Calamity Read Free Page B

upper corner of her mouth, her black hair hanging straight behind her like a curtain. At school she wore her hair up like all the other girls. Different hair presentation meant something, at least according to websites Tyler had read. It could mean the girl thought he was special enough to do something different; it could mean the girl was hoping for a special evening; or it could mean jack special shit.
    “Sorry,” he said.
    “For . . . ?”
    Retarded mumblings again. Every time he tr hey time ied to respond, his eyes ventured down to those breasts and an alarm went off in his brain: LOOK AT HER FACE, AT HER FACE! But that shouting command only fumbled up his words even more.
    “How’s your cheeseburger?” she asked.
    “Good,” he said without the slightest mumble.
    She glanced around; her smile faded. Cheerful Charlie’s Diner was fairly well-packed with the late-evening crowd. The diner was a 1950s throwback with plush red seats and booths, vintage signs (a Coca Cola advertisement featuring a green-haired elf-type person with huge, hungry eyes and a Coke bottle top for a hat always gave Tyler the creeps every time he ate here), and a giant juke-box that didn’t play music but lit up and flashed sometimes like a strobe light. The oldies music came from ceiling speakers. Tyler didn’t know any of the songs and, it seemed, neither did Sasha.
    There was no diner in Stone Creek, but Charlie’s was only a few miles out on Route 51. The place was open 24 hours and Charlie, the Charlie of the restaurant’s name, was a round-bellied guy who often played Santa at the Newburgh Mall in December, and who didn’t harass teenagers the way the staff and owners at many restaurants did, especially after dark.
    This place was a typical stop for kids from school. Tyler thought he recognized some kids in the back, but they were too busy shooting spitballs at each other to offer Tyler a frontal view. Tyler had known that other kids might be here, of course, and had weighed the potential awkwardness of some kids mocking him with the comfort Sasha might feel at going to a familiar place. He hadn’t read that advice on any website; he had reasoned that one out himself. The websites had suggested fancy dining; fine dining , they called it. Fine dinning, they asserted, was the easiest way to get a woman’s clothes off. Aside from getting her drunk or drugging her, of course.
    So,” she said when her gaze returned to the table. “That movie kind of sucked.”
    Tyler had taken her to a movie first in hopes that he could build his courage during the flick and then really put on the moves over dinner. The movie was a stupid horror flick about a girl trapped in a basement with a monster that resembled a toad. Tyler enjoyed when the girl stripped to her underwear before getting inside a sleeping bag with her equally hot, and equally near-naked, friend: did girls really do stuff like that? Sasha watched the movie with her body leaned away from him for most of the film, and didn’t want any popcorn, which left Tyler eating an entire bucket. The butter he had plopped on top of the popcorn had tasted so good but now, as it mingled with the ground beef from his burger, he felt the weight of it like a brick sinking into his bowels.
    When the toad-thing leaped out of the basement’s darkest corner with its huge mouth full of teeth and its scream echoing in the theater like an explosion, Sasha jumped in her seat and grabbed his arm. When the monster bit off the girl’s foot (gallons of blood squirting all over the girl and the monster), Sasha screamed and squeezed his arm, a genuine squeeze. Tyler smiled and stole another glance at those breasts.
    “Yeah,” he said. What could he say? You ever strip to your underwear and climb into a sleeping bag with another girl?
    Sasha’s cellphone was out and she was texting. She yawned. Though her salad was mostly uneaten, Sasha was obviously done with dinner and if he didn’t say something clever or