I pull over and roll down the passenger-side window.
The girl heads over to my Jeep and sticks her head inside. She leans over far enough to give me a pretty good idea of what's holding up the bikini top.
“Hey,” she says, all breathy and husky, like she thinks a sexy woman is supposed to sound. Her hair is red. Actually, it's more an orange rinse over black roots.
There's a small stone sparkling near her left nostril, and she's stuck an earring through her right eyebrow-for balance, I guess. I'm figuring she's sixteen, maybe seventeen, tops. She has a Hello Kitty backpack.
“Got room for one more?” She swipes her tongue slowly across her top teeth. It might actually be sexy if her teeth weren't so grungy.
I reach over to the passenger window for her backpack, toss it into the back.
“Hop in,” I say.
She does.
CHAPTER SIX
W.W.C.D?
What would Ceepak do?
I should get a hat made like the W.W.J.D. ones the born-again Christian kids wear at the Life Under the Son booth up on the boardwalk. They're always asking, “What Would Jesus Do?” But Jesus never owned a Jeep, so he probably never picked up a semi-naked teenage hitchhiker who sits with her cowboy-booted legs tucked up under her butt in a way that shows off a ton of thigh.
We're on the island now, approaching the traffic circle right next to King Putt Golf, this miniature golf course where I once scored a hole-in-one on Cleopatra's Loop-D-Loop. You have to shoot your ball up an alligator's snout and wait for it to twirl out the tail.
Finally, I come up with something to say.
“So, where you headed?”
“The beach.”
“Cool. Which beach?”
She giggles. “Um, the one near the ocean?”
I laugh. She laughs. I laugh some more.
“I mean what street? See, down here, we sort of name the beaches after the streets that dead-end into them. Like Oak Beach is near the east end of Oak Street. Tangerine Beach, Tangerine Street. Maple….”
“Maple.”
Maple Beach is pretty close to where I used to hang out when I was her age. Like a decade ago.
“Where do you live?” I decide to ask.
“Jersey,” she says.
Oh.
“What exit?”
In the great state of New Jersey, it's standard practice to pinpoint someone's hometown by either their Turnpike or Garden State Parkway exit number. Some lucky people even have both. Me? I'm Exit 62 on the GSP. The Turnpike doesn't come down the shore-it goes to Delaware, instead. Guess it's a much more serious roadway.
My passenger doesn't answer.
We're at the red light at the traffic circle.
“Come on-what exit?”
“Sorry,” she says. “Not on the first date.”
“Oh? Is this a date?”
She leans forward. Her lip gloss smells like test-tube strawberries or some other kind of chemical fruit.
“If you want it to be….”
Fortunately, the stoplight changes to green and the New Yorker behind me wastes no time blaring his horn up my bumper.
“Fuck you!” the girl screams, and flips the guy the finger. “Asshole!”
I concentrate on making the right turn. Applying pressure to the gas pedal. Letting the New Yorker pass me. Grinning foolishly when he shakes his fist and shouts something you'd never hear in a Disney movie.
“I'll drive you to where you're going.”
“Thanks,” she says.
“So, you hitched all the way down?” I ask.
“Cheaper than taking the bus.”
“True….”
“I don't have my own wheels.”
“I see. What about your parents?”
She doesn't answer that one.
“It's totally easy to hitch.”
“Totally dangerous, too.”
She gives me a “whatever” rise and fall of the shoulders. “I'm careful. I never climb in with any, you know, raggedy-ass skeezers or anything.”
She says this like I should be flattered.
“Of course,” she adds, “I'm always willing to pay my way.”
“Unh-hunh.”
“Always.”
“Unh-hunh.”
“There's a couple totally happy truck drivers on the Turnpike right now.”
“Hunh.”
I'm focusing on the road but I can feel the heat radiating off her skin as she leans in closer. I smell strawberries again. It reminds me of that weird, day-glow-red stuff they pour on top of ice cream at Skipper Dipper for the folks who don't do hot fudge. Suddenly, a wet tongue is swirling around inside my ear.
We swerve into the left lane.
“Sorry,” I say, regaining control of my vehicle-if of nothing else.
“You want to pull over and mess around some?”
“No, thanks.”
“We could party.”
“I'm kind of late.”
“For what?”
“I'm meeting some friends.”
“Really? Where?”
“The Sand Bar. Burgers, beer, that kind of thing.”
She moves back into her seat. Thinks for a minute.
“I'm hungry,” she says. “I forgot to eat lunch.”
I see my out.
“Well, if you're planning on hitting the beach, you really need to wait until after you go swimming to eat.”
Yes! This is what Saint Ceepak would do: he'd lecture this Nympho of the Highways about stomach cramps. He'd do his duty and obey the Scout Law: to help other people at all times; to keep himself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.
Morally straight.
That's the part I need to concentrate on right now.
“What's your name, anyway?” she asks.
“Danny. Danny Boyle. How about you?”
“Stacey.”
“Stacey what?”
“Just Stacey for now, okay?”
“Sure. Stacey.”
“A nice, cold brew would be totally awesome.”
“Yes, it would. But are you anywhere even close to twenty-one?”
She leans forward in her seat. I glance over just to make sure there's no tongue aiming at my ear.
“Do I look twenty-one?”
She looks like trouble, is what she looks like. I'm starting to wonder if I should take this girl back to the mainland. Maybe Avondale. Trenton. Edison. Sea Haven, after all, is the only Jersey township I'm sworn to protect.
Instead, I make a right turn and we head to The Sand Bar.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Sand Bar is a vinyl-sided three-story building on the bay side of the island, with three levels of party decks under blue canopies out back.
I figure I'll take Stacey inside and feed her-buy her a burger, maybe some curly fries-but no beer. Then I'll call Ceepak. Ask him what to do.
After we're parked, Stacey reaches into the back to unzip her backpack and pull out “something a little nicer” to wear for dinner. Good thing, since she's dangerously close to violating the eatery's longstanding “NO SHIRT, NO SHOES, NO SERVICE” edict in her bra-and-combat-shorts ensemble.
“Where's my top?”
Finding it seems to require wiggling her bottom a lot. I decide it's time for me to step away from the vehicle, as we say on the job.
I check out the restaurant's upper deck, where my buds usually hang.
Jess sees me, waves down.
“Hey!” he hollers. “Where you been?”
“Traffic.”
“Too bad. Aubrey had to split. What took you so long?”
As if on cue, Stacey climbs out of the car. She's wrapping on this prairie skirt and adjusting a turquoise tube top. It fits her like a sausage skin.
Jess leans back and shoots me a double thumbs up.
It's not what you think, I gesture.
He gives me a sure, sure nod 'n' wink.
As Stacey walks toward me, the tube top is straining to keep everything in place. I try not to pay attention to the struggle.
“Where's the little girls’ room?” she asks, giving me a bored look. Now that we're here maybe she's thinking it's not her kind of scene.