Locksmith's Journeys: Deleted Scene (First Date?)

Just as he was about to go out for a sprint, his phone buzzed.

It was Lucy. “I’m sorry to bring this up,” she said, “but do you remember when Mr. Hance tried to kidnap you?”

“Yeah.”

“Well… I’ve been talking to Mr. Joyce. The police are going around campgrounds and summer schools, basically reminding kids what to do and what not to do if a stranger approaches them. Joyce thinks it would be good for them to hear from someone who got away from a would-be kidnapper.”

“You want me to go talk to them?”

“Yes.”

That had been scary, but Lock remembered how, for a few shining days afterward, he’d been the coolest dude in school. What the hell.

“When do I do this?”

“Saturday at noon. I don’t have the exact address with me, but I can e-mail it to you. I’ll drive you there.”

***

Lock woke up at six a.m. Friday morning. This gave him three and a half hours to think of things to say to June Webb when he called her. This turned out to be… barely enough time.

When he called her, the first thing he did was get her talking about herself and her family. This was good for about ten minutes’ worth of conversation. Her mother was too strict, her little sisters were a pain… Lock just let it wash over him, occasionally filing away some little detail in case there was a test later. Then, finally, there was no more putting it off.

“So… doing anything tomorrow?”

“Mmm… not really. How about you?”

For just a moment, Lock’s mind went blank. Then he remembered that he was doing something tomorrow — the thing Lucy had mentioned at the campground at noon. Suddenly he realized that he really liked the idea of having her there to watch him impress a bunch of other kids with the story. And Mom wouldn’t be driving him there.

He told her about the trip to the campground. “You want to come along?” he said.

“Do you want me to come along?”

Okay, somebody was going to have to make some kind of decision here.

“Yeah,” said Lock. “I do.”

***

Looking back, the first clue that nothing about Saturday was going to go according to plan should have been when Lucy’s car pulled up to the front of the house, the passenger side front door opened, Lock got in… and realized Lucy wasn’t here. Rikki was driving instead. “Lucy thought it would spoil your reputation for cool if your therapist drove you to your first date, and I had the day off, so here I am,” she said.

Lock nodded. He wished he’d thought of this himself.

He gave Rikki directions to the Webb house. As she pulled out of the parking space, Lock took a couple of deep breaths. This was not going to be easy.

“Can I ask you something?” he finally said.

“Sure.”

“About June… um…” He took another deep breath. “How do I do this?”

“Oh, hell no,” said Rikki. “Locksmith, you dork, I’ve seen you step on the back of a live freaking alligator. You brought a shovel to a gunfight and won. Just yesterday, I hear, you held your ground against a mountain lion. And you’re nervous about meeting a girl? In what I’m not sure even qualifies as an official date?”

Lock nodded.

“So you’re asking me for romantic advice. Me.”

“Well, yeah. I mean… you like girls, and you are one, so…”

Rikki laughed. “You have a very logical mind,” she said. “Okay. First of all, is this chick the love of your life, or just sort of a target of opportunity?”

Ouch. Lock hadn’t thought of it that way at all. She was pretty, she seemed to be interested in him, he liked her… wasn’t this what you were supposed to do? She made it sound wrong. He could feel his face starting to burn.

“Jeez, Lock, I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

“You didn’t?”

“Kid, if I were trying to embarrass you, you’d know. The point is, if this goes wrong it’s not the end of the world. And if it goes right, hey, you got a pretty girl on your arm. Whether you have any idea what to do with her is a different question.”

This didn’t help. Lock’s face was still red.

“You got nothing to be ashamed of,” she said. “Trust me. My sins could beat up your sins without even trying.”

About that time, Lock’s phone buzzed. It was a text message from Mrs. Nagai, saying she’d like to meet him today. Not knowing how long this thing was going to last, he couldn’t reply just yet.

After a moment, Lock said, “So… um…”

“So… to get back to the original question, what’s the best way to trick this girl into thinking you’re awesome?” said Rikki. “The usual advice is ‘be yourself.’ Not because it works, but because trying to be anybody else takes too much energy. Sooner or later you’re gonna get tired and they’re gonna figure it out. My advice would be to behave better than usual, but don’t try to act completely different from how you normally do.

“I’m not the best judge of a dude’s looks, but you’ve got no obvious deformities. You’re tall for your age, skinny and you don’t smile much. If you work at it, you could probably come across as ‘dark and brooding’ instead of ‘shy and awkward.’ That’s supposed to be like catnip to straight chicks. It would help if you were wearing black.”

Lock shook his head. “Too hot out.”

“Well, what you’ve got on is in the acceptable range.” He was wearing khaki shorts and a clean T-shirt.

Rikki stopped at an intersection. “We’re just about there. Don’t show indecision or lack of confidence. Try to make eye contact, but don’t stare. Oh, and if she smiles, remember to smile back. Not too much — just a little.”

“Like this?” said Lock, trying on what felt like a small smile.

“A little less in the mouth, a little more in the eyes. Here, I’ll show you.” After a couple more tries, Lock managed an expression that Rikki said was “good enough.”

“Hey, is that her?” Rikki pointed. A dark-haired girl in a yellow sundress was coming up the street.

Lock squinted to get a better look at her, then nodded. His mouth had suddenly gone dry. She was a lot better-looking than he remembered.

“Not bad,” said Rikki as she pulled up to the curb. “Well, what are you waiting for? Go. Seduce and destroy.”

Easier said than done. When Lock got a closer look at June’s face, enough to take in how absolutely perfect it was, it felt like his software for talking had crashed. After several long seconds, he remembered how to say hi.

“How’re you doing?”

“Uh… fine.” He wasn’t sure if he was in love or not, but he was definitely… really, really impressed. This girl is talking to me? thought Lock. She’s going to get into a car with me?
Lock opened the car door and, unable to think of anything to say, gestured for her to enter. About this time it occurred to him that June would probably want to know who their driver was, and why she was wearing a dark blue hat with a leopard-print band.

“Are you, like, the chaperone or something?” said June.

“I’m just here as a favor,” said Rikki. “Locksmith has been my strong right hand on the field of battle.”

“Whatever,” said June, like she had no hope of getting a straight answer, which was true.
It was a little less than an hour’s drive to the campground. Keeping the conversation away from anything painful or top-secret was exhausting. Mostly Lock did it by getting June to talk about her friends, her sisters or her parents.

“So,” said June, “these guys who tried to kidnap you — we never did find out what that was about. I know it was something about some kind of argument with your mom, but I don’t know the details.”

“It was… um…” Lock suddenly realized he should have had an explanation ready for this moment.

“His mom’s a prosecuting attorney,” said Rikki. “She makes a lot of enemies. One of them got a little extreme.”

Lock nodded, making a mental note to thank Rikki later.

***

The camp was in a patch of forest surrounded by farms. As soon as they got there, things started to go wrong. Lock couldn’t say how he’d gotten the impression that they’d just let him mingle with the kids here, but Rikki had barely pulled into the parking lot when Mr. Joyce and two cops he’d never met showed up.

“We just want you to tell your story,” said one of them. “There may be a few questions afterward.”

From the outside, all the buildings tried to look like pioneer cabins, but on the inside, the place Lock was in looked like the school gym. Rikki tried to explain her presence there by saying that she and June were “Locksmith’s groupies.” This didn’t work, even though she was very polite about it, saying “a pleasure to make your acquaintance, sir” to the head counselor as she doffed her pimp hat respectfully. Rikki and June ended up watching from the doorway at the back of the room.

Lock didn’t know any of the kids at camp, but they listened to his story. When one of them asked who Mr. Hance was and why he did that, Lock used Rikki’s explanation and it worked.
The problem came when the counselors and cops started asking questions. “When you ran, did you look for a teacher, or other authority figure?”

“Well, everybody thought Mr. Hance was an authority, so… no.”

“When you ran, did you look for a public place, somewhere there were lots of witnesses around?”

“Uh… no.” He felt his face start to burn. Looking back, he had to admit that had been a mistake.

“Did you try to get home?”

“He knew where I lived.” And to make everything perfect, June was still watching.

“Did you get the license number?” said another officer.

“I was too busy running!” he said. “If I’d known it was gonna happen beforehand, I’d have been ready!” Speaking of running, that was what he felt like doing now. He felt himself tensing up, and his eyes kept being drawn to the exits. Without really noticing it, he was already getting up from his chair.

“There’s no need to get upset,” said somebody.

Mr. Joyce came up and put a hand on Lock’s shoulder, forcing him back down.

“One more question and then it’s time to go,” he said. (Thank you, thought Lock.) “Anybody?”
Nobody.

“Okay, I’ll ask,” said the detective. “What advice would you give to everybody here?”
Lock’s mind spun in tiny circles for several very long seconds as he tried to think of something intelligent to say.

He failed. “If you think you’re gonna be kidnapped… practice running?” Dear God, that sounded stupid. This was why Lock liked to have a chance to think before he opened his mouth. Everyone clapped, but politely — Lock knew from track meets what real cheering sounded like, and this wasn’t it.

***

On the way home, it took Lock a few minutes to even notice how quiet things had gotten. He was too angry and humiliated to think straight. He had volunteered for this, dammit. He could have just stayed home. Where did they get off treating him like that? (Along the way, Rikki sang a funny song about a Scotsman and a blue ribbon, but it didn’t cheer him up.)
“Um… are you all right?” June said.

He turned to look at her. She was looking at him like she was expecting him to sprout fangs and go for her neck or something.

“I’m okay,” he said. He unclenched his fists and forced his face into something more or less smile-shaped, but it didn’t seem to help.

“I’m not mad at you,” he added after another moment.

“Well… I still think you’re cool, whatever anybody else says,” said June.

“Thanks.”