during detention on his responsibilities, on his daydreaming, on the slip of his grades. And now this.
It lasted only a moment, and when the red left, he was leaning against the wall, trembling, and Falcone was gone.
Now dinner was fun, and he didn't mention that test paper for fear he'd be grounded for the rest of his life. Nor did he say anything about Brian and Tar. Norman would only tell him he'd simply handed them a friendly warning; he wouldn't believe that one of these days Don was going to pay for his father's big mouth.
He showered after dessert, washed his hair, and nearly cried when he couldn't locate a clean pair of jeans right away. A quick whisper to the horse about the girl he was seeing-and a wish that he not make a complete fool of himself-and he touched the animal's nose for luck. A shirt with a pullover sweater, shoes generally worn on Sundays, and he was finally in the foyer checking his wallet when his father came out of the kitchen munching on an apple.
'Out with the boys, huh?' Norman said.
'No,' his mother called gaily from the kitchen. 'I think he has a date.'
'He does? No kidding.'
'No,' his mother said. 'Really.'
Don felt as if he had been rendered invisible and shifted to recapture his father's attention. 'Yeah,' he said, stepping back for approval.
'Going to a movie. Maybe to Beacher's for something after. I don't know.
She has to be back by midnight.'
'Ah, Cinderella,' his mother said, laughing, and he wondered how her hearing had gotten suddenly so acute.
'Who is it?' Norman asked, his hand magically holding a ten-dollar bill when Don turned back from the coat closet with his windbreaker in hand.
'An advance on your allowance,' he explained when Don hesitated. 'Hell, why not. Anyone I know?'
'Probably,' he said, slipping on the coat and opening the door. 'Tracey Quintero.'
'Quintero?' Norman frowned for a moment. 'Oh! Oh, yes, yes. Little Italian girl. In your class. A senior.'
'Spanish, Dad. She's Spanish. Her father's from Madrid. He's a cop.'
'Oh. Well.'
'Remind him about tonight, Norm,' Joyce called over the rush of water from the faucet.
Don waited, smiling, while his father rolled his eyes to the ceiling.
'You remember the meeting, right?'
'Right.' He grinned. 'And I know-if I'm home before you are, the key's in the garage if I've lost mine, and I'd better be home before you are or I'll be in deep ... trouble.'
Norman grinned and slapped his arm. 'Just watch it, okay? Don't give your mother hysterics by being too late.'
Joyce called out something else, but it was drowned in a louder roar from the garbage disposal, and he nodded quickly to his father, was answered with a wink, and left as fast as he dared. He knew that look on the man's face-it came when Norman thought it was time to have a man-to-man talk, usually when one or the other had only five minutes to get where they were going. And usually it was aborted before the first sentence was done.
God, that was close, he thought, shook himself dramatically and waved to his mother, who was standing in the living room window drying her hands, Norman at her side. They always did that, waiting as if he were going off to war; and if he didn't get back first, they would be there when he returned, slightly drunk from the bourbons they'd had while watching TV.
Waiting for their baby.
But tonight, if he were lucky, they would have had a good meeting-teachers, public officials, and the Ashford Day committee-and won't be stiff from a fight.
Can it, he ordered then. This wasn't the time to be thinking about them when he had himself to worry about-what to say, how to say it, how to impress Tracey without tripping over his tongue. His usual dates weren't really dates at all but a gathering of forces down at Beacher's Diner next to the theater. It might have been a real diner once, but now it was more like a restaurant with a counter in front. Weeknights it closed at nine; weekends it catered to the movie crowd and the teens, and more often than not six or seven of them would troop into the theater together.
On the other hand, when he was alone with a girl he was lucky if he could think of a dozen coherent words to say between the time he picked her up and the time he brought her home.
He checked his watch under a streetlight and broke into a lazy trot.
Tracey lived seven blocks down and two over, and he didn't want to be late. He only hoped that her father was on night shift this time; the man scared him to death. He was short, built like a concrete barrel, and if he ever had a good word to say about anyone under forty, Don had yet to hear it.
Please, God, he pleaded as he turned into her block; please don't let Sergeant Quintero be there.
And as he walked up to the door, he checked to be sure his fingernails were clean.
'I swear to god,' Brian said, his voice overriding the others sitting at the counter with him. 'I mean, they were out to here!' He stretched out his arms, curved his hands back, and flexed his fingers. 'To frigging here, for god's sake.'
There were a few sniggers, some groans, and Joe Beacher in his stained apron and squashed chefs cap scowled until Pratt shrugged an apology for the language.
The front section of the diner was a long counter with eighteen stools and five jukebox terminals, and nine small tables arranged in front of the wall-long window; there was only one waitress and Joe Beacher himself, who knew he belonged in front, rough-dressed, and not in back wearing a suit. The decor was Formica and aluminum, with a roundfaced clock on the wall beside the door, above an array of posters announcing upcoming charitable events, rummage sales, and the Ashford Little Theater's latest program. A wide passage straight from the entrance ran past the cash register to the larger dining room in back, where the walls were paneled in pine and had watercolor landscapes depicting each of the seasons. The tables were larger, were wood, and the menus were tucked into red leather binders; three waitresses here, and Joe's brother-in-law in a black suit that passed for gentility and a bit of class. Just now the room was nearly filled as families and high-spending seniors hurried to finish their meals in time for the nine-fifteen show; and despite the Jekyll-and-Hyde appearance, the food was about the best in town.
Don stood just over the threshold, Tracey behind him, and he hesitated until she poked his back. A quick smile and he stepped aside, let her pass, and followed her to a small round table in the center of the diner's front window. When he held the chair for her, there were whistles from the counter; when he sat, Pratt cupped his hands around his mouth and made a loud farting noise.
Don winced and there was laughter, and more when his cheeks flushed a faint pink.
'Damn,' he muttered under his breath, and Tracey smiled at him, telling him silently to ignore it as she handed him a plastic-coated single-page menu from behind the napkin dispenser. He inhaled slowly and nodded, and scanned the offerings though he knew them by heart.
'Hey, Don,' said Tar Boston, spinning around on his stool, 'a good flick or what?'
He didn't know, though he said it was all right, nothing great, lots of blood, shooting, stuff like that. He didn't know because he had been too busy sneaking sideways looks at Tracey, debating whether to try to hold her hand, or put his arm around her shoulder, or even to steal a kiss.
He had known her for years but had never been out with her alone; he had confided in her as a friend ever since junior high, but when she slipped off her jacket and he saw that she had, under all those clothes, an honest- to-god figure, he didn't know what to do. This wasn't Tracey the friend any longer; this was Tracey the woman, and suddenly he didn't know which rules to follow.
The realization that things had changed without his knowing it made him miserable throughout the film, seeing nothing, hearing little, though he could have told anyone who asked exactly how many lines there were at the corner of her right eye, how high the white collar of her shirt reached toward her ear, how the intricate twirls and tucks of her hair related to each other as they brushed back toward her nape.
Brian hummed the school song mockingly, loudly, then leapt from his stool and stretched as he announced it was time for the real men to head next door, to see how Dirty Harry compared unfavorably with the Pratt.
