The Best Night of Your (Pathetic) Life (16 page)

Not even two hours ago, I was sure Carson and I were heading toward some romantic confrontation. What if I
was
somehow misinterpreting everything? What if telling him how I felt could change the course of events?

I was contemplating how to reply when Carson appeared
by my side, and for a half a second I hoped he’d come in to tell me there’d been some big misunderstanding, that he’d only been talking to Winter about me, that she’d misinterpreted things.

“What’s up?” he said.

“They’re bringing it,” I said,

“Awesome,” he said. “I’ve got to run to the loo.”

He went toward signs for restrooms and I realized how different it was to be around him now. Now that he was available. It really was now or never, do or die, and I felt certain there was a passage in that romance novel the bartender chick was reading about a moment just like this one, when the timid heroine decides to take her romantic fate into her own hands.

But he liked Winter.

This was no romance novel.

I told Dez: I DON’T SEE THE POINT.

A woman wearing a red Marriot uniform appeared in the lobby and handed a bar of soap to the woman at the desk, who nodded to me, so I walked over and got it and said, “Thank you so much.”

Dez said: GOING FOR MRI!

I waited for Carson, thinking
I’m going to do it, No, I can’t
, over and over on a loop and then he was back and the moment passed and we walked in silence back to the car, which he had left idling in a handicapped spot out front.

Real classy,
I thought, for reasons I couldn’t explain.

And it’s a bathroom, for the record. Not a loo.

“We’re idiots,” Patrick said as we got back into the car. “Carson, your parents probably have a drawer full of hotel soaps at home and we’re probably hitting your house for skinny-dipping.”

“I wouldn’t say a
drawer
full,” Carson said.

“They’re practically
never
on American soil,” Patrick said, and I knew it was true but something about Patrick’s saying it, and so flippantly like that, felt weird. Possibly because Carson’s parents had just missed the entire production of
Joseph
.

“Well, it only took a few minutes to get it firsthand,” Winter said lightly.

“Sure,” Carson said. “And they might not even have any.”

“Carson” Patrick said, obviously not picking up the vibe I was picking up, or was he? Was he trying to be hurtful to Carson? Pointing out his parents’ jet-setting ways? “Are your parents, or are they not, currently spending two weeks in the South of France?”

“All right, already,” Carson said. “So they travel a lot. And yes, they happen to be away, so we can skinny-dip in my pool. And we can boil and decorate an egg there, and cook a piece of spaghetti. What else?”

“We need to stage Gumhenge,” I said, adding ten points for the soap to our total, now 1369. “But we need to buy gum first. And do surgery on Barbie.”

“We don’t have a Barbie yet,” Winter noted.

“So we’ll need to get one,” I said. “Is there booze? Like for a martini or Piña Colada?”

“Probably,” Carson said, and I said, “Awesome.”

Carson said, “There must be more, too. Keep looking.” He nodded at the list in Patrick’s hands.

“Hotel soap,” Patrick said, shaking his head and smiling. “I’m telling you.”

We pulled out of the parking lot and Carson said, “So. Gatti’s house?”

“Yes,” I said.

Carson nodded at the list in Patrick’s hand. “Anything else on the way?”

He drove out toward the train station and I thought about the list—all those objects and tasks floating around in my mind’s eye. It was enough to drive a person crazy if you let it. All the points, all the strategizing. And the way your brain was drawn to some things, but not others. Like I had no interest in a French spatula or fettling knife, whatever they were. I’d written off some of the pranks and stunts, too—like shaving Bob’s balls, since we had no idea who Bob was; and “Save water, drink beer, go Wunderbar,” since we had no idea what that meant either—but realized that was a dangerous way of thinking. You had to be open to everything, hold the whole list—
both
lists—in your head at once and look for opportunities everywhere.

As we passed under the train station, where graffiti clung to cement, I said, “What about ‘tag the town red?’”

Patrick snorted. “We’re not really graffiti types.”

I said, “Says who?”

“Mary,” Patrick said sternly.

“What,” I said. “I’m just saying that just because we have never
to date
spray painted a name on a public structure of some kind doesn’t mean we’re not
capable
of doing it.”

Even as I said it, though, I wasn’t convinced, and that fact made me sad. Maybe we
were
too good to win the hunt. Maybe to win you had to take the sort of risks we weren’t capable of taking? But what were we—what was I—so afraid of?

A text from the Yeti read: FIELD REPORTS PUT CARSON WILLIS AT THE MARRIOT AND BARBONE IN MATADOR PARK.

“Wait,” I said. “Someone saw us. How’d we miss them?”

“I guess we just did,” Winter said, but I took the time to look behind us to see if anyone was following us. Like maybe one of the other teams or the judges? There was something about being seen and reported on that made it all the more exciting. It was really happening. This was it. Not Round 1, but Round 2. The one we needed to win in order to, well,
win
.

“I’m not capable,” Patrick said, “of spray painting a public structure. And anyway, why is it tag the town red and not paint the town red. I mean, are you even sure that’s what it means?”

“I did it once,” Carson said, “but it was different. I was just adding my own graffiti to more graffiti. In Dublin. Near Windmill Lane Studios. Where U2 first recorded their stuff. The whole alley is covered.”

Out of habit, my brain crammed an entire fantasy—about a trip to Ireland with Carson, about woolly sweaters and countryside drives and cows and hills and pubs—into a mere second.

“So the odds of you getting caught or expelled from school were pretty slim, then?” Patrick said, sort of obnoxiously and for my benefit.

“Yeah, but I could’ve been arrested maybe?” Carson shrugged. “I don’t know. But I could be convinced is what I’m saying.”

“Me, too,” Winter said. “But it would depend on what I was writing.”

“You’re all unbelievable,” Patrick said. “Graffiti? Really?”

I said, “We could write ‘Dez Rules’ or something.”

“Yeah,” Patrick said. “Because no one would figure out it was us. And that wouldn’t get Dez in trouble.”

“Okay, so we could write the Also-Rans or something. Jeez”—I tried to sound light—“not my best idea, but still.”

“How many points is it?” Carson asked.

“Not nearly enough,” Patrick said as I consulted the list again.

“One hundred,” I said.

“That’s a lot,” Carson said.

“Yes,” Patrick said, “but when you factor in the time it takes to buy the paint and to do it and the risk of getting caught and arrested, it’s not that many. Not when you can”—he consulted his own list—“get the same amount for skinny-dipping.”

“Here we go with the skinny-dipping again,” I said, throwing my hands in the air.

“Didn’t you guys already do that at the Shalimar?” Carson asked.

“Pretty much,” I said.

“But not officially,” Patrick said.

“Anyway,” I said, to sum up my thoughts on our overall strategy moving forward, “you have to remember we need the
most points
to win; we’re not after a minimum anymore. So anything worth as many points as tagging the town red has to be considered.”

My phone buzzed. It wasn’t Dez, but Grace: HEARD ABOUT DEZ. IS HE OKAY?

I wrote back: GOING FOR MRI.

Then Grace wrote: ANY SIGN OF MARY?

I couldn’t bring myself to answer.

Mr. Gatti’s house was a small, beige, shingled cottage a few blocks from the train station, with a big front yard full of flamingos and gnomes and birdhouses and pinwheels. Carson stopped the car right out front.

“What looks big?” I asked.

“I don’t like the idea of this at all,” Patrick said, and though I wasn’t going to admit it, I felt the same way. Then again, we could return anything we took, and they were only lawn ornaments. What was the big deal?

“The flamingo is big,” I said, pushing away fear. “And that birdhouse is big, too, if you bring the whole pole.”

“Sounds messy,” Carson said, then my eyes fell upon something very large by the side of the house.

“Over there!” I pointed. “Trash can.”

“We can’t take the man’s trash can,” Patrick said.

“Why not?” I asked. “We’ll bring it back.”

“I’ll go,” Carson said, and he got out of the car and said, “Come on, Pat. Live a little,” and Patrick seemed about to say something obnoxious—he had this look in his eye when he looked at Carson—but then much to my surprise, he got out of the car and headed across Gatti’s lawn.

I turned to Winter and said, “So what did you do that’s so classy?”

“You’re not going to like it,” she said.

“I’m a big girl,” I said, watching Carson and Patrick cross the yard. “I can handle it.”

“Okay, then…” she began, and it was all clear in that instant.

She didn’t need to form the words.

The dancing at prom, his hand on her hip, the “real classy,” his question about cheating….

“You hooked up with him.” I was shaking my head. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

“How did you know?” Winter looked suddenly more suited to her name, white like snow. “But wait, no,” she said. “I mean, it was a kiss. I wouldn’t really say hooked up.”

“When?” I asked.
“Where?”

“Prom,” she said, and I shook my head and said, “I’m going to have to second Jill’s ‘real classy’ on this one.”

I had never talked to Winter like this. Ever. Had never disapproved of anything she had done, really. And it all felt wrong.

Winter liked Carson.

Carson liked Winter.

They’d already kissed.

I should have been happy for her but I wasn’t.

“But wait,” she said. “How did you know?”

“I’m not an idiot,” I said, flatly. I felt like someone was manually wringing out my stomach.

Carson had the trash can, and Patrick had the lid, and they were already putting it in the back of the car and I felt like I had a millisecond in which to make things better, to show Winter some kind of best friend support, but I couldn’t find a good word or good thought for her. She had kissed the guy I wanted and everything about that sucked.

Winter had been right. The night
had
turned into a bad teen movie, one that
I
didn’t even want to play myself in.

“Success,” Carson said when he got back into the driver’s seat.

“I can’t believe I just did that,” Patrick said.

I started a little list on the back of our master copy, called “Potential Points” and wrote, “Trash can. 100?”

Everyone’s phones buzzed: HEADS UP. BE PREPARED TO SEND ONE REPRESENTATIVE TO RAINEY PARK TO CHILL OUT AND CHUG A RED BULL AND PERHAPS DISCOVER SOME HUNT SECRETS AT 9 P.M.

“Okay,” Carson said, turning down the music. “We need to get serious. What on the list are we going for and what
are we just going to skip entirely? What can we reasonably accomplish before getting to Rainey Park by nine?”

I bristled at the fact that Carson seemed to be taking over, leading my team. He wasn’t even supposed to be here, and the fact of Dez’s being stuck in the hospital and not here with us hit me anew. I texted him and said: ANY CHANCE WE CAN SPRING YOU OUT IF MRI RESULTS ARE GOOD?

Patrick said, “Skinny-dipping is a definite.”

“Oh, lord,” I said.

“Yes,” Carson said. “But we won’t have time before nine.”

“I still think we should go to my house,” Winter said.

“What’s there?” Carson asked, not having been privy to our Round 1 brainstorms and the treasures of the Watson household, and Winter said only, “Trust me. Just drive.”

I was starting to feel like Dez did, that we were the lamest team ever, especially now that we’d lost him, and for a moment I felt like I was going to cry again. It was too bad there weren’t points for meltdowns, maybe 50 per.

Dez wrote, NOT LIKELY WITH RENTS HERE.

A new loop: He’d already kissed her. And she’d kissed him.

THEY HOOKED UP AT PROM, I told Dez, who wrote back BAD FORM. Then followed it with: BUCK UP!

“SOMEBODY COME WITH ME,” WINTER SAID,
tentatively, to the car once we were parked outside her house, a faded gray ranch built into a hill dotted with shrubs.

“You’ll be quieter alone,” I said, not ready to support her in any endeavor. Not yet.

“Yes, but faster with help,” Winter shot back.

Patrick turned and said, “Aren’t you guys each others’ alibis? Like you’re supposed to be at the movies together?”

Winter nodded.

Patrick faced front again and said, “So you both have to go. In case you get caught. You can say it was sold out or whatever.”

Winter and I just looked at each other. I knew there was no way around it; I had to go. Winter, who knew it, too, said, “You can look for a toy made in the U.S. in Poppy’s room while I get everything else.”

“Okay,” I said. “Sure.”

A text from the Yeti said, ANYTHING MADE OF RED GLASS: 25 POINTS.

“We’ll strategize while you’re gone,” Carson said, then
shook his head. “Is it possible we’ve only gotten ten actual points and a hundred
possible
points so far this round?”

“I’m afraid it is,” Patrick said matter-of-factly, while looking at the list. “But Winter’s house is actually a pretty big score.” He turned to us and said, “Look for a red crayon. And red glass.”

“Okay,” Winter said, “but we’re sneaking in, so there’s a lot of stuff I won’t be able to get to.”

“Just do your best,” Carson said.

We headed for Winter’s bedroom window, which we’d jimmied open more than once over the years, and we climbed in like we had all those other times, stepping up onto a few cinder blocks stacked in the garden bed, and helping each other as best we could.