long pause at Leigh's end. 'I think you have, too,' she said finally.
'Does that mean you don't want to see me anymore?' he asked dully. His stomach hurt, his back hurt, everything hurt.
'No.' Now the faintest reproach crept into her voice. 'I was kind of getting the idea that you didn't want to see me . . . not at school, and nights you're always down there at the garage. Working on your car.'
'That's all done,' he said. And then, with a monstrous effort: 'It's the car I want to - oww, goddammit!' He grabbed at his back, where there had been another huge bolt of pain, and got only a handful of back brace.
'Arnie?' She was alarmed. 'Are you all right?'
'Yeah. I had a twinge in my back.'
'What were you going to say?'
'Tomorrow,' he said. 'We'll drive over to Baskin-Robbins and have an ice cream and maybe do some Christmas shopping and have some supper and I'll have you home by seven. And I won't be weird, I promise.'
She laughed a little, and Arnie felt a great, sweeping relief. It was like balm. 'You dummy.'
'Does that mean okay?'
'Yes, it means okay.' Leigh paused and then said softly, 'I said my parents didn't want me to see so much of you. I didn't say I wanted that.'
'Thanks,' he said, struggling to keep his voice steady. 'Thanks for that.'
'What do you want to talk to me about?'
Christine. I want to talk to you about her - and about my dreams. And about why I look like hell. And why I always want to listen to WDIL now, and about what I did that night after everyone was gone . . . the night I hurt my back. Oh Leigh I want -
Another slash of pain up his back like cat's claws.
'I think we just talked about it,' he said.
'Oh.' A slight, warm pause. 'Good.'
'Leigh?'
'Umm.'
'There'll be more time now. I promise. All the time you want.' And thought: Because now, with Dennis in the hospital, you're all that's left, all that's left between me . . . me and . . .
'That's good,' Leigh said.
'I love you.'
'Goodbye, Arnie.'
Say it back! he wanted to shout suddenly. Say it back, I need you to say it back!
But there was only the click of the phone in his ear.
He sat behind Will's desk for a long time, head lowered, getting hold of himself. She didn't need to say it back every time he said it to her, did she? He didn't need reassurance that badly, did he? Did he?
Arnie got up and went to the door. She was coming out with him tomorrow, that was the important thing. They would do the Christmas shopping they had been planning on the day those shitters trashed Christine; they would walk and talk; they would have a good time. She would say she loved him.
'She'll say it,' he whispered, standing in the doorway, but halfway down the left-hand side of the garage Christine sat like a mute and stupid denial, her grille poking forward as if hunting something.
And the voice whispered out of his lower consciousness, the dark questioning voice: How did you hurt your back? How did you hurt your back? How did you hurt your back, Arnie?
It was a question he shrank from. He was afraid of the answer.
PART II: ARNIE - TEENAGE LOVE-SONGS Chapter 34 LEIGH AND CHRISTINE
My baby drove up in a brand-new Cadillac,
She said, 'Hey, come here, Daddy,
I ain't never comin back!'
Baby, baby, won't you hear my plea?
Come on, sugar, come on back to me!
She said, 'Balls to you, big daddy,
I ain't never comin back!'
- The Clash
It was a grey day, threatening snow, but Arnie was right on both counts - they had a good time and he wasn't weird. Mrs Cabot had been at home when Arnie got there, and her initial reception was cool. But it was a long time - perhaps twenty minutes - before Leigh came downstairs, wearing a caramel-coloured sweater that clung lovingly to her breasts and a new pair of cranberry-coloured slacks that clung lovingly to her hips. This inexplicable lateness in a girl who was almost always perfectly on time might have been on purpose. Arnie asked her later and Leigh denied it with an innocence that was perhaps just a little too wide-eyed, but in any case it served its purpose.
Arnie could be charming when he had to be, and he went to work on Mrs Cabot with a will. Before Leigh finally came bouncing