Monster (11 page)

They did end up taking separate cars back to Point. They
m
et at a local restaurant called Cider Cafe. The game had been relatively early, six thirty, and they were seated in the re
s
taurant before ten o'clock. The place was upscale
–
there was nobody from school there. Angela remembered
Jim
's family, like Mary's, had money.
Jim
ordered a N
ew York steak, shrimp, a baked potato, salad, vegetables
an
d milk. He said he was always starving after a game. She
asked for herb te
a. The hot dogs had given her indigestion.

“Should we get the unpl
easantries out of the way first?
”
J
im asked as they
waited for their food.

“The shootings and Mary?”
she asked.

“Yeah.”
Jim
folded his powerful hands and leaned across
the
table. His dark eyes, in the light from the candle, were
anything but cold. They were warm and most
enchan
ting
and she had
to
consciously stop herself from staring
too
long into them.
“
I didn't tell you the whole story at
the cemetery about Mary and me,”
he said
.

“
What did you leave out
?”

“
I
told you that I'd said
I
wanted to go out with o
ther girls? And she freaked out?”

“Yes.”

Jim
cleared his throat. “
This is embarrassing. I re
alize
now I shouldn't have been so tac
tl
ess and told her w
ho I
wanted to date. At the time, though, I thought it was be
tter
to tell her than t
o have her find out on her own.”

Angela took a deep breath. “
Yes?
”

“
I
wanted to ask you out.”

“Really?”

“
Yes,
”
he said.

“You told her that?”

“Yes.”

“
Yo
u shouldn't have told her that.”

Jim
sat back and sighed. “I know that now.”

“God,”
Angela said. Then she blinked.
Jim
Kline
wanted
to leave Mary for her? Maybe there was something
wrong
with him. Her a
mazement forced the question out
of
her. “
Why did you want to go out with me?
”
she asked.

He appeared
to be stunned, then chuckled. “
I like
you.”

“
Why?
I
mean, you hardly know m
e.”

“
Haven't you ever
liked someone you hardly knew?”

“Yes.”
A perfect ex
ample was sitting right across from her. “
But Mary's so incredible.
”
Angela shook her h
ead.
She was flattered and totally confused,
“She must been shocked.”

Jim
appeared to be disgusted.
“
Obviously.
”

H
is remark sobered her quickly. “
Do you hate he
r?”

“
No. Yes. I can't hate her, but I want to. Todd
was my friend.”

“
How about Kathy?
” She was already thinking abo
ut
the
competition.

“
Kathy was a friend, too. We all used to go out toge
ther.”

“Mary told me.”

J
im
's
interest was piqued. “What did she tell you?”

Angela paused
. Just being in a restaurant wit
h
Jim
made her feel disloyal to Mary.
There was no sense embarrassing M
ary
in front of
Jim
.
“
She said that
you grew cold and uninterested,”
Angela said carefully.

Jim
was impatient.
“
That happens when people break up
.
I
tho
ught she
would have been mature enough t
o accept
wh
at
was happening and get on with her life
.
What else
did she
tell you?”

“Nothing.”

“
Did you see her Saturday morning?
”
he asked.

“
I
t
old you
I
did. She refused
to
tell me why she did i
t.
She
di
dn't mention anything about you wanting to go out
with me.”

“
I
didn't mean to lay such a heavy rap on your shoulders
.”

“It's not your fault,”
she said quickly, her heart pounding
in
her chest. She didn't want to say what she did next, but she owed it to Mary.
“
Mary's still my friend.
”

Jim
nodded
. “I
understand if you don't want to see me
.”

“
I
didn't . . .”

“
Angie?
”

“What?”

“
What were you going to say?
” he asked.

“I don't know.”

“
I
guess this is all too quick for you
,”
Jim
said
sympatheti
cally.

S
he
stared at the candle
on the table, then back into Jim
's
eyes. They had fleck
s of purple around the irises; s
he had never noticed that before. Such unusual eyes. She
imagined
she could see the flame of the candle burning b
eh
ind them.

He's too hot for me.

“
I like you,
”
she said softly.

Again
he was interested. “What do you like about me?”

The
body y
ou
are
w
e
aring under those clothes.

“Your
piercing intellect and subtle wit,” she said.

He smiled. “You're making fun of me.”

She shrugged. “I just like
you. You
’re cute.”

He reached over and
took her hands in his. “
Yo
u’re cute.”

He could se
e the blood in her cheeks now. “
Ne
xt to
Mary
I
look like old wallpaper.
”

“
Mary's in jail. Mary's going to stay in jail. Let's not
talk about her anymore.”
He raised a finger a
s she started to
pro
t
es
t.
His tone
had gone hard all of a sudden. “
At
least not tonight. All right? Let's have fun.”

She lowere
d her head, feeling like Judas. “All right.”

Jim
's food ca
me, and he ate. Boy, did he eat.
She si
pped her t
ea and restrained herself from lecturing him on
the
virtues of chewing. When he had cleared his plate
he
ordered dessert
–
cheesecake
– and insisted she have a
bite. He liked it so much he had a double helping, altho
ugh
she thought it dry.

But she liked watching him eat
.
Just watching him.

He paid for the meal with his father's credit card.

“What do you want to do now?”
he asked a
s
they step
ped
outside into the night air. The warmth of the day co
ntinued
to linger, although it was getting close to midnight
.

“Go to bed,”
she said.

He laughed and clapped her on the ba
ck. “
You Chi
cago
girls get rig
ht down to business, don't you?”

“I
meant sleep.
”
He had hit her a bit harder than
she
would have preferred. But he was so darling that it was
OK.

He continued to chuckle.
“I
know what you mean
t. I
didn't mean to embarrass
you.”

“
We Chicago girls don
't get embarrassed that easily.”

“
Wow. What
’
s
t
ha
t mean?”

She giggled
. “
I'm not that tired. Follow me back to
my
house in
your car. We can go for a walk.”

“
Along the lake?
” he asked.

“
Wherever you'd like,
Jim
.”

Jim
almost killed them both when he arrived at
her
house. He tried pulling in beside her in the
driveway, but
there wasn't room. He ended up banging her grandfa
ther’s
propane tank with the front bumper on his four-wheel drive. He leapt out of the vehicle when he saw what he'd
done
.

“
Did
I
break the seal
on it?”
he asked. Reaching inside his tr
uck, he eased the vehicle back slightly.

Angela
dashed over
to the tank. Being from a city, s
he
wasn’t
experienced with propane. She studied the tank in his
he
adligh
ts
. He had definitely dented the metal, and it
worr
ied her. He joined her a moment later, touching the
tw
isted white curve with his big hand.

“
I
think it's OK,”
he said.

“
Ar
e
you sure
? Should I wake my grandfather?”

“It’s
fine for now. If it was leaking, we'd know it. But
it
should be checked in the morning. If it needs t
o be repaired, I'll pay for it.”

“
It
won't explode?
”
When she had originally moved into
the
house she had felt as if she were sleeping next to an
atomic
bomb.

“It’
d take a full collision to get a tank like this to explode
.” Jim
paused to study the
length of the forty-foot prone cyl
inder.
“
But I'm surprised y
our grandfather has such a big t
ank. You usually find ones this size on a farm, where a huge ba
rn has to be heated.”

“
My
grandfather explained to me that until ten years ago
there
use
d to be five houses around here. They all used the same tank.”

“What happened to them?”

“I
think they burned down,
” Angela said. “
You would have been eight then. Do you remember anything like
that?”

“Vaguely.”

“
You have lived in Point all y
our life, haven't you?”

“
Yeah.
”
He nodded to the tank.
“
A big fire could have
set this sucker off.”

“
What would such an explosion do?
” she asked.

“
If the tank had just been filled,
it would blow away the house.” He snapped his fingers. “
Just like that.
”

“I thi
nk my g
randfather just had it filled.”

He laughed. “
Then
I
’
II
try not to run into it again.
”

Angela had visions of huge explosions in her head.
For
no reason they excited her.
“
If it blew, would it make
a
crater in the ground?
”

“
What?
”

“
You know, like a small meteor had hit here?
”

“I
don't think it would do that. Why do you ask?
”

“J
ust wondering,
”
she said.

Angela ran inside to use the bathroom before they
went
for their walk.
Jim
followed her in. Plastic was asleep
on
the living-room sofa. The dog didn't even stir. Na
turally, her grandfather wasn't home.
Jim
made a joke about
him
and said he had quite a reputation around town. He al
most
sounded envious.

A few minutes later they were walking hand in h
and
along the shore of the lake. Angela didn't know who
had
reached for whom, but together felt right. Her guilt a
bout
Mary stayed with her, but she tucked it aside. She co
uld
worry about it later. H
er fingers almost disappeared inside
Jim
's. They walked without saying much, and that was
nice.
A half moon hung low in the west, the silver rays glitte
ring
on the water, on the bare skin of their arms. The sound was the rhythmic swish of oil wells high up on
the
hil
l
s that overlooked the lake. Although partly hidde
n by
trees, Angela felt the wells were an unnecessary blight
on
the local beauty. She said as much to
Jim
.