It took another five minutes before he came out of the shop. I thought for a moment he wasn’t going to notice me, and even had my hand on the horn ready to give it a little toot. But then he looked over and saw me. I mean, really, who wouldn’t notice a black Escalade lurking there.
Denny walked over, a smile creeping across his face. In a low voice with a rumbling undertone—definitely not the voice he’d used inside the shop—he said, “Hey. How’s it going?”
“It’s going,” I said. God, that was lame. But what was I supposed to say? ‘I’m lurking here waiting for you so I can solve a murder and get my grandmother to give me two thousand dollars?’
He didn’t say anything, just kind of watched me, like he knew what I wanted to say but wasn’t going to budge until I said it. I dove in.
“Do you know where I could get some Tina?”
“You PNP?”
“I don’t know what that means.”
Of course, I knew what it meant. Party and Play. I’m from L.A. for God’s sake. But I wanted him to explain it to me anyway. Not that it worked.
“If you know Tina then you know PNP.”
He kind of had me there. “Sorry. I’m a little shy.”
“You got a place?”
“I live with my grandmother,” I admitted.
“Bummer. I live with my father. The guy who cut your hair.”
“Yeah, I figured. You drive separate cars?” I asked, nodding toward the remaining car, a red, rusting Thunderbird from the late eighties.
“I start later in the day.”
“Ah, okay.”
“I guess if you can’t figure out any place to go...”
I could have let it go right there, and I kind of wanted to but that felt like a mistake. Plus, he was kind of cute. He wasn’t tweaking to the point of homeliness. Not like some I’d seen in L.A. I mean, I wasn’t going to do any Tina. That was gross. But there were other things I was willing to do with him.
“We have a barn,” I said. “About eleven-thirty?”
“Sure. See you then.”
He walked away and got into his car. He hadn’t asked for my grandmother’s address.
I was back home aroundseven-thirty, just in time for a rerun ofEverybody Loves Raymond. My grandmother did not appreciate my changing the channel, but what was she going to do? She had trouble getting out of the chair on her own.
At eight we watched theGilmore Girls. Mostly I liked it because Nana Cole hated it.
“That girl never listens to her mother,” she’d say.
“Rory? She listens to her mother all the time.”
“Notthatgirl. The Lorelei girl. She shouldn’t talk to her mother the way she does. And besides, this is just one long advertisement for teenage pregnancy.”
“So you think Lorelei should have gotten an abortion?”
“I think no such thing. I think she should have learned to say no. She certainly says it enough to her mother.”
When theGilmore Girlswas over, I got us each a bowl of ice cream and switched over toAmerica’s Top Model. It was an amazing episode. The judges criticized one of the models for being too thin even though you just knew that wouldneverhappen in real life. Not to mention she was not the model they sent home. So in the end, being too thin worked out just fine.
I was nervous. Very nervous. I had a guy coming over. Which was certainly different. I wasn’t worried that Nana Cole would figure it out. Her bedroom was on the other side of the house from the barn, and once I got her into bed she was kind of stuck there.Ifshe heard anything I could say I had to walk Reilly. And that reminded me that I actually did have to walk Reilly. His last of the day.
