Freaky in Fresno

by Laurie Boyle Crompton

  “You’re seventeen!” I pull the skin of my temples back tight. “Your skin is riddled with elasticity.”

  “Speaking of which, we need to get out of this harsh sun.” Lana stands up and starts walking unevenly toward the concession shack. “I think that buzz from the body switch is starting to wear off.”

  Lana hunches over her phone as she crosses the drive-in lot, now looking less graceful and confident in her high heels. I think about the physical manifestation of stress I woke up with this morning. The pressure in my chest.

  And I wonder how long before all of that stress follows Lana, like a flock of squalling birds, migrating from this body into mine.

  chapter 16

  I chase after Lana as she continues scrolling on her phone while striding toward the snack bar. Despite her deflated posture, her ability to walk in heels without looking up from her screen is quite impressive.

  All of a sudden, she stops.

  She puts a hand to her chest and says, “Oh no.”

  After a moment, she doubles over, hugging herself, and I run to crouch at her side.

  “What is it?” I put an arm around her. “I don’t feel anything. Are we switching back?”

  “Not switching,” she says between gasps for air. “Just awful.”

  “We’ll be okay, Lana,” I say. “We talked about this, remember? The switch will probably only last for a day no matter what we do. A week at the most.”

  “No,” Lana says, “this is a really, really bad one.”

  “What’s happening?” I ask as I try to hold her tighter. “Do you need me to call your mom?”

  “Unghhh,” she cries. “My mom makes these things worse.”

  She groans and sinks out of my arms until she’s all the way down on the ground in a ball. I pull the heels off her feet, instinctively trying to channel Nurse Mom.

  “I don’t understand what’s going on,” I say. “Do you have pills you’re supposed to take or something?” I can feel my own heartbeat thudding harder. I’m so afraid for her right now. I kneel down so we’re facing each other.

  Lana looks at me with tears forming in her eyes. “No big deal,” she says. “Just having a little panic attack.”

  She looks so afraid and vulnerable I want to pick her up and carry her inside, but she’s much larger than me now. I do my best to cradle her, trying to block everything out so she’ll feel safe. She desperately begs the sky, “Oh please, please, please!” in a voice that’s so childlike it makes my heart crack wide open.

  I’m rocking her as firmly as I can, but she stays rigid. “How do I help you, Lana?” I whisper into her ear. “Tell me what I should do.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know,” she repeats softly, shaking her head back and forth.

  I’m frightened, but I know I need to stay calm. I need to be strong. “Okay, Lana? Look at me. Right now.”

  She closes her eyes and tears squeeze from the corners and run down her cheekbones.

  “Opposite. Opposite. Open your eyes.” I firmly take her by both shoulders. “Lana, I mean it. Look at me now.”

  When I finally coax her to open her eyes, they’re my brown ones and they’re filled with terror. I sense how scared Lana is and my heart feels like it’s leaking with compassion. Her eyes search around, and I say, “Right here, right here, right here” until she focuses on my face.

  “This hit me totally out of the blue,” she whimpers. “I can’t breathe.”

  “Keep looking at me,” I say. “We are going to breathe together, okay?”

  I draw a long breath in through my nose until my chest rises up, but Lana starts taking small, shallow breaths.

  “No, not panting,” I say. “We are breathing.”

  I draw in another deep breath and push out my cheeks filled with air. I hold it in and wave my hand, inviting Lana to join me.

  She just shakes her head and continues panting.

  Finally, I get a wave of lightheadedness and exhale. This isn’t working. Nothing is working.

  “Lana,” I soothe. “Just listen to the calm and melodic sound of my voice.”

  She stops panting but continues breathing fast and shallow while looking at me. I feel like I’m on the right track. I just need to distract her.

  “Hey, maybe we can try rubbing your ears,” I say. “It always calms the wolf dogs.” It’s worth a shot.

  I reach over to rub Lana’s ear and she blocks my hand. “I’ll rub my own ears.” She starts massaging her lobes.

  “Anything?” I ask.

  Lana shrugs her shoulders and continues rubbing. “It feels soothing, but it’s not really making the knot in my chest loosen.” She gives another wince of pain.

  “I had no idea you were getting hit with panic attacks like this,” I say. “This is awful. Does my mom know?”

  Lana continues panting, but stops rubbing her ears so she can hug her chest. “My mom doesn’t even know how bad these get,” she says. “She thinks I just have regular, everyday anxiousness like she does.”

  “The women in our family are awesome and amazing, but we do tend to be high-strung.” I go back to trying to rock her.

  “Not you,” Lana says as she comically tucks into my small chest. “You’re never anxious or scared.”

  “Ha!” I exhale through my nose. “Lana, do you know why I love horror movies so much?”

  She looks at me. “Because you have a sick and twisted lust for blood and gore?”

  “Nice,” I say. “But wrong. I watch them because they relax me.”

  “Like I said.” Lana shakes her head. “Sick and twisted.”

  “Hear me out,” I say. “I started watching horror movies because they helped me escape all the big emotions I felt as I got older. I hated feeling out of control, but I discovered horror movies are like this practice exercise for stress.”

  Lana squints at me as her breathing grows more normal. I just need to keep distracting her.

  “Really, Lana, think about it,” I say. “Take any classic horror and picture the most intense part of the movie. Like, imagine Michael Myers is just about to kill Jamie Lee Curtis in the final scene of the original Halloween.”

  “Are you trying to make this worse?” Lana says.

  “Stay with me here,” I say. “Now picture him chasing her through the big, creepy house and he has that big knife . . .”

  “Oh my god, Ricki, please stop talking,” Lana says.

  I go on. “But just when things can’t possibly get any worse for poor, frightened Jamie Lee . . . Bam! Michael Myers gets shot and falls off the balcony like a brick.”

  “Yeah, but he’s still alive and just comes back to torture her again in all those sequels.” Lana furrows her brow. “In fact, he’s probably sitting around right now in his scuffed white face mask, drinking strawberry lemonade and just waiting . . .”

  “That’s the thing,” I say. “None of it is real. It’s all masks and special effects makeup and camera angles and sinister music. We know Jamie Lee Curtis is fine and we get to see her in all these other roles, like that aerobics instructor and the Freaky Friday mom. Not to mention children’s book author and spokesperson for that yogurt that makes you poop. When you think about it, Halloween isn’t actually all that stressful at all.”

  Lana takes a deep breath. “I never looked at horror that way,” she says. “And here I always thought you just enjoyed being scared out of your mind.”

  “Oh, I do,” I say. “But in a manageable way that makes me feel like I’m in control. Horror movies taught me that when I’m feeling tense and anxious, it’s best to not freak out.”

  “Because the people who freak out in horror movies end up dead,” Lana says.

  “Well, let’s just say they end up not on camera for the rest of the film,” I say.

  “Right.” Lana gives me a small smile and shakes her head. “You have a weird way of dealing with stress.”

  “Look who’s talking, cuz,” I say, relieved to see her smile. />
  We sit together, not talking or phone scrolling—just sitting together—until Lana nods that she’s ready to stand.

  As I help her up I ask, “Why didn’t you tell me about these attacks?”

  She smooths back her dark hair with one hand and takes a deep breath. “I thought I had things under control. This was a little setback, is all.”

  “A little setback?” I say. “You were just immobilized by stress. I’m pretty sure your body is trying to tell you to make some changes.”

  “Gee, what on earth could I possibly be stressed about?”

  “This has been a pretty intense day,” I say. “Maybe if we just relax and breathe, everything will go back on its own.”

  With that, the concession door swings open and Jake and Erik come running out at top speed.

  Erik is screaming at such a high pitch it makes me laugh a second, until I see how terrified he actually looks.

  “What’s happening?” I call to Jake, and he shakes his head as if to clear it.

  “Is everything okay?” Lana asks. “Erik, if this is one of your pranks, I’m honestly not in the mood.”

  “It’s not a prank, Ricki,” Jake says, breathing heavily. “But I do think it’s some sort of sabotage.”

  Wes comes barreling out of the concession shack door yelling, “Aaaaaagh!!! Mice!! We have mice!!”

  “Seriously?” Lana says. “This definitely sounds like a prank.”

  She walks over to the glass front door of the snack bar and flings it open. “Really, Erik, nobody has time for this sort of . . . Eeeeekkkkk!!” She slams the door shut and runs back over to me, pointing toward the concession shack. “Right on the counter. I could see it running along the edge.”

  I move to put a protective arm around her, but Lana does a “grossed-out heebie-jeebie” dance, shimmying as she gives a long, whiny, “Yuuuuuck.” Clearly her anxiety has been replaced by a basic run-of-the-mill, inspired-by-rodent feeling known as “the creeps.”

  I catch Jake smiling at her, because of course even her heebie-jeebie dance while looking like me is adorable.

  “Why would we have mice inside?” I say. “There hasn’t been food in there for months.”

  Wes says, “How did you know that?” He looks at me suspiciously and I give a mental face-palm over forgetting I’m Lana. Again.

  Thankfully, Jake cuts in. “You’re right, Lana. It doesn’t make sense. This has to be sabotage. And without concessions, we’re sunk tonight.”

  Wes says, “The bank won’t give us funding if we can’t prove our income, and we make half our money on snack sales.”

  “What are we going to do?” Lana wails dramatically. “My whole entire life is hinging on this drive-in’s success. Without this, I’m just a hopeless loser.”

  “All right, Ricki, it’s not all that bad,” I say, motioning for her to take it down a notch as I head toward the concession shack door. “Let me take a look.”

  “I thought you were afraid of mice, Lana,” Erik says.

  I glance back at Lana over my shoulder and say, “Yeah, well, I’m feeling double courage today for some reason.”

  Opening the door to the concession shack, I see where the cleaning supplies sit on the countertop, abandoned by the boys when they made their hasty escape.

  I call out, “Coast looks clear. I guess you guys scared the little fellow off.”

  “He didn’t seem scared of us,” Jake calls back. “At all.”

  Just then, a quick movement catches the corner of my eye. Sure enough, I see a small mouse shadow scurrying quickly across the counter. Before I can fully focus, it’s disappeared underneath the popcorn maker. I calmly turn and walk back out.

  “Yup, still there,” I say. “We really need to do something.”

  Wes says, “Getting an exterminator to come on short notice will blow our profit margin.”

  “Worse than that,” Jake says, “an exterminator truck pulling in will send a pretty shabby message to customers.”

  I picture the local exterminator’s van with its telltale giant plastic rat on top and the back bumper sticker that says “Rat’s All Folks.”

  “Yup,” I say. “Just imagine a black van that says ‘No More Mister Mice Guy’ parked in front, right where I wanted to park the vintage pink convertible.”

  Lana says, “You mean where I wanted it parked.”

  We exchange glances.

  “How do you get rid of mice without an exterminator?” Erik says. “Because I am not going back in there.”

  “Mousetraps, maybe?” Wes says.

  “Those take too long,” Erik says.

  Jake gives a shiver. “I once had a mouse survive the trap and it was horrible.”

  “What did you do?” Lana asks.

  “I opened the spring over the toilet as I flushed, and the little guy started swimming like mad.” Jake looks down. “He went around, and around . . . I still feel awful.”

  I say, “He’s probably fine and living in the Fresno sewer system now.”

  Jake laughs. “Better yet, he could be surviving on toxic waste.”

  “Mutating as we speak,” I say.

  Lana steps between us. “Okay, so mousetraps are out.”

  “Well then,” Wes says, “anybody have a cat?”

  “That’s it.” I turn to Lana. “Remember that house mouse Zelda killed a few summers ago?”

  Lana laughs. “Yes, she was so proud of that thing we could barely get it away from her before she ate it.” She looks around at the guys all watching us. “Zelda is a Chihuahua.”

  “She belongs to Ricki’s mom,” I say.

  Wes shakes his head. “Chihuahuas aren’t bred for hunting.”

  “Well this Chihuahua is half demon,” I say. “Evil Z has the soul of a murderer.”

  “Lana and I can go pick her up,” Lana says.

  “We need to grab some special effects makeup from Ricki’s house anyway,” I say. “If we hurry, we can get back here and have Evil Z clear out all the mice well before any customers arrive.”

  Jake looks at his watch. “It’s two thirty. I should probably go home and get changed now too. My costume’s pretty elaborate, and we have a bunch of volunteers coming in early.”

  Wes says, “So, wait, you’re telling me you all just saw a mouse and now everyone’s leaving?”

  Erik puts an arm around Wes’s shoulder. “I’m here for you, big guy,” he says. “I may not have a killer Chihuahua to help with your mouse problem, but I do have a few fresh ideas for tonight.”

  Lana smiles at Erik. “Nothing involving water balloons, shaving cream, or plastic wrap, please.”

  He looks back and forth between us and I say, “My cousin and I don’t need any of your pranks today, just saying.”

  “Seriously,” Lana says, “no acting as if our little livestream joke needs retribution. That barely qualified as a prank.”

  Erik holds up his hands, feigning innocence. “Hey, that ‘little joke’ was no joke! At least it convinced me to pull out of Digifest tonight. If you’ll join me?”

  He looks at me hopefully, and I look at Lana hopefully, but she shakes her head no. I sigh. “Still gotta Digi it up.” I smile weakly. “But first, let’s help these guys out with their grand reopening. We have plenty of time.”

  “That’s fair,” Lana says. “Lana and I will be back with the killer Chihuahua.”

  “Killer Chihuahua.” Jake laughs. “That sounds like a great B-horror movie.”

  As we head for the convertible parked near the theater entrance, Jake says goodbye to the others and starts walking toward his red Bronco.

  “Please wave to Jake,” I tell Lana. “Do you see why I like him?”

  She gives him a slight wave and he lights up, waves back, and gives her a thumbs-up. She laughs. “All I can see is that he really likes you.”

  “He’s excited for the reopening tonight.” I pull out the pom-pom keys. “I just need to get back to being me before he decides I’m too problematic to bothe
r with.”

  “Well, I can’t wait to give you back your body,” Lana says. “Just be warned, it’s riddled with stress now.”

  “Gee, thanks,” I say as we both climb into the pink convertible. “And with a wicked real estate villain apparently trying to sabotage the drive-in, I doubt things are about to get any less stressful.”

  “Unless.” Lana looks at me nervously.

  “What?” I ask as I start the engine.

  “It’s just that . . . maybe Wes is the one trying to sabotage the place so he can sell the drive-in without having to be the bad guy.”

  I cringe at the possibility. “I hadn’t thought of that,” I say. “I guess a failed reopening would make it easier to close down and cash out.” I look over to where Wes is talking with Erik. Wes practically is the Starlight.

  “I’m sorry I brought it up,” Lana says. “I’m sure tonight is going to be awesome.”

  “Yes,” I say. “The magic of the Starlight will pull through for us, I just know it will.” Because it has to.

  chapter 17

  As I steer the Skylark underneath the drive-in’s marquee, Lana points up to the sign. “Actually, maybe that magic of the Starlight thing is the key to our switching back.”

  “Yes! Admit it, you’d love to skip Digifest and just come hang at the movies tonight,” I say. “We’ll dress all gory with my special effects kit. It’ll be a blast.”

  “I won’t need horror special effects if I skip out on Digi tonight,” Lana says. “Because my mother will turn me into a corpse.”

  “Lana, you’re not responsible for fulfilling your mother’s dream of becoming famous.”

  She bites her lip and runs her fingers over the Skylark insignia on the glove box. Finally, Lana says, “Remember that amazing cross-country road trip to New York we all took together six years ago?”

  “It was after Nona died,” I say. “Our moms and Aunt May were all so close and acted so silly.”

  “I remember feeling like I was getting a peek at what my mom was like when she was younger,” Lana says. “Like, before she became a mom.”

  “I thought the same thing,” I say. “For the first time, I could picture what mine was like before she met my dad.”