"Well, they weren't." Danny drank his Mr. Misty. "Not all the way."
Kenny ate a spoonful of fudge and peanuts and looked at the parking lot. "So listen. Don't get mad. Mr. Hadley came by the wash yesterday. He asked about you."
Danny didn't say anything.
"He said he felt bad. He said he'd had a couple drinks at dinner before, with the money guys from Wichita, and he was under a lot of pressure, and he got carried away. He said he wanted to make it right." Kenny pulled a business card out of the pocket of his Hadley Chevrolet T-shirt and slid it across the table. It had the billboard on it, the cowboy hat, NOBODY OUTDEALS ROYCE. On the back, in blue ballpoint, someone had written Come see me. —R.H. "He said there's a job if you want it. Lot boy. Four-fifty an hour. That's more than me, man. I'm not even mad."
"Why?"
"'Cause he feels bad."
"Kenny."
Kenny shrugged. He was not stupid. He just preferred, as a rule, to live in a world where people were what they said they were, and he had found that the world mostly let you, as long as you didn't push. "I don't know, Danny. Maybe he does. He's not so bad to work for. He gave everybody turkeys at Thanksgiving." He paused. "He said to come by Thursday. He said bring your mom if you want."
Danny put the card in his pocket. He didn't know why. He would think about that, later, too.
* * *
That week the Sunflower showed Back to the Future fourteen times, and on every one of those fourteen showings Danny climbed the stairs past the thousands of names and sat on an upturned film can beside Ansel's stool and learned the booth.