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under the small machine in her hand. 
    She seemed to grow six inches, and even though she stood a foot shorter than Tyler, she stared him down.  “You wanna tell me how to do my job?” 
    “You have to try them again, we have to get in!” 
    “I don’t have to do anything,” she responded, still looming under him.  “Try the box office or your mama if you wanna cry to someone.”
    She swept Tyler and Lisa aside and accepted the tickets of the couple behind them.
    Not daring to look at Lisa’s face, Tyler stormed toward the box office.  His efforts to cut the line were met by angry shouts.  Resigning himself to the wait, he picked the shortest line.  He knew deep down this night was not going to end well for him.
    “What’s going on, Tyler?”
    He couldn’t put it off any longer.  Tyler met Lisa’s eyes and wished he hadn’t.  She looked more like a snake than a girl.  “I’ll get this figured out,” he promised, but couldn’t bring himself to believe it.
    “If you made me miss my senior prom…”  She didn’t finish the sentence, just kept glaring at him as the line moved at a crawling pace.
    When he reached the window, a grungy twenty-something year old sluggishly demanded, “Name.”
    “I have my tickets already, but the scanner screwed up.  It didn’t recognize them.”
    “Let me see them.”  The heavy-lidded clerk examined the tickets then passed them under his laser scanner and tabbed through some fields of a computer screen.  “These tickets were cancelled.”  He handed the worthless scraps back to Tyler.
    “Cancelled?  What do you mean?  I thought tickets were non-refundable.”
    Neither irritation nor interest showed on the man’s face.  “I didn’t say refunded.  I said cancelled.”
    “Uncancel them,” demanded Tyler.
    That brought a dull grin to the attendant’s face.  “You want me to un-cancel them?”  He looked at his screen and chuckled.  “Do you have the credit card you paid with?”
    “No, I—”  At the mention of a credit card his hand reflexively brushed against his back pocket where he kept his wallet.  The denim was flat against his butt.  Tyler stuck his hand in his pocket.  “My wallet’s gone!”  He let out a string of expletives as he retraced the short path to the back of the line. 
    The next customer was stepping up to the window but Tyler pushed past him and asked the attendant about lost and found. 
    “Yes, we have a lost and found.  Would you like me to see if anyone has turned in any un-cancelled tickets?”  He laughed so sharply he snorted. 
    The guy behind Tyler in line laughed as well and Tyler felt his face flush.  Lisa’s glare had somehow grown even sharper.
    “No, Asshole.  My wallet’s gone.”
    Still chuckling under his breath the droopy-eyed man stood and walked to a cabinet behind the ticket counter.  He was back in no time and said, “No wallet.  Sorry.  And I checked for un-cancelled tickets.  Didn’t find any.”  The clerk snorted again and the guy in line laughed. 
    Tyler punched the glass but it didn’t budge. Despite his rage the pain was immense. 
    The ticket agent was still snorting and repeating, “Uncancel them.”
    Nursing a broken hand, Tyler walked back to the parking lot.  Lisa followed a few steps behind, glaring a hole into his back.
    When they got past the crowd, Tyler turned and said, “Hey, it’s still early enough to catch prom.  What d’ya say?”
    “What do I say?”  Her icy voice made Tyler wish he’d worn a jacket.  “You are the biggest loser I have ever met.  Did you do all this just to get me to dump Kaden and go with you?”
    “What?” he shouted.  “I missed the concert too!  I lost my wallet and broke my effin’ hand!”
    “Take me home.”  She turned like a tempest toward his car, muttering, “Loser.”
    Tyler was itching for a fight.  When he saw his car a minute later he was ready to kill.  His prized 1992 Mustang sat four inches lower