Silver Sparrow

but he was plenty old enough to buy booze.

Dana said, “This is Mike. He’s going to change the tire for us.”

Mike grinned, surprising me with pretty teeth. “For a negotiable fee, of course.”

“It’s okay,” Dana said to me. “I can pay for it.”

Mike looked like the dream boys they write about in Sweet Val ey High romances. His hair was darker even than Dana’s and his eyes were the same blue as the stripe on her tennis shoes.

“Anybody ever tel you that you look like Robin Givens?” This was for Dana.

“Sometimes,” she said. “Now come around here and look at our tire.”

But Mike was busy now, looking at me. I reached up and straightened my I Dream of Jeannie. It’s funny how it is that a man looking at you can make you feel chopped into pieces. Self-conscious about everything — from the bulge where my shoulder met my torso to the acne scars slicked over with Fashion Fair — I reached up again and pressed the pins holding my hair in place.

“I’m trying to figure if you look like anybody famous.”

“I don’t,” I said.

“No,” he said, sadly. “I reckon not.”

“Mike,” Dana cal ed, so he went over to the ruined tire and whistled through his shiny teeth. “I’m surprised you didn’t run off the road.”

“I didn’t steer against the swerve,” I said, but he didn’t look up at me.

“Can you fix it?” Dana squatted down beside him. He put his hand on the smal of her back, touching the bare skin above her jeans where the tube top rode up.

“Not sure,” he said, stroking the fender with the hand that wasn’t stroking Dana. “This is a nice car. I always vote for Lincolns over Caddies.

Whose car is this?”

“My dad’s,” I said.

“He’s a chauffeur,” Dana explained, shooting me a look. “It doesn’t belong to him or anything.”

“I figured,” said Mike.

“So can you fix it?” Dana said.

“Maybe. If you got a jack.”

“Chaurisse? Do we have a jack?” she said in a sweet voice, batting her eyes at me like I was some stupid boy.

“We bent the rim, I keep tel ing you. My father is coming to get us.”

“What?” Dana said.

“My dad is coming to get us.”

“No,” Dana said. “Why did you cal him? I told you I was getting help. Why couldn’t you give me ten minutes?”

Beating her hands on her thighs in the gas-station light, she didn’t look silver, she looked crazy.

Mike stood up with a crackle of knees. “Wel , since you got this al took care of . . .”

“Wait,” Dana said fol owing him. “Please fix our car. I can pay.” She stood on her tiptoes, lengthening her body so she could slide her fingers into the front pocket of her tight Gloria Vanderbilts. She moved her fingers like tweezers until she produced a bil folded into a paper footbal . She unfolded it and waved the crinkled money at him. “Don’t you want twenty dol ars?”

Mike looked at the money and looked at Dana. The light bounced off her makeup, making her face look like a jack-o’-lantern, lit from the inside.

“Twenty bucks,” she said.

“I can’t do nothing if your sister won’t give me the jack.”

“She’s not my sister,” Dana said.

“Look,” said Mike. “I’m not trying to get involved in nothing. I’m just going by what you told me.”

“Dana, calm down,” I cal ed to her. “Let’s just wait in the car.”

“I can’t,” she said. She spun toward Mike. “For twenty dol ars, wil you drive me to Atlanta?”

“To Atlanta?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I have the money right here.”

“Oh no, darlin’,” he said. “I am not going to Atlanta at night. I ain’t a coward, but my life is worth more than twenty bucks.”

He walked away in the direction of the store. Mike was Seventeen magazine in the face, but watching him walk away in his Levi’s, I kept thinking

“Jack and Diane.”