“Tim.”
“I don’t know any Tim.”
“Richardson.” I’m sweating.
“Hmmm….nope. Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Stop fucking with me, Candice.”
She giggles. “Ohhh…right. You mean Richie Richardson. Hi, Richie. What’s up?”
“You tell me.” I wipe my sweaty forehead and close my eyes. This is ridiculous.
A phone call with the boss’s girl. I might as well just jump off a bridge.
“Well, I was wondering if you know where Jay went. He was supposed to call me, we were going to go to a movie tonight.”
“I don’t know. Haven’t talked to him much since lunch.”
“Where’d you go for lunch?”
“Five Towns.”
“Ugh. That place smells like ass and all the guidos in there try to hit on me. It’s like, hello, you’re fat and forty-five and married and I’m in high school. Not that they care.”
“Pretty nasty.” I absentmindedly doodle on the sports page. I draw a mustache on A-Rod.
“So you haven’t talked to Jay?”
“No.”
“You better not be lying to me. Is he out with some biotch?”
“I think you’re just being paranoid.”
Candice sighs. “I’m so bored.”
“Yeah.” Now I’m drawing a beard on A-Rod.
“You should come entertain me.”
My pen stops moving. “Uh—what?”
“You heard me.”
“Entertain you? What am I, a dancing monkey?”
She laughs. “That’s so not even a real phrase. Dancing monkey.”
“Yes it is. Anyway, you know what I mean.”
“Come dance for me. Be my dancing monkey tonight.”
Now I’m biting the end of the pen. This is yet a new evolution in the nervous tics that seem to arise when I’m dealing with Candice. “You’re supposed to see Jay tonight, though.”
“I told you. He disappeared and he isn’t answering his phone. I know what that means. He’s blowing me off.”
“He still might call. It’s early yet.”
“If you don’t want to see me, just say so Richie. I can take it.”
“My name is Tim. Tim or Richardson. Either one.”
“How about Monkey Boy?”
“Go screw.”
“Has anybody told you that you’ve got a bit of a temper?”
“Oh, right. And you’re just a paragon of composure.”
She laughs. She’s laughing hysterically. I breathe out hard through my nostrils.
Maybe I should just hang up on her. “What’s so funny?”
“Oh…oh…Rich…you’re hurting me. Do you realize you just used two words that no normal teenager ever would use in a thousand years?”
The pen tip is mangled and I’m sweating like I just went for a run in the Mojave Desert. “Sorry. I should have simplified my sentence structure. What I was trying to say—“
“I know what paragon and composure mean,” she says. “I understand, or should I say, COMPREHEND what you were trying to tell me. Your witty little retort. My point is that you’re not the smoothest with the ladies. For future reference, next time a girl asks you to entertain her, try and be a little less argumentative.”
“Okay.”
“And also, try not to be such a stick in the mud. You’ve got a lot to learn about girls, Richie.”
“And I guess you’re going to teach me?”
“As a matter of fact, I am. We’ll go to a movie and I’ll teach you a few tricks so you don’t blow it with the future Mrs. Richie Richardson.”
I shake my head. This is the dumbest thing ever. Ever. Ever.
But I do want to hang out with her. And she wants to hang out with me. And besides, Jay and her aren’t even officially together.
“What time do you want to meet up?”
She sighs. “Okay, lesson number one. When you make a date with a girl, offer to pick her up.”
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Risen Page 12