After school, Stacy walked to the nearby mailbox and dropped her Hallmark card into the slot. Days, then weeks passed. She heard nothing from The Vet. He didn’t call, didn’t write, didn’t come into Swenson’s.
“Stacy,” said Linda Barrett one late night on the telephone, “it doesn’t look good for the relationship.”
The Lear Jet Is Waiting
Two days had passed and The Rat awoke, bathed in The Attitude. Today was the day. He knew it.
The first three periods of the day flew by. By now he was getting to know Stacy Hamilton’s whole schedule. The last bell rang, and The Rat strode out the door of Spanish class, down the halls to the A.S.B. office.
And there she was. Except she was talking with five other guys. They were all standing around, leaning over the counter, smiling at her. The Rat took it in stride. He was all form. He took a swig from the nearby drinking fountain, very casual. They were still talking to her. She was smiling back.
Then it hit The Rat. What if a lot of guys asked her out? What if muscle-bound jocks hit on her all day long. Worse yet, what if she went out with Mike Brock? Maybe The Rat wasn’t even good-looking enough to try.
He felt the cold fear of rejection spread through him. It sank The Attitude like a harpooned beach toy. The Rat turned and walked to his next class.
Later that week The Rat and Damone went to the first school dance of the year.
“Have you seen Stacy here yet?”
“I don’t think she’s coming,” said The Rat. He kicked at the sawdust that was covering the gymnasium floor. “She’s probably not the type who goes to dances.”
The Rat had combed his hair into submission. Damone was carefully arranged so that he appeared ultracasual—tennis shoes and sweater. He leaned against the side of the bleachers, listening to the cheesy high school band performing their version of “Take It to the Limit.”
A beautiful young Ridgemont girl walked by them. The Rat acted like he had been punched in the stomach. “Did you see that girl? Jesus.”
“You are such a wussy with girls,” said Damone. “Come on. They’re just . . . girls.”
“Yeah? You ought to hear my sister and her girlfriends talk sometime. You’d never call one a girl again. They talk like truck drivers.”
Damone rolled his eyes and ignored the remark.
“That girl was so cute. Look at her over there!”
“Where?” said Damone.
“Over there by the metal chairs.”
“Well do something about it,” said Damone.
“Like what?”
“Just what I said, do something about it. You think she’s cute? Do something about it.” Pause. “You wussy.”
The Rat stared at Damone. His eyes glazed over with a sense of purpose.
“Don’t let them fool you,” said Damone. “They come here for the same reason we do.”
The Rat draped his fatigue jacket over his shoulder like a French film director. He began to swagger toward the girl.
“Rat,” said Damone. “Ace the coat, okay?”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Give it to me.” Damone took it. “Now you look okay.”
The Rat walked straight over and sat down heavily on a metal chair two feet away from the girl. She was watching the band.
“YOU,” said The Rat. The girl turned around. “Sit.” The Rat tapped the aluminum chair next to him with the palm of his hand. The Attitude.
The girl shivered as if the night air had given her a bad chill. She scurried over to some friends at the other end of the gymnasium.
Damone came over and sat in the chair. “It’s a start,” he said.
By Monday morning The Rat had a plan. Not another day was going to slip by without his meeting Stacy Hamilton. He sat grimly through all his classes, preparing for the attack. Then came fifth period, her A.S.B. period on Mondays. The Rat headed down to the A.S.B. counter.
She was all alone. Doing nothing.
“Hi,” said Ratner.
“Hello.”
“Listen,” he said. “I have two question. I was curious . . .” He felt the beginnings of the same old cold panic, but barged through with his rap anyway. “What do you do with the old combination locks around here? I left mine on before we switched lockers . . .”
“We cut them off,” said Stacy.
“So they’re gone.”
“Well, no,” she said. She reached under the counter and pulled out a bucketful of old locks. “They’re here.”
“I’ll never find it in there.”
“Some people do.”
“It’s cool,” said The Rat. “It’d take too much time.” He chuckled to himself, like he had too much Attitude to be bothered with such small-time stuff as locks. He affected a look that said: The Lear Jet Is Waiting.
“Well, okay,” she said. She returned the bucketful of locks under the counter.
“My second question,” said The Rat, “is . . . what’s your name?”
She smiled. “Stacy.”
“Hi. I’m Mark.” He stuck his hand through the glass hole in the window. “Nice to meet you, Stacy.”
Spirit Bunnies
By the second month of the school year, Stacy Hamilton’s favorite class was Beginning Journalism/School Newspaper. Not only was it her one class with Linda Barrett, but the atmosphere was always pleasantly chaotic. Time passed more quickly in this class than in any others on her sophomore schedule.
Today was assignment meeting day, and things usually got out of hand.
“I want to write about the rock group Van Halen,” announced William Desmond, the wrestler-sports columnist. “I went to see them at the sports arena last Friday and they were disgusting.”
“My ass,” said Randy Eddo, campus ticket scalper and “advertiser” in the school newspaper. “They were tremendous.”
Desmond turned and addressed Eddo. “Oh yeah? You like it when David Lee Roth sticks the microphone between his legs, don’t you?”
“No, you like it,” said Eddo. “That’s why you remember it.”
“There’s too much rock in the newspaper as it is,” interrupted Reader editor Angie Parisi. “Why doesn’t anyone want to write about the foreign exchange students?”
Silence.
“All right, I’m just going to have to assign it.” She looked around the room and settled her gaze on a curly haired young student sitting next to Stacy. “Why don’t you?”
“Okay.”
“What’s your name?”
“Louis Crowley,” he said, tugging at the blue down vest that was his trademark.
“Okay, I want you to interview the three students from India here this semester . . .”
The class’s attention was diverted by the appearance of two cheerleaders at the door.
“Oh, class,” said Mrs. Sheehan, the journalism teacher, from her back-of-the-room seat. “Dina Phillips and Cindy Carr wish to talk with us for just a few moments. Come on in, girls.”
Head cheerleader Dina Phillips stepped forward to address the journalism class. At age seventeen, she was the best dresser in Ridgemont. She wore an expensive skirt-and-blouse ensemble that day. Her smile was a quintessential sosh production—the glimmer in the eyes, then the slight crinkle at the corners of her mouth, moving into the traditional broad teeth-baring smile. Even Cindy Carr stood back in silent deference as Dina spoke.