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“I thought I might find you out here,” Joel said to no one specifically.  He looked at Matt and finished, “She loves the water.  Especially on her daddy’s new boat.”

Becky just laughed.  Matt didn’t know if a fight was about to break out, or what.  He figured Joel could probably take him, being in better shape.  But Matt was scrappy and wouldn’t go down without a fight.  Becky walked over to the Skylark and grabbed something from the backseat to cover up with.  It was still hot outside, but her skin was wet and the breeze made her shiver.  

Joel’s hand reached over for the lever on the driver’s door, pushed it down and got out of the Nash.  He leaned against the front fender of the car and watched Matt walk up from the dock, ignoring Becky over by her Buick.  Matt was put off by the whole scene, not understanding any of the actions that were taking place.

“I’ve got to get home.  Daddy’s in town and he’ll be worried.  He doesn’t like me taking the boat out by myself.”  Becky looked over at Matt.  “And he’d probably kill me if he knew I’d taken it out with you, once he figured out just who you were.”

“You didn’t really ride that bike all the way out from Fort Stockton to the lake, did you?”  Joel asked.  Matt looked sheepish and defensive at the same time.

“Yeah.  Guess I did.” he admitted, not sure why he should be ashamed of that.  Then he considered that he was standing next to a Nash Healey and a Buick Skylark driven by a couple kids only a year older than he was and put things in perspective.

“Was it worth it?”  Joel asked.  The grin on his face could have been a magazine ad for the orthodontist that had provided it for him.

Matt looked over at Becky who smiled back at him.  Then Joel, who was leaning into the Healey and getting a pack of cigarettes out of the glove box, said “I’m guessing it was.”

“It’s pitch black on the road back to town,” Joel noted. “We’ll put your bike in the back of my car and I’ll take you home.  No matter how much you enjoyed yourself, it’s not worth getting killed over.  Plus, you’ll be home a lot quicker.”  

If it had been the back of Becky’s Buick Matt would have been fearful of scratching the paint.  He didn’t hold the Healey in the same high regard.  As Joel opened the trunk and Matt shoved the Schwinn in. The handlebars may have left their mark on the rear fender.  Joel didn’t seem alarmed.  “Second time tonight you’ve slid the Schwinn in, I’m guessing,” Joel laughed.  Matt didn’t have a clue what to say.

Becky got in the Buick and cranked up the nailhead, blowing a kiss towards the Nash, leaving Matt questioning who was supposed to be the recipient. Shortly after, the 252 cubic inch Nash inline-six was fired up and the two exclusive ragtops kicked up dust all the way back to the paved road and then headed opposite directions, Becky towards the ranch and Joel towards town.

Joel thought Matt would have a lot of questions.  Matt thought Joel would offer some kind of explanation for his appearance, not to mention fill in the blanks of his relationship with Becky.  In the absence of either giving in, the trip to RoadRunner Estates was silent.

Matt’s parents were looking out the picture window when the Healey pulled up.  When Matt got out of the Nash and went around to the trunk to get his bike out, both parents were relieved the boy was home.  It was later than they expected, but they were glad he was making new friends so quickly.  Don couldn’t make out what kind of car Matt’s new friend was driving, but could tell it was expensive.  He was surprised at the kinds of exotic cars kids in high school drove in Fort Stockton. He chalked it up to oil money, Texas braggadocio, and poor parenting.

In the weeks that followed, Becky revealed the entire story to Matt.  Not all at once, but in chapters outlined at the lake, or on long drives in the Skylark, once even at the house in RoadRunner Estates when Francis and Don took Matt’s little sister and went to Houston over a long weekend on business.  Matt’s thoughts of playing football changed when he saw what the schedule of practices and games would be and how little time there would be to meet Becky as a result.  Instead, he joined the creative Jim Bowie writing club, ‘The Pen is Mightier Than the Knives’.

When all the chapters of Becky’s relationship with Joel were finally known, it created a tale that Matt couldn’t have made up, even on his best day.

Becky and Joel appeared to be boyfriend and girlfriend to everyone who saw them at Our Lady of Immeasurable Concern; really everyone in Fort Stockton.  Matt being at the public school in town made it easier to accept the charade. He’d never had to see them in the hallway or cafeteria so he never had to look the other way.  And to be sure, Joel and Becky had been lifelong friends.  That’s what made it so easy for her to be the solution to problems that weren’t hers but that threatened to ruin her life, as she knew it.

Becky’s father had a secret.  Joel’s mother had a secret, as well.  One might think that their secrets overlapped, as secrets often do, that they might have found the same kind of passion with each other that Becky and Matt discovered at the lake.  But that was not the case.

Joel’s mother kept the books for the businesses that Joel’s and Becky’s fathers jointly owned.  She became privy, over time, to the amount of money Becky’s father was skimming off the top.  Thousands.  Multiples of thousands. That information coming out would ruin her father, as well as Becky, and take away the lifestyle they had both come to enjoy.

Had Joel’s mother not known a secret of her own, she might not have worried about those consequences.  But her own secret outweighed her sense of retribution.  She knew her son did not prefer girls.  He never had.  She suspected it for a long time and then was confronted with the truth when he admitted it to her under duress. Joel’s overbearing father could not have handled such a revelation and the consequences would have torn the family apart. That was a risk she could not bear.

Becky provided the solution for both dilemmas.  If she would pretend to be Joel’s girlfriend, there would be no doubt as to his female attractions.  It would also assure that the secret of the missing funds at the oil company would be kept secret, until both kids graduated and went off to college.  At that point, Joel’s mother would confront Becky’s father and make arrangements for restitution without the authorities becoming involved.  Becky would see to it at that point that her father understood and accepted the consequences of his own unethical actions.

For his part, Joel could leave town, attend college and no longer worry about his secret being revealed.  His father would be none the wiser, his mother no longer needing to shield him from the inevitable side effects of his sexuality in a small west Texas town in the 1950s.

Of course, the “relationship” between Joel and Becky would remain plutonic in everything but appearance. The friendship they’d had going back to the time they were toddlers made that easy.  On the face of it, it was easy.  No one would get hurt.  Everyone could save face.  Dirty laundry would never be aired that could affect people negatively.  But dirty laundry never seems to stay in the hamper in Fort Stockton. It seems that someone always decides to hang it out to dry in full view of eyes that never look away.

The Chris-Craft Rocket Runabout was found floating in the middle of the lake before the Christmas holiday.  It was in about the same spot where Becky and Matt used to drop anchor and fine tune their skills of the flesh. Becky wasn’t found till a couple days later.  The Rescue Squad’s 1953 Chevrolet Sedan Delivery was called to fish out her remains from the shallows.

Perry Silverman read clippings his mother sent him from the paper about the eulogy at Becky’s memorial service. “There wasn’t a dry eye in the gymnasium at Our Lady of Immeasurable Concern,” she wrote. Surprised that his mother would attend the service, much less write him about it, she’d provided one more reason he wished he was back home. The student bodies from both high schools had filled every seat of the gym, spilling out the doors and into the parking lot. Joel was inconsolable and had to be taken out of the service before it was even halfway over.

Chief Martin conducted a thorough investigation but the evidence proved inconclusive.  The Stockton Telegram-Dispatch did a series on the unfortunate death in the spring of 1954.  It just ripped the scab off and raised more questions than it answered.  Becky’s drowning was called accidental for lack of any other explanation.

Joel left for the University of Texas after graduation that spring.  He never moved back to Fort Stockton.  His parents divorced in early 1958, about the time Joel finished his degree.  

Becky’s father left Fort Stockton within a few months of his daughter being laid to rest.  Staying in town was just too much for him.  He got the cancer and died within a few years.  Left a mountain of debt.

Francis and Don ended up relocating to Houston in 1960.  Another promotion.  They’re probably long gone by now.  Matthew didn’t move to Houston with them.  After graduation from Jim Bowie High he attended UCLA and then settled back in Bakersfield after attaining his degree in Literature. He said it was just an easier way of life, in the long run.  He never came back to Fort Stockton, even for any of the Class of ’55 Reunions.  Folks surmised he just wasn’t here long enough to ever really call it home, or want to come back.  Most folks never even knew about the relationship he and Becky had enjoyed in the summer and fall of 1953.

Years later Trixie saw someone over at the Piggly Wiggly who said they had family in Bakersfield.  She said they tried to look Matthew up while they were out there, just to say hello and catch up.  “It took forever for anyone to come to the door, but when it finally opened the guy standing there looked for all the world like Joel, not Matthew,” she said.

“That’s how rumors get started,” Lucinda said when she heard about it. “She should just hush up.”

A dozen years back there was a drive to buy the old 1953 Chevrolet Sedan Delivery Ambulance out of Earl’s Salvage Yard and Formalwear and restore it.  Folks were split over the decision, half of the town calling it a tribute to those who risked their lives for others, the other half saying it would bring up bad memories of those who’d been in the back end of it.  Perry Silverman wrote a check for the restoration, having graduated high school himself the year it was put into service.  That made it an easy call, since nobody else had to contribute.  It makes some folks melancholy when they see it in parades, thinking about those who couldn’t be rescued.  Nobody can remember what happened to the Rocket Runabout, or Becky’s Buick Skylark.

Each generation knows less and less about what took place on the lake back then.  That’s probably just as well.  If you asked 100 people today what the girl’s name was who died out there in December of 1953, 99 couldn’t tell you.  She’s known now just as “The Lady of the Lake”.  Some would still like to know exactly what happened out there on the water, but it’ll probably remain a mystery.  Pastor Peterson says it’s best to let the dead rest in peace.  

That’s the same thing Joel’s mother used to say.

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