“Heck no. We jumped off the back of the shack.”
“Then how’d you get your shoes?”
“My shoes?” He looked down at his sneakered feet. “Oh!” He gave out a laugh and shook his head as if relieved. “You thought I threw my shoes at the dog!”
“I saw you throw them.”
“Not my shoes. Those were Slim’s.”
“Slim’s shoes?”
“Sure.”
“Jeez, man. Why didn’t you throw your own?”
“It was her idea.”
“Real nice.”
“Don’t blame me, she tossed me hers and told me to throw ’em, so I did.”
“So then she had to go through the woods and all the way home barefoot?”
“No big deal. She was fine. Anyway, I offered her mine but she wouldn’t take ’em.”
“Not that they’d fit her anyway,” I said, a little annoyed.
I had sure misjudged Rusty, giving him credit for what turned out to be mostly Slim’s doing.
At least Rusty had done the throwing.
“Well,” said Lee, “glad you both made it out of there all right. We had our doubts.”
“We got out fine,” Rusty said, smiling and bobbing his head. “In fact,” he added, “Slim’s coming over here as soon as she’s gotten herself all bandaged and cleaned up.”
“Good deal,” said Lee. Then she turned to me. “I think I’ll head on home, now. When Slim gets here, why don’t the three of you talk things over and decide what to do about tonight?”
Rusty raised his eyebrows.
“Lee got us tickets for the show,” I explained.
“No shit?” he blurted. Then he quickly added, “Excuse me, Mrs. Thompson.”
“No problem, Rusty.”
“Just slipped out.”
“Tickets for all of us,” I explained.
“Oh, man, this is too cool.”
“I’ll hang on to the tickets,” Lee said, “and drive us out there tonight.”
“Oh, wow….”
“But you’ll have to work things out, yourselves, with your parents. Handle them however you want. I won’t tell on you, but I don’t want to have a hand in any deceptions you decide to use.”
“We’ll figure something,” I said.
“If we’re going,” Lee said, “we should probably leave from my place by about ten-thirty. We’ll want to get there early enough to beat the crowd—if there is a crowd. And find ourselves a parking place.”
“That’ll be great,” I said. “Your house by ten-thirty.”
“And you’re welcome to come over earlier. Always better not to wait till the last moment.”
“We’ll come over as early as we can make it,” I told her.
Then she nodded, said, “See you later then,” and headed for her truck.
Rusty and I watched her drive away.
“Your brother,” he said, “is one lucky son of a bitch.”
“You’re telling me.”
“Shit. What I wouldn’t give…” He shook his head and sighed.
“Well, we’re the ones going to the Vampire Show with her.”
“Yeah! Fantastic! She got four tickets?”
“Bought ’em,” I said. “They cost her forty bucks.”
“She forked over forty bucks?”
“Well, not cash. She used a check.”
“Do we have to pay her back?”
“She didn’t say anything about it. I think she’s treating us.”
“Wow!”
“It didn’t even matter that we’re underage. The guy knew it, but he didn’t care. Julian? He’s the owner. He’s the one we talked to when we went looking for you guys. He sort of warned Lee that it’s an adults only show….”
“What’d he say?”
“He said the show can be real gory. And clothes get ripped off.”
“Holy shit!”
“Yeah. But Lee didn’t seem to mind. She said she wanted the tickets anyway, so the guy went ahead and sold them to her. But only on the condition that she goes to the show with us. We can’t, like, go without her.”
“Ah. I bet he’s got the hots for her.”
“You know what else? If we stick around after the show, he’ll introduce us to Valeria.”
Rusty moaned almost as if in pain. “We get to meet her face to face?”
“If Julian keeps his word.”
“Ohhhhh, man. This is gonna be some night, huh?”
“I’ll say,” I said. “If we can go.”
“We’re going. Man, we’re going—I don’t care what.”
“Maybe I can finish mowing the lawn before Slim gets here.”
Chapter Thirteen
Rusty sat on the porch stairs of my house and watched me finish mowing the front lawn. Then he stood around while I did the back yard and both sides. I was sweaty and out of breath by the time I’d finished. He came with me when I put the mower away in the garage.
Just as we were leaving the garage, Mom drove up. She parked in the driveway and climbed out of her car. She was dressed in her tennis whites—a good clue as to where she’d been.
“I was afraid you’d given up on the yard,” she said.
“No. I just took a little break.”
“Hello, Russell.”
“Hi, Mrs. Thompson.”
“How’s everything?” she asked him.
“Just fine, thank you.”
After a quick glance around, she asked us, “Where’s d’ Artagnan?”
She could only mean Slim.
“On her way over,” I said, though I was starting to wonder why she hadn’t shown up yet.
“She had to stop by her house,” Rusty explained.
To deflect a possible interrogation, I asked Mom, “How was the tennis?”
She beamed. “I trounced Lucy.”
“Good going,” Rusty said.
“Shouldn’t you have let her win?” I asked.
I asked that because Lucy Armstrong was the principal of Grandville High—where Mom taught English and where Rusty, Slim and I were students.
“She wins often enough with no help from me. It’s high time I got the upper hand. I beat her in three straight sets and she had to pay for our lunch. Just wasn’t her day, I guess.” Mom looked us over for a moment, then said, “Have you fellows had lunch yet?”
“Not yet,” I said.
“Well, why don’t you come inside the house and I’ll make you some sandwiches?”
She trotted up the porch stairs ahead of us, her tiny white skirt flouncing. I guess she was in pretty good shape for a person her age, but personally I wished her skirt could’ve been a little longer—like maybe long enough to cover her underwear?
Not that Rusty seemed to mind the view.
Inside the house, I said, “If you’d rather do something else, I can go ahead and make our sandwiches. No problem.”
“Sounds good. Any time I can get out of making a meal….” She smiled. “I’ll just go ahead and take my bath.”
Did she have to say that in front of Rusty? He was probably already imagining her in the tub. That’s the kind of guy he was. I know, because that’s also the kind of guy I was. Except not about my own mother. Not about Rusty’s mother, either, you wouldn’t want to imagine her naked. But Slim’s mom was another matter. She looked a lot like Slim, only taller and curvier. Whenever she was around, I had a hard time taking my eyes off her. Slim noticed, too, and seemed to think it was funny.
Rusty watched my mother climb the stairs. If she’d been Slim’s mom in a tiny skirt like that, I would’ve been doing the same thing, so I tried not to let it annoy me.
“We might take a walk into town or something after we eat,” I called up the stairs.