The End or Something Like That (13 page)

Five pirates walked past us.

I wondered how you got to be a sexy pirate at Pirate Island. I wondered if they were dead sexy pirates. I also wondered if Gabby should try out.

I looked at Baylor. I had two big questions for him. The first one was about me. The second one was about Kim.

“So you said you knew me?”

“Yep. We met. Lots of times.”

I stared at him. We hadn't. We didn't. I would remember.

“When?” I asked.

“At your brother's games.”

“Joe's games?”

He nodded.

I racked my brain. No one went to those stupid sophomore games except for parents and bored cheerleaders and sad people who wanted extra credit or liked someone on the team. If this kid, if Baylor Frederick Hicks had been there, I would have remembered. I was sure of it.

He laughed at me. “You look confused.”

“I am confused,” I said. Sweat was dripping down my face now and I was getting sunburned. Baylor on the other hand, didn't seem affected. Maybe dead people didn't get heat stroke.

“I was sort of hidden,” he said.

Hidden? What was he talking about?

“I'll show you,” he said.

“You'll show me?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I'll show you.”

He stood up. Walked to the middle of the sidewalk, closed his eyes and then, this really happened, then he started doing the robot. Right there. In front of Pirate Island. On the strip.

He was good.

Really good.

Like better than anyone I'd seen.

At one point he made a motion showing his heart beating, his chest going in and out, his hand mimicking his chest. I'd seen that move before.

I'd seen it at the games.

And then I realized.

“Wait a second. Are you . . .”

He kept going. Doing a signature moonwalk and then I knew for sure.

I couldn't believe it but I knew it.

Baylor Frederick Hicks was the panther mascot for Palo Verde High.

You can love someone you don't know.

I know this is true because once I saw a boy at Yellowstone and we both looked at each other across the geyser and he smiled and I smiled and then his mom said, “For the last time, Jared, get in the car!” and he was gone.

For three years I thought about Jared.

And before Jared from Yellowstone I loved a real boy. It was sixth grade and his name was Isaac and he always wore shorts, even on the fifth-grade field trip up the mountains.

He played soccer and one time he accidentally smooshed my sculpture in art.

So then I accidentally smooshed his.

He threw some clay at me and I started to laugh. I'm sorry but I did.

So then I threw it at him.

Everyone was watching.

Then we got in trouble.

Kim said, “You like him.”

And I said, “No I don't. He's so gross.”

The next day I told him he was a jerk and he said I was a butt, and secretly, deep down, I knew, I knew knew knew that someday we would get married. Or at least kiss.

•

But then, and I didn't really care, but one day, during lunch recess, Kim got a note from Candace Perkins who got the note from Janni Kimball who got the note from Eric Freeman who was Isaac's best friend.

It said:

Kim. Will you go out with me?

YES NO MAYBE

From Isaac.

Me and Kim and Candace Perkins and two other girls read it on the blacktop by the bars, and Candace said, “Oh my gosh,” and Kim was bright red and she looked at me and I didn't look at her.

•

Later she said, “I might say yes.”

My face burned. “You like him?” I asked.

“I don't know,” she said. “Maybe.”

We were walking home and I was kicking a rock hard down the sidewalk.

“Are you mad?” she asked.

I tried to keep my voice steady. “No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I don't care. I think he's dumb.”

She nodded. “You think he's gross.”

“Yeah,” I said.

So Kim went out with Isaac for one month and that meant they never talked and he bought her a ring at Santa's Secret Shop and she got him a Gak ball and one time, on a Saturday night, we had to walk to the park, and she went to the middle of the field while I waited, and he went to the middle of the field while his friend waited, and then they had their first kiss.

•

When I got home, I cried the whole night.

•

I sat in my closet.

•

They broke up the next week.

•

I wonder why she didn't know. How did she not know? We knew everything about each other. Why would she do that to me? But then, maybe she didn't know.

•

Sometimes I buy bags of Cinnamon Bears.

Or Peach Rings.

Starbursts.

Skittles.

Gummy Worms.

Sour Patch Kids.

Runts.

Red Vines.

Bags and bags and bags.

Sometimes I imagine my spine is lined with gummy fruit, and when they cut me open to see how I died, they'll sit and eat for days.

“You are so good!”

“I'm not that good,” Baylor said, sitting back down next to me. He said that but you could tell he knew he was good.

“You did the worm on the floor,” I said. “With that huge mascot head on.”

He nodded. “Yep. That wasn't even hard.”

“It wasn't?”

“Nope.”

“But Joe never told me you were . . .” I stopped. Then I tried again. “No one ever . . . no one said you were the mascot. Like in the news articles and things.”

I didn't say obituary. News articles.

“Yeah,” he said. “I'm sure it wasn't mentioned.”

“But wouldn't that have helped?” I asked.

I should have stopped talking. I just thought, you know, the mascot was cool. He was my favorite part of Joe's stupid games. Even Dad made a comment about the panther and that was saying something.

“Helped what?” he said.

“I uh, I,” I tried to answer the question. I wanted to say that maybe things wouldn't have gone so wrong if people knew he was the mascot. Maybe someone would have talked him out of riding the roller coaster. I mean even butthead Tony would have to respect someone who could not only do the robot but pop and lock like a pro all while wearing a hairy black cat costume.

“I know what you're trying to say,” he said as a huge stretch white limo passed. “No one knew because the real mascot paid me twenty bucks to do the sophomore and girls' games for him, but I couldn't tell anyone it was me. He did all the varsity stuff and practiced with the cheerleaders.”

I stared at him. “Really?”

He nodded. “It was my little secret.”

“But didn't you want people to know?”

He shrugged. “I like to dance but not in front of people—especially not at school. I sort of hate people to tell you the truth.”

I shifted on the sidewalk.

He hated people.

I thought about Joe calling him a loser. I thought about fat-face Tony. I thought maybe I hated people, too.

Did I hate people?

“Why do you hate people?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I'm not like everyone else. And people don't really like me.”

He got quiet.

We both got quiet.

Finally I said, “I like you,” which was so stupid because I didn't even know him but I always, always loved the panther.

He smiled. “Thanks. I like you, too,” he said. He hesitated and then he said, “I watched for you every game.”

My heart jumped. Was he serious?

The mascot
had
paid a lot of attention to us. Mom even commented on how strange it was that he kept coming over and shaking our hands. Now I knew it was because of me.

Or maybe Kim. Kim came to the games sometimes, too.

“What about the girl with the long black hair?” I said.

“Who?”

“Kim Porter?”

He shrugged. “I don't know who you're talking about.”

I sat there for a second. He had looked for me. He was really talking about me. I felt hot and nervous and weird and I wished I could do the robot.

Then I got a hold of myself. “She's dead,” I said.

“What?”

“She's dead.”

“Oh,” he said.

“Are you sure you don't know her?”

I showed him a picture of Kim on my phone and he shook his head. “Sorry. I don't.”

A large man walked up and stood right between us, leaning over the rope fence looking at the pirate ship.

He was eating a gigantic taco.

I was almost grateful for the break so I could get everything together in my head. Never in all my life had a boy watched out for me. And he didn't know Kim. Even dead Kim.

I took a breath and leaned forward so I could see him.

Baylor waved.

I waved back.

The man looked down at me and then looked at ghost Baylor, who he obviously couldn't see, and then back at me. I didn't think the man was dead.

He felt alive.

And I was alive.

But Baylor was dead.

Less than a week before she died, Kim was supposed to come over and watch
Hairspray.

We watched it once a month and ate popcorn and made Coke floats.

It was our tradition.

I was getting everything ready when she called and said she wasn't feeling so great.

“What's wrong?”

“It's nothing big,” she said. “Just, you know, sort of nauseous.”

I drew a circle on a piece of paper. Over and over again.

“So you can't come?”

She was quiet. Then she said, “I could but I'd probably be puking the whole time.”

I closed my eyes. I hated her heart.

“Okay,” I said. “Do you want me to come over? Bring you something?”

“No,” she said. “I just want to sleep.”

“Okay,” I said, and that was it. I thought that was it.

But then, Dad talked me into going to Smiths with him to buy some Cheese Whiz for nachos. I wasn't going to go because I was in my pajamas already and about to watch the movie but he promised me he'd buy me a bag of Starburst Jelly Beans, which I love.

“And some Twizzlers,” he said.

“Really, Dad? Twizzlers? You're going for the big guns.”

He laughed and so I went with him.

And then this happened: I was there, in the candy aisle, when I heard them. They were laughing and talking about a party and I heard her.

I heard Kim's voice.

I froze. A boy was saying something. Then she said, “Shut up!” And then there was more laughing.

I looked down the aisle and they were at the end by the yogurt and sour cream.

I died. I died right then. It was Kim and Gabby and some guys from school.

A big group.

One of them was trying to pick Kim up and she was screaming, and Gabby was holding some other guy's hand and I pulled my hoodie up over my head and put my head between the Gummy Worms and Peach Rings, adrenaline rushing.

What if they came to get candy? What if they walked right up to me? What was I going to do?

But then they kept going, the laughing dying as they moved away.

And I kept standing there. Cinnamon Bears, chocolate-covered almonds, Bit-O-Honeys. I stood there and tried not to cry. Tried not to cry.

When Dad found me, I was still in the candy.

“Are you okay?”

I nodded.

“Emmy. What's wrong?”

I shook my head.

“Tell me.”

I shook my head harder, tears streaming down my face.

“Do you want your jelly beans?”

“No,” I whispered.

“You don't?”

“No.”

He put a bag in the cart anyway. And three bags of Twizzlers.

Then we went home and I sat in my closet and ate all of it at once.

The large man standing between Baylor and me ate his taco and then dropped his wrapper on the ground and walked away.

When he was gone, Baylor said, “You ever tried a burrito over there?”

I looked across the street. Smashed in between stores and casinos and clubs was a tiny pink stucco building with bars on the windows, a flamingo on the sign that said
BETOS TACO SHOP
, and a couple of tables on the sidewalk.

I'd never noticed it before but then I never came down here.

“So?” he said. “You ever tried one?”

“No,” I said. “And I don't think I want to.”

“You do,” he said. “They're the best.”

“They are?”

“Oh yeah. You'll see.”

He stood up.

I'll see? I didn't want a burrito. Actually I did want a burrito. I was hungry. I looked at my watch. One thirty. I had less than an hour before Dr. Ted Farnsworth was going to speak.

“Wait,” I said. “Wait!”

But it was too late.

He was already dodging taxis and limos and Girls Gone Wild trucks, running across the street.

He walked into the taco shop. Just walked in like he was alive and fine and could buy a burrito.

He walked in and then a few minutes later he walked out and with him was a man.

Crowds of people moved in front of them, but there was definitely Baylor and a man.

A willowy guy with a baseball hat and a beard and a big brown bag. He looked confused.

And nervous.

He walked toward the light at the intersection. Baylor walked with him, practically arm in arm. The man kept glancing over at me and then quickly looking away.

The two of them crossed the street. The man hesitated and then started walking toward Pirate Island. I stood up. I don't know why.

When he got to me he almost stopped. Almost. But then he kept going.

Baylor said, “We'll be right back.”

“Okay,” I said.

A lady with a fanny pack looked at me.

I didn't look at her. Instead, I kept focused on dead Baylor and his new friend.

They walked to the end of the block and then the man and Baylor turned around. The man stood there for a minute. I acted like I wasn't watching.

Like I wasn't entranced by what was happening.

Baylor smiled even though the man clearly was in distress.

The man started back toward me and I inspected my nails.

Finally he approached.

“Hello,” the man said, his voice gruff.

I said, “Hello.”

He said, “This may seem strange but . . .”

He stopped.

I waited.

He chewed on his lip. Then he said, “I bought you something.”

Baylor was beaming.

“Oh,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. He reached into the bag and pulled out a steaming package wrapped in yellow paper.

“It's the Texano,” the man said. “I've never even tried it but I had this distinct impression that you, the pretty girl sitting across the street, needed a Texano burrito.”

Pretty girl? Me? Baylor was blushing and I was probably blushing.

“Did you need a Texano burrito?” the man asked.

It seemed like he really wanted to know.

“I mean,” he said, “were you waiting for a Texano burrito?”

I wasn't sure what to say but then Baylor mouthed Y E S so I said, “Yes.”

“Yes?” the man said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Yes?”

“Uh, I guess. I don't know.”

He studied my face and I tried to just be calm. Holding a hot burrito.

Then he said, “Okay.”

And I said, ”Okay.”

And he turned and walked back down the street, across the intersection, and into a crowd of people.

I looked at Baylor. “Could he see you?” I asked.

“Nope.”

“So he wasn't dead?”

“Nope.”

“How did you do that?”

He shrugged. “I just gave him the idea and helped him follow through.”

I laughed. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Is it hard?”

He shrugged and then motioned to the burrito. “Eat,” he said.

“You didn't have to do that.”

Baylor sat down. I sat back down next to him. “You really didn't,” I said.

“Take a bite.”

“You freaked him out.”

“Take a bite,” he said again.

I unwrapped the burrito. I was more than hungry. I was starving. Which reminded me that I was in a hurry.

“What time is it?”

He held up his arm to show me his broken watch.

“I sort of have to be somewhere soon.”

“Take a bite take a bite take a bite.”

I looked at it. “It's called the Texano?”

“It's the best burrito they make, sort of secret though.”

No one had ever bought me food before. And never a secret special burrito.

I held it to my nose like I was on TV.

“Smells good, eh?”

“We'll see,” I said, I guess sort of flirting which is gross. Is it gross? I had never flirted before and never with a dead guy, but then I thought maybe that was good practice.

I wondered if dead people could kiss. Then I knew I was really gross. But can they?

“Eat it before it gets cold,” he said.

So I took a bite.

Baylor was watching my face and I didn't want to let him down and I wasn't going to let him down because it
was
the best burrito I had ever had, and when I was done chewing he said, “See?”

And I said, “You're so right,” and he laughed.

So I ate a burrito with Dead Baylor Frederick Hicks. We talked about the taco shop and how no one would ever eat there with him.

“They wouldn't?”

“No,” he said. “Not my parents. Not my friends. No one. There's one up in Summerlin and I'd try to get people to go there.”

“Where in Summerlin?”

“By the Las Vegas Athletic Club,” he said.

I nodded. I knew exactly where he was talking about. Kim would have loved this.

He kept going. “No one believed me about how good it was because the restaurants look beat down.”

“It does look beat down,” I said.

I took another bite. Then with my mouth half full, I said, “I would have eaten there with you.”

He smiled. “I agree. I think you would have.”

We talked about doing the robot and how he learned most of his moves on YouTube.

We talked about the school science fair and how he got the prize taken away because they said he cheated.

“What?”

“Yeah,” he said. “They said it was too advanced. There's no way I could have come up with it myself.”

I stared at him. He was smart. And he was funny. And he could dance. But he was also dead.

“What did you do?”

He shrugged. “I argued with them and called one judge a buttwipe.”

“What? You did?”

“Yep.”

“What did your parents do?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“They work a lot.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said.

I took another bite and then I said, “I actually really have to go.”

“Where?”

So I told him about Dr. Ted Farnsworth. I told him about the seminar. About Kim. About how today was an important day.

He listened and then when I was done, I thought he'd say it was hopeless. Or tell me Dr. Ted Farnsworth was a joke. Or that it was a waste of my time and I was stupid. I thought he'd say something like that, but instead he said, “I'll walk you there. You need to hurry,” and he stood up.