Page 6 of Just Like the Brontë Sisters

Chapter 4: Jo Beth

Jo Beth was fine on her own, but if someone caught her eye it went against her nature not to pursue him. She would never again make the same mistakes she had made with Dallas, but what could be the harm of getting to know Blake? He worked as a bartender at The Outpost, a busy hangout at the base of Black Diamond’s most popular ski run. They met when she handed him her fake ID. He took one look and handed it back to her.

“Sorry, Amelia,” he said, calling her by the name on the driver’s license she’d given him. “You don’t look a thing like your picture.”

“I do when I’m naked,” she replied.

He ran his fingers over his super-short hair, rubbing his buzz cut. “That doesn’t make sense,” he said carefully.

“We’re at a bar, and we’re talking about nudity. It’s not supposed to make sense.” Slowly, she licked her lips. “Now can I please have a beer?”

He filled a glass with whatever was on tap and she drank it down in a few gulps. He kept filling and refilling it, and she sat at the bar, downing whatever he gave her. When his shift ended Jo Beth could barely stand, so he led her to his car and drove her to his apartment.

“I’m not a virgin,” she slurred as they walked in through his door. She plopped down on his couch and started to remove her boots. She was sober enough to realize that her pants would come off way easier if she took her boots off first.

He sat down next to her. “Of course, you’re not. You’re way too self-destructive to be a virgin.”

Jo Beth laughed at Blake’s earnestness, at the way he stared at her with those baby blue eyes. “What do you care? You’re about to get laid.” She tugged at his long-sleeved t-shirt but he swatted her hand away.

“Not tonight,” he said. “I don’t take advantage of minors.”

“You won’t be taking advantage of me. I’ll be taking advantage of you.”

Still, he got up, went to the kitchen, filled a glass with water, and placed it on the coffee table.

“Goodnight,” he said.

She couldn’t figure it out. Why get her drunk in the first place? Her head was way too heavy to put together his motives, so she let it fall to the worn couch pillow, where she slept for several hours before she awoke with a stabbing pain behind her eyebrows and a mouth full of cotton. Jo Beth guzzled the water he’d left, put on her boots, and left.

Outside was cold and dark, not yet dawn. But she made a decision on her trek home. This guy, this bartender whose name she couldn’t remember, was for her. He was honorable and kind, and she liked his military-ish good looks.

The next night Jo Beth returned to the bar. “What time are you off?” she asked him.

“Forget it,” Blake replied. Blake. Of course. How could she have forgotten his female-soap-opera-character name? “I’m working all night,” he said, “but even if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t go out with you.”

“You’re wrong,” she told him. “You’re totally into me.”

The bar was crowded and a loud, large man shoved into her before he ordered his drinks. Jo Beth stood back and let Blake do his job. But once a stool opened up she sat there, waiting for closing time. When Blake finally acknowledged her two hours later, he said, “Why are you still here?”

“Because we’re going to start dating.”

Blake squinted at her. “How old are you, really?”

“Seventeen. But I’m going places, so you need to catch me now, before I leave you in the dust.”

There was a hint of smile across his stubbled cheeks. “Oh yeah? Where are you going? To juvie?”

“The Olympics.”

Then his eyes widened in recognition. “You’re Jo Beth Blue, aren’t you?”

“You’ve heard of me?”

He nodded. “You’re like this prodigy, a ski legend at seventeen. Of course, I’ve heard of you. The whole town is talking about how you’re going to win the Gold before you’re a legal adult.”

“There are lots of things I’m going to do before I’m a legal adult.”

He laughed and that was it. Blake was hers.