The Impossible Fortress(40)

“It’s different at school,” she said. “St. Agatha’s is just like The Breakfast Club. They put everybody in these slots. Sporty girls, girly girls, party girls. But they don’t have a slot for me. So by default I’m Ally Sheedy.”

“The basket case?”

“I’m serious. They avoid me. Like I’m contagious.”

I knew exactly how she felt. “Let me tell you something,” I said. “Radical Planet is going to change everything. The Impossible Fortress is just the beginning. We’re going to work together. You and me. We’re going to grow it into a giant company, and we’re only going to hire cool people. We’ll work out of a giant skyscraper in New York. We’ll drive around in a limousine, and everyone in Wetbridge will be jealous.”

Mary laughed. “Look who’s dreaming now,” she said. “Are you serious?”

“We’re a great team,” I said. “If we keep working, Sharon Boyd is going to rue the day she ditched you.”

“I doubt it.”

“Trust me.” I flicked a gummy bear across the aisle; it landed in Sharon’s hair, but she didn’t even flinch. Mary cupped a hand over her mouth to stifle her laughter. Sharon tilted her head, and the gummy bear disappeared inside her curls.

“You’re terrible,” she whispered. “She’s not going to find that bear until graduation.”

I offered the bag to Mary, and she popped one of the candies into her mouth. “Radical Planet,” I said, as if simply saying the name aloud made it real. “We should start the next game tomorrow. We should keep working.”

“Don’t you want to relax for a bit?”

“I do not,” I said. “I want to keep going.”

By then the lights were dimming and the curtains were parting and it would have been easy for Mary to avoid the topic. But instead she answered me, loudly and clearly.

“All right,” she said. “We’ll start a new game tomorrow.”

There was a crash of cymbals over the Paramount logo and the movie was under way. Some Kind of Wonderful opened like a music video, introducing the lead characters in a montage fueled by New Wave synth-pop. The relentless drumbeat rattled the walls of the theater; the bass was so loud, I could feel it thumping in my chest. I looked over at Mary, and she was rapt with attention, eyes wide and smiling. I reached into her lap and took her hand.

It was like jumping off a cliff. I braced myself for rejection. I knew there was a good chance she’d yank away her hand and cross her arms over her chest. But that didn’t happen. Instead she laced her fingers through mine, just like she’d done in the blackout.

Within minutes my forearm was numb; I’d twisted it into a weird angle before reaching over, and now I didn’t dare adjust my grip. I was afraid even the slightest twitch would spook Mary into letting go. But she didn’t let go. She actually reached over and put her other hand on top of my wrist. And the closeness of her made everything on screen seem amplified. The colors were brighter, the sound was louder, the percussion rattled my core. And yet I couldn’t process any of it. I spent the next hour thinking only of Mary’s hands—the delicate curve of her wrists, the gentle texture of her skin, the smooth, clean surface of her fingernails. All the drama on the screen was secondary.

And then out of nowhere the movie sputtered to a halt. The screen went white and the soundtrack stopped. Up in the projection booth, the Sea Hag howled in frustration. Then the houselights came on, and she walked out on the stage, explaining that the screening was canceled due to mechanical error.

The audience booed but she held her ground. “There’s no point in complaining because I can’t fix it.” As a consolation, she offered to describe the ending to anyone who wanted to know what happened. “Basically, the artsy boy takes the pretty girl to a big dinner at a fancy restaurant, and the drummer girl is their chauffeur . . .”

Mary pulled me out of my seat. “Come on,” she said. “We can’t let her spoil it.”

I didn’t particularly care, but I could tell it was important to Mary, so I followed her up the center aisle to the lobby. The main entrance was already unlocked, but once outside we realized we had no place to go. Sometime during the movie, it had started to thunderstorm. Heavy rains were pelting Market Street, pounding the cars with a loud drumming and slowing traffic to a crawl. We huddled with our fellow moviegoers under the marquee, inches from getting soaked.

“My father’s not coming for an hour,” Mary said. “He’s meeting me here.” I suggested that she call him from a pay phone but Mary hesitated. Neither of us was ready to go home. There was a crack of thunder, and a woman standing under the marquee yelped with fright.

“The train station’s still open,” I suggested. “We could wait in the lobby until the rain stops.”

“Would you rather go to the store?” Mary asked.

“What store?”

“My store.” She reached in her pocket for a key ring. “I can get us in.”

“Your dad won’t care?”

“I’ve done it before. He won’t mind as long as we clean up after ourselves.”

“What’ll we do?”

She smiled mysteriously. “We can play some games,” she said. Only I couldn’t tell if she meant Space Invaders or Asteroids or . . . something else.