"Do you ever see her?"

"I think she's dead."

"I know mine is."

"Lucky us. Let's eat."

I follow him at top speed. He pushes past everybody. Slips in between two customers leaning on the grimy-looking counter. "Billy! Two of everything."

A man in a sport coat says, "I beg your pardon."

Astin doesn't bother with him. He's grinning at the guy on his right, who has a shaved head and one of those beard-and-mustache combinations that looks like a toilet brush.

"Do you," he asks, "beg my pardon too?"

"Get lost."

"And," says somebody from the back of the pack, "get in line like everybody else."

"Well, that's not going to happen." Astin turns, puts both elbows on the counter, and leans back. Standing like that makes his chest stick out. Male prairie chickens do this during mating season. I don't think I'll tell him that.

"And it's not going to happen," he says, "because I've been coming here forever. I look out over you guys, and I don't know any of you. So don't tell me to get in line at my own place. Okay?" He meets one set of eyes after another. Then he says, "Good." And he turns around.

In the dog world, Astin would be called a dominant biter.

Then I hear, "Somebody ought to kick your a.s.s."

Now there's fear-based aggression in the mix.

"But n.o.body's going to." Astin pulls a handful of napkins out of a bent dispenser.

"We might."

There's a couple of grimy guys who look like they've been digging a grave. They wear the same kind of sungla.s.ses and the same kind of Timberland boots with the laces undone. They're probably on the football team, and they're probably not very good.

Astin strolls toward them. Gets close. Too close. Right into their s.p.a.ce.

"Just wait your turn," says the big one, who's wearing an Alhambra High T-shirt.

"No."

From behind the counter, a cook pleads, "Don't cause trouble, Astin."

He doesn't even turn around. "I would never do that, Billy. I would never cause trouble for you. If it comes to that, we'll take it down the street. So here's the question - is it going to come to that?"

Alhambra says, "There's two of us, and your buddy doesn't look like much."

I don't move. Astin glances at me. "Leave him out of this," he says. "It'd take more than you two to make me need backup." Then he opens his hands, shows them the palms first, then the other side so they can see he's not hiding a big ring or bra.s.s knuckles or a bomb. "Just good old-fashioned fists," he says. "We're not g.a.n.g.b.a.n.gers."

I know what it's like to be on the receiving end of this, and my stomach turns over a time or two.

"Astin!" The cook pounds on the counter with the palm of one hand. "Your food's ready. Come and get it."

"Fellas?" He appeals to his foes. "Last chance for glory."

They look at him, then at each other. And then away. One of them grumbles, "Next time, f.u.c.ker."

Astin just laughs, slaps down a twenty, and takes the cardboard tray. I fall in beside him, and we head for the nearest table.

I ask, "What was that about, anyway?"

"I didn't want to wait in line."

I shake my head. "You're really something."

He shrugs. "I just like to mix it up, you know? And I'm not scared of getting beat on. Most guys are. They're afraid they won't be pretty anymore."

Astin puts the food down. He settles in, sitting backward on a folding chair and putting both elbows on the scarred wood.

"What's it like to be you?" I ask.

"It's okay, I guess. Megan says I'm totally predictable."

I watch those two guys from Alhambra stop by their truck, turn around, and stare at us. Glare at us. I tell him, "I should have stepped up before. I should have said I'd fight, too. But I was scared."

"Do you know how?"

"To fight? Get serious."

"Then you'd just be in the way, wouldn't you? For the record, though, and we're just talking here - when was the last time you were heads up with somebody?"

"That I got in a fight or that I just got ha.s.sled?"

"Who ha.s.sled you?"

"Mostly this guy in my old high school. Scott McIntyre."

"Not the douche-bag quarterback who led the t.i.tans to a memorable three-and-eleven season?"

"I didn't go to any games, but yeah. That Scott McIntyre. He and his crew never left me alone. I mean never. I mean every day."

"I hate that s.h.i.t. If I'm riding and I see some like middle school kids throwing it down and it's three against one, I am off the bike and right in their faces."

"Astin, you just picked on two guys you never saw before."

"That's different. They were bigger than me. Together they were, anyway. That would've been a fair fight. You against McIntyre, there's no way. He was a jock and you're . . . what were you, anyway?"

"I sold kitty litter."

"There you go." He waves at somebody he knows who's sitting a dozen yards away. Then he asks, "Were you just smarter than him or what?"

"Than Scott? Anybody's smarter than Scott. No, I was just one of those guys who gets picked on. Even in first grade I always took a lot of heat about my parents' smelly old store."

"First grade's a b.i.t.c.h."

"And there were a couple of things that sort of followed me around."

"Yeah, like what?"

"Just stupid things."

"Like hitting gunpowder with a hammer?"

"You did that?"

"Or setting your teacher's briefcase on fire?"

There's n.o.body around and they probably wouldn't care, anyway, but I still lean in. "Like in grade school I was at this party and n.o.body wanted to, you know, be my partner for Seven Minutes of Heaven, so I kind of trashed this desk, and then a couple of years ago I got caught sitting in some girl's car."

"Trying to hot-wire it? It's not like in those old movies. You have to know what you're doing."

"No, I was hoping she'd come out to get the mail or walk her dog or something, and I'd say, 'Why don't you like me? I never did anything to you.' I guess I wanted to start over or something.

"But time goes by and nothing happens, so I get in their car instead, in the pa.s.senger side, and . . . I don't know. Her dad comes out, and there I am, and he starts yelling. Then she comes out and says, 'He's this creep from my school,' and the next thing I know the cops are on their way."

"Did they take you in?"

I shake my head.

"They took me in."

"For sitting in somebody's car?"

He stabs a French fry into a pool of ketchup as he talks. "Nah. I was about eleven. You know how weird the Rafters are sometimes, so I'd go out and look in normal people's windows. Not at girls or anything. I just wanted to watch normal people eat dinner or play Monopoly. It just killed me when they played Monopoly. And the stupid cop called me a perv and gave me the Peeping Tom lecture and said if I wasn't careful, I'd be on this list for the rest of my life and n.o.body would want me in their neighborhood, blah blah blah. I think that's when I started hating cops."

"I guess I was lucky. Mine was one of those K-9 cops and his dog loved me. So while this German shepherd is licking me all over, he said if I'd promise to behave myself, he wouldn't call my dad."

"Lucky you. Bob had to come and get me, and I caught h.e.l.l on the way home. I was grounded for like two months."

I make a little ketchup pool of my own. "I was always kind of grounded, but I pretty much did it to myself. I mean as far as friends and stuff went, after a while I just kind of gave up."

"They come and they go, man."

That makes me look up. "Who does?"

"Friends. I'm riding with guys now I didn't even know six months ago. Another six months and most of them will have turned over."

"What about kids at school? You know everybody."

"To say hi to. Big deal. Let's see how tight we are once I age out and they go to college and stuff."

He takes a big bite of cheeseburger and chews like he's mad. Then he glances over my shoulder. "Wow."

"What?"

"This babe behind you. Check it out."

"My mother told me not to stare."

"Teddy, she wore those pants so guys would look at her. Wait, don't move. She's coming this way."

I take a sip of c.o.ke, I watch Astin light up like a neon sign, then the girl is past us.

I tell him, "She's not as cute as Megan."

He stops with a fistful of fries halfway to his mouth then shoves the little greasy bag my way. "Did she ever show you her hunting knife?"

"Megan? No way."

"She says the next time some English teacher asks about those two roads that diverged in a yellow wood, she's going to open a vein."

"I really like Megan."

"I like her, too. That's why it's gonna be hard to graduate. Then I'm just a guy who works in a garage, and she's still the little rich girl living large with her single mom." He takes the plastic lid off his c.o.ke, drinks straight from the cup, then chews the ice.

"Where's her dad, anyway?" I ask.

Astin makes a big, plane-taking-off gesture with his hand. "Gone. Ran off with his secretary. Not very original, huh? But left them with beaucoup dollars. So Melanie turns into a spa junkie.

"Who's Melanie?"

"Megan's mom. She's gone right now, up to her a.s.s somewhere in Magic Mud."

Astin takes off his watch cap, sniffs it, puts it back on again, and blurts, "Is everybody a freaking orphan? Megan's almost always by herself; about every twenty minutes Belle's folks fly off somewhere with a bunch of Doctors Without Borders; and Wanda's folks won a chunk of money playing the lottery, bought a big-a.s.sed motor home, and they haven't been seen since. What were your parents like? Did they at least stay home?"

"Are you kidding? All they did was stay home. They made me work really hard, and what I was supposed to do with my life was graduate high school, then take over the business. So I kind of hated them, or I thought I did. Now I'm not so sure."

Astin shakes his head. "I always thought it'd be great if I had folks and they had a plan for me."

"Oh, yeah. I can just see you behind the counter explaining the merits of the Super p.o.o.per Scooper."

As he watches me eat the last of my hamburger, a big dog comes bounding our way. His owner, a short blonde wearing a T-shirt covered with what look like meteors, is already on her feet.

The dog sticks his long nose into my palm and says, "I'm supposed to be licking the cute guy."

"Thanks a lot."

"You know what I am?" asks the dog.