Free Under Cover by Caroline Crane

grubby.”
    I took a fast shower. Very fast, so as not to
keep him waiting. He looked so crisp in his clean white shirt. I
put on a clean white shirt of my own and my designer jeans with
embroidery on the rear.
    I assumed he meant something like Burger
King. Instead he drove to the village marina on the Hudson
shore.
    Next to it was a restaurant called Waterside.
It had arching windows and a wraparound deck. Half of it stood on
pilings above the water. It was the most elegant restaurant in
town. Mom and Grandma took me there for my twelfth birthday.
    Since it was early still, the parking lot was
nowhere near full. Ben came around and opened my door. That was a
first. I began to wish I had worn a dress, but maybe designer jeans
were good enough.
    “Ben, did you get a raise or something?”
    “Dream on,” he said. “You think a raise from
Frosty Dan would cover this place?”
    “Then what’s the occasion?”
    He pulled open a carved wooden door and
ushered me inside. The restaurant was as uncrowded as the parking
lot. We got a table next to a window that looked straight down on
the water. The whole place had a hushed coolness about it, and
genuine linen on the tables. What had gotten into Ben? He was
supposed to be saving his money.
    The waitress set a basket of rolls on the
table along with a plate of raw munchies. She gave us each a menu.
Ben scarcely looked at his.
    “Fried clams,” he said.
    I hadn’t even begun to make up my mind. The
waitress waited, while Ben studied the plate of veggies. Crudités,
Mom would have called them. There was cut celery, baby carrots,
pickled beets, and both green and black olives. Ben took an olive
and asked the waitress, “Do you have any peanut butter?”
    “Peanut butter?” She must have thought she
heard him wrong.
    “Yeah, the chunky kind, if you have it.”
    “I’ll see what I can find.” She sounded
doubtful.
    I cringed with embarrassment. “Ben, places
like this don’t serve peanut butter.”
    “I always eat celery with peanut butter.”
    “It’s possible Waterside didn’t know
that.”
    He gave me a puzzled frown.
    “I’m sorry,” I said.
    I should’ve remembered. Sarcasm wasn’t part
of Ben’s thinking. He didn’t always know when people were using
it.
    The waitress came back with a tiny jar of
creamy, not chunky. “I’m sorry; this was all I could find.”
    Ben gave her a big smile. “Gee, thanks!”
    She returned the smile, happy to be of
service. Ben was adorable, but most people wouldn’t give him a
chance, just because he was different.
    I followed his seafood example and ordered
shrimp scampi. Ben slathered peanut butter onto a piece of celery
and offered it to me.
    “That’s so weird,” I said as I took it.
    “Didn’t you ever try it?” He fixed another
piece for himself.
    “Not that. I mean asking for peanut butter in
a fancy restaurant.”
    “I got it, didn’t I?”
    “It must be an Aspie thing. No, I don’t mean
that.” Oh, how I wished I’d kept my mouth shut. “I mean it’s cute.
It really is.”
    “Hmm.” He narrowed his eyes, and then got
busy filling another slice of celery.
    I bit the end off of mine. “It’s really good
this way.”
    “I know.”
    “And don’t get me wrong, I like Aspies. I
like you. Even more than all the others put together.”
    Why couldn’t I just shut up?
    “I called Frosty Dan,” I said. “They still
don’t have anything.”
    “I told you that, didn’t I?”
    “Yes, you did. Thanks for trying. I
appreciate it.”
    The waitress brought our salads. They were
almost a whole meal in themselves.
    “I wonder why restaurants do this,” I said.
“They stuff you so full of salad you have to take the rest of your
dinner home in a Styrofoam box.”
    “Styrofoam,” said Ben, “doesn’t
biodegrade.”
    “Then they shouldn’t do it.”
    Our seafood arrived next. My shrimp scampi
nested on pasta and swam in some kind of butter sauce.
    “Oh, wow,” I said. “If Mom could see all