Page 235 - Some Dance to Remember

Some Dance to Remember 205

“Are you kidding?” Ryan said. “I promised you a reserved seat at the
main event.”
The worst storm to hit the coast in a century had blown in from the
Pacific. California was under siege. El Lay was sliding away. The Russian
River was at flood stage. The small bridge leading up to the ranch from
the road was underwater. Horses stood on the hillside with their withers
turned into the wind. We were trapped like Brad and Janet in The Rocky
Horror Picture Show.
Thom was outraged by his insolent daughter. Rain pelted the Plexi-
glas dome over their heads. Sie had been fifteen when she had first spit
in her father’s face. The week before, she had run to a neighboring ranch
and cried that her father and her mother had beaten her. She had driven
Thom and Sandy to their wit’s end. Thom went to the neighbors’ door
and shouted through the screen, “Either you come home now or I call
the sheriff.”
“Call the sheriff,” she said. “You and Mom hit us. You hit us all. You
beat us. We’re abused children.”
“Get your ass out here,” Thom said in a low voice, “or I’ll have you
taken away not as a runaway but as an uncontrollable little brat.”
“I want to go to a foster home.”
“You’re going to end up in a juvenile facility in about five minutes
flat.”
Thom had no choice. He had to play his trump card. He stormed
home and called the sheriff. When the two deputies arrived, they listened
while Thom spun out the history. The three men drove down the road in
the squad car to the neighbor’s ranch.
The bigger of the two deputies crossed his thick forearms. He was
blond, muscular, and imposing. Ryan knew the big man used his Look to
straighten people out.
Me next! he wished.
“Little girl,” the deputy said, “we’ve got all the details—not only from
your father, but from your brother and your sister. You have a choice.
Either you go home with your dad, or my partner here and I take you
for a ride in the back of our squad car. If we take you in, you might be in
juvenile hall for anywhere up to six or eight weeks.”
“I don’t care,” Sie said. “Take me away from them.”
“That means,” the deputy leaned in close to her face, “six to eight
weeks of greasy jailhouse food, no makeup, and no telephone.”
Sullen, Sie touched her zits and came home.
Within an hour the three of them were fighting again. Ryan was

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