Or, occasionally when Sean was feeling generous (Cameron did not have an opinion one way or another) and McGillicuddy defended her, she would get her way. She would be a member of the German Resistance, assisting me in the cause by sneaking me ammunition (in reality, sparklers). I understood that a day Sean let her play was a sparkling jewel in the sandbox of her childhood. I saw why she treasured every bit of attention that Sean gave her now. But just because I understood it didn’t mean I had to like it.
“I was tied up,” McGillicuddy said.
“Of course you were,” I said.
“And then the interrogating officer came around the corner,” he said. “Guess who it was.”
“Tammy,” I said.
“No!” he said, offended. “Natalie Portman.”
“I’m not buying it. Not when you’ve been going out with Tammy and you haven’t been banned from her.” I didn’t want to buy it. Surely to God somebody had a girlfriend and appreciated her! Otherwise all my own torture was for nothing.
He reached up and ran his thumb across the seam of the headliner, which was beginning to come loose from the roof of the truck and sag into the cab, as if it were full of water. “Tammy may have bandaged my wounds to ready me for more torture.”
I shook my head. “I hate to be the one to tell you, but real girls do not want threesomes.” Like I knew. He was the one in college.
He looked at me in horror.
I shrugged. “Sorry.” Then I asked, “Was Miss Portman wearing leather?” I was just making conversation. I could predict the answer.
“How did you know?”
“I am very sneaky.” I pulled into the movie theater parking lot, stopped my truck in a space nose-to-nose with the Beamer, and cut the engine.
e summer twilight was fading fast. e sky was pale pink behind the theater. Streetlights flickered overhead but couldn’t quite commit to glowing at full power. e parking lot was packed full of cars and pickup trucks—it was Alabama, after all—but a lot of them were still occupied. High school kids pulled up next to each other and talked through their rolled-down windows. ey held miniature tailgating parties in their trailer beds. A roving band of football players stopped at truck after truck, spreading rumors and stirring up trouble. At least, that’s what I figured. I couldn’t hear them, but I’d spent a lot of time in this parking lot.
“I can tell you’re sneaky,” McGillicuddy said sarcastically. “at’s why you parked right in front of her. I hope you wanted her to know you’re following her. And I’m warning you, I don’t think she’s going to like it.”
“I don’t care whether she likes it or not,” I lied. In reality I was trying to figure out where she’d gone. It was common for guys from my high school to say they were going to the movies with a girl. is did not necessarily mean they were going into a movie. ere was a lot to do at or around the movie without paying to sit indoors for an hour and a half in the dark while enormous heads talked at you and the explosions were few and far between. Often there was more violence outside the movie than inside. Possibly more sex. Almost certainly more shots fired.
Naturally I assumed that when Lori said she and Parker were going to the movies, she meant they were driving into the vicinity of the movie theater, parking in the lot, and showing off her new driver’s license and her dad’s Beamer to whoever drove by. That was bad enough. But she was inside the theater? In the dark? With Parker? I looked through the binoculars. The movie theater lobby was empty.
“Let me ask you something,” McGillicuddy said. “Your short-term goal here is to monitor Lori’s date with Parker. If you ruined her date with Parker, that would be okay with you too.”
“Duh.”
“And then what?”
I put the binoculars down on the window frame and turned to look at him. “What do you mean, ‘And then what?’”
“Lori’s going out with Parker because she’s trying to convince Dad to let the two of you date again. If you mess up her plan, you won’t get to date her and she’ll be mad at you.”
“What’s your point?”
“I’m trying to figure out your long-term goal. What do you expect to happen after you scare the bejeezus out of Parker and piss off Lori?”
“Long-term goal?” I mused. “I don’t have any of those.”
“Maybe you sh—”
“Vaderrrrr!” ree guys from my football team finished hanging through somebody else’s truck window and jogged over to mine. ey poked their heads into my personal space and yelled, “McGillicuddeeeee!” They reeked of beer.
“Hello.” McGillicuddy saluted them.
ey retreated through the window, thank God. “What’cha doing with the binoculars?” the left tackle asked, grabbing them. “Wouldn’t happen to have something to do with anybody’s hot mess of a blonde girlfriend going out with Parker Buchanan, would it?”
“It might,” I admitted, grabbing the binoculars back. “I need these. We’re staking her out.”
“Stalking her out.” The running back nodded.
If there was a chance in hell I would start as quarterback in the fall, I needed to get along with the running back. I said carefully, “Staking her out.”
“You’re parked as close as you can get to her daddy’s Beamer,” the punter piped up. “You’re waiting outside the movie for her. You have binoculars. Sure seems like stalking.” The punter was a know-it-all.
“I’m not stalking her,” I insisted. “I’m making sure she’s safe. Besides, how could you stalk Lori McGillicuddy? She’d see you and come out to your truck and say, ‘Hi, I’m Lori. Are you my stalker? It’s so neat to meet you! While you’re stuck here watching my every move, can I bring you anything? Sweet tea?’” The running back laughed. “I had Spanish with her last year. You sound just like her.”
“Yeah.” I sighed.
“Too bad you weren’t out here with your binoculars ten minutes ago,” the running back said. “They were standing in the lobby, and Parker had his hand up her skirt.”
e punter and the tackle backed away from the truck, doubled over with laughter. Between gasps, the tackle called to the running back, “You know that big mofo in the truck is her brother.”
“I know,” the running back said. “I’m just saying.”
I turned to McGillicuddy. He had gone very still in the passenger seat. He gave me a dark look, asking me with his eyes whether to believe this.
I didn’t know whether to believe it either.
My so-called friends were already walking away. “Reggie,” I called to the running back. “Y’all come here.” Tears streaming down their faces, slapping each other on the shoulder, they sauntered over. I’m glad somebody thought it was funny, because I sure as hell didn’t.
I grinned. “He did not,” I said, trying to sound more skeptical than I was. When Lori was trying to get Sean, she’d made out with me. Now that she was trying to get back together with me, maybe she’d asked Parker to put his hand on her ass. Why not? “Reggie, come clean with me. Did he really?” The running back held up his hand. “I swear on the Bible.”
“You don’t have a Bible.” The movie theater parking lot was definitely not the place to be carrying one around, considering what went on out here.
“Here you go, here you go.” The tackle pulled a receipt out of his pocket and handed it to the running back.
e running back crumpled the receipt in his fist and held up his other hand. “I swear on this receipt for bubble gum and razor blades that I saw Parker Buchanan put his hand up your girlfriend’s skirt, and I wish I’d had your binoculars.”