Chapter 4

By lunch time on Friday, things had settled down once again. The conversations had turned to how badly Ridgemont was going to crush Bayside. Bobby sat down as I was unwrapping my lunch, but I noticed he had no food of his own.

"No lunch today?" I asked.

"Betty Lou isn't going to be around for the weekend, so when she gets here we're going to eat outside and talk."

"So are you two are together?"

Bobby looked away, as if was uncertain or as if he was trying to figure out what to say next, so I took a bite of my sandwich — another of Tracey's concoctions — and gave him a bit of time to think.

He finally looked me in the eye and said, "Yeah. I think so. I'm not sure where it's going yet, but things are definitely better."

"I'm glad you're back."

He gave me a small grin, but shook his head. "Yeah. Sorry about that. I guess I have been a little crazy the last couple of days. I really shouldn't have taken it out on you and Kenny."

"It's okay. We barely noticed," I said with a sarcastic smile.

"Hi, John. Hi, Bobby." Betty Lou had a big smile on her face and a big sack in her hand when she appeared between us.

They stared at each other for a moment with a goofy, love-sick smile on their faces. I couldn't help but smirk.

"You ready, Bobby?"

Bobby reached out and pulled her down onto his lap, wrapping his arms around her. We both laughed as she shrieked in surprise and then wiggled her ass on his lap. Bobby's eyes bugged out.

"Two can play at that game, Bobby Sherwood," Betty Lou giggled. She turned in his arms and planted a steamy kiss on his lips.

I coughed after a few moments and they broke the kiss. "Ain't love grand," I said to no one in particular.

Betty Lou grabbed Bobby's hands and hopped off his lap. And then startled me by planting a kiss on my cheek. "It's all your fault, John," she said smiling and pulling at Bobby's arm. "We gotta go."

Bobby stood and let Betty Lou pull him toward the door. He paused for a moment and looked thoughtfully at me. "I owe you one, Robinson."

"You don't owe me anything, Bobby. I'm just glad it's working out."

"Yeah," he grinned, "I'll talk to you later, Robinson."

I smiled at his retreating back, glad that I was back to being 'Robinson' to him. That was one of my mile markers to Bobby to being his normal happy self.

I looked around for Kenny, and found him at the next table over trying to talk Lisa Foster into a date, so I was once again alone at our table when Missy dropped her tray on the table in front of me.

"Hello, Missy. How are you doing today?"

Missy didn't smile at first. "I, um, want to apologize for yesterday, John. I said some things that weren't very nice. I hope you'll still be my friend."

"Well," I pretended to think about it. "I guess it would be okay," I said with a grin.

"Oh, you." She threw a french fry at me.

"Besides which I'm probably not the person you should apologize to."

"Don't push it, John."

"Why not?"

Missy thought for a moment. "You gave me a lot to think about yesterday. I'm still not sure how I feel about some of it."

I smiled and changed the subject. She was thinking and that was a step in the right direction. I wondered if she had ever been friends with anyone outside the popular clique before. All in all, it was a nice lunch.

With Betty Lou unavailable, Bobby talked me into going to the game and afterward, he turned to me and said, "It's still early, John. Let's hit the dance. Maybe we'll get lucky."

I looked at my watch. It wasn't quite ten, so I shrugged and followed Bobby to the gym. I figured I could stay at the dance for about an hour before I needed to get home.

The gym was pretty crowded when we got there. I hadn't been to a dance in a while, not since before my parents' accident, anyway. I knew a lot of the kids there, and Bobby and I wandered into a group of juniors and seniors. Junior Bishop's performance seemed to be the topic of the night, and I stayed out of most of the conversation. I did notice that most of the girls were watching for the football team to arrive.

The band started to play and the first couple of tunes were good, so I turned to Jenny Johnson and asked her to dance. Jenny lived down the street. We'd even gone on a date or two. There hadn't been any kind of spark, so we'd parted amicably. She was a friend, and I knew she liked to dance. Her current boyfriend, Todd, was on the team, so I figured he wouldn't be here for a while. She smiled and agreed.

We danced a couple of songs and then the gym erupted in applause as the cheerleaders and football team arrived. Todd smiled as he tapped me on the shoulder. He was a good guy, so we exchanged greetings and talked for a few minutes before I thanked Jenny, turned her over to her boyfriend and made my way to the side of the gym.

I looked down at my watch. Maybe one or two more songs, I thought to myself.

"So you did come to the dance. I thought you had to be up early tomorrow."