Chance of Stardust

Stardust (ch2)

“Gram positive bacteria: penicillin inhibits cell wall repair and production,” Cassandra Vale muttered to herself as she went over her notes yet again. “Gram negative bacteria: quinolones and sulfonamides are best.”


With a sigh, she closed her aching eyes and thunked her head on the table. Microbiology was going to kill her. The small tome of notes on various bacteria, viruses, and their epidemiology had to be memorized for the final exam and she had two weeks to do it. She had to maintain her GPA or lose her scholarship. She couldn’t afford school without it. The beginnings of a headache throbbed behind her eyes. She had thought the nursing program would be teaching her how to care for patients, not how to recognize infections and treat them. That was what doctors and lab techs were for. Right?


“Cassie, hun? Are you all right?”


Laura Vale rubbed at the spot that ached right between her shoulders and Cassie moaned, arching into the relief. How her mother always knew exactly where things hurt, she would never understand. Raising her head, she sighed.


“How did you make it through veterinary medicine?” she wondered aloud. “Sane, that is.”


The massage became a pat and a chuckle.


“Lots of hours spent memorizing and your father bringing me coffee at ungodly hours day and night.” Laura tousled Cassie’s hair affectionately. “How was your date last night, by the way?”


Cassie waited until her mother turned away before rolling her eyes. How to describe her disaster of a date in such a way that her mother wouldn’t freak out?


“The popcorn at the new cinema is good,” she offered. That earned her a stern look and she sighed. “The popcorn was better than the movie. Enough said. I mean, amphibious, legged vampire sharks? Come on.”


“I wasn’t asking about the movie and you know it.” Laura began to place the dishes in the dishwasher, that small activity done slowly so as not to add strain to her heart. Everything she did had to be done with the same methodical attention to her heart rate.


Cassie bit her lip, holding back the offer to take over the chore. The argument was always the same. If Laura did nothing, her heart would only get weaker, not stronger. Countless heart surgeries had been unable to fix the valve issue and her body had rejected valve replacement forcing the doctor to implant a mechanical one which had resulted in years of chemical intervention when her body tried to reject it. The concern that the same would happen if they implanted a mechanical heart kept the doctors in a dither for solutions. Money had run out about the same time as the options.


“How did you meet a man like Dad?” she wondered aloud. “All the guys I meet these days only have one thing on their mind.”


Laura closed the dishwasher and set the cycle, the soft hum filling the kitchen. Turning to lean her hips against the counter, she eyed her only offspring with knowing eyes.


“Your Uncle Frank brought him home to work on his car and your father decided he liked what he saw.”


Cassie knew the story. Over the next few months, her father had repaired every vehicle on the property, not just Frank’s beat up old Mustang. He’d gone so far as to ask Laura to marry him before they’d ever been on an official date. Love at first sight, her father claimed. Cassie couldn’t doubt him since he still looked at her mother with such tenderness it made her heart ache.


“You’ll find someone, Cassie. It takes time. That’s all.”


“How long?” She closed her notes and pushed back from the table, stretching the kinks that had worked their way into her muscles.


“It takes time to sort the wheat from the chaff.”


“Why does it feel like I’m knee-deep in someone else’s chaff pile?”


“Patience, hun. It takes time to do it right. Remember, rush things and you’ll be baking the bread of your life with the wrong stuff and you’re the one who has to eat it.”


Bread made from chaff would probably taste like chewing on sawdust. Cassie made a face. “Bad mental image, Mom.”


Laura laughed. “Take a break and go talk to your father. I’m pretty sure he needs a break, too. He’s been working on that tractor since breakfast.”


“I have to study—”


“Take a break.” Laura overrode her. “Keep at it too long and your brain will simply shut down and you’ll forget all you’ve learned so far. Let the gray matter settle before you pummel it again.”


She must have looked like she was going to argue because she suddenly found herself facing the dreaded Mommy-finger pointed at her nose.


“Go, young lady. Rest your brain.”


There was no arguing with the finger or with that tone of voice. Cassie gave in with a soft huff and shuffled out.


The shop lay a few hundred yards behind the small house, a huge pole barn stacked to the rafters with car parts, paint cans, and tools. The smell of motor oil and dirt permeated the air, a familiar friend. In the corner, the air compressor roared as it refilled its tank. The old tractor sat in a corner, a grease rag still dangling from the open engine compartment. There was no sign of her father.


“Dad?”


“Over here, Cassie.”


She picked her way around the scattered sockets and wrenches, tiptoeing carefully through the tangled air compressor line. She found her father under a beat up Chevy at the back of the shop, only his boots showing.


“I thought Mom said you were working on the tractor.”


“Done. Frank needs this one to sell as soon as possible.”


Uncle Frank. The man who owned the house and allowed them to live here as long as her father did his mechanics work for free while he lived in town with his uppity third wife in their huge house and drove a new car every year. Cassie shoved the bitter thoughts away. Uncle Frank didn’t have to let them use the house and he could have charged them rent for it. Her father saw the work as a way to work off what he perceived as his debt. Cassie was more cynical about it and often wondered if Frank would have bothered to help his only family if her husband hadn’t been a master mechanic and of use to the used car salesman.


“What’s up with this one?” she asked, keeping her thoughts to herself and avoiding the lecture on gratitude.


“To much to list,” her father grunted. He slid out from under the thing, wiping his hands on a greasy rag. He looked tired, she decided. The black grease streaked the thick thatch of gray hair and darkened the lines on his face. With his back as messed up as it was, he shouldn’t be lying on the cold cement, but it would do no good to say so.


“Got the valve cover gaskets done and the tune up, but this starter is giving me fits. Works one time but not the next. I haven’t got the time to replace the brushes.”


“Got a spare in your collection?” She pointed to the open upper floor of the shop that housed all the spare parts he’d gleaned over the years from the junkyard behind the shop.


He glanced up, frustration a bright glaze in his eyes. “I don’t think so. I think I used the one I had on that beater last month.”


“Would there be one on that Chevy in the north corner? I could go get it for you.”


He rubbed at the grease on his hands for a moment and then speared her with a sharp look. “I thought you were studying.”


Cassie shrugged. “Mom spotted smoke coming out of my ears and chased me off for a while.”


He chuckled and tossed the rag aside, hefting himself to his feet with a groan. “She’d be the one to recognize the signs, all right.” Leaning against the car, he stretched stiff shoulders. “How was your date last night?”


“I’d rather go pull that starter, if you don’t mind. If I find a sharp stick, I’ll poke myself in the eye for good measure.”


He didn’t laugh as she’d intended.


“What happened this time?”


She sighed and sank down on an upside down bucket. “Well, we went for burgers and then to a movie. The bad news is apparently the price for getting laid has gone down to a matinee and the dollar menu. The good news is he didn’t call me a lesbian or frigid or a tease when I turned down his oh-so-charming offer to crawl into my pants.”


“Um-hmm.”


“He offered to help me with the small problem of my virginity like it was wart that needed removing or something.”


He crossed his arms and studied her for a long moment. “Cass? Can I ask you something without you getting upset at me?”


“Yes.” Maybe.


“Where do you find these guys? And why do you allow them to treat you like this?”


Temper sparked and she took a moment to choke it down. He didn’t mean the questions as insulting. Tweaked pride aside, she knew he meant well. She recognized the tone as his stop and think about what you’re doing tone, not his you’re being stupid again tone.


“I don’t choose them,” she began. A sharp shake of his head cut her off.


“No, you let them choose you and then wonder why you get what you get. You need to sit down and decide what you want in a man and then figure out how to meet someone that fits that idea. Do the choosing for once and don’t settle for less than what you deserve.”


“Like you did?” she shot back, defensive in spite of the fact she knew he was right. “You and Mom got lucky and you know it.”


“Luck?” He snorted. “You call it luck? I didn’t just grab onto the first thing to bat her eyes at me, Cass, and I had my pick of those. I knew what I wanted in a woman when I met your mom. Your mom was about as far out of my reach as the moon back then, but I knew she was what I wanted because I knew myself. Give yourself that chance, Cass. Figure out what you want before you go shopping. Buyer’s remorse is no way to live your life.”


“Buyer’s remorse. Mom compared to it baking bread with chaff.” Cassie sighed. “So, what kind of man do I need, Dad?”


“One that you can live with happily. What that is, only you can decide.” He pushed away from the car. “Get your tool box and see if you can pull me that starter while I go get something to eat. Deal?”


She let him go without an argument. Her head still ached from eye strain and she couldn’t deny she needed the break. Gathering her tool box, she decided against using the ATV parked just outside in favor of a small hike.


The early summer sun lay warm on her skin as she kicked her way through the overgrown weeds and grass that were trying to swallow the rusted heaps of broken down vehicles. No amount of mowing could keep the growth from coming back. She smiled at the sight of a dandelion waving from under the open hood of an old truck.


What kind of man did she want? She kicked at a milk weed and watched the fluff billow up. How was she supposed to know? Knowing her dad, he’d ask for the list later so he could refer back to it if she ever brought a man home to meet her parents.


He had to have a job, she decided. Since she intended to be gainfully employed, it seemed only fair the man she chose do the same. Strong but not a bully. Kind but not a push over. Honorable but not uptight.


“A man, not a boy,” she muttered. “Dear God, can I not sound like some kind of romance novel heroine?”


She wanted a man to love her, she thought mutinously as she kicked her way through the increasingly high brush in the north corner of the ten acre lot. Was that too much to ask for? So, she didn’t put out. Who was to say that wouldn’t change if she found a man who enjoyed being with her without it? There was more to love than getting laid.


The Chevy came into view, the faded yellow now spotted with rust, dust, and bird droppings. Cassie dropped her tool box and popped the hood. Good, the starter was still there. If she remembered correctly, this car had been driven in, not towed. The frame was bent and the transmission was slipping, but it’d crawled in under its own power. The chances that the starter was still good went up.


She removed the heavy power line and loosened the bolts, her mind only half on what she was doing.


Other than finishing school and finding a good job, just what did she want out of life? A man? A home? She knocked her knuckles on the engine block and swore, sucking on the scrapes that oozed blood. She wanted to travel, she conceded, looking up at the pristine blue arch of the sky. She wanted to see the world before she got too old to appreciate it.


The starter argued a little but finally came free. She put her tools back in her tool box and hefted the starter on her hip, heading back toward the house.


Her father was right, she admitted grudgingly. Until she knew what she wanted, she wouldn’t know what she was looking for. Still, it felt too much like shoe shopping for her peace of mind. Falling in love should happen to someone, not be something picked out of a shop window to try on for size.


A pile of crushed cars to one side waited to be hauled off for scrap steel, weeds scraggling through shattered windows and rusted, wrinkled metal. A small boy darted from behind the pile and her thoughts scattered.


“Hey!”


He stopped, whipping around to stare at her through wide, green eyes. He was thin and wiry, and his pale hair long in spite of the heat. He wore a loose white shirt over dark pants and his feet were incongruously bare.


“What on earth are you doing in a junkyard?” she asked, setting her tool box on the ground and the starter on top of it. “Where are your parents?”


He tucked his head, staring at his feet, saying nothing.


He’d probably snuck off from his parents and climbed the fence, she thought with an inward smile she didn’t let show on her face. Kids loved playing around the old cars and she’d chased off her fair share of them. A junkyard was just not a safe place to play.


Moving to kneel beside him, Cassie tapped him under his chin, coaxing his eyes to meet hers. He did, a blush pinkening his cheeks, and then his gaze dropped to his toes again.


“How did you get in here?” she asked, keeping her voice soft. The boy couldn’t be more than six or seven years old. While on the thin side, he didn’t look malnourished, only fragile.


He shook his head, not answering.


“¿Hablas espanol?” she asked without much hope since that was extent of her Spanish.


He peeked up at her, his expression morphing into confusion. Well, that answered her question. He didn’t speak Spanish either, but it left her in a bit of a quandary. Was he mute or just shy?


“What’s your name, honey?”


“Llyr!”


A very deep, very masculine voice broke the silence and Cassie twisted to see a tall man round the end of another row of cars, the stripe of vivid red hair shining in the sunlight. She blinked. The shirt the man wore reminded her of scaled armor, larger plates of metal shifting across his chest and abs, but that wasn’t nearly as startling as the pair of long slim blades he held. Was there some sort of costume party going on around here somewhere because it wasn’t anywhere near enough to Halloween to explain the getup.


Instinctively, she moved between them, wrapping her arm around the boy’s slender shoulders. He shivered, his shoulders slumping. It was obvious he knew the man, but he wasn’t happy to see him. He didn’t lean into the offered protection but simply faced the man with the resignation of a child who knew they’d been caught red-handed.


The man bit off a word and shoved the knives into what appeared to be sheaths built into the thighs of his pants rendering them nearly invisible. He said something to the boy, the words flowing together too fast for her to make them out beyond the fact she’d never heard the language before. From the tone, it was nothing more than a scold.


The boy’s head jerked up, his eyes widening.


“Leiv!” he exclaimed, sounding shocked and then added something more she didn’t understand. The consonant edges were sharper with a lilting cadence that was absent in the man’s speech. If she hadn’t heard them first hand, she would have thought them two different languages.


The man shook his head and tears shimmered in the boy’s eyes. Cassie opened her mouth but a soft touch below her ear cut off the sound. Darkness spiraled in, slow and gentle but unstoppable, and she went under.