Pete lingered behind as he watched Arnesto catch up with her.
“Um, Jacqueline?” Arnesto asked.
“Hi!” she said with her smile which lit up the room.
“Uh, yeah, I saw you driving the other day—”
“I didn’t hit you, did I?” she joked.
“This is going to sound weird, but it looked like you weren’t wearing your seatbelt.”
“Aw, you’re worried about me. Sometimes I forget.”
“Jacqueline, you have to remember to wear it.” Her smile left. The conversation had turned awkward. “A cousin of mine was just killed in a car accident. He would’ve lived if he had been wearing his seatbelt.” She didn’t say anything, so he continued. “I’m sorry, this is weird. I just wouldn’t want anything to happen to that pretty face of yours.”
“I’ll try to remember. Goodnight, boys,” she said to both of them, somewhat patronizingly before turning to leave.
“And if a rodent jumps in front of your car, it’s better to hit it and maintain control than to swerve into oncoming traffic!”
“Okay!” she yelled back.
“That was quite specific,” Pete said. “Come on, my family’s waiting.”
“I hope she listens,” sighed Arnesto. “We’ll find out soon enough.”
“You did the right thing.”
“God, I can’t wait until we have self-driving cars! But that’s like decades away still. Even if I saved Jacqueline, so many more are going to die in auto accidents before then.”
“Seriously? Self-driving cars?”
“Yeah, they virtually eliminate drinking and driving, texting and driving, road rage, you name it.”
“How do they work?” Pete asked.
“Lots of lasers and path-finding and… stuff, I’m not sure.”
“That’s cool. What’s texting?”
“It’s how people communicate in the near future without having to actually talk to one another. It’s awesome. I’ll explain in the car.”
Appeal to Pity
Atlantic City, New Jersey
Sunday, November 6, 1988
Afternoon
November arrived, and that meant it was time to start gambling their earnings. They would make the drive to Atlantic City on a weekend day, meet Pete’s cousin Larry, and give him the money. He would disappear into the casino, then return ten minutes later with their betting slips. The next week they would return with the winning slips and leave with new slips and some money. And then they would leave with more money. And then they… stopped.
The long drive got old in a hurry, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was they were sixteen and still bound financially to their parents. They couldn’t even open up new bank accounts without their mom or dad’s signature. They also didn’t have much to spend the money on — what big purchases could they make that they wouldn’t have to hide them from their families? Once they turned eighteen, they reasoned, they would be free to do as they pleased.
For the most part, high school plodded along. With the extra money, they were able to cut back on their shifts at the hospital, which gave them more time to goof off and talk about girls. One difference was that Arnesto’s grades were climbing. Naturally, this concerned Pete.
“Is everything alright with you?” Pete asked, after scoring a layup on Arnesto.
“Yeah, why do you ask? Check.” They were playing losers-outs, so Arnesto was now on offense. He tossed the ball to Pete to check it. Pete tossed it right back.
“In homeroom, you didn’t ask me what book we were reading for our book report due today.” Pete guarded Arnesto who drove to the left. “And I didn’t see you frantically reading the Cliff’s Notes either,” referring to the popular study guides of which Arnesto had built an impressive collection.
Arnesto smiled. He drove quickly to the right before yelling, “Kareem Abdul-Jabbar skyhook!” The ball clanged off the rim to the left, giving Pete the rebound. “God-damnit I used to make those.”
“In which lifetime?” Pete taunted as he dribbled to the top of the key.
“This one, ass. Anyway, I finally realized — or I guess remembered — that it can actually be fun to put a little effort in. I was thirty when I finally learned this.”
Pete’s three-point attempt hit the back of the rim and went flying back out to him. “Good for you,” Pete encouraged. “Is that why you’re acing Advanced Chem?”
“Well, partly, but in that class I’m mostly doing better from experience. Chemistry becomes a big part of my later research. Hey, do you want to know which elements the periodic table is missing?”
“Not particularly. But I can see how high school being little more than a beginner’s review would make things easier for you. So are you a super genius now?”
“No, of course not. I don’t cure cancer until at least my fifties,” Arnesto joked. “Nine-ten, check.”
Pete rolled his eyes. Arnesto had gone on a five-point tear after being down four-ten. This made Pete particularly adverse to his jokes. However, Pete’s well-timed block and Arnesto’s subsequent swearing returned a smile to Pete’s face. It was short-lived.
They heard the hallway door open and watched as Stephanie Summers walked across the gym floor toward the side entrance. “See you tomorrow, Stephanie,” Arnesto said.
“Bye!” Stephanie said, exiting the gym to the east parking lot.
Pete’s lower jaw dropped as he turned to Arnesto. “You’re talking to Stephanie Summers now?” Neither Pete nor Arnesto had any trouble talking to the girls they worked with at the hospital, but the girls there were mostly from other schools. But this was their high school, where one didn’t start conversing with those who spent more than a decade forming cliques and ignoring guys like Pete and Arnesto.
“Yeah, we both got to Social Studies early, so I braced myself and said hi to her. We only talked a little, but she seems pretty nice. Truth is, most everybody feels at least a little awkward at our age.”
Pete reflected on this before replying. “Well, shit, dude, ask her out.”
“I — I don’t know,” Arnesto said.
“What? What is it?”
“She seems kind of… young. She’s still in high school,” Arnesto said in earnest.
“So are you!” Pete screamed before powering his way to the hoop to win the game 11-9. “Come on, let’s go get some grub.” They grabbed their bags and headed back into the hallway then out the northern exit to the teacher’s lot where Arnesto had parked his car (“because I can”).
“‘She’s still in high school.’ For fuck’s sake!” Pete repeated, shaking his head as they strode into the lot.
“Hey, can we catch a ride?” asked a couple girls, standing on the sidewalk. The boys didn’t recognize them. They might have been sophomores. It was a big school.
“Sorry, I have a two-seater,” Arnesto lied.
“We’ll sit on your laps,” the same girl offered.
“Sorry, I can’t.”
The boys walked in silence. Pete waited until they were both inside Arnesto’s car before asking, “Why didn’t you want to?”
Arnesto put the key in the ignition but didn’t turn it. He thought about it. He had no reason to turn them down aside from a weak gut feeling about what, picking up hitchhikers? From his own school? He realized that, for once, he had made the exact same decision the last time, in his previous life. This meant he had no other experience on which to inform him in this life, other than knowing that if he did nothing, nothing would happen.
“Ah, what the hell. We’ll try it your way this time around,” he finally said, starting the car. They drove around and pulled up to the sidewalk next to the girls. After a brief conversation, they picked up Amy and Sheryl, who were so grateful for the lift, they didn’t mention the fact that Arnesto’s car had magically grown a backseat. Aside from Amy’s directions, the short ride to her house was mostly filled with awkward silence.