This Lullaby(79)

Lissa sighed, shoving her tray away and wiping her hands on a napkin. “I gotta go. I’m due at the Tri-Country track meet in fifteen minutes. We’re KaBooming the all-state athletes.”

“Well,” Jess said dryly, “be sure to wear protection.”

Lissa made a face. She was over the KaBoom jokes, but they were just too easy.

Back at work, Paul dropped by to see me on his way home from his life-guarding job at the Y. I couldn’t help but notice a couple of bridesmaids waiting for prewedding manicures ogle him a bit as he came in, tanned and smelling like suntan lotion and chlorine.

“Hey,” he said, and I stood up and kissed him, very lightly, because that was about where we were at relationship-wise. It had been a week and a half, and we’d seen each other almost every day: lunches, dinners, a couple of parties. “I know you’re busy tonight, but I just wanted to say hello.”

“Hello,” I said.

“Hello.” He grinned at me. God, he was cute. I kept thinking that if only I’d gone out with him way back when Lola had first tried to set us up, the entire summer would have been different. Totally different.

After all, Paul met just about every criteria on my guy list. He was tall. Good-looking. Had no annoying personal habits. Was older than me but not by more than three years. Was a decent dresser but didn’t shop more than I did. Fell within the acceptable limits in terms of personal hygiene (i.e., aftershave and cologne yes, mousse and fake tan, no). Was smart enough to carry on good conversation but not an eggbert. But the big whammy, the tipping point, was that he was leaving at the end of the summer and we’d already established that we would part as friends and go our separate ways.

Which left me with a nice, cute, courteous guy with his own life and hobbies who liked me, kissed very well, paid for dinner, and had no problem with any of the terms that so many before him had stumbled over. And all this from a blind date. Amazing.

“So I know tonight is girls’ night,” he said as I slid my hands across the counter, over his, “but I wondered what the chances were for getting up with you later?”

“Not good,” I told him. “Only the lamest women bail their girlfriends for a guy. It’s against the code.”

“Ah,” he said, nodding. “Well. It was worth a shot.”

Across the parking lot, I could see the white Truth Squad van pulling up to Flash Camera. Ted parked in the loading zone and hopped out of the driver’s side, slamming the door behind him, then disappeared inside.

“So what are you doing tonight?” I asked Paul. “Boy stuff ?”

“Yep,” he said as I looked across at Flash Camera again, watching as Dexter followed Ted back to the van. They were talking animatedly—arguing?—as they hopped in and drove off, running the stop sign that led past Mayor’s Market, toward the main road.

“. . . some band the guys want to see is playing at that club over by the university.”

“Really,” I said, not exactly listening as the white van pulled out into traffic in front of a station wagon, which let loose with an angry beep.

“Yeah, Trey says they’re really good. . . . Spinnerbait, I think they’re called.”

“Hate Spinnerbait,” I said automatically.

“What?”

I looked at him, realizing I’d been in a complete fog for this entire conversation. “Oh, nothing. I just, um, I heard that band kind of sucked.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Wow. Really? Trey says they’re great.”

“Oh, well,” I said quickly. “I’m sure he knows better than me.”

“I doubt that.” He leaned across the counter and kissed me. “I’ll call you tonight, okay?”

I nodded. “Sure.”

As he left, the two bridesmaids eyed me appreciatively, as if I was due respect simply because such a guy was with me. But for some reason I was distracted, ringing up Mrs. Jameson’s hair streaking as a bikini wax and then charging her fifty bucks instead of five for some cuticle cream. At least it was almost time to go home.

I was getting into my car when I heard someone tap on the passenger window. I looked up: it was Lucas. “Hey Remy,” he said, when I rolled down the window. “Can you give me a ride home? Dex already left with the van and otherwise I have to hoof it.”

“Sure,” I said, even though I was already running late. I was supposed to pick up Lissa, and the yellow house was entirely in the other direction. But it wasn’t like I could just leave him there.

He climbed in, then immediately began to fiddle with the radio as I backed out of my parking spot. This, at one point, would have been grounds for instant ejection, but I let it slide because I was in a decent mood. “What CDs you got?” he asked, flipping past my main preset to the lower end of the dial and cranking up some experimental-sounding, shrieking-ish noise on the college radio station.

“They’re in the glove box,” I said, pointing. He opened it up and shuffled through them—they had been arranged alphabetically, but only because I’d had some extra time when stuck in a traffic jam a few days earlier. He kept making clucking noises, low sighs, and mumbles. Apparently my collection, like my presets, wasn’t up to his standards. But I had no need to impress Lucas. Thanks to Dexter I knew not only that his given name was Archibald, but also that in high school he’d had long hair and played in a metal band called Residew. Apparently there was only one picture existing of Lucas wailing on his keyboard in full-hair-sprayed mode, and Dexter had it.