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around in their twenty-year-old, four-door Buick LeSabres at about three miles an hour, accidentally stepping on the gas instead of the brake and busting through the plate-glass window at the pharmacy.”
    She laughs at that, but it’s a laugh with a sad crack in it.
    “Really,” I say, “you don’t want things to last forever. Look at my parents. If they were still married, my dad—my real dad—would still be trapped in that little two-bedroom cracker box we lived in. He’d still be sweating away every day nailing houses together. Instead, he’s like beyond successful. See the Chase building over there, the tallest one?”
    She nods and takes a drink.
    “My dad’s office is near the top. See that one lit window up there right in the middle? That’s him, burning the old midnight oil.”
    “Wow,” she says. “Do you ever go up there?”
    “Sure I go up there. All the time. You can see all the way to Norman from up there.”
    “Maybe we should go right now.”
    “No, not now. He’s too busy. I have to make appointments to see him myself.”
    “What does he do?”
    “High finance. One deal after the other.”
    We both sit and stare at that light on the top floor of the highest building in Oklahoma City. The night’s getting colder, and something makes a sound out in the dark. Tara grabs on to my arm. “What was that?”
    “Nothing,” I tell her. But for some reason I’m feeling vulnerable now, like maybe something evil could really be creeping up on us, a horde of slobbering zombie panhandlers or maybe even something worse, something I don’t have a name for.
    “Maybe we ought to go back,” she says.
    “Yeah, it’s probably about time.”

Chapter 8
    We’re a bit late getting back to the canal, but Ricky’s not pissed at all. He and Bethany are sitting shoulder to shoulder on a bench overlooking the water, grinning like a couple of grade school kids at a puppet show, and neither of them could care less if we ever came back.
    On the drive home, Bethany talks more than I’ve ever heard her talk before. Really animated. She’s going on and on about how Ricky did his own hilarious narration of the boat ride as if it were an attraction at Disneyland and how he made up stories for all the people passing by. It made her laugh so hard she thought she was going to throw up. Of course, making up stories for people is a regular routine for me and Ricky—and some of the stuff he told Bethany he stole from me—but that’s all right. My plan’s working to perfection. The Sutterman has done it again. I’m so proud of myself, at first I don’t bother to pay much attention to the pair of headlights tailing us down Twelfth Street.
    By the time we get back to Tara’s car, Ricky and Bethany already feel like a couple. But it’s not like Ricky’s going to grab her and lay a big, wet kiss on her right there in the parking lot. He doesn’t blow it, though. “That was fun,” he says, “let’s do it again sometime.”
    “That’d be great,” she says, all sparkly.
    “Next Friday would be a splendiferous time to do it,” I add. The boy still needs a little help in sealing the deal.
    “Friday would be perfect,” she says. “I guess I’ll talk to you at school.”
    “Oh, he’ll call you before then,” I say, and this time he’s pretty quick on the uptake—“Yeah, I’ll call you.”
    She gives him a sweet little shy smile and says, “Okay, good,” and ducks into Tara’s Camry.
    A car’s idling about fifteen yards behind us, the same one that was behind us coming down Twelfth, but I’m still not paying much attention to it. Instead, I plant a friendly hug around Tara’s shoulder and tell her I hope everything works out all right for her mom. Next thing I know, she’s wrapping both arms around me, squeezing me like a tube of toothpaste and pressing her cheek against my chest. “I’m glad we ran into each other tonight,” she says. “Thanks for the beers and listening to me and my stupid