A Pinch of Cool. Mary Leo

new plan, she noticed an old beat-up van idling off to the right. There was something white taped up to the side window. When she looked harder, her name was scribbled in big black letters on a piece of white paper.

      Now what?

      Her mind whirled with scenarios. Maybe things were worse at home than she’d thought. Maybe her mother had lost all her money in some bad cooking deal and the only thing she could afford was a used van. A white used van, with Georgia plates.

      “No wonder she’s always crying.”

      The woman in the obviously warm raincoat standing next to her threw Mya a nasty look and moved away.

      “Fine,” Mya called after her. “You should move away from me. I’m even scaring myself.”

      Mya knew she was having ridiculous thoughts, but the van had her name on it. That in itself was ridiculous.

      She didn’t quite know if she should actually approach the van, or stay as far away from it as possible, but she was desperate to get home and out of the rain. She decided to check it out, just in case her mother was inside, hiding from a potential press scandal.

      She gingerly stepped out from under her shelter and into the rain again, hoping this was worth it. She walked right up to the Georgian treasure, and looked inside. It actually had a foul odor wafting out through an open side window. She backed away, holding her nose.

      Whoa! Mom, what have you got in there?

      The van was even worse than she could have imagined. Her mother couldn’t possibly own it. There wasn’t any stove.

      Mya peeked in a side window, putting her face right up to the glass, but she didn’t see anybody. Empty cans and jars, clothes and some very expensive-looking professional video equipment littered the inside. There were only two bucket seats in the front. Everything else had been ripped out.

      Wait.

      Somebody or something moved in the very back of the van. She couldn’t make out if it was man or beast because the lighting wasn’t quite right. She cupped her hand around her eyes to shield out any backlighting.

      That’s when a white flash of huge teeth, attached to a head the size of an adult bear, growled and leaped right at her. Mya jumped back, screamed and fell right out of her Miu Miu heels, landing in a nice warm puddle.

      “Damn!”

      “Voodoo, sit,” a male voice said from behind her.

      “Excuse me?” Mya said.

      The crazed animal inside the van immediately sat down, but the barking didn’t stop.

      Mya wanted to run for her life, but her cute little shoes sat right in front of the dreaded van. She refused to leave without her new shoes. They pulled her entire outfit together.

      “I was talking to my dog,” he said as he stood in front of her offering his hand to help her up.

      “I knew that,” she told him, trying for some calculated sarcasm.

      She didn’t want his help. Instead, she stood up all on her own, and even though she was now entirely drenched, with a very wet bottom, she still had her dignity. Kind of.

      “That animal is vicious,” Mya shouted. “He should be put down. Destroyed. What’s the matter with you leaving him in there to scare somebody to death?”

      “He’s very protective of his home. He must have thought of you as a threat,” the Voodoo owner offered.

      Mya could barely see him. Her bangs covered her eyes, but from what little she could make out, he looked somewhat familiar. Unfortunately, she didn’t have time to figure out where she’d met him before.

      “Me? A threat? To whom?” she asked.

      “To me?”

      “To you! Somehow I think it’s the other way around.”

      “Why? I wasn’t the one who was peeking in windows. They have laws for that you know.”

      He had a point, but Mya was never going to admit she was actually looking for her mother in that junk heap.

      The rain eased to a drizzle, and when Mya finally got a good look at him he was almost cute, with golden-chestnut hair—somewhat curly—and piercing gray-green eyes and a slight grin on his lips. He had a fairly large nose with a slight roundness to the tip, but it fit his boyish face, and if he were cleaned up, he might actually be handsome…in that nerdy, street vendor sort of way. The man desperately needed a shave. Not that facial hair was bad. As a matter of fact, it was coming back in, but it had to be kept neat under the chin. His wasn’t. And his hair could have used a trim, much too long, with ringlets surrounding his face and ears. Of course, he had an amazing build under that wrinkled blue parka he wore, but who’s looking.

      SO THE GUY was a hot nerd. It’s not like she was going to start dancing around a pole or anything. Oh wait, she didn’t have a pole…yet.

      “I wasn’t peeking in your window,” Mya corrected.

      “Oh?” He stood there staring at her from his six-foot-something vantage point, his arms folded up tight across his chest. Glaring.

      All right, so she had a thing for tall guys, seeing as how she was a mighty five foot five, but they had to be tall, cool guys, and this one totally lacked the cool part. He would simply never do.

      She immediately stopped herself from staring. “Well, all right. Maybe I was, but not the way you mean. I was merely trying to see who was inside.”

      “And the reason being?”

      Did he ever stop with the questions?

      He was enough to infuriate her normally calm disposition. She folded her arms across her chest as well.

      “You have my name taped to your window. I suspect you were mistakenly sent here by my mother.”

      “Holy shit! Mya? Mya Strano? It’s me. Eric. Franko’s son. Eric Baldini. Don’t you remember me?”

      That evil little boy had grown up, and now he drove a piece of junk and owned a killer dog and as incredible as it seemed, he was there to give her a ride home.

      Holy shit!

       2

      SO THERE THEY STOOD , arms locked around each other like they were old friends, buddies, soul mates or even lovers. To the world humming around them they were just another kissing couple at the airport, with one of them either going or coming.

      However, Mya had a different take on the whole thing. Hers was more of the startled variety. One of those times when out of a crowd of people a stranger calls out your name and you try your best to recognize this person who says he or she knows you.

      Okay, it wasn’t quite like that, but it should have been for all the contact they’d had over the years. Let’s see, the last real memory Mya had of Eric, they were seven years old and he had just thrown a huge bucket of water over her sand castle, completely destroying it, on a beach in Malibu. Of course, she had retaliated by wrecking his sand castle by simply bulldozing over it with her sweet little feet.

      Yes, and over the years she had seen pictures of him at various stages of growth and accomplishments, but who can keep up with all that growing and changing? She was too busy with her own hormones and accolades to worry about Eric’s, the boy who tormented her and she loved to torment back.

      Eric had moved to Georgia, now the plates make sense, with his mother after his dad and mom had divorced. Even when it had come time to say goodbye to him, which was actually at this very airport, she had stuck out her tongue in defiance. No hugging. No tears. Not even a handshake. Not that seven-year-olds are known for shaking hands, but they could have done something. He could have done something. They never even touched…of course, there was that time out by the green shed when they were playing double-dare, but she didn’t want to think about that now. She was too