Summer on the Short Bus (9 page)

Collin finds a space near the back of the lot. The faint smell of cigarettes and concession food forces me to roll up my window before we actually stop. I'm the last to climb out of the truck, and when I do, I immediately link my arm through Quinn's. Under normal circumstances I'd never make the first move, but nothing about this circumstance is normal.

Quinn seems unfazed by my boldness. “I'm sure they're harmless,” he says under his breath, referring to a couple of guys monitoring us from the back of a neighboring pickup. With their award-winning mullets and ability to throw back whiskey shots while still tongue-wrestling their chewing tobacco, I can see why he
thought they were the cause of my angst. “And even if they do start something, we'll be fine. We know karate.”

“We do?”

He nods. “We've seen
Karate Kid
, remember?”

I'm in the mood to get shit-faced and fired, not have a good time. But once again, Quinn's easy attitude gets the better of me and I begin to laugh.

We make our way across the broken asphalt, through the battered front doors, and straight into a white trash Wonderland. Flannel shirts, mullets, and cigarette butts, oh my!

I'm pleased to see that Colin heads straight to the bar, leaving the rest of us to search for a place to sit.

“How about this one,” Fantine says, pointing to a plastic booth directly across the stained carpet from the shoe rental counter. Considering every surface in this place probably carries an infectious disease, I don't see the point in protesting.

I slide into the side of the booth opposite of Fantine. Quinn slides in beside me, his arm extending the length of the plastic cushion behind me.

“I'm guessing you don't do a whole lot of bowling,” he says to me with a teasing grin.

“Something like that,” I say.

“What is your typical Saturday night, Cricket?”

I look across the table and am surprised to see Fantine staring at me with a deadpan, Oprah-interviewing expression on her face.

“I don't know, just typical stuff I guess. Movies, shopping, parties.”

“And who do you do these things with?”

“My friends,” I say cautiously. “Why?”

“You mean you don't go with your boyfriend?”

“Uh, no.” I pretend not to notice that Quinn's gaze has shifted from me to the faux wood grain of the tabletop. “I don't have a boyfriend.”

“Are you kidding me?” Fantine smacks the table dramatically. “How could
you
not have a boyfriend? With all that blonde hair and a tan the Coppertone girls would kill for, that's just a shame. Wouldn't you agree, Quinn?”

My cheeks are ready to spontaneously combust. I'm not sure what sounds more appealing, hearing Quinn's answer or leaping across the table and pounding Fantine's head with my fists. Thank God Colin shows up.

“So what did I miss?” he asks, setting an ice-filled bucket of beers on the table. I waste no time grabbing one and taking a long pull. “Whoa, pace yourself, girl,” he says. “You only get one.”

What?
How am I supposed to get drunk on one freaking beer?

“We were just prying into Cricket's life,” Fantine says, answering Colin.

“Oh, then my timing's perfect.” His eyes widen with curiosity as he takes a pull off his bottle. “I've been wondering about your name, Cricket.”

“I'm sorry, what?” My brain is too busy reeling from this disappointing new development to properly keep up.

“Well, I'm guessing Cricket isn't your birth name?”

“Oh right. No, it's not. Cricket's been my nickname since I was a kid. My full name is Constance.”

“You don't hear that one every day,” Quinn says.

Nodding in agreement, I down another mouthful of beer as I try to come up with a solution to my limited beer supply while still staying engaged in the conversation. “Nobody ever calls me that anymore,” I say. “Except when I'm in trouble.”

“I hear that,” Fantine adds. “I thought once I left for college my mom would relax a little, but she's even worse now. I can be upstairs in my room studying and she'll still be like, ‘Carmen Fantena Galindo Marquez, you better not be doing what I think you're doing!' I swear, she just likes hearing the sound of her own voice.” The whole table breaks into laughter, including me.

“Exactly,” I say. “My dad practically rattles the windows when he yells at me with ‘Constance Elaine Montgomery!'” I pause to take another drink, expecting to hear everyone laugh. Instead, there's just the distant sound of balls crashing into wooden pins. “What?” I say, as I look from one astonished face to another.

“Did you say your name was Constance Elaine Montgomery?” Colin asks.

“Yeah . . .”

“Montgomery?” Fantine adds.

“Yeah, what's the big deal?”

“Your dad is Lambert Montgomery?” Quinn takes a turn. “The real estate developer?”

“God,
yes
! What is wrong with you guys?”

They all exchange a hard glance before Colin falls back against the plastic seat. “I had no idea we were in the company of such greatness.”

I feel my forehead crinkle the way it does when I'm working out a calculus problem. “What are you talking about?”

“Your dad signs our paychecks.”

“What?” I laugh, though I'm not sure it's funny.

“It's true,” Fantine says. “Your dad, or Montgomery Enterprises, has been keeping Camp I Can alive for the last thirteen years. Rainbow said they were about to go bankrupt, but a generous benefactor stepped in and saved it.”

A seed of anxiety begins to take root in my gut. Dad knows about this place? He . . . saved it? Why would he do that? “And what makes you think this benefactor is my dad?”

“Besides the whole name on the bottom of our check thing, there's the plaque hanging in the office that says a substantial charitable contribution was made to the camp in memory of Constance Elaine Taft Montgomery,” Fantine says and leans back, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Your dad didn't tell you about it?” Quinn asks.

I shake my head.

“He didn't say anything?”

Quinn's sympathetic tone is bad enough, but I can't help but feel a twinge of that same defensiveness I felt yesterday with Rainbow. Until I got here, I've never had to justify the inner-workings of mine and Dad's relationship to anyone. The people in my world just know how it works. Or they're smart enough not to ask.

“No, he didn't,” I say. “But that doesn't mean anything. He donates to charities in my mom's honor all the time. It's good for taxes. And when you make as much money as he does, the IRS is always up your butt looking for ways to nail you on something.”

I suck back the rest of my beer, wishing I had another to replace it with. Handicapped hell is one thing, but unloading the details of my jacked-up family is something entirely different.

“What happened to your mom, Cricket?” Fantine asks in a tone that's meant to be gentle but instead comes across as nosy.

“She died.”

“Well, obviously. Was there an accident? Or was she sick or something?”

My chest tightens beneath her barrage of personal questions. Again, people in my world don't ask me these things because they already know the answers. They know how she died. They know my dad can't get over it. And they know we don't talk about her—ever.

I'm about to tell her to mind her own damn business, when I see one of the parking lot mullet brothers stagger through the front
door and an idea pops into my head. “Yes, she was sick,” I answer quickly. “She had breast cancer and died when I was four. Is that all you want to know, 'cause I really need to go to the bathroom.”

Looking confused by the sudden turn in conversation, she says, “Yeah, that's all I wanted to know.”

Quinn barely has enough time to exit the table before I'm crawling across the torn plastic seat and heading toward the bathroom.

“Do you want me to come with you?” Fantine calls after me.

“No,” I say, not bothering to turn around. “I'm good.”

Aware that they're probably watching me, I make a hard left at the hallway marked with a
CRAPPER THIS WAY
sign, but freeze as soon I round the corner and am out of sight. I do a quick ten count before looking back around the corner. As hoped, my tablemates have resumed their conversation and are fixated on each other rather than me.

Here goes nothing.

With my head down, I quickly cut back through the main entry area and out the front doors. The night air is thick and makes my lungs feel heavy. Already I long to be back inside where it's cooler, but turning around now isn't an option. Not when there's Jack Daniel's out here and I
have
to get drunk in order to earn a get-out-of-handicapped-jail free card.

Thanks to the fluorescent streetlamp mounted in the corner of the parking lot, I have more than enough light to see where I'm
going. Not that I'd need directions to Red Neck Avenue. I sprint toward the entrance of the lot, more than surprising the mullet guy who is still camped out in the back of his truck.

“Hi. Um, I need . . . some of your Jack,” I say, feeling like the world's biggest loser.

He stares at me with his mouth gaping. Leaning forward in his lawn chair, he says, “You what now?”

“I need a few shots of your Jack.” I point to the bottle at his feet. “Please? I'm sort of . . . desperate.”

I have no doubt he wasn't prepared for what I was going to say, but it's almost as if I'm speaking a foreign language. This dude is either too drunk to follow what I'm saying or he graduated from Camp I Can last year and just doesn't get it. “Look,” I say, fishing a ten-dollar bill out of my pocket. “I'm going to take a couple of drinks from your bottle and then I'm going to give you this money, okay?” I extend my hand, offering him the cash.

His impaired gaze drifts from me to my hand and back to me again.

“Okay?” I repeat.

His response isn't immediate, and only comes after he hocks a chunk of tobacco over the side of his truck. “Help yerself,” he says, nudging the bottle toward me with his foot. “And keep your cash.”

NINE

“Y
ou arrre really pretty. Have you ever cosiddered modeling?”

Through blurry eyes I see two identical versions of Fantine.

All four of her eyes are rolling at me.

“Girl, you are messed up.”

I snort. “Isn't it
awesome
!” I have no idea how much of that Jack I drank, but damn. I'm so rocked right now.

“How is it even possible that one beer can do that to someone?” Quinn asks.

“You got me,” Fantine says.

“She's probably still dehydrated from yesterday,” Colin says. “But it doesn't matter. This is going to be a huge problem for us.”

“Whad'r you guys talkin' about?” I slap my hand against the table and do my best to stare them straight in their eyes. Which is proving to be a challenge. “I'm not a prob”—hiccup—“broblem. Yoooo on the other hand are a biiig problem, Mister!”

I look down to see that my hand has found its way to Quinn's chest, and my left leg is draped over his right thigh.
Ooopsy!
When did that happen?

“We gotta sober her up,” Quinn says, easing my leg off of his.
“If Rainbow catches her like this, we'll all get fired.”

I start laughing. It's just so ridiculous that I'm at this piece of crap bowling alley with Zac Efron. “Canihave”—hiccup—“your augotraph . . . aaauutograph, Mister Efffffron?”

“Shut up, Cricket,” he says. “We're trying to figure something out.”

I get serious, and prop my elbows up on the table. “So whadar we disss”—hiccup—“cussing?”

“Your drunk ass,” Fantine says all bitchy.