The Spectacular Now Read Online Free PDF Page B

doing some, the girls eat it up. He does a dead-on Denver Quigley that gets Bethany laughing so hard it looks like her face might fall off.
    “Hey, let’s go on the boat rides,” I say, like it just occurred to me. I don’t have to say it twice either. The girls are all over it.
    After finding a parking spot about a million miles away from the canal, we hike over, goofing on people and just in general laughing our way down the street. When we get to where the boat rides start, I tell Ricky to buy a couple of tickets, one for him and one for Bethany, but when I step up to the window, I’m like, “Wait a minute. I left my wallet in the car.”
    Stupid Ricky volunteers to lend me some money, but I’m, “No, dude. You two go ahead. I don’t like the idea of my wallet sitting in the car in a dark parking lot. We’ll meet back here in thirty minutes.”
    He gives me this suspicious look, but it’s too late now. The boat’s getting ready to shove off. Bethany wants Tara to come along, but I grab Tara’s arm and say, “No you don’t. I’m not walking all the way back over there by myself.”
    We give them the bon voyage as the boat starts off, and they do look good together, even though she’s about three inches taller than he is. After they’re gone, I volunteer to buy Tara some ice cream, and she’s like, “I thought you forgot your wallet,” and I go, “I just remembered I have it in my other pocket.”
    She looks at me and grins. “You’re evil.”
    “I’m not evil. I’m Cupid. They make a cute couple, don’t you think?”
    “Yeah,” she says. “I do.”
    On the way to get ice cream, we change our minds and decide to go to a bar instead. After trying about four places and getting rejected, I figure there’s nothing to do but go back to the car, get a couple beers, and drink them over at the Botanical Gardens.
    “Is it safe to go there after dark?” Tara asks.
    “Hey,” I say. “You’re with me.”
    I load four beers into a plastic bag, and off to the gardens we go. It’s beautiful out. Light-jacket weather. The city lights are shining down on us, and the weight of the beer feels very satisfying, like a promise of plenty.
    The only thing about being down here in the evening is you’re always likely to run into a panhandler, and of course we do. Tara grabs my arm and stands a little behind me, but there’s nothing scary about this guy. He’s got the typical faded ball cap, the thrift-store clothes that could stand a good washing, and a face that looks like it’s made out of the leather from an old catcher’s mitt.
    I slip him a five and he’s grateful as all hell, tipping his cap and giving me this look like I’m some kind of young lord or something. After he limps away, Tara says she doesn’t think I should’ve given him any money. “He’s just going to buy liquor with it,” she says.
    “Good for him.”
    “You might as well have just given him a beer.”
    “Are you kidding? We only have two apiece here. Let him go buy his own.”
             
    The Botanical Gardens consists of several walking paths that wind around through a bunch of different kinds of trees and plants and cross over little streams and ponds. At one end, you have the Crystal Bridge, which isn’t just a bridge but a big cylindrical greenhouse for the more exotic plants. They even have one of those big stinky plants that only bloom like every three years or something and smell like a rotting corpse. I’ve actually never been in the gardens after dark, but when you’re with a girl, it’s always best to act like you’re an old hand at everything—not to impress her, but just to make sure she feels safe.
    So we’re walking along, drinking beer and talking, and she starts in on the deal with her mom and her stepfather, Kerwin.
    “Kerwin?” I say. “You mean his name is really Kerwin?”
    She’s like, “Can you believe it?”
    At first the story’s pretty funny. Kerwin is a real character. For one