"Hit the deck,” I yelled.
I tried hard to do the gallant thing and shove them away from the place of gack. I scooped them, and as a giant ball we rolled halfway down the slope until a tree stopped us. We froze in place—not gacking, not sobbing, not breathing. The car on the main road sped by without incident. The other one approached and paused at the stop sign for what seemed an eternity. I guessed that it was so close to us that I could have spit and hit it. Then, instead of leaving, it backed up about fifty feet and stopped.
"Roll! I whispered as loudly as possible. I pushed the giant ball to get us rolling again. We landed at the bottom, in mud that was slimy and disgusting. At least I hoped it was mud. As scared as we were, that ‘substance’ could have been debatable.
We waited. Breathless, shoeless, shirtless—we waited. I sincerely hoped it was a pair of lovers simply copping one more feel before they completely abandoned their duck-filled lover's lane. Okay, maybe that was a desperate scenario, but we were indeed desperate.
Mistake number five? Would I lie? While I was in the thralls of embarrassment at what we had gotten ourselves into—would I even exaggerate? I thought not.
Mistake number five: If you are hiding in fear for your life, always, always have sound enabled on your goddamn cell phone.
Suddenly, over the hum of an idling engine, a reggae ringtone burst forth.Frickin’ phone! I scrambled to get the goddamn phone out of my goddamn muddy goddamn back pocket before it goddamn gave away our goddamn location. I stabbed the correct button at the same time I read Claudia's name on the screen. I cupped the phone and bent over to hide the light. I breathily whispered into the phone, “Honey, I think we're in big trouble.
Whatever happens, I love you.... We're in a ditch by the park. There's a car right above us just sitting there.... I'm serious."
"Tell them we need help!” Holly whispered emphatically.
I nodded full body and said to Claudia, “No, I'm not kidding.... Tell Laura to get her guys here.... I'm not kidding. Listen, you can probably hear the car."
And then, I listened to her.
And then, I realized that mistake number six was a frickin’ doozie. One that could very easily leave us scarred for life.
I turned to breathless and shoeless and whispered, “Guys, if this car honks in about thirty seconds, we are all going to commit suicide. Tell me we have a pact."
Sure enough. The car honked three times.
"What the hell?” Holly asked, staring at me, her eyes wide, her jaw hanging.
Susan looked very similar, but she added speechless to the mix.
Sheepishly, I said, “It's Maggie and Sam."
As the actual reality of our situation sank in, laughter, hysterical laughter rose to the surface.
Amongst us, we verbally replayed the tape just to grasp the full gravity of it. Mr. Sober Sam offered to take Maggie to the park to get us. When they couldn't find us, they stopped—right the hell up there—and called Claudia. She, in turn, called us, not to hear our last wills and testaments, but to find out where we were so Maggie and Sam could find us. After my hysterics, she called Sam and told him to honk so we'd know it was safe. Sam honked. We were idiots.
"Oh shit!” Holly wailed. “Who has the arsenic tabs? Oh please, no! We will never hear the end of this. Shit!
No! Laura will hold this over my head until the day I die. Shit! Oh Jesus!” The normally unscathed Holly was battered and bloody.
"I'm not going up there,” I yelled. “There is no way in hell I am going up there. I am not going home either—
not ever!"
We laughed so hard that I could feel my own seal beginning to break. Then, into the utter stillness of the night, Susan's name rang out. Three times. Each time, it got a bit more desperate. I saw Susan begin to stand, and in perfect synch, Holly and I jumped on her, wrestling her to the ground. Holly put her hand over Susan's mouth, and I was glad it was not mine on the origin of gack.
"You can't answer her, Susan!” Holly whispered with force. “Just be quiet."
I added my own shushing sounds to the mix, and then Susan's name came in worried shouts.
"Shit!” I said.
Susan was now making very loud noises through Holly's hand and squirming.
Reason seemed to make a stand in Holly's head, and she let go of Susan. “You're right,” she conceded. “She's been worried enough."
"I'm here, Maggie!” Susan yelled. “We'll be right up."
Those balls that women didn't have? They really didn't have them. As hard as I tried to grab them, I could not find the fortitude to make the ascent—into the laughter and humiliation that awaited us.
Apparently, Holly found the balls that I could not find. “This is easy, guys, now that I think of it. Just leave it to me. I will get us out of this. I swear."
With that, we slogged up the slope. As soon as the three of us stood in beams from the headlights, Maggie made a mad dash for Susan and simply held her. “I was so worried! Are you okay, honey?"
"Actually, I've probably never been better,” Susan replied. “I am sorry I was a jerk tonight. I'm sorry about a lot of things."
Maggie started walking her to the car just as I spied Sam closing his cell phone and making his way to the front of the car. I did not know what to say to him, so I said nothing.
"I'm glad you girls are okay. I wish I had thought to drive you in the first place, but everything happened so fast.
I'm sorry."
"There's no need to apologize, Sam,” Holly assured. “We're big girls. We can take care of ourselves."
"Yes, you are,” he readily agreed. Then he cleared his throat and winked at us. “But that car on the shoulder over there,” he said, pointing to the main road. “It must have really scared you. I would have been scared."
We looked at nothingness, and then it slowly dawned on us what he was up to. Holly charged him, plastering a kiss on his cheek and gushing, “Oh my God, that is so sweet! I love you as much as I love Charles!"
Our savior.
I breathed much freer.
Then he threw a shirt at me. “You might want to put some clothes on, Kate.” He was laughing but not at me.
I clutched the shirt, noting that it was a long sleeve T-shirt that I hated. It was a pinkish orange ugly thing that lived an idle life on the bottom of a pile in my dresser. For some stupid reason, I never had the heart to throw it out. I wondered if Claudia had pulled it on purpose. Maybe a passive-aggressive thing for not knowing why her partner was running around half-naked. I would think about that later. At that moment, all I wanted was to clothe my muddy and cold body. I put it over my head and felt instantly better.
As I walked toward them, Holly pointed to my shirt, covered her mouth, and started laughing. I looked to discover writing on it, and despite pulling and twisting, I could not make sense of it. I quickly removed it, turned it around, and stared. There was an arrow pointing upward in emphatic magic marker strokes. Under it, in large letters, loomed, “Dead Meat.” Beneath that, very small letters formed, “Get your butt home! XOX."
With a grunt, I put the shirt back on. I was now a marked woman, but at least it was not for the humiliation we endured in a slimy ditch.
We left Susan and Maggie to the backseat and climbed, mud and all, into the front with poor Sam. Susan whispered nonstop to an attentive Maggie. Holly and I remained silent.
A few minutes later, we pulled into the driveway, and I watched two silhouettes slink down inside an SUV. I had nearly forgotten! Time ticked by briskly.
We stood in the driveway, bracing ourselves for the worst and praying for the best. There was no telling what we were about to walk into. Humiliation was an ugly, nasty thing. Was it ours to endure?
We took deep breaths at the front door, and Holly instructed, “Just remember to look innocent. Smile a lot.
Nibbling kisses help, too."
Thatwas how she did it?
"Yeah, but you're Holly,” I lamented. “I look guilty when I haven't even done anything wrong, and this time, I have—I think."
She opened the door, saw Laura, and hurried to her. In an instant, she wrapped her arms around her, kissed her, and gushed, “Oh, babe! Hold me."
I wanted to keep watching. I marveled, but then I saw Claudia. She did not look happy at all. She ran and sucked me into the vortex of a hug. “I'm so glad you're safe, Kate. I don't know what I would have done,” she cried, and guilt clutched my throat like an escaped killer. “I'm sorry about the shirt. It was funny at the time, but now that I know what happened on your way back, it's not funny at all.” She kissed me repeatedly.
What the hell?I needed to have a little chat with Sam, because although he was sober, he did not seem to be of sound mind. What the hell had he told them? I was in shock, and yet, I needed to laugh more than anything.
Okay, maybe more than that I needed to unload my guilt. No, actually I needed to pee.
As Claudia held the speechless me, I saw Laura give Susan a big hug, saying, “I'm really glad you're okay.”
Then she moved in my direction. “Thanks, Kate,” she said. She gave me a kiss on the cheek and added,
“Thanks for taking care of her. I owe you a big one!"
She owed me?What the hell? Who invited Rod Serling to the party?Do do, do do...
I pulled back from Claudia and shook my head. Perhaps I was dying in that ditch, merely hallucinating while I meandered toward the light. Regardless, I had to move on and figure this out at a later time.
"We've got to take care of the last part,” I said to Claudia, who was in obvious and eager agreement. I removed and tossed my muddy shoes. “Go to the bathroom with me so we can talk quick."
She nodded, and before leaving with her, I turned to my muddy ditch-mates and told them to get cleaned up as best they could. “Everybody needs to be in the basement in five minutes. Just one more thing to take care of!"
Claudia and I had a quick conversation while I tired to make my bladder less explosive and myself more presentable. When we came out of the bathroom, the upstairs was vacant. Claudia went to the top of the stairs and yelled down, making sure everyone was accounted for. When I got the green light, I opened the front door, made a beckoning gesture to the SUV, flashed one hand three times, and then we darted into the basement.
We had fifteen minutes to make this work.
Everyone stood at attention as soon as we landed on the bottom step. My favorite manager jumped in quickly.
“Thanks to Susan's wanderlust, we get to play hooky from the last class!"
Exactly as children released early from the confines of school, the reaction registered on the Richter scale.
"Well, kind of anyway,” she corrected for the swiftly deflating crowd. “We were supposed to have English class.
You know, to take a few jabs at our dearest English teacher.” She smiled graciously and curtsied for Ginny.
"Oh, I feel so cheated,” she said sarcastically.
"Good, I'm glad you do,” I retorted, “because we've decided that we'll make this short and sweet and just for you. We'll just jump right to the jabs, so please have a seat, Professor Bleeker.” Now I was smiling. I pointed to the couch while Claudia snuck into the laundry room for paper and pencils we had waiting.
I told everyone, “I took Professor Bleeker's Advanced Expository Writing class."
"Sounds like something you would shove up your ass,” Laura joked.
"Actually, it was just that,” I assured, and everyone but Ginny laughed. “She taught alternative style ... how to write important things in weird ass ways. Then, she challenged us to challenge her colleagues by turning in an alternative style term paper to one of them. I did and got a frickin’ D."
"I took care of that for you!” she spat through a smile.
"Whatever,” I said dismissively. “She taught us a lot weird stuff that I have certainly been unable to use at theJournal . One of the things she taught was listing ... taking all the main points of an essay and consolidating them into nothing but a list of words that was supposed to give the reader just as much as if they had read the whole essay."
Noises and twisted faces helped in the drama department.
Claudia handed Ginny paper and a pencil. She instructed, “So, Professor Bleeker, we need you to do a little listing for us, just to show us how it's done by a professional. We want a list of what happened in each of our classes today—except for that horrid highway cleaning one. We can skip that one.” She shot me a dirty look and then returned her attention to Ginny. She stressed, “And for your list, you can only use M-words."
"You've got to be kidding!” Ginny yelled and started laughing.
"Get busy, Professor. You have exactly five minutes,” I said.
"Can we help her?” Alison asked, somehow excited about the task.
"Sure. Go for it!” Claudia said. “Start with our first class, which, if you recall, was recess."
"Mimosas!” Susan yelled automatically.
"You are right, Susan,” Claudia congratulated and patted her on the back.
Then she stopped in mid-pat. I could feel it. She whipped her face toward me and shot a series of questions. The escaped killer had escalated from strangulation to firearms. “Kate, is she wearing your shirt? Is that what happened to your shirt? Is that your shirt? Is Susan wearing your shirt?"
Like a low-grade idiot who acted as if she were dealing with an equal, I shrugged my shoulders and contorted my face into one of those abstract messes meant to indicate, “I have no clue what the hell you are talking about.My shirt? It couldn't be!"
She continued to stare at me while shouting, “The second class was with Janice. Maybe she can help."
As the word “massage” eventually made the rounds a hundred times and got added to Ginny's paper, she moved to within a millimeter of my face. “Is it, Kate? That's your shirt, isn't it?"
"Yes,” I said like a coy snake. “But remember, you are an authority on trust now."
She backed up, maybe a foot, maybe two. She smiled and then took her index finger and stabbed the word
“Dead” on my shirt and then did the same to “Meat.” With an evil, evil twinkle in her eyes, she repeated the gesture that had originally created the arrow. She stared at me and yelled, “The third class was with Charles.