yolo (10 page)

Emily was fairly certain her heart was about to either stop or explode. “Oh, you see . . . I don't really have anything on hand, so . . .”

“Here's your phone, babe.”

Emily turned to see Brandon holding out a cell phone.
Liz's
cell phone. “Thanks, sweetie!” she said. Giggling, she turned to Big Dog and made a funny face. “I can be such an airhead sometimes. Thought I'd left it in the car.” She brought the phone close to her so Big Dog couldn't see her hands shake. Quickly, she pulled up Liz's albums, flipped through the pictures until she came across one of Artie, then held the phone out to Big Dog with a smile.

Slowly, Big Dog placed his teacup back onto his saucer, set both down on the desk, then hopped down to come across the room to take the phone. He glanced down at the picture of Artie and smiled after a short pause. “He's quite a
handsome young man,” he said as he handed the phone back.

“Oh, he takes after his dad,” Emily gushed as she handed the phone back to Brandon, then leaned over and pecked him on the cheek.

“Indeed,” said Big Dog. He raised his eyebrows and nodded, then drained the last of his tea. “Well, we should let you be on your way then.”

Big Dog motioned to Ruff, who wheeled the suitcase over to Brandon.

Emily fought the urge to grab Brandon's hand and race out of the room. Instead, she smiled at Big Dog and said, “It was a pleasure to meet you.”

“Likewise.” He smiled. Brandon nodded, and started rolling the suitcase toward the door. Emily was right on his heels, and as she held the door open so Brandon could roll the suitcase out into the warehouse, Big Dog's voice stopped her.

“We'll be here until seven p.m. We'll expect to see you back before then.”

Emily froze, and felt Brandon do the same. Slowly, they both turned around.

“To-tonight?” Brandon stuttered.

“Well, naturally,” Big Dog smiled. “You don't want to keep me waiting on my money overnight, do you, Chestnut?”

“Oh . . . uh, no. No, sir.” Emily felt a drop of cold sweat trickle down her back. She didn't even know what Big Dog was talking about, and she allowed her mind to wander briefly to what fate exactly would befall her and Brandon if
Big Dog found out that she was planning to dump the suitcase of cocaine Brandon was holding into a toilet or a swimming pool. The thought was not pleasant.

“Excellent. So, you'll make the drop at Balducci's now, then bring the money back here as we agreed upon.”

“Right. Yes, sir,” Brandon said. “That's the plan. And we always stick to the plan.” He gave Emily a pointed look when he said this, obviously referring to their complete inability to stick to a plan the entire day.

“And remember, for every minute after seven, you'll be docked $100 dollars from your one thousand dollar fee.” Emily saw Brandon blink twice as this idea sunk in. “You understand? I don't like to wait.”

“Yep.” Brandon smiled. “Not a problem.”

“Godspeed, Chestnut.”

“Holy shit.” Ana sped down the on-ramp back onto the highway. Pickles sat on her lap, his nose snuggled underneath a tiny paw.

“No kidding,” Emily said. “Okay, this restaurant looks like it's about thirty miles away from the Steins' place.” She had taken Liz's phone back from Brandon, who was currently lying down across the backseat practically hyperventilating. As Emily tapped at the screen of Liz's phone with her thumbs, she kept trying to talk Brandon down. “Brandon? You still with us? Need us to find you a paper bag to breathe into?”

“You're totally
loca
,” Ana said. “I can't believe you pulled that off!”

“It was all Brandon.” Emily leaned back over the seat and patted Brandon's arm. “Hey, mister. You okay?”

Brandon took a deep breath and sat up. “No, I am not okay. We are so dead.”

“I agree it's not ideal,” said Emily, “but thanks to you, we may survive.”

“Thanks to
me
?” Brandon yelped. “I looked like a complete moron in there. I totally almost got us
killed
.”

“Um, no. Actually, you totally saved my ass in there,” said Emily. “I mean, that moment with Liz's phone?
Brilliant
. I didn't even know you had it on you. I was totally stuck.”

“That doesn't solve the problem that he
knows
we're not Liz and Chestnut,” Brandon said.

“Nah,” said Emily. “I think he was testing us. I think he might have suspected something when he saw how young we are, but we pulled it off.”

“How can you be sure?” Brandon asked.

Ana laughed. “Well, you do have a suitcase of cocaine in the backseat.”

“Which probably means you shouldn't be driving like a maniac,” Emily said. “And here.” She reached over and plucked Pickles out of Ana's lap, snuggling him onto her own. “I think Pickles can stay with me for a while so you can stay focused on the matter at hand, a.k.a.
driving
.”

“Oh wow.
Right
.” Ana let her foot off the gas a bit. “I guess I was driving pretty fast. So, does this mean we're
not
throwing the cocaine in a river or flushing it down a toilet?”

“NO!” Emily and Brandon both shouted at the same time.

“Jeez, okay, okay. You don't have to yell at me,” Ana said.

“Sorry.” Emily reached out and touched her friend's arm. “We're a little bit . . . on edge.”

“Scarier then you thought, huh?” said Ana.

“Yeah, just a touch.”

“So, what
is
the plan now?” Brandon asked.

“We're going to Balducci's to get this giant amount of
cocaine that could land us in a federal penitentiary for the rest of our lives
out
of my car.” She wasn't really sure when she'd decided that this was the new plan, maybe sometime between leaving the office and leaving the warehouse, but dumping the cocaine suddenly seemed like a bad idea. Like it could easily backfire if someone saw them, or caught them, trying to dispose of an entire suitcase. Not to mention what Big Dog might do if he had more information about them, the
real
them, than they thought.

“But then we're going to have thousands of dollars in a bag or suitcase or whatever in the car, and a bloodthirsty gangster on our tail.”

“Not if we take him the money,” said Emily.

“Wait, but I thought you were the one who was all about taking these drugs out of circulation,” said Brandon.

“Yeah,” Ana chimed in. “What happened to being all Robin Hood and stuff?”

“Actually, Robin Hood robbed from the rich to give to the poor, so I'm not sure that analogy really makes much sense,” Emily said.

Ana just blinked with confusion.

Emily sighed. “All I'm saying is that we can't keep a suitcase full of cocaine in the car. I mean, what else can we do? It's not like we have a place to dump it along the way without just tossing it out the car, which could lead to a
ton
of other problems. And we can't take it and dump it at the Steins', because they would get in trouble and everyone would know what
we did. And we don't have anywhere else to sell it, right? And if we even try any of these things, Big Dog and his
associates
could come after us.

“We're so dead,” Brandon moaned, thumping his head against the front seat. “So,
so
dead.”

“Brandon!
Please!
” Emily yelled. “I need you to pull it together. You were a rock star back there. You got Scarface to tell us the plan, even though we should've known it already. He even told us the restaurant. We've got everything we need because of you. You and Liz's cell. So pull yourself together!”

Brandon stopped banging his head on the seat.

“Thank you. Now, like I said, it's not like we're going to sell the drugs ourselves. We don't have anywhere to take them, and even if we did . . . we're three kids from the suburbs. Big Dog might've believed that we're running transport, but do you think anyone else would believe that we're selling? And we don't even know
how
to sell cocaine. What do you even package it in?”

“Bricks,” Ana said. “Or baggies. At least that's what happens on
CSI
.”

“I'm not about to risk my life on a fact from a TV show,” Emily said. “We're going to take the stuff to the restaurant, get the proper amount of money, bring that back to Big Dog at the warehouse, and then we can each walk away with about $325 in our pockets.”

“Wouldn't it be more like $333?” Ana asked.

“You think I'm not deducting the gas fee for this?” Emily asked.

Brandon sighed loudly. “Okay, fine. I see your point.”

Emily nodded. “Thank you. Ana?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ana said. “We've started some kind of cartel. I've got it.”

“Look, I know this wasn't the plan,” Emily said. “And I know I'm usually the one shouting about sticking to the plan . . . so I take full responsibility for this detour, and everything we're going through. That's why I want to fix it. I know it's my fault.”

“Huh?” Ana glanced at her. “How is it your fault?”

Emily took a deep breath. “I just wanted to do something different. Something spontaneous. I wanted to stop being the stick-in-the-mud. The one always following the rules. You guys are always telling me “you only live once,” and I wanted to, I don't know, take that to heart and do something I never would do on a normal day. I wanted to make today special.”

“Getting involved with three thugs and a suitcase of cocaine is your definition of ‘special'?” Brandon asked.

“Remind me not to hire you to set up my next party,” Ana muttered.

“You know what I mean,” Emily said with a sigh. “Anyway, the plan seemed to make a lot more sense before we actually
met
Big Dog and he served us tea.”

“He served
tea
?” Ana asked with disbelief.

“No scones, though,” Brandon put in.

“And don't be fooled,” Emily said. “He might've been tiny,
and he might've served us tea, but I feel like this guy was the real deal. It wasn't anything he did specifically—he didn't do much of anything really, but you could totally get the sense that this guy had
been
places, you know?”

Brandon nodded. “And he had the scar to prove it.”

“Sooo . . . what about Liz and Chestnut, then?” Ana asked after a moment.

“What about them?” Emily asked. “They'll be able to take care of themselves, right?”

“Well, I was thinking . . . ,” she said slowly. “They're going to get back to their car eventually, right? And then they're going to make their way to the warehouse and have a little chat with Super Pup.”

“Big Dog,” Brandon said.

“Whatever. What are we going to do when they get to Big Dog
before
we get back with the money. Aren't they all going to assume that we just stole a suitcase of cocaine from them?”

“Damn.” Brandon sank back against the seat. “She's right. We can't go back there. We're not going to make it, and I doubt they'll believe that this was all a big misunderstanding when we stroll up again.”

Emily took a deep breath, realizing that she'd severely miscalculated. “We're totally screwed.”

Emily spent the next ten miles explaining to Brandon that their only hope was to get to the restaurant before Liz and Chestnut got to Big Dog's warehouse and Big Dog called his contacts at Balducci's. “That way we can
maybe
get the money back to them and even though we would've fooled them, they might not absolutely hate us since the job would've gotten done.”

Brandon wanted to call the police.

“We are not calling the police.” Emily was adamant. “How are we going to explain all of this cocaine?”

“We just tell them the truth,” Brandon said.

“And what?” asked Emily. “Just hope that they understand and let us go?”

“Well, yeah,” said Brandon.

“Oh my God.” Emily held her head in her hands. She felt like she was going to start crying. After a couple of deep breaths, she tried again. “If they find the cocaine in my car, they will impound it, no questions asked. And if they impound my car, we will—”

“Never make it to the party!” Ana shouted, only she said “party” like “par-TAAAY!” as if she were three shots in on a
beach over spring break with MTV filming from the sidelines.

“Are you
kidding me
?” Brandon said. “This is still about the
party
? Oh my sweet Jesus, you have
got to let it go
.”

“This isn't about the party!” Emily shouted.

“This is
totally
about the party,” Ana said, shaking her head. “This whole
day
is about the party. You know it, Emily. I know it. Brandon, even you know it, though right now you're acting like Emily and being the goody-two-shoes, and I don't even know why because we
both
know that you're not.”

Emily and Brandon were both silent.

“Here's the deal,” Ana said. “It doesn't make sense, at this point, to go to the police. That'll cause more trouble than it's worth, and there's no saying we would get out of it. We made the choice to go to the warehouse, and that puts us at fault. So no police. Not now.

“What makes this all about the party is that the party is what got us here. The idea of the party. The fun. The freedom. We're in this situation because we wanted to get there, and if we don't get there, if we don't
party
, then what is any of this for? So we're going to the party, no matter what.”