Machine Dreams

out a hot dishrag and handed it to Lee Ann, who began wiping the wet bottle caps. Danner watched her. “Riley will never tell stories about me, I’ll tell you that.”
    “Why not, Danner? Riley could make you famous, too.” She laughed. “Can I finish these while you start pouring? Your aim is better. Listen, suppose he tells stories on you anyway, for things you never even got to do.”
    “He won’t,” Danner said, “he wouldn’t dare.”
    “I think you’re right,” Lee Ann said seriously. “He’s really crazy about you. You don’t know how crazy.” Lee Ann was well informed. Riley phoned her regularly to talk about Danner.
    “He was probably crazy about Rhonda as well.”
    “Yeah, but it’s not the same.”
    Danner poured ketchup and said nothing. Watching ketchup drip was the most pointless activity in the world. Last week they’d rushed through cleanup and cracked the lip of a bottle; the manager had insisted they strain the entire contents for glass shards. As disciplinary action, Danner and Lee Ann had to do ketchups for the next two weeks of conferences. “Who’s coming next week?”
    “Methodist women’s clubs from North Carolina.”
    “They ought to stay in North Carolina,” Danner said. She watched Lee Ann’s face. Lee Ann was sweating in the warm kitchen, and her glasses had slid halfway down her nose. They’d been friends since elementary school. Lee Ann had dated an older boy last year, a friend of Riley’s, but now she was going steady with someone her age. He was a quiet boy who hadn’t been one of their crowd; he’d moved to Bellington from out of state and didn’t play sports because he had a regular after-school job. “How are you and Mike doing?” Danner asked.
    “Oh, just fine,” Lee Ann said.
    Danner kept her eyes on the ketchups. It hurt her that Lee Ann didn’t tell her things much anymore. Last spring they’d shared a desk in typing class. Lee Ann was reading a note from Mike one day; Danner had turned casually on the swivel seat of her chair, and her gaze fell on a line over Lee Ann’s shoulder:
There’s nothing wrong with what we did. Don’t feel bad.
Danner had looked away, painfully conscious of Lee Ann’s grave expression.
    It had to be a total secret. You couldn’t even tell your best friend.
    Lee Ann glanced up suddenly, as though aware of Danner’s thoughts. “Billy was at the intramurals.”
    “I know. He rode his bike in to meet Kato.”
    “Why weren’t you there?”
    “New rule. My parents won’t let me see Riley more than fournights a week.” Danner twisted clean caps onto the bottles she’d filled.
    “Brother,” Lee Ann said. “I’ll hear all about this from Riley, I’m sure. He must be going nuts.”
    Danner loaded clean bottles onto one big tray. The tray would be so heavy that she and Lee Ann would have to carry it into the dining room as a team. “I don’t know why Riley has to call you so often. What does he ask you?”
    “He asks me how much you care about him,” Lee Ann said patiently. “He says sometimes he wonders, can’t get past first base, etc.” Lee Ann raised her eyebrows, smiling. Again, the understood half-shrug.
    Danner returned the shrug like a co-conspirator, surprised at her own relief. Good, then Riley hadn’t told anyone what they did, not even Lee Ann. Afterward, he always pulled his shirttail out to cover the wetness on his jeans, and they drove around the dark country roads, holding hands like a married couple and telling jokes while the radio played. Thinking about him, she felt a flash of longing.
    “Billy is really getting good-looking,” Lee Ann went on. “The older girls all notice him now. You know, Kato is supposed to be pretty wild.”
    “Oh, Kato is fourteen,” Danner said dismissively.
    “That never stopped Rhonda, when she and Riley were going together. Actually, it was Riley that told me about Kato. He said the high school boys already call her Rhonda Two.” Lee Ann stopped talking abruptly, aware she’d said too much. “Look, Riley didn’t tell me as a joke. He was kind of concerned, but he didn’t want you to hear about it and worry.”
    “I don’t believe stories about Kato. People only talk about her because she’s pretty and comes from a poor family.”
    Lee Ann nodded. Shinner Black, Kato’s father, was a sometimes drunk.
    Together, both girls stepped back and surveyed the big tray of ketchup bottles.
    Lee Ann held up her hands, displaying red-smeared