“Let’s go next year. We’d be alums—they’d give us a discount.”
“Good plan. I’ll meet you on the gym steps at seven o’clock.”
He could feel her fingers climb his shoulder as she pulled herself closer to him. After a minute, he said, “Did Wade behave himself?”
“You know he didn’t,” she said. “I’m glad I’m your date.” When the music stopped they stood in the loose embrace for a minute until he heard Wade call.
“That’s fine, Miss Barnes,” Larry said. “But please, watch out for me. I’m untamed actually. Efforts to tame me have failed—efforts by experts—and your efforts in that regard will fail.”
“Excellent,” she said.
At the door Red Harwood stopped Larry and Stephanie, as they walked by, and put both of his hands on Larry’s shoulders, facing him. “Ralston, whoa. Is Elvis leaving the building? You are the man.” Red Harwood was the stalwart tackle on the football team, and he wasn’t drunk yet, but he would be in half an hour. Now he took Stephanie’s arm and started to say something but then stopped and threw a long glance over her breasts and down the front of her dress. “Stephanie,” he said to her chest, a comic, “I need to have a word with you. I want you to be careful when you squeeze this man, because I know as a stone cold fact that he cracked a rib today under the foot of the barbarian nose guard from the republic of Jackson Hole.” He looked up into her face. “I happened to be on the ground nearby, where I had been rudely thrust by that same giant, and I heard it snap.” Red put his arm carefully around Larry and snuggled against him. Wade and Wendy stood arm in arm, closing this little circle. “So squeeze him like this.” Young Harwood snuggled against Larry’s neck. Larry looked at Wendy during this charade, and she looked back at him, their eyes a connection. “Not too hard, see? I missed that tackle today, I did. I missed it. I tried and I failed, and if in your postprom enthusiasm, you jump on him and break it further, well, it will still be all my fault.”
“I’ll be careful,” Stephanie said. “Your wisdom is a great help, Red, as always.”
“Cushion it all with some soft part of yourself, if possible,” Red Harwood said, again checking her bosom and raising his eyebrows.
“Thanks, Red,” Larry said, “We’re headed out now. Be careful.”
Red stood up straight and took Larry’s hand and shook it. “I’m sorry you got hurt, man.”
“Forget it. We beat them. It was a good game.”
“A great game,” Red added. “I’ll see you all later.”
In the parking lot of the old high school, Larry got Wendy’s door and closed it after her, and then he helped Stephanie up into the backseat of Wade’s dual cab truck, and when he stepped in beside her, she grinned and waiting a second before kissing him.
“I want it to just be a habit,” she said against his face. “Tonight it can be our habit.”
“You’ve got a smile,” he told her.
The windows of the Tropical were steamed up and marbled with murky green light from the neon palm tree above the door; it looked as if the young people were going to enter an aquarium. The bells on the door rang in the little foyer, and behind the screen in the larger room Larry could see tables of kids from the prom sitting around in the little thatched huts, drinking sweet drinks out of ceramic skulls and playing around during the rainstorms. On the way to their table, thunder sounded in echoing layers. Stephanie laughed and took his arm tighter and said, “I love the rain.”
“This goofy place,” Wade said. “When was the last time you were in here?”