Almost Perfect - Brian Katcher [18]
Brenda was around here somewhere. I thought maybe I should try to find her and say hi. Just walk by her and say, Oh, hey, didn’t see you; how’s it going? Let her know I was okay and bury the hatchet. Unless she was here with that new boyfriend. Then I’d just bury my fist in his face.
I was eighteen, alone, unloved, broke, and, I suddenly realized, seconds away from being hit by a car.
The driver didn’t have his lights on. I only realized he was barreling toward me by the sound of his squealing tires and the shadow of the vehicle against the parking lot lights.
I deftly went sprawling into a handicapped space as the car, a Chevy with one busted headlight and no grill, fish-tailed to a stop behind me. I leapt to my feet, wondering if I was about to threaten a bad Boyer driver or have my ass pounded by a carload of insane Moberly fans.
Before my adrenaline rush kicked in, the driver rolled down his window. I knew the guy, a redheaded sophomore named Rob. He was a big oaf, the kind of guy you read about in the paper who’d accidentally shot himself in the butt or burned down his house trying to remove a wasp’s nest.
“Sorry, Logan.”
It was impossible to stay mad at Rob. I remembered the time he congratulated a girl undergoing chemotherapy on her successful “diet.”
“Did you just get your license?”
“Soon.”
He wasn’t alone in the car. There was a short girl sitting next to him. She looked familiar.
“Hey, Logan.”
I squinted into the darkness. It was Sage’s sister, Tammi.
From the rear of the car came a familiar feminine voice. “Get in the car, Logan.”
I joined Sage, who was sitting cross-legged in the backseat. She didn’t scoot over to make room for me, so I was wedged in comfortably close to her. If this was a normal relationship, I’d have leaned over and kissed her. However, I remembered what had happened the last time I’d tried to merge lips, so I just patted her knee.
“Sorry we’re late,” she said. “Is the game over already?”
“No,” I replied. “We were just losing real bad—”
Rob peeled out, then immediately slammed on the brakes for some reason, giving me my first taste of whiplash. Sage nearly toppled over. I realized she was having trouble fitting her long legs in the backseat, and I wondered why she wasn’t riding shotgun. Only when I saw Rob awkwardly drape his arm over Tammi’s shoulder did I realize what was going on. I grinned internally. So Tammi was sneaking out with a guy, too! So much for her high-and-mighty attitude.
“So, where are we going?” I asked. Not much was open in Boyer this late.
“Let’s head out to the rock quarry,” suggested Rob. He started to massage Tammi’s neck, which apparently distracted him from driving. After crossing the yellow line and nearly plowing head-on into a van, he kept both hands on the wheel.
Sage took several deep breaths to avoid hyperventilating. “Why don’t we just go to the park?”
Veterans Park was on the outskirts of Boyer (anything not actually on the town square was the outskirts). It boasted a war memorial, some decrepit playground equipment, and a baseball diamond. When Jack and I were in junior high, the cops constantly used to bust us for skateboarding in the parking lot. The year we entered high school and lost interest, the city installed a half-acre skating facility.
Rob managed to park across three spaces in the empty lot, then left with Tammi to go on the creaking swings. Sage sat on a park bench and patted the seat next to her.
The town council wouldn’t pay to keep the park lit up at night, so we sat silently for a bit, waiting for our eyes to adjust.
“Sorry I had to bring Tammi and Rob,” Sage said after a while. “Mom wanted me to chaperone.”
I didn’t say anything, but my mind was racing. Sage’s mom knew