I took it and waited.
She squinted at the press of kids hustling across the parking lot, all trying to be the first to get off campus.
“Sorry about today.” She glanced in my eyes and glanced away again.
I put my bag down and shook out a cigarette.
“Can I have one of those?” Cyndra asked, then held it to the flame of my lighter.
We smoked in silence for a moment.
“I can’t read you,” she said when our cigarettes were halfway done. “I didn’t mean to piss you off.”
Her lips closed on the filter.
“You’re not like the other guys,” she said, exhaling. It sounded like a line. She shifted her weight.
“Thanks,” I said, smiling in spite of myself, smiling at the way she looked so nervous and sexy all at once.
A relaxed smile crept across her face like a sunrise. The open expression of a kid who’s gotten away with something.
I pitched my stub into the grass. “Besides, I think I’ve got it figured out.”
Cyndra took a final drag and raised her eyebrows.
“He told you to. Another bet, right?” I asked. “A dare. You’re all betting who jumps me first.”
Another moneymaking proposition. Another way for me to earn my keep.
Users and the used.
She jammed her hands into her jeans and shifted her weight again. “That’s what you think of me?”
I shrugged. “It’s what I think of him. Doesn’t matter to me, but it explains that crap today and Monique and the ass parade yesterday. I’ve been in school with all of you since middle school, and suddenly I’m the stud.”
Cyndra shook her head. “Or there’s another possibility.”
I snorted.
“Maybe we like you.”
We.
Cyndra took a deep breath and watched a plane overhead. “Anyway, I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”
“Is it true?”
“Yeah, I’m sorry.”
“No, is it true about betting who jumps me first?”
She glared into my eyes. “Yeah, it’s true.”
“Then it may as well be you, princess.” I stepped closer. “If your boyfriend really doesn’t mind.”
Cyndra watched me like an exterminator watches a cockroach.
I stroked her arm. “I’m sure we can work out a price. A cut for me.”
This time, it was Cyndra who slapped my hand away. “You’re disgusting.”
“I’m a pragmatist. And I’m for sale, right? Just like anything. That’s what was going on at break.” The sneer crept into my voice.
“It wasn’t like that, I just—”
I waited.
“I just don’t know how else to be.” She rubbed her arm like I’d burned her. “I don’t know how to act around people.”
The T-shirt stretched as I shrugged. “Whatever. I’m sure you planned to give your winnings to charity.”
She actually laughed—a shout, boisterous and unaffected. “Yeah. Something worthwhile. The Schnauzer Rescue Fund.”
I couldn’t help it. I smiled.
“The real deal,” Cyndra said, glancing at my mouth. “Now I know I’m forgiven.”
I picked up my pack.
“I’ll pick you up tomorrow?” she asked. “Five o’clock?”
“The party doesn’t start that early, does it?”
“Nah, but we have to go back to the mall, remember? I’ve got to finish shopping for your accoutrements.” She pronounced the last word with a little French accent, not trying to be seductive, just saying it the right way. Which made it sexy as hell.
“And before you ask, yes, I’ll pay you for the mall trip, and Michael will pay you for the party.”
I felt the corners of my mouth flatten. “Deal.”
“Then meet me here at five.” Cyndra turned and walked toward the senior parking lot. “Bring your sister,” she called. “We’ll show her the fish.”
Like hell.
I wanted to watch her walk away, wanted to watch the way her hair and her hips slung from side to side. I even wanted to watch her give Michael his kiss and his hug and get into his car.
I turned and finished crossing the field.
At the building supply store, Jonesy set me to lugging bags of cement mix onto a flatbed truck. After that I got a load of cinder blocks and Sheetrock. After an hour or two, my arms were like noodles, and my hair was wet with sweat. Jonesy paid me in cash and gave me two coupons for the fast-food chain nearest home.
“What the hell, it’s Friday,” he said. “Live large.”
What can you say when an overweight, middle-aged man with a smoker’s cough tells you to live large?
On the way home, I traded in the coupons and some money for two chicken combos and then weaved through Lincoln Green’s double-crap rainbows to our unit in the middle.
Janie was already in our room. She made a mock crowd-goes-wild cheer when she saw the bag from the fast-food joint.
“And my contribution,” she said, presenting a DVD with a little flourish. It was some recent zombie movie, bootlegged. I couldn’t give a damn about zombie movies.
“Wow, is that a new release?” I asked.
Janie smiled and wobbled her head a little, like the goose that laid the golden egg. “Boy, that crap’s still in the damn theater.” She drew her head back a little on her shoulders, showing off the statement.
It was hard not to smile at her. “Don’t cuss.”
She swatted my arm.
We got the laptop out of the hidey-hole and set it up on my bed. Janie says a friend gave the laptop to her when the friend got a new one. I act like I believe this story. Sometimes you’ve got to take what you can get.
We sat on the floor and ate. Before long the zombie apocalypse had struck, and the citizens were fighting for survival. Janie cuddled closer, although I don’t know if she was aware that she was doing it.
“Eww,” she whispered. “Gross!” She lifted a lock of hair to her mouth and began chewing.
I tried to feel scared of the zombies and even remotely interested in the fate of the humans. All I could think was, How cool would that be? How cool would it be to be able to take over a warehouse store and live there? How cool would it be to shoot or decapitate the thing that was trying to eat you whole?