Their first destination that day was the same quaint ice cream shop they’d eaten at earlier in the week. It was on the right side of the main road coming down from Dampgate, sandwiched between a barber shop with a stereotypical spinning barber’s pole affixed to the outside, and a store that sold dresses.

“Ooh, that yellow one’s nice,” Marcia said, stopping on a dime and approaching the window display. Even after a brief glance at the yellow dress on the mannequin, Vic knew he wholeheartedly agreed that it was a nice one, in that, as he imagined it, it would look nice on her. Somehow though he figured that no one needed his opinion and, in any case, Owen nudged him forward and they entered the store with Liz.

The service here was just as great as it was the time before, even if it was a different person working the counter. Vic briefly wondered how many people they needed to staff an ice cream place in such a small time but then his cone arrived and he thought nothing more of it. Instead, just as Marcia and Agnes were coming in, he took a seat at the counter by the window, right beside Liz who was picking at her ice cream with a little plastic spoon.”

“Hey,” he said, sidling up next to her.

“Hey,” she answered, continuing to look out the window and not at him.

“So … are we okay, or what?”

“Or what?” Liz asked, speaking in a tone that failed on every account to sound casual.

“Or … I know we normally don’t talk all that much, but I don’t think you’ve said one word to me since the end of classes and I want to say you’ve even been avoiding looking at me.” She was looking at him then, through the thick lenses of her otherwise small glasses. Though she had appeared younger than the rest of them, she still had the same eighteen years that they all did and carried herself more reserved than the others, the wildest thing about her was that her sleeves were rolled up to her elbow.

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Liz chewed her lip, as if she was contemplating something and then turned away and said, “It’s not a big deal.”

“Come on, I think you can tell me.” He put his hand on her arm as she said this and she looked down at where he touched her and then up at him and then he let go. The sing-song voice of Marcia sounded behind him as she made her order, and he had to force himself to not turn around mid-conversation. “Does it have anything to do with … Mrs. Laramie?” He had no idea how that would be connected, but it seemed worth a shot.

Liz snorted slightly and then looked out the window again. “It does, but not in any way you might think.”

“Honestly, I don’t know which way to think. Thinking is not exactly my strength.”

“Yes, that’s exactly my problem,” she said, turning in her stool, her knees bumping against his. “I’m tired of actually having to work hard for my grades when someone like you can walk in, do whatever it is that you … do, and then take the easy way out.”

Vic pulled back a little at this. He had assumed that this kind of stuff was just something that went on at Dampgate, and did not consider that there was any actual quid pro quo involved.

“You don’t really think I’m going to get an ‘A’ in her class just because I … I … pleasured her?”

“Vic, Marek got an ‘A’ in her class last semester.”

Vic looked out the window, “Damn, that’s bad.”

Liz nodded grimly. “That’s what I’m talking about. If I was given the chance, maybe I’d take the easy ‘A’ and then that would free up time to put more work into my other classes.”

Vic’s imagination, as male teenager imaginations are apt to do, had promptly runaway from him, and suddenly it was Liz bending down in front of Mrs. Laramie, and putting those thin pale lips to work for her grades.

“Would you even, you know … do that, if you were given the opportunity?” he asked with a dry mouth.

“For a good mark, sure,” Liz said, her face so completely serious she seemed to suck all implied intimacy out o the act, “I mean, I would try at least.” Even this last part was said as if she was merely talking about putting in a dozen hours into some kind of extra credit assignment.

“Why do you want your good grades so badly, anyway, what’s your end goal here?”

“I – I don’t even know,” she furrowed her brow at this and then shook her head, “It’s just important to me, okay?”

Just then, Marcia and Agnes arrived by their side. “You guys ready to go?” Marcia asked.

“Sure thing,” Liz replied and hopped off the stool.