“Can you believe she’s a party planner?” Becca demanded. “Isn’t that perfect?”
“What’s wrong with party planners?” I asked.
“Your job right now is to agree with everything I say,” Becca informed me.
“Right. I can’t believe that she’s a party planner.”
We had turned off Main Street and were walking toward Becca’s home. It was a cool night, and I put my arm around her.
“That yellow skirt was halfway up her thighs.”
“Outrageous,” I agreed. “Shameful.”
“And she likes bowling!”
“Ridiculous sport,” I agreed. “It’s really not a sport at all.”
“Oh, and she was in a league,” Becca said. “Did you hear the one question my father asked me? Have I heard from Harvard? Because if I get in that’s where he thinks I’m going. No way in hell—I’m getting as far away from Fremont as I possibly can. And he might come to see us play if he can get time free from his office. Don’t do me any favors, Dad.”
“He wanted to fix my teeth,” I said.
Becca looked a little surprised. “At the diner?”
“I think he was tempted. He said I should come by.”
“Maybe you should let him. He’s a good dentist.”
And that was when I first heard the siren. It was a distant wail that cut through the gathering darkness like the cry of a giant dinosaur.
“I’m not looking for a good dentist,” I told her. “Go back to ranting about dinner. You were on a roll.”
“Did you like how he greeted us? ‘You’re late.’ As if they’ve got so many better things to do together. And did you hear him snap at me to sit down?”
“Yeah, I noticed.”
“The commander in chief issuing a command. At least he didn’t use the word ‘painless.’”
“He did while you were in the bathroom,” I told her.
“He ‘painlessed’ behind my back?”
Then the wail came again, and this time it was picked up by other dinosaurs till a whole herd of them seemed to be shrilling in the night, heading our way. “That’s a fire,” I said.
Lights flashed on the dark tarmac and lit up the trees as fire trucks sped toward us. We watched three of them zoom past. They cut sharp turns around Cedar Lane, and I could see their lights converge with other lights a block or two away. There were loud clanging sounds and people shouting. “It’s close to us,” I told Becca.
“The big excitement of a fall night in the New Jersey suburbs,” she said. “Let’s go watch someone’s house burn down.”
We walked toward the lights, and the sounds of the fire grew louder. When we turned onto Coover Street I realized that all the action had converged on the big white house in the center of the block. “That’s Rob’s house!”
“You’re kidding,” Becca said, but I was already running.
She followed me up the block and we joined the crowd that the police were keeping back. I didn’t see flames, but I could smell smoke, and two hydrants were pumping water. There were firemen all over the place, but their hoses weren’t pointed at the house. Instead, they were dousing Rob’s car in the driveway, which was a smoldering wreck.
Becca and I moved closer, and I spotted Rob’s parents talking to the police and the fire captain. Rob’s father looked calm, but his mom was extremely upset and holding her toddler daughter with both arms.
“Jack,” Rob said from behind us, and we spun around. He was a very laid-back guy, and I’d never seen him look so furious. His face was tight with anger, and he kept glancing from the house to his ash pile of a car.
“Hey, Rob,” I said. “What happened? Is everybody okay?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “We were just hanging out watching a movie and saw the flames through the window.”
“You think it was an electrical fire or something?”
“Don’t bet on it,” he spat out. “People have been saying stuff to me all week.”
“You really think someone would do that?” Becca asked.
“Sure.” He stared at his mom, who was holding his sister protectively. “And I’ll be damned if I let them get away with it. See you guys later.” He walked back to his family and took his sister from his mother. The little girl might have been sleeping when the fire broke out, but she was now wide awake and having lots of fun. The commotion was just a big game to her and she kept smiling and waving to the crowd. Rob hoisted her up onto his back, and she shrieked delightedly at being up so high.
“Let’s go,” Becca said.
I walked her home, and we didn’t say much. The run-in with her dad no longer seemed very important compared to what we had just seen. Someone had targeted Rob, and setting his car on fire in front of his home had pushed things to a new and very dangerous point.