"He's an excellent driver."
"He wasn't always," Will said. "I taught him to drive. The police academy may have helped some." He pronounced police academy strangely, the same way John did. This was an old, old joke between them.
"We're headed to the Redneck Riviera tomorrow," Rashad said to John. "You want to come?" That must have been why they were hanging out around this town. They'd stopped here to visit their parents on their way to the Florida Panhandle for spring break.
"I already asked him," Will said. "He has to work."
"Just because you're not in school doesn't mean you don't deserve a spring break," Rashad told John. "Even the fuzz needs love."
"Looks like he's already got some," Skip said.
Everybody looked at Skip blankly.
Did he mean me?
"Anyway," John said, "I don't think I'd be welcome, if Eric's going."
"He's not going," Skip said. "His parents grounded him because of the bridge incident. Can you imagine? Grounded."
Indeed I couldn't imagine. John and Eric were the same age. John was a policeman, and Eric was grounded.
"He's not too grounded," Rashad said. "I saw his Beamer five minutes ago."
"Not grounded from driving his Beamer," Will said. “Just grounded from driving two hundred and fifty miles to the beach. Come on. You don't expect grounded to mean the same thing for him as it does for everyone else, do you?"
Skip took a hit off an imaginary roach. "I am better than you," he said in a stoned voice. "I am a high. School. Graduate!"
Rashad guffawed, but John and Will didn't laugh. In fact, Will seemed to be giving Rashad and Skip a warning look they didn't see.
John pointed at me. "Coffee?" I nodded, and he turned and walked toward McDonald's. I stopped myself from calling after him how I took it: cream and three sugars. After one night with me, John knew how I took my coffee. We drank a lot of coffee.
Will watched John until the door to McDonald's closed behind him. Then he yelled, "Skip, you dummy. What did you say that for?"
"What?" Skip asked innocently.
"Making fun of John for being a high. School. Graduate?"
"I was making fun of Eric, not John."
"Besides," Rashad said, "John's more than a high. School. Graduate. He's a graduate of the police academy."
He pronounced it strangely, too. They were all in on the joke. They must have really ribbed John about it last summer when they finished high school and everyone but John left town.
Will shook his head and turned to me. "So, you're dating Eric? What's that about?" "Not really dating," I said.
"I thought you were dating. I thought John said he caught you on the bridge together." "More like consorting."
Will gasped and put his hand to his mouth in mock horror. Luckily, Rashad and Skip were talking to each other and didn't notice. Otherwise, I might have kneed Will.
"In case you haven't figured this out," he said, "Eric is bad news. You should stay away from him."
I shrugged. "Eric's not that evil. It's a rite of passage to get in trouble when you're a freshman in college, isn't it? Finding yourself or whatever."
"Eric found himself a long time ago," Skip called. "He found himself to be a stoner."
"Maybe you didn't know him that well in school," Will told me, "but we all learned our lesson about Eric in sixth grade, when he huffed gasoline on a Boy Scout camping trip."
"And John told the Scoutmaster," Rashad offered.
"And John told the Scoutmaster!" Will said, grinning. "It's a blood feud by now."
I shrugged again. "Like I said, I'm not serious with Eric, anyway."
"How about..." Will nodded toward McDonald's.
"You mean am I serious with John?" My heart raced at this idea—exciting and terrifying at the same time. I reminded myself that being serious with John wasn't a possibility, just a misunderstanding on Will's part. "John doesn't like me very much."
All three of them made nuh-uh noises.
"When y'all walked over here from the car," Will said, "he had his hand on your—" He put his hand at waist level behind me, without touching me.
"He had his hand on my ass?"
"No," they said.
"Behind your back," Rashad said. "Like you're dating or something." He put his hand behind Skip's back. Skip hit him.
"It was enough for all three of us to notice," Will said.
I wanted to say, But my hair is blue! I decided this went without saying.
"And he smells good," Will said.
Skip took a big whiff of Rashad. "You smell like Teen Spirit."
While Skip and Rashad shoved each other, I looked up at Will and said quietly, "I remind him of the girl who got killed on the bridge."
Will went very still. "Oh. Right. You messed with his bridge. He's been obsessed with the bridge since he was nine. What he lacks in clarity, he makes up for in consistency."
"Here comes the heat," Skip said. "Act natural."
John came back to the circle, handed me one of the cups of coffee, then stepped between Will and me. Will moved over. John looked around at our faces. "'Fess up."
"Nevah," Skip said in the Schwarzenegger voice.
"I ran into Angie in Target," Will told John. "She's staying with her folks in town this week."
"Why doesn't she go to Florida?" John asked.
"She says she hopes she'll see you while she's here."
John gaped. "Why? She broke up with me\"
"Girls are icky and have cooties." Will nodded to me. "Pardon."
" Angie's coming to my party when we get back Saturday night," Rashad said. "You can make it to that at least, John. Whether you want to see her or not."
"I have to work," John said.
"There is much work to be done for da people of California," said Skip Schwarzenegger.
"Would you like to come to my party?" Rashad asked me. "Eric will probably be there. I've never known Eric to miss a party, even when he wasn't invited."
John said, "No," just as I asked, "Where is it?"
"Around the corner from Five Points," Rashad said. "You know where that is?"
I loved Five Points, the artsy section of Birmingham near UAB, filled with cool shops and apartment buildings from the 1920s. In the center of the intersection was a fountain with statues of animals. A big ram held a book and read to a bear, a rabbit stacked on a turtle, and other forest creatures. Some people said the ram was the Devil. He had horns and hooves and told stories to other beasties. And five frogs in the shape of a pentagram spat water at him. But the fountain sat in front of a beautiful old church, with a glass-tiled synagogue down the street. You would think the Devil would be canceled out by the houses o' worship.