they might all be dead or wounded, lying in the middle of the road while the freak snow fell on their still bleeding bodies.