She smiled and said, “Keep dreaming.”
“Yes, well…” he said as he shook his head, “perhaps one day.” Turning his attention to the rest of us, he said his goodbyes. “Grant, Topher, Brandon, and of course, Stephen, it was nice to see you all again. Enjoy the evening, and perhaps I will see you at a championship?”
“Um… yeah,” Grant stuttered. “We’ll see you soon, I’m sure.”
“Holy crap,” I said again—it was all I could think of to say.
“Yeah, no kidding,” Grant added.
I looked at Runaway, who remained for the most part stoic.
“Well, aren’t you going to say something?” I asked.
“What is there to say?” she replied. “We don’t know if it’s true, so I’ll just keep it at arm’s distance until we hear otherwise.”
“I agree.” Stephen joined her. “Why become perplexed, anxious, or anticipatory until we know the truth? It seems to me that an inquiry should first be made into the situation, and then we will have an answer, one way or another.”
“You could have stopped at ‘I agree,’ ” I said.
He just looked at me.
It was Brandon who broke the mood of the moment.
“Hey, I’m going to the snack bar. I’ll be back in a while.”
Grant looked at him and said, “Dude, didn’t you eat at home?”
Brandon looked at the ground then quickly stole a sideways glance up toward the snack building, then back at Grant.
“Um…” he looked around. “No—I didn’t really have time, and anyway, I need to go.” He clearly wanted to leave, and rather rapidly.
With that, he walked away, stopping once to turn and look over his shoulder.
“What was that all about?” Runaway asked as she looked at Grant.
“Beats me,” he remarked. “Weird, though. Maybe when you’ve got to eat, you’ve got to eat.”
“What—is that expert advice?” I asked with my eyebrows raised.
“You’re funny, Toph, really—have I ever told you that? Funny,” Grant retorted.
“Gentlemen, I hate to interrupt your mindless bantering,” Stephen broke in, “but don’t you think it would behoove us to show Brian the rest of the clubs and introduce him around?”
“Behoove?” Runaway looked at him with a questioning look. “What the hell is ‘behoove’? Is that like ‘natter’?”
Stephen chuckled to himself and said, “Expected, fitting, be incumbent upon, be needful, one’s obligation, required.” He looked at her questioning face and rephrased it clearly. “It would be right. Does that accurately answer your question?”
“Remind me to put a thesaurus in my car, for when I’m around you,” she said.
We started at one end of the drive-in and worked our way toward the other side. Brian met everyone—The Kings, the rest of The Imperials, Roadmasters, Cruisers, and even The Rebels. That meeting was fairly easy, as Bret wasn’t there—his car was, but he wasn’t anywhere to be seen. That was actually a lucky break, as none of us wanted to run into him, anyway.
We had been walking around for about an hour when Brandon finally found his way back to us. We were standing with the Roadmasters, talking about cars, girls, and homecoming, which were all rapidly approaching. I caught Runaway’s sly glance at Brandon as he walked up to the group. He didn’t think anyone was looking, but she noticed his arrival just as much as she had noticed his departure.
“Runaway, are you going to homecoming?” someone from the Roadmasters had asked her—a redheaded kid standing next to a Nova.
She hadn’t heard him directly and stammered out a quick reply. “No.”
“Really,” he paused. “Why not? Hasn’t anyone asked you yet?” the redhead asked again.
She finally put her full attention in his direction. “They don’t allow cars for dates, and that is about the only thing I’d go with.”
“Ha!” I heard Stephen say.
She turned and looked at him like she had seen a ghost.
“You know, I’ve asked you many times—you just keep opposing my proposition.”
She kept staring at him with her eyes widening, then she slowly said, “Well, maybe I would go with you, if I could understand you.”
Stephen winked at her and said, “See? There you are—bring your little book with you, and everything will be just fine.”
We were all dumfounded. We had no idea what happening.
“So I guess you do have a date,” the redhead said, a bit dejected.
“Of course she does,” Stephen answered. “Did you honestly believe she would have the nerve to give me a negative response?”
“Oh,” the redhead tripped over his own words. “I didn’t realize.”
“Of course you didn’t—how could you?” he answered, with a pompous air. “Well, now that that’s settled, shall we be moving on?” Stephen said, as he began to step away from the crowd.
Runaway acted as if her feet were frozen to the asphalt and she couldn’t move. I was standing behind her, and I gave her a little shove with my elbow to get her to snap out of the trance she was in.
I will say this, when it came to cars, the girl was a rock and a force to be reckoned with—she never faltered, had a quick wit, and her nerves were made of steel. But when it came to guys, romance, or any notion of dating, she crumbled like an old, stale cookie.
After we were out of earshot of The Roadmasters, she finally looked at Stephen and said, “Okay, what in hell was that all about?” Her face wore the expression of total dismay.
“Oh, my, it is a good thing you have gentlemen for friends, or you would die a slow and painful death in the girl world,” he said, making quotation marks with his fingers.
She shook her head to show that she still didn’t understand.
“My dear, have you ever looked in a mirror? You are stunning—your brilliant green eyes, long, lovely blonde hair, a piercing smile, and an angelic laugh. You probably don’t know this, because you spend half your life staring at the underside of a car, but you really are quite striking.”
At this point, Grant, who had a smile on his face, leaned over and closed her jaw shut as it hung open. She gave him a quick glance and shook it off.
“What?” was all she could say.
Stephen rolled his eyes.
I wanted to agree. Ever since the night I had raced Derrick, I had tried to tuck my emotions way down deep—it was difficult, as she was my best friend, and beautiful to boot. But I wasn’t going to add anything to the conversation. If anything, I’d pretend I didn’t even hear it.
“You’d better give it to her in plain English,” Grant said. “She just doesn’t speak ‘Stephen.’ ” He said it like he was saying, “She just doesn’t speak French.”
With contempt for of lack of understanding that only Stephen could produce, he looked at her, scratched his head, and said, “You poor, unobserving girl, Mr. Redhead of the Chevy Nova was about to mortify himself and ask you to his homecoming dance. I, seeing the travesty of this predicament, saved you from having to turn him down. I mean… come on,” he looked at her seriously. “Who could possibly go to homecoming in a Nova?”
Grant and I burst out laughing. Runaway was taken aback and continued to stare at Stephen. When the reality of what had just happened settled in, she blushed, hit him in the arm, and said, “Let’s go.”
“That’s the thanks I get for saving you from a presumptuous young man?” he smirked and looked at Brian.
“Yes,” she hissed to Stephen.
Runaway saw an opportunity to change the subject and immediately turned the attention to Brandon. She started by asking him where he had been for over an hour.
Grant joined in. “Yeah, I noticed you were gone for a long time—what—are the lines long at the snack bar?”
Brandon looked around at all of us and said, “No, I just got to talking with some friends and I lost track of time, is all.”
“Friends?” Runaway looked him.
“You mean you have friends outside of this small network?” Stephen said, half sarcastically and half truthfully.
Brandon looked at Stephen and replied with contempt, “Yes, I have friends,” he spat.
“Whoa,” Brian whispered under his breath. “What’s with all the tension?” he leaned over and asked me.
I leaned back and said, “There has never really been much love lost between Stephen and Brandon.”
“Well, that’s completely obvious,” Brian whispered back. “When did it start?”
“The day they met,” I answered flatly.
He seemed to understand and nodded his head.
“So you were just hanging out with friends, huh?” Runaway said, as she looked for something in the distance. Then she shot him a look. “Got it.”
Brandon didn’t respond. He glanced once over his shoulder and then looked back at all of us.
The lights had all dimmed in the theater, and the previews were beginning to show. We walked back over to our cars and piled into Runaway’s car. It was the biggest, so it could hold all of us. Brandon, however, decided to watch the movie in his own car. I noticed that almost everyone was starting to walk to their cars to watch the movie. Normally this didn’t happen—everyone just talked through it. But because the movie was
Top Gun
, I think we all wanted to see it.
“There’s no room with Brian, so I’ll watch it in my car,” Brandon said.
Again, we wondered what his problem was, but we figured that, since he was acting funny anyway, it was just as well that he was by himself and moping, if that was he was doing.
Top Gun
was amazing—if there was a movie that made me want to race more, that was it. Sitting in a parking lot was exactly the perfect setting to watch it. We all felt this great adrenalin rush and basically had nowhere to let it out. It was a good thing that
Ferris Bueller’s Day
Off
was a bit more mellow, because it quieted down the adrenalin. It was classic and had the greatest music. Neither I nor anyone else could tell which movie we liked more, as they were both awesome.
When the movies ended, we got out of Runaway’s car and casually walked to our own rides. Just as we were getting ready to leave, Bret and his Rebels drove by us and yelled, “See you all soon!”
“Are we racing him anytime soon?” I asked Grant, who was standing directly next to me.
“Dude, I don’t know,” he yawned and stretched. “I just do what they tell me… ya know?”