American Boy - Larry Watson [30]
Louisa burst out laughing. “Ooh, that’s rich! A gentleman! Too bad Debbie can’t hear you say that. She might even let you do everything you want. And as long as we’re on the subject,” she went on, “let me give you two a tip. When you’re parking with a girl in the winter, leave the car running. I mean, obviously. You need to keep the heat on. She won’t give anything up if she’s freezing. And you want the radio playing, too.”
In order to accommodate Louisa’s semiprone position across the front seat, I had put my arm up along the back of it. And now while she was talking I let my arm drop, knowing that my hand would fall near her breast, padded as it was beneath several layers of clothing. What did I have to lose? After all, Louisa didn’t believe in gentlemen anyway....
When my hand landed where I hoped it would, Louisa didn’t startle or stop talking. But with an alacrity that indicated she had expected this move all along, she lifted my hand and put it back on the seat. She could not have plucked a piece of lint from her clothing with greater detachment or deliberation. “But make sure the tailpipe isn’t in the snow,” she continued. “Because if that happens, carbon monoxide will back up into the car. I heard about that happening once, and the guy and the girl were both killed. There. Don’t say you didn’t learn anything tonight.”
It wasn’t what I’d hoped to learn about lovers in parked cars, but then her own experiences in Frenchman’s Forest probably produced more mixed emotions for Lousia Lindahl.
“You have any more advice for us?” I asked.
She sat up a little straighter. “Since you asked.” She took a long pull from her bottle of Blue Lake and said, “If you’re going to go fast, go faster. And if you’re going to go slow, go slower.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” asked Johnny.
She pushed back against me again. “Should I tell him?”
My first thought on hearing her advice was simple: who wants to go slow? But if I asked that, it would only prove that I didn’t have any idea what Louisa was talking about, and that wouldn’t do. Instead I said, as nonchalantly as possible, “Might as well.”
She was silent for a long moment, while a commercial for a Fargo Ford dealer played on the radio. “What the hell,” she said finally. “He’ll know when the time comes.”
“Fine,” said Johnny. “Be that way.”
A long silence followed. It felt as if we were all waiting for something to fill the moment, but we were also all equally unsure of what that might be.
Johnny finally spoke up, and I wasn’t happy to hear what he had to say. “We should get back.”
Louisa finished her beer in one long swig, then replied, “Okay, let’s skedaddle.” She swung her legs off Johnny’s lap, and he put the car in reverse. Soon we were out from under the dark shelter of the trees. The winter sky was bright with stars.
We had to cache the beer someplace, and I volunteered our garage. My mother was working, and I could hide what was left of the case under a canvas tarp against the back wall. The beer wouldn’t be found there and it probably wouldn’t freeze.
Johnny drove to my house. He pulled into the driveway, and I unloaded the beer from the backseat and carried it into the garage through the side door. I wanted to be sure old Mrs. Darden didn’t see what I was doing.
While I was covering the bottles of beer, I heard Johnny back the car out of the driveway. I ran out of the garage, but only in time to see the Valiant’s taillights fading into the night. I was shocked, as I’d assumed all along that after the beer was hidden we would all return to the Dunbar house, and that Johnny and I would resume working on our science project, as strange as that schoolboy activity might seem at this point.
A misunderstanding, I told myself, but that didn’t make me feel much better. I suppose I could have pulled my stocking cap down over my ears and buttoned my coat and set out for the Dunbars’. If I ran I would arrive there only minutes after they did. But I didn’t. Instead, I took two bottles of beer and carried them into the house.
I didn’t bother turning