Struck by Lightning. Christa Maurice

really wanted a milk shake. She picked up the phone.

      “Meechan’s,” Billy answered.

      Rebecca smiled. So far the fates were with her. Billy was working. “Hi Billy, I need to place a carry out order.”

      “Okay.” Billy always sounded so happy. Thirty-five and mentally handicapped, Billy’s entire job had been taking phone orders and ringing register until Max discovered his gift for milk shake making about a year ago.

      “I need a cheeseburger, jojos and I want you to make me one of your special chocolate milk shakes.”

      “Really?”

      “Yes, really. You make the best milk shakes in town, Billy.”

      Billy giggled. “You want peanut butter in it? It’s good with peanut butter.”

      Rebecca hesitated. She really only wanted a plain-Jane chocolate milk shake, but she never could resist Billy’s excitement. “Sure Billy. Peanut butter would be great.” Peanut butter would be fine and nothing would ever be as bad as the tuna salad milk shake incident last spring. That had been her own fault. She’d told him anything he ate with milk would probably be good in a milk shake. Then she found out he ate everything with milk, after the tuna salad milk shake, but before she ended up with a spaghetti milk shake.

      “It’ll be all ready in fifteen minutes. Are you coming over?”

      Rebecca often wondered how he thought anyone would get their carry out order if they didn’t come get it. Meechan’s didn’t do delivery. Billy tried once and got lost going to the bank at the end of the block. “I’ll be over in a few minutes.”

      “Okay. Bye.” Billy hung up.

      Rebecca hung up the phone. She no longer entertained the hope that they would train him out of hanging up on people. Rubbing her hands together greedily, she checked the time. Fifteen minutes between her and her chocolate peanut butter shake and the sure knowledge that it was once again safe to walk the streets. She opened her sketchbook. She’d started this one about a year ago when she, Bess and Max were planning the gallery. There were floor plans and notes interspersed with her drawings of trees and flowers because she and Bess had been in a heavy landscape phase, which Bess had not yet left. Rebecca flipped forward to two whole pages of calculations determining what she needed to live on and what she needed for the gallery so she could ask her parents for a loan. The math was wrong in a couple of places. The paper was water stained and thin from crying and erasing. Then the sketches picked up again for a while until she’d discovered high art and started drawing thumbnails with supply lists beside them. Then pictures of the hero. Dozens of them, from all angles. Did he really did look like this or had her memory reshaped him?

      She left the book open on the desk and picked up her keys and some money for lunch. The weather had remained at the same level of unbearable hot since June. School started next week and for the first time in her life, Rebecca had no classes to attend. The first loan payment to her parents was due that day though. She had it and most of the second one too, not due until Thanksgiving. A gallery in Chicago had contacted her about doing a show with a few other up-and-coming artists. She was succeeding beyond her wildest expectations.

      Succeeding as a con artist, instead of as an artist. Too much time alone these last few weeks had given her lots of time to reflect on that. She pulled open the door of Meechan’s mumbling under her breath, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the biggest fraud of all.”

      The place was jammed like always. About a quarter of the people she knew and another quarter knew her. The rest just came to see what all the fuss was about because Meechan’s was famous citywide. Billy looked at her blankly when she stopped at the register.

      “I called in a to-go order a few minutes ago. Remember, Billy?”

      He brightened. “I remember you now. You haven’t come to see me for a long time. Where’s Max?”

      “Hasn’t he come to see you either? I’ll tell him you miss him.”

      “Tell him I have a new secret recipe for my shakes.” He leaned over the counter and whispered, “I’m going to put soda pop in them.”

      “That’s a good idea, Billy.” A good idea that several other places had already had, but good nonetheless. “I’ll tell Max.”

      “I’ll get your lunch for you.”

      “Okay.” Rebecca folded her hands and waited while Billy trotted to the kitchen at the back of the restaurant.

      “Well, hello again.”

      The voice sizzled through every nerve ending in her body. The hero. As morose as she’d been lately it might be nice to have a distraction. She turned and smiled at him. “Hello, hero.” Her memory had not recast him in the least. The precise set and mold of his features had apparently been burnt into her mind by the lightning.

      “I thought maybe you had melted in the rain.” He leaned against the counter beside her.

      “No, I’m drip dry.” Had he intended to let her know that he’d been looking for her or had he slipped? He was making it far too easy again. Billy hurried up to the register with a bag.

      “Here it is, here it is.” He studied the register keypad for a moment before punching in the correct numbers. “It’s four dollars and eighteen cents.”

      “Did you add in my milk shake, Billy?”

      “Milk shake?”

      “You were going to make me a chocolate milk shake with peanut butter, remember?”

      “Oh yeah. I forgot. I’m sorry.”

      “It’s okay, Billy. You can still make it. Just make sure you charge me for it.”

      The hero seemed disconcerted by Billy. When Billy had brought her lunch, the other man had stood up as if he wanted to get distance between them. Billy never noticed when people did that, but Rebecca did. She waited until Billy had fixed her total and hurried back to the kitchen to make her milk shake before she spoke. “He’s a good guy.”

      “Who?” the hero asked.

      “His name is Billy. He’s just a little slow. It isn’t catching.”

      “I-I know,” he stammered. “I’ve talked to Billy before. I like him.”

      Rebecca bit her lip. Maybe she’d misjudged him. “He makes great milk shakes,” she offered.

      “I’ll have to try one next time.”

      Next time? So he planned to hang around Meechan’s more often. He was letting a lot slip here. She considered seizing the opening he’d given her, but Billy was running toward her holding her milk shake out in front of him.

      “Here it is, here it is. Walt said I could give you a big one because I forgot it first.”

      Rebecca smiled at Billy. “Thank you, Billy, and tell Walt I said thank you too.”

      “When are you going to come back and draw stories some more?”

      Rebecca stood stunned for a moment, staring at him. How had he even remembered that? For a while last year she’d come in with a sketch pad and told fairy tales while illustrating them for her audience. She’d often received enough in tips to cover her meal. That had been before she’d realized she could never make any money as an illustrator, before the gallery and the big sell out to fine art. She smiled, feeling sadness weight the corners of her mouth. “I’m surprised you remember, Billy. Maybe I will come draw stories for you some more.”

      “I hope you do. I liked the pictures you drew. Bye.” He turned away because he was finished with the conversation even if she wasn’t. Max called it hanging up in person.

      Rebecca gathered up her bag and shake and walked out.

      “So, are you an artist?”

      Rebecca looked up at the hero.