THE COLOR RED | DALLAS WINSTON

vii. PIZZA

IT WAS A HALF-DAY FRIDAY. Another bland day, bland as the color beige. Dark, ominous doodles littered her clean sheet of loose leaf paper that lay beside her composition book. There were skulls, black roses and flowers alike, grim faces where the eyes were completely black but they had a large grin. Some smoked cigarettes between their harlequin smiles. A few pricks around school had tried meaningless flirtatious teasing that Charlotte knew they never meant. But their words had little effect on her after Dally's kiss. They were pricks, but Dally Winston was a 10 foot tall cactus that Georgia O'Keefe had painted in New Mexico during the 1920s.

Charlotte was certain she was a pawn in a sick, twisted game. There was nothing remarkable or noteworthy from one glance at Charlotte. She was bony, sure, but everything else was simply monotonous. She had some looks, but they couldn't, shouldn't have been enough to catch the JD's eye. She wanted to play along with his game, but how could she know the rules when it was a special secret game Dallas knew.

Charlotte got her bus-ride home, and Dallas never joined. She sat in the same row in the same spot, trying to find any more significance than the green booths that sat countless passengers everyday. Of all places to meet a guy with remote interest if not blatant sexual lust, why a bus? A stupid, disgusting bus. She sat her keys in the small bowl, soon going to the living room to turn the television on. Charlotte curled up and watched whatever played, choosing to neglect her homework until a later hour if not Saturday morning.

The empty spot on the couch glared at Charlotte, cruelly frowning upon her lack of desire to socialize when there were so many things to do that didn't completely waste her youth. Brooklynn was going to see her new boyfriend that lived in Bixby, so she wasn't an option. Charlotte felt a powerful urge to pick up the phone and call Dally. It was an urge she didn't ignore. Charlotte gave in to her heart's desires while her brain begged for the opposite action to occur.

She dialled the number, one damned digit after the next until the phone rang. It took three rings before someone picked up. "Hello?" A deep, hillbilly accented man answered rather than Dallas. Charlotte assumed it was Buck, the only other brave person to live in that hobble.

"Yes... hello, this is Charlotte Porter," She gulped, twirling the phonecard with hot spikes of white anxiety coursing through her joints. "I'm-I'm calling for Dallas... Dallas Winston." She bit her lip as her stomach did somersaults, no, a full blown Olympic gymnast's routine

"I'll go get 'im, don't hang up, I doubt he's got your number." Buck said grumpily and laid the phone down and Charlotte waited one minute, two minutes, three minutes, seven minutes for Dally's voice to greet her on the other line

"Lottie?" He asked in a pleasantly surprised voice that covered his agitation

"Yeah," She bit her lip and rubbed her forehead, "listen, I have nothin' to do tonight and I was wondering if you wanted to drive down the Ribbon, maybe get somethin' to eat too."

She heard Dally lick his lips and sighed, scratching what must have been stubble, "Alright, I'll pick you up at your place 'round six." Then his side cut off and Charlotte put her phone back down. She sighed and took a moment to realize what it was she was about to do. Boredom had reduced her to crawling to Dally.

Five minutes late. Ten Minutes Late. Fifteen Minutes Late. Twenty-seven minutes late. It was 6:27 when he arrived, far past the time Charlotte had set for the date. She knew there had to be a way to trick him into showing up on time. She wouldn't trick him through scandalous means, though she was positive if she called Dallas and told him she was naked and needed him, Dallas would have driven to her house using the sidewalks. But Charlotte told him it was a plain, ordinary date with no promise of any encounter later on.