Where the Kissing Never Stops Read Online Free Page B

date?”
    “What is this?” I whispered. “
Fiddler on the Roof
? I don’t need a matchmaker. I can make my own dates.”
    “So do it,” he hissed.
    I turned to Rachel. “Uh, is it a date?”
    “Sure,” she said, beginning to frown and searching in both pockets like a girl mad for loose change. Sully glanced at me and shrugged. Finally, out came a card — GARDNER ENTERPRISES — with a phone number and address. “So call me, okay?”
    I said that I would.
    “For sure?”
    “Guaranteed.”
    She backed away, waving all the time, so Sully and I waved, too. Then Rachel bounced off another student, turned, grabbed for her books, and was lost in the crowd. Still, I heard her from what seemed like a long way off, “Goodbye, Walter. Goodbye.” It was plaintive and made the occasion seem somehow momentous. I felt like I was leaving for the war.
    “You’re going to make out like a bandit, Walter,” said Sully, clapping his hands joyfully. “You could do anything. She doesn’t even know your real name.”
    “I think we should definitely plan to throw her out of the car once I’ve taken her jewelry.”
    “It’s not her jewelry you should be interested in.”
    “That reminds me. Why did you tell her all that bullshit about my tragic love affair?”
    “So she’ll think you’re sensitive and have deep feelings.”
    “And I don’t have a Cadillac.”
    “We’ll take my dad’s and say it’s yours.”
    “She’ll find out.”
    “So? You’ll probably never go out with her again, anyway.”
    “Why not?”
    “She’s got an overbite.”
    “Oh, well. Let’s just put her out on the mountainside to die.”
    “I could never marry a girl who wasn’t perfect.”
    “Who’s going to marry her? We’re going to a concert.”
    “Plus she doesn’t have any breasts. And she’s a little thick through the hips.”
    “How could you tell? She had on more clothes than —”
    “Doctors know these things.”
    “Well, I like her. She didn’t make me feel like a jerk, even though I sounded like one.”
    Just then, some kid went by wearing headphones.
    “God,” I said, “what if there’s dancing?”
    “What did I miss?” Sully asked, looking around.
    “At the concert. What if everybody’s dancing? I don’t know how to dance to that kind of music. I’ll probably just stand there and quiver; she’ll think I’m some kind of religious fanatic.”
    “We’ll practice. I’ll bring a CD over to your place tonight.”
    “Since when do guys teach other guys to dance?”
    “This is an emergency.”
    “We don’t have to touch each other, do we?”
    “We’ll wear gloves.”
    I didn’t want to face my mother, so I went to the library, looked at the girls for a while, studied a little — very little — then rode home slowly.
    Mom didn’t see me, but I spotted her turning the corner at Arlington and heading for the freeway. She sure didn’t look any different; she might have been on her way to deliver guide dogs to the blind. But she wasn’t.
    I had barely gotten inside and put my stuff away when Sully knocked on the front door.
    “I called Peggy,” he said. “Everything’s set for Friday.”
    “How’s Peggy?”
    He shrugged. “The same, I guess. Actually she sounded good, anxious to hear some reggae.”
    “She likes you; she always has.”
    “Get serious,” he said, punching on the stereo. But before he could take his Jimmy Cliff CD out of its jewel case, on came some sleazy drum track:
boom boom bah boom.
    He looked at me quizzically. “Your mother’s homework?”
    “God, turn that thing off.”
    When Sully’s music came on, I tried to get into it, but I didn’t know what to do with my hands.
    “Let ’em float,” he said, showing me.
    Sully was very good — light and supple, completely effortless.
    “How’s this?” I asked.
    “I think you should move your feet a little; it looks like you’re about to do a standing broad jump.”
    “Any better?” I said.
    “You’ve got to move