The car pulls into the driveway so quietly that only JR hears it. He trots past me and props himself on the kitchen door so that he can see out the window. I get up from the table and stand behind him. He recognizes Janie’s hybrid as it bumps to a stop, so he doesn’t bark. But she’s become one of his favorite people and he has to do something, so he lets out this weird little noise from the back of his throat, basically a bunch of Es with some consonants thrown in. It is only by a supreme act of willpower that I don’t do the same.

Instead, I fix my hair.

“How do I look, boy?” I ask.

Still propped up on the door, he turns his head and gives me a deeply unimpressed look, like: My hair is better.

She’s making her way across the yard now, and I check the present in my hand. It’s not wrapped, exactly, but it’s in a gift bag and I stuck a red bow left over from last Christmas on top. It looks a little makeshift, to tell the truth, and it’s just a dinky little present, but that’s OK. I don’t want to overdo it. This is supposed to be our first date. We’re starting over completely. It was her idea, but I liked it immediately. The truth is, not telling her where I was this summer, or why, well, that wasn’t my first mistake with her. The truth is, at least, I hope it is, I really can do better.

“Get down, boy,” I say, tugging him away from the door by his collar. “Give the lady some space.”

He makes a raspy huff that I now recognize as the Rottweiler equivalent of “Oh, all right,” and drops down to the floor. Not really having a tail, he’s wagging his whole rear end.

“Hey, guys,” says Janie as she pushes the door open and steps inside.

“Hey,” I say. “Hi.”

She goes straight to JR and starts scratching his fur with her fingernails. He rolls over on the kitchen floor like the big ham he is.

“I got you something,” I say, possibly trying to steal some of my dog’s thunder. He looks up to see why the belly scratching has stopped.

“Oh yeah?” Janie says, standing up.

She takes a few steps toward me. JR is still on his back, following her with his eyes: But why has the belly scratching stopped? I hand her the bag.

“Nice,” she says. “You wrap this yourself?”

I look down at the Christmas bow. The year-old adhesive is already starting to peel away from the bag. “Santa helped me,” I say.

She reaches into the bag and pulls out a small stuffed gorilla. She likes gorillas.

“Aw,” she says. “He’s cute.”

“Reminds me of your dad,” I say. “Not the cute part, I just mean all the hair.”

She makes a sour expression: “Sometimes, you know, it’s better not to say anything.”

“OK,” I say.

She turns the little gorilla around in her hands to get a better look at it.

“It’s nice,” she says. “Wait, you did pay for this, right?”

“Yeah,” I say, smiling, “but I stole the tiny bottle of perfume it’s wearing.”

“Well, it’s nice,” she says. “Thank you.”

She goes to put it down on the kitchen table.

“Don’t,” I say. “He might eat it.”

JR is on his feet now, staring at this thing, which looks a little like a tiny squirrel.

My mom pops her head into the kitchen to say hi to Janie, but she has the good sense to keep it quick.

“Well, I’ll leave you alone,” she says, holding up a book. “I’m in the middle of a mystery.”

“You know,” I say, once Mom’s gone, “if you let me drive, it counts as practice toward my license.”

“I’m not letting you drive on our first date,” she says. “Lord knows where you’d take us!”

“All right then,” I say. “Where are we going?”

“The mall,” she says.

“Classy,” I say, but they actually have some nice restaurants there. “I’m ready. Got my good boots on.”

Janie looks down at them and rolls her eyes. It gives me the opportunity to really look at her for the first time tonight. She’s wearing good jeans and a nice white top that I’ve never seen before.

“You look …” I say. She looks beautiful.

“I know,” she says.

She puts her hand on the doorknob, and JR makes one final, valiant attempt to keep her there: He flops back down onto his back like he’s been shot.

“Bye, Johnny,” she says, and heads out the door.

He gets up. Now he wants to come with us.

“Not this time, boy,” I say. “Go help Mom with her mystery.”

It’s a cool night out, the first hint of fall creeping into the air. We listen to her music the whole trip over to the far side of Brantley, and I don’t complain once. Once we get to the mall, I let her pick the restaurant. And I know you’re thinking: Oh, you’re being way nicer than you would on a real first date. But this is exactly how nice I’d be, because I’d still be under the delusion that it might lead to something tonight. In any case, she chooses Olive Garden. There’s a little music store on the way.

“Let’s just take a look,” I say.

She doesn’t exactly disagree, so we head in. The place has a few sad racks of dusty CDs and some boxes of “vintage vinyl,” but it’s mostly full of T-shirts, posters, iPod covers, and things like that.

Just past the lame hip-hop section is a small corner devoted to punk and metal, forced together like two unpopular kids at a party. I head straight there and Janie follows along, just to humor me. There are two head-and-neck mannequin tops that weren’t here last time. They probably got them from a jewelry store that went out of business.

The male one has a black Misfits beanie on its head and a red skull-pattern bandanna wrapped around its pale plastic neck. It’s sporting fake safety pins that clip on instead of through its ears and are pretty much the least punk thing I’ve ever seen. The female one is dressed about the same, but it does have one cool thing.

“What do you think?” I say to Janie, pointing to the collar around its neck. It’s made of black leather and ringed with dull metal spikes.

“I would never wear something like that,” she says.

I reach out and unfasten it.

“Who says it’s for you?”