Megan’s hand flies up to her neck. The rest of us laugh.
“I wouldn’t laugh, Zoey, if I were you,” Megan says. “You have lipstick all over your chin.”
Zoey frantically swipes at her chin with the sleeve of her sweatshirt.
“So where are Joe and Shmo?” I ask.
“Who?” Megan asks.
“Oh, sorry, I mean Marc and Justin.”
“We sent them to hang with Dennis for a little while. It has to be just the four of us for this next part.”
“Next part?” I ask. “Wasn’t the blackberry brandy my birthday ritual?”
They all laugh, even Katy. “That was just to warm you up,” Zoey says and plops down in the sand. The rest of us follow. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be, I guess.”
“Okay,” Zoey says, leaning in toward me. “Truth or dare?” “That’s it?” I look around the circle. “Just truth or dare? That’s easy.” It’s no contest. I always choose truth.
“You might want to hear what they are first,” Megan warns. “Before choosing.”
Zoey rubs her hands together, clearly enjoying this part. “Either you have to tell us the deepest, most secretive secret you know, or else you have to run into the lake naked.”
I stare at her as she giggles with glee. “Naked!?” I demand. “Completely naked!?”
“Just your birthday suit,” she says. “Hey, get it? It’s actually your birthday!” The three of them laugh, but Katy’s sounds forced. I’d bet anything she didn’t know in advance what the truth option was going to be.
Fifteen minutes ago and I would have been so in the clear. I would have told them about stealing that rainbow-colored gel pen from Silverman’s Cash ’n’ Carry in seventh grade. Or that my father cried when he lost his job. Or that I saw Rob naked that time. But now I had a real secret. On the other hand, the lake is very dark and cold and slimy, and the thought of going in there is truly horrifying. That doesn’t leave me much choice. I turn to Katy.
“Will you hold my clothes for me?”
She nods gratefully as I glance behind us to make sure the boys are far enough away. Then I pull off my jeans as Megan and Zoey begin shrieking.
“You’re actually choosing
dare?
” Zoey shouts. “I can’t believe it!” “Oh my god,” Megan says. “You’re actually getting naked. You must have some huge secret!”
I’ve now pulled off my shirt and am standing there in my underwear. “Any chance you brought a towel?”
Zoey runs back to the bonfire, which by now is a lot lower since no one has tended it. She comes back with a hand towel.
“I never thought you’d choose Dare,” she says. “I only bought this in case we spilled anything.”
I grab the towel from her and use it as best I can to cover myself. With one push, my underwear falls to the ground. I drop the towel as close to the edge of the lake as possible.
“You can still change your mind,” Zoey calls to me as I run into the very cold water.
The dare didn’t say how far in I had to go, so I plan on only taking a few steps. But the shoreline is deceiving and I’m soon up to my thighs.
The three of them are cheering now. Katy calls out, “That’s enough, Josie, come back.”
As I turn around to go back my foot slips on a rock. I feel myself falling and know my bare butt is about to hit the bottom. My bare butt! I land just hard enough to alert me that no matter how hard I pretend, this isn’t a part in a play. It’s just me, in the lake, playing the only real role of my life. By the time I scramble upright, my hair is soaking wet and Katy is at my side, holding the towel. The water only comes up to the bottom of her knees.
“Thank you,” she says, pressing the towel to me. “I owe you big time.”
I shiver in response.
Zoey and Megan hug me when I get to shore, which I think is nice because I’m really wet, but on the other hand it’s a little weird because I’m still naked. They hold out my clothes to me and turn around while I get dressed. I’ve never realized how difficult it is to put on jeans over wet legs. Katy and I still need to talk. She seems much more relaxed now than before she told me. So that’s good, at least.
“You guys ready to go?” Dennis says, approaching from behind. I quickly pull my shirt over my head. I don’t think he saw anything.
The four of them start back toward the fire pit as I bend down to pick up my sneakers and my bra, which I hadn’t bothered to put back on. “Wait!” I call out frantically. Everyone stops. I hold up my left hand. “My ring is missing!”
They all hurry back except Dennis, who says he’ll meet us at the car. “Where did you last see it?” Katy asks worriedly.
“On my finger. Before I went into the lake.”
We turn to face the inky black water. “Oh, no,” I say. “It’s gone. My grandmother had it for fifty years and I had it for three hours!”
“Maybe it’s in the sand,” Megan suggests, kneeling down to look. “It could have fallen off when you took off your clothes.”
We all get on our knees and feel around. “Does Rob still have that metal detector?” Katy asks.
“I think so.” In his geek days Rob used to take his metal detector all over town. I went with him once to one of the manmade ponds on the outskirts of Disney World. After four hours of digging along the shore, all we found were three rusty nails, one nickel from 1976, an old high-heeled shoe, nine bottle caps, and a penny with the face completely burned off from the sun.
The four of us have come up empty, and I’m now on the verge of tears. “We’ll never find it.” The clouds keep blotting out the moon, and the beachfront is even darker now.
“Why don’t we come back here early tomorrow morning,” Katy suggests, scooping up handfuls of sand and letting it sift through her fingers. “It’ll be much easier to search in the daylight.”
I don’t see any other choice. I nod miserably and reach for my sneakers. Putting wet, sand-covered feet in sneakers is totally unpleasant. Before I shove on my second one, I stop to shake out a pebble. Out falls my ring, right onto the sand.
“I found it!” I shout, holding it up high. My friends stop digging and look up. “It must have fallen in there when I pulled them off before.” I stick the ring on my finger and promise myself to get it re-sized as soon as possible.
Megan stands up and brushes the sand off her knees. “Enough drama for one night, even for me.”
We scurry back to the now only-sputtering fire to collect our stuff. “We should put the fire out,” Zoey says. She looks around and sees the cups Katy and I left in the sand with the brandy still in them. She pulls one out of the sand and tosses the contents on the twigs. Then we all jump out of the way because instead of fizzling out, it flares up.
Katy says, “Didn’t you pay attention in science class?” She scoops up sand and tosses it on the flames, eventually smothering them.
I pick up the brandy bottle to hand to Zoey, and am surprised to find it’s empty. “Did you two drink all this?”
“Marc and Justin finished it,” she says.
The only people left in sight are one smooching couple. “Where are those guys?” I ask.
“They must have taken off,” Megan says, looking around. “Oh well. I didn’t think Justin was going to be the love of my life anyway.”
Zoey sighs. “Marc was a good kisser, though. Not too wet, not too dry. Not too hard, not too soft. That’s okay, though. He’s replaceable.” She swings the backpack onto her shoulder and we head toward the path.
Dennis had thoughtfully pulled the car to the edge of the woods and turned on his headlights for us, so it is much easier to see this time. In the car we can’t stop talking about what a crazy day this has been.
“I wonder what will happen in four years,” Megan says. “On Josie’s next Leap Day birthday.”
“We probably won’t all be together,” Katy says quietly. “Zoey and I will be in college and you guys will be on Broadway or on TV or something. But probably not in Orlando.”
That shuts us up for a minute as the reality of what she said sinks in. Then we pass the twenty-four-hour Circle K, and Megan points to it. “Dennis, can we stop?”
“What for?” he asks.
“You can’t possibly be hungry after all the dessert we ate at Josie’s,” Zoey says.
I want to tell Zoey that if Megan wants to eat, we should all be encouraging her.
“All I want are mints,” Megan replies. “I don’t want my parents to smell the alcohol on my breath.”
“That’s a really good idea,” Zoey says. “Dennis?”
“Oh, all right,” he says, swinging the car into the parking lot. As usual, it’s full, even at almost eleven on a Monday night.
No one wants to wait in the car, so we all go inside. The air conditioning is on full blast and I wish I had put my bra on after all. My wet hair hangs in cold strands down my back and I shiver. Megan heads toward the candy aisle and Katy and I wander through the magazines with all the pretty airbrushed models on the covers.
Making sure no one else is around, I ask, “Katy, do you want to come back to my house? We can continue our conversation and I can drive you back home. I can do that now, you know.”
She shakes her head. “Thanks, but I just want to be alone to think.”
Slightly hurt, I say, “Oh, okay,” and pick up an issue of
Entertainment Weekly.
As I’m flipping through it, a guy’s voice behind me says, “I guess you still want to be an actress.”
I whirl around. Grant Brawner. What are the odds? He just keeps popping up where I least expect him. My stomach flips until I remember I’m mad at him. “Oh, it’s you,” I say. Katy silently slips away into the next aisle.
“I won’t ask why you’re all wet,” he says.
“Good.”
“Hey, I’m sorry about this afternoon. It was Stu’s idea.”
“Uh, huh.”
“If it makes you feel any better, Stu and I are both out of the game. We got shot about ten minutes ago. Some girls got us right in front of the Slushee machine.”
Actually, that does make me feel a little better. Just then his cell phone rings. He pulls it off his belt and looks at the number.
“It’s my mother,” he says apologetically, and answers it.
I pretend to keep reading the magazine.
“Yeah, it’s me,” he says into the phone. “Oh, really? What’s her name?”
Is his mother trying to fix him up with someone? I really don’t want to hear this. I slip the magazine back onto the shelf and rejoin my friends in front of the counter. Megan is flirting with Stu like nothing ever happened at my house. Traitor. She keeps pushing her hair in front of her neck to cover up evidence of Joe. Or Shmo. Whichever one she was with.
Grant finds us. “Bobby’s baby was born a little while ago,” he announces. “Her name is Amanda.”
“I didn’t know you were friends with him,” I say, trying not to appear too interested in the whole baby thing, even though I am.
“I’m not, really,” he says. Then he seems unsure. “Well, sort of, I guess.”
“It seems to me,” Zoey says, “that Sherri did all the hard work. You didn’t even mention her.”
Grant shrugs. “I’m sure she’s fine.”
Then I remember what Missy Hiver said at lunch. “They didn’t break up, did they?”
“No.”
I knew Missy was lying!
Megan pays for her mints and turns to Grant, still holding her hair in front of her neck even though Stu has wandered away. “I thought they were giving the baby up for adoption.”
“They are,” Grant says, pulling a piece of beef jerky out of the glass bowl on the counter.
“Then how come they named her?” Megan asks.
“I dunno.”
“We’ve gotta go,” Zoey tells us, glaring at Grant. “Dennis is already in the car.”
Grant waits until we’re halfway out the door to call out, “I’m really sorry about tricking you.” We let the door close and run into the car laughing. As we pull away he’s still watching us. I give a little wave goodbye. My obsession has passed. He’s still totally hot, though.
Dennis drops me off first and waits at the curb as I stick the key into the front door. I’m about to turn it when Rob swings the door open. Since my hand is still on the keys I get yanked inside. He must have been waiting right there for me to get home. As soon as he sees me he starts laughing.
“So you chose
dare,
huh?”
“Yup.” I step past him, accidentally sending a stray pack of Smarties rolling under the closet door.
“You must have a really good secret,” he says, admiringly.
I nod. “I do.”
“Because there are leeches in that lake, you know.”
It takes a second for the words “leeches” and “lake” to come together in my brain. When they connect, I scream at the top of my lungs. Rob steps to the side, my parents run out of their room, and I run up the stairs and directly into my third shower of the day.
9:00
P.M.
– 11:15
P.M.
“Are you sure these girls are hot?” Justin asks his friend Marc as they toss another few twigs onto the growing fire. They’ve already piled rocks around the outside to protect it.
“I’m sure,” Marc says. “I met one of them last week. She’s a little pale, but hey, in the dark it doesn’t matter, right?”
“That is correct, my man,” Justin says, high-fiving Marc. They both take this opportunity to polish off their Coors Lights, which was the only kind of beer Marc could find in his older sister’s fridge.
“Plus,” Marc says, “she said she’s bringing brandy.” “Sweet.”
Marc nods. “I wish I could remember her name, though.” “Maybe another beer will help,” Justin suggests.
Megan enjoys being outside late at night. It always feels like an adventure, even if she’s only taking the trash out to the curb. She doesn’t think real life offers enough adventure. That’s why she is drawn to make-believe worlds and wants to be an actress. Megan likes putting on other people’s lives like coats that she can slip on and off. She hopes tonight will prove to be an adventure. Maybe she’ll even get some action with one of the guys from Orlando South.
As she follows a freaked-out Josie through the woods to the lake, Megan’s sweatshirt pockets are weighed down with her share of the piñata candy. She also has the cigarettes she stole from Dennis’s room. Before dinner, she had tried one in her bathroom. She blew the smoke out the window so her mother wouldn’t smell it. For a few minutes the bitter taste it left in her mouth made her feel older. Then it just made her mouth taste gross and she had to brush her teeth twice. Plus everyone knows that smoking makes your skin gray and gives you even deeper lines on your face when you get older.