“Funny,” Leitha said, pretending to know what he was talking about. He looked about Donald’s age, thirty something, but still very pretty. He glanced back at the deli doors, certainly watching for Rudy and Tom.
“Your food’s gonna get cold,” Leitha told him. It looked like he was crushing the bag under his arm.
“It’s for a friend,” he said.
“A woman friend or a man friend?” She closed in on him. He didn’t step back like most men did when she crowded them.
“A woman friend.” He darted his gaze at me. It gave me shivers.
Leitha moved in closer to him, between him and me now. He still didn’t back away. “Why are you getting her food?” One way Leitha got a guy’s attention was by asking him question after question.
“She can’t get out of bed.” He looked down at her now, she was so close to him.
“Is she pregnant?” I asked and felt stupid. Leitha grinned over her shoulder at me because she knew I felt like I was making a fool of myself. “I mean,” I said, “my aunt couldn’t get out of bed when she was pregnant with my cousin.”
“You’re cute,” he told me, surprising me. Not because I thought I was ugly, but because he just said it. I felt like he was trying to decide which of us to pay more attention to. I didn’t want it to be me. I rarely did. I’d hidden behind Leitha most of my life.
“Take me for a ride in your car,” Leitha said. I thought she was joking.
“How do you know I have one?”
Leitha pointed to an old white Mustang parked on the lot’s edge. “I saw you get out of that one. Isn’t it yours?”
“What’s your name?” he asked me.
“That’s Q,” Leitha said, “and I’m Leitha.” I couldn’t see her hands, but she was holding them in front of her, and I thought she was touching him.
He nodded to me. “You want to go for a ride, Q?”
“No.” I’d forgotten what he looked like when he smiled.
Leitha was almost standing on his toes.
“Q doesn’t want to come,” he said.
She shrugged one shoulder, took the bag of food from under his arm, and started toward his car. After a second, he followed her, watching me, the deli doors, me.
I looked for a license plate. There wasn’t one. “Tell me your name,” I said, following him to the driver’s side of his car, keeping a few feet away. He shook his head, walking sideways, keeping both Leitha and me in his sight. Leitha hopped onto his passenger seat.
He got in the car and started the engine, leaving the door open. One of his hands was on the steering wheel and the other leaned the seat forward so I could get into the back. I was three steps from the car. Leitha slammed her door, put the bag of food on the floor. “Come on, Q,” she called. “It’s the end of summer.”
The Mustang rolled so slowly toward the parking lot exit, slower than walking pace. The man in the leather coat looked more than ever like he’d never smiled in his life. “Bye-bye,” he said to me, and I took one step closer.
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