Nick Bradley was the smarter of the two. He got his mouth open first, saying, “You like the ride, huh, honey? You maybe wanna go for a ride?”
“Course she wants to go for a ride.” Marty Hyde’s brain had finally kicked into gear. “But it’s my ride, and I got the keys and the master switch.” Marty jingled his car keys as punctuation, shoving Nick with one shoulder, Nick stumbling in spite of himself. “We don’t have to make it a party,” Marty added. “Unless you want it that way, angel.”
Shari looked both of them dead in the eye. She refused to blink, and they… well, I’m sure the idiots wanted to blink, but they just couldn’t.
Nick caught Shari’s thought-wave first. He laughed, shaking his head. “Naw,” he said. “Naw! It can’t be!”
Marty caught up. “Sharon? Sharon Heep? Is that really you?”
Shari’s eyes were daggers now. The corners of her mouth were playing with a smile, but just playing. And then she batted her eyelashes—a wicked twitch. Stirred the straw in the Coke and took a dainty sip….
“It is her!” Nick slapped Marty on the back. “It is the Heepster! Jesus, Marty, it looks like old Sharon’s been to charm school this summer!”
“Slut school, more like it,” Marty replied, ever the quick wit. “Hey, c’mon Sharon. Let’s go for a ride, just the three of us. Let’s see what you’ve learned this summer.”
I said, “You guys got room for one more?”
Nick and Marty whirled. They hadn’t heard me coming.
Once again, Nick caught on first. “Johnny!” He gasped, a look of horror crossing his face. “No…it can’t be—”
Marty cut in with the clincher: “Christ, Johnny…you’re dead!”
I nodded, flicking open the switchblade that Nick had buried in my guts back in June.
They froze—eyeballing the knife, their faces pasty-white—so I decided to help them out. “Let me steer you fellas in the right direction,” I offered. “This is the part where you’re supposed to run for your lives.”
“Don’t confuse them, Johnny,” Shari said. “Don’t be so literal.”
“Sorry, fellas.” I snapped the blade closed. “I mean, you don’t have to run run—you can take the car.”
Nick and Marty just stood there, staring at us as we returned to the Ford.
“Man, can you believe that they’re so stupid?” I said.
Shari took my hand. “Believe it, Daddy-o.”
Behind us, the Chevy’s engine finally rumbled alive.
Four new tires burned rubber.
Nick and Marty were gone.
Pretty soon, they’d be the gonest.
“What was that junk you put in the Coke?” the carhop wanted to know.
Shari laughed. I didn’t do a very good job of keeping a straight face, myself. But I did manage to set the model car on the serving tray.
“Decals,” Shari explained between giggles.
“Yeah,” I said. “We’re a couple of hobbyists. We get together and build model cars. I guess we got a little sloppy tonight.”
“It could have been worse.” Shari’s voice was suddenly real serious. “I mean, we could have gotten glue all over the French fries, or paint in the cheeseburgers, or something.”
The carhop didn’t seem to catch on. She frowned as she set a fresh Coke next to the model car. “Well, just don’t do it again. Those darn what-cha-ma-call-ems are stuck to the glass. I bet it’s going to take a razor blade to get ’em off. I mean, only a gomer would want to drink Coke out of a glass that says Chevy.”
“Sorry,” Shari said, and deep down I’ll bet she really was sorry for putting the carhop to all that trouble.