‘Can we abort yet?’ Helen Stone had all kinds of names for me. Calvin, Jacky, the Could-be father-of-my-would-be child. I was desperately in love with Helen but couldn’t seem to bring myself to grow up enough for that fact to really matter. Helen was a classic beauty with luscious black hair and the kind of figure that often left me wondering, late at night, what a girl like this was still doing with a guy like me.
A cry rose up from the back seat.
‘Come on. Push it! GO GO GO GO GO.’ Marty and Monty were the interchangeable best friends and roommates. Caricatures of each other. We were all three sixth-year seniors at San Jose State. Future Leaders of America.
The LeBaron shuddered as we climbed a gentle hill. I expected spontaneous combustion. Some truths are so immutable that they should never be tested. The sun would rise each morning, the taxman cometh, and this car would never get us there in time.
‘I don’t think we’re gonna make it,’ I said.