“But what if they hate it?” Marty sighed. “What if they say, ‘Get outa here, kid, you got no future’? Why should I put myself through all that anxiety?”
Jennifer didn’t answer.
“Jeez,” Marty said finally. “I’m starting to sound like my old man now.”
Jennifer looked at him quizzically.
“He’s kind of a pushover,” Marty explained. “No guts. People are always using him.”
“Well, they say all our emotional anxieties come directly from our parents,” she smiled. The words coming out of her mouth sounded a bit strange even to her. Where had she heard the phrase? Sociology class? People magazine? She wasn’t sure, but it sounded plausible.
“In that case, you can kiss me off right now,” Marty muttered.
“I’ll just kiss you instead,” she said, reaching up to peck his cheek.
They walked hand-in-hand for a while. “Is your father really that bad?” Jennifer asked finally.
Marty shrugged. “I think deep down inside he means well,” he said. “But the man just can’t get it together.”
They had reached Town Square, and the presence of the big Toyota dealership, with its gleaming recessed windows and spotless showroom, made Jennifer think of happier things. “Well, at least your dad’s letting you borrow the car tomorrow night,” she smiled. “That’s a major step in the direction of getting it together.”
Marty nodded.
They stopped at the edge of the glass and looked inside at the salesmen circling potential customers like lions readying their attack on smaller beasts. “How come there are no used car saleswomen?” Marty asked. “I’ve never seen a woman selling cars, have you?”
Jennifer shook her head. “Maybe women can’t lie as well as men,” she offered.
Marty laughed, turned his gaze to a tricked-out four-by-four pickup truck in the showroom.
“Hey, check out that four-by-four,” he said. “Wouldn’t it be great to take that up to the lake tomorrow night? We could put our sleeping bags in the back…make out under the stars.”
“Mmmm,” Jennifer replied.
“Someday, Jennifer, someday,” Marty said.
Looking at her smooth profile and even white teeth was starting to make him feel better. Perhaps music wasn’t everything after all.
“What about your mother?” Jennifer asked as they turned away from the window and continued walking. “Does she know you and I are—”
“Are you kidding? She thinks I’m going camping with the guys.”
“Would she mind if she knew the truth?”
“Yeah,” Marty replied. “If she found out I was going camping with you, she’d freak.”
“I’m that bad, huh?”
“It’s not you. It’s a moral thing. She’d give me the standard lecture about how she never behaved that way when she was in high school. She must have been a real goody-two-shoes, I’ll bet.”
“Most people then were, weren’t they? I mean, that was way back in the 1950s, before the pill or rock ‘n’ roll or a lot of things that were really good.”
Marty nodded. “Yeah, I guess it wasn’t easy, growing up in those primitive days.”
They were opposite the former Courthouse Building of Town Square, which had seen better days. The 1950s, in fact, had been the heyday of this part of town. Then people gathered at Town Square to socialize, do business, simply pass the time of day or evening. There had been a Texaco station here then, a soda shop, florist, the Essex movie house, a record store, a realtor’s office, women’s dress shop, Studebaker dealer, barber’s, an Ask Mr. Foster travel agency, stationery store, Western Auto appliance center and numerous other small businesses. Now nearly all were gone, victims of progress and lack of adequate parking. Many of the building facades were boarded up, covered with peeling notices and signs. One set of election posters read: RE-ELECT MAYOR “GOLDIE” WILSON. HONESTY, DECENCY, INTEGRITY. The picture beneath the inspiring words showed the face of a black man, about fifty years old with a gold front tooth. “This was where Mom used to hang out,” Marty said.
“There used to be a soda shop here.”
“I guess you couldn’t get in trouble there,” Jennifer smiled. “Anyway, maybe she’s just trying to keep you respectable.”