Aces High Page 0,79

said. "Why would she go out with me? You ought to see her, Joey, she could go out with anybody she wanted." Thomas Tudbury had never had a date in his life. "Maybe she's got shitty taste," Joey said, grinning.

But Barbara's name came up again. Joey was the only one Tom could talk to, and Barbara was all he could talk about that year. "Gimme a break, Tuds," Joey said one December night when they were drinking beer inside the old ruined Packard by the bay. "If you don't ask her out, I will."

Tommy hated that idea. "She's not your type, you dumb wop."

Joey grinned. "I thought you said she was a girl?"

"She's going to college to be a teacher."

"Ah, never mind that shit. How big are her tits?" Tom punched him in the shoulder.

By March, when he still hadn't asked her out, Joey said, "What the hell are you waiting for? She nominated you to be president of your fuckin' candyass company, didn't she? She likes you, dork."

"Just 'cause she knew I'd make a good company president doesn't mean she'd go out with me."

"Ask her, shithead."

"Maybe I will," Tom said uncomfortably. Two weeks later, on a Wednesday night after a meeting where Barbara had been especially friendly, he got as far as trying to look up her number in the phone book. But he never made the call. "There are nine different Caskos listed," he told Joey the next time he saw him. "I wasn't sure which one was her."

"Call 'em all, Tuds. Fuck, they're all related."

"I'd feel like an idiot," Tom said.

"You are an idiot," Joey told him. "So look, if that's so hard, next time you see her, ask for her phone number." Tom swallowed. "Then she'd think I wanted to ask her out. "

Joey laughed. "So? You do want to ask her out!"

"I'm just not ready yet, that's all. I don't know how." Tom was miserable.

"It's easy. You phone, and when she answers you say, `Hey, it's Tom, you want to go out with me?"'

"Then what if she says no?"

Joey shrugged. "Then we'll phone every pizza place in town and have pies delivered to her house all night long. Anchovy. No one can eat anchovy pizza."

By the time May had rolled around, Tom had figured out which Casko family Barbara belonged to. She'd made a casual comment about her neighborhood, and he'd noted it in the obsessive way he noted everything she said. He went home and tore that page from the phone book and circled her phone number with his Bic. He even began to dial it. Five or six times. But he never completed the call.

"Why the fuck not?" Joey demanded.

"It's too late," Tom said glumly. " I mean, we've known each other since September, and I haven't asked her out; if I ask her out now, she'll think I was chickenshit or something."

"You are chickenshit," Joey said.

"What's the use? We're going to different colleges. We'll probably never see each other again after June."

Joey crushed a beer can in his fist, and said two words. "Senior prom."

"What about it?"

"Ask her to your senior prom. You want to go to your senior prom, don't you?"

"I dunno," Tom said. "I mean, I can't dance. What the fuck is this? You never went to no goddamned prom!"

"Proms are shit," Joey said. "When I go out with a girl, I'd rather drive her out on Route Four-forty and see if I can get bare tittie than hold her fuckin' hand in some gym, you know? But you ain't me, Tuds. Don't shit me. You want to go to that stupid prom and we both know it, and if you walked in with the prettiest date in the place, you'd be in fuckin' heaven."

"It's May," Tom said sullenly. "Barbara's the cutest girl in Bayonne, no way she doesn't have a prom date already."

"Tuds, you go to different schools. She's probably got a date to her prom, yeah, but what are the fuckin' odds that she's got one to your prom? Girls love that prom horseshit, dressing up and wearing corsages and dancing. Go for it, Tuds. You got nothing to lose." He grinned. "Unless you count your cherry."

In the week that followed, Tom thought about nothing but that conversation. Time was running out. Junior Achievement was wrapping up, and once it was over he'd never see Barbara again, unless he did something. Joey was right; he had to try. On Tuesday night, his stomach was tied in a knot