The Pet

Groans again, and only Tar strutted with him to the door, their dates hustling out behind them. Fleet and his girl, Amanda, stopped by the table and asked again about the film.

"Boring," Tracey said. Then she winked at Amanda, "Unless you're into Eastwood."

Amanda clung to Fleet's arm and feigned a swoon, and was rewarded with a slap to her rump for her troubles.

Don laughed and relaxed a bit, and wondered aloud what the coach would think of his three top players staying out so late the night before a game.

"The man," Fleet said, "just doesn't realize that an athlete who is so smooth and graceful like myself needs a bit of relaxation and stimulation before the impending onslaught in the trenches." He grinned.

"How 'bout them words, huh? Mandy makes me do crossword puzzles in bed."

Amanda slapped his back, hard, and a brief scowl crossed his face before he laughed with the others and made his way to the door. As it hissed shut behind him, he stuck his head back in and winked broadly at Don, circling thumb and forefinger and making a fist with his free hand.

Don grinned back, and sobered as soon as Robinson was gone. This was a disaster, and for the first time in ages he wished the guys had stuck around. Even the teasing he'd get would be better than sitting here like a dummy, playing with the salt shaker, rearranging the silverware and paper place mat, finally folding his hands on the table as if doing penance in the third grade.

"Are you all right?" Tracey asked. "You've been awfully quiet since we left the house."

He ducked his head and shook it. "Fine. I'm okay, no problem."

"It was a lousy movie."

"Yeah."

"My father scared you, didn't he?"

He looked up without raising his head and was pleasantly surprised to see the distress in her eyes. He couldn't deny it, however; Luis Quintero had scared the shit out of him, standing there, in uniform, in the middle of the living room and reading him, quietly, the that's-my-baby-and-don't-you-forget-it riot act: do not mess with her, do not corrupt her, do not get her drunk, do not bring her back a second late, do not show yourself in this house again if you as much as breathe on a single hair of her head. Then he had shaken Don's hand solemnly and walked out of the room, leaving him to wonder what the hell had happened to make the man so unpleasant.

Tracey told him it was the Howler. It had taken her an hour to convince him Don wasn't the killer, that his father was the principal, for crying out loud, and that she wasn't going to have to enter a convent just because she went out with a boy.

"Does ... does he do that all the time?" he asked finally.

She sighed, and nodded. "If he's home when I go out, yes. Mother just stands there and holds her hands like she's going to cry any minute. If they had their way, my Aunt Theresa would be my duenna, for heaven's sake."

He didn't know whether to say he was sorry or not, but she saw the sympathy and covered his hand with hers, squeezed it, and drew it back slowly.

"So," she said explosively, "what'll we talk about?"

He didn't know, but they must have talked about something because the waitress and the food came and went, and the next thing he knew he was standing in front of her house, holding her hand and wishing she didn't have to visit her grandmother again the next day.

Then they could keep on walking, from one end of town to the other, laughing at the displays in the shop windows, making words from the three letters on the license plates they could catch, and trading notes on teachers they had in common. He said nothing about the biology grade.

She mentioned the Howler only once, when they passed a corner bar and saw a pair of dingy men sitting with their backs against its wall, brown bags in hand. One was snoring, the other watching them intently, sneering as they walked by. They saw a third derelict at the next corner, but he ignored them, being too busy scrubbing his grizzled face dryly with his hands.

Tracey had guessed that any one of them could be the kid killer, and he thought they were too weak-looking; this guy, this nut, had to be massive to do what he did to his victims.

"My father," she said, "is shorter than you, and he can break the handle of a shovel over his knee when he's mad enough."

That's when she had taken his hand, and that's when the fun and the conversation had stopped.

"Well," she said, looking at the small house separated from its neighbors by paved alleyways leading to postage-stamp backyards.

"Yeah."

She stood in front of him and looked up. Shadows drifted over her face and made it soft, smooth, and he couldn't help but touch a finger to her cheek.

God, her skin was soft.

"Have a good time tomorrow," was the only thing he could say.

She pouted. "Yeah, great. I'd rather go to the game."

She leaned closer, stared at him, then raised herself up and kissed him.

"See you Monday."