Period 8 - By Chris Crutcher Page 0,33
She motions him to roll down the window. “Can we talk?”
“Jeez! There are forty thousand people in this town, how come I keep running into you?”
She smiles. “No coincidence. I’m stalking you. You drive a lime-green Beetle, Paulie, basically a neon girlie car. You’re not that hard to track.”
“I don’t identify myself by my ride,” he says. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Things,” Mary says. “Just things.”
.10
“I still can’t believe he let you go,” Arney says. “You guys were like, the perfect couple.”
“He didn’t let me go,” Hannah says. “I dumped him. He cheated and I dumped him.”
“Well, then I can’t believe he cheated. Who would give you up for, like anybody?”
“I guess he would. Look, it hurts to talk about it, okay?”
“Still got something for him, huh?” he says. “I just . . .”
“Enough.”
“And his choice . . .”
“Arney.”
Arney grabs a handful of popcorn and crams it into his mouth as the lights go down for the main feature.
Hannah stares at the screen. “This is a classic,” she says. “You know who Alfred Hitchcock was?”
“I’m the one who picked the movie,” Arney says through a mouthful of popcorn. “Of course I know who Alfred Hitchcock was. This is like one of his all-timers.”
The opening credits to Psycho roll.
“What about his choice?” Hannah whispers.
“You said you didn’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“What about his choice? You know who it was?”
“Yeah, I know.”
Hannah is quiet.
“Want me to tell you?”
She stares ahead. Arney waits.
“No.”
“Guess there’s no fixing what happened,” Mary Wells says.
“Nothing to fix,” Paulie says back. “It happened. It was what it was.”
“I’m sorry about you losing Hannah.”
Paulie’s eyes narrow. “How did you find out I lost Hannah?”
“Everyone in school knows it.”
“Who told it to you first? You said it to me before you would have heard it at school.”
“Did I? I don’t remember where I heard it, Paulie.”
“You know what? There’s too much mystery here.”
“I know,” she says. “There are things I can’t talk about. Things aren’t always how they appear.”
“Yeah, but they aren’t usually exactly opposite of how they appear, either. I’m a nice guy. Like you said. Not dangerous and all that? But I’m getting tired of this shit and if you wanna talk about things, these are the things I’m willing to talk about before I talk about anything else.”
“Can we drive?”
Paulie palms the back of his neck in frustration. “What the hell. Yeah, we can drive. But your car. Like you said, I’m too easy to track.”
“Who would be tracking you?”
“Nobody I know of,” he says, “but I wouldn’t have expected you, either.”
“I can’t believe he lets you drive this,” Paulie says as they settle into the Lexus. “If my parents owned this car, it would never leave the garage.”
“He doesn’t want me to have one of my own,” Mary says. “Too much independence.”
She pulls into traffic, silent until they’re on the freeway, headed to Diamond Lake. Paulie leans back in the passenger’s seat, watching the town go by through the side window, letting his mind bounce with the speed of the passing buildings.
“What is your dad going to do when you take off to school?” he asks after a while.
“I don’t know,” Mary says. “I’m worried about my sister, Becca. Daddy’s not happy unless he’s controlling something and she’ll be all that’s left. He’ll have trouble with her, though. She’s not like me.”
Mary takes the reservoir off-ramp and they speed a short distance through farm- and ranchland. “So it’s clear you’re still not telling me anything useful,” Paulie says. “What do you want to talk about?”
Mary hesitates. “Is there any reason we couldn’t hang out?”
Paulie’s head jerks around. “You mean like right now? Tonight?”
“All the time.”
Paulie slumps in the seat. “Reasons we couldn’t hang out. Lemme see if I can think of some. How about so Hannah Murphy doesn’t kick your ass.”
Mary’s voice goes sultry. “I love it when you talk dirty.”
Paulie grimaces. “Jesus, are you crazy?”
“I thought she was spending time with Arney.”
“I thought you were spending time with Arney.”
Mary looks at him quizzically; her face flushes.
“Coffee? A movie?”
Mary shakes her head. “Coffee once.”
“That’s it?”
“What did you hear?”
Paulie stares at her. “Nothing.” He looks away. “Something way different than that. Look, Mary, our history, yours and mine? Not good. And I am not interested in getting into anything. Plus, like I said, if Hannah knew it was you—you wanna talk about someone who’s not afraid of your dad—she’d be parked in front of your house.”
“Believe me, I’ve been hurt a lot worse