by Laura Preble
When we all finally drag into my house (thankfully air-conditioned), Euphoria brings in a tray full of icy lemonade and a plate of cookies. “Ah,” Amber says, biting into an oatmeal raisin, “Here’s to success! Not to mention a back-room lip-lock with Brandon Keller!”
Fletcher doesn’t call, which sort of surprises me after his oh-so-dramatic sacrifice of ego. But he’s a guy, so I don’t have to understand what he does or does not do. Wednesday finally comes and the school day drags on. Finally, it’s after school and the real event of the day can begin: the construction of the island.
Thea is already in front of the gym with a huge truck and eight very large men with various piercings and tattoos. “Where does your mom meet all these guys?” I whisper to Becca as one, who looks like a redwood tree with legs, walks by carrying a piece of equipment that is three times his size.
“Movie sets, theaters, art galleries.” She sighs as we watch her mom boss the burly men around. “It’s like living with a really popular older sister. Sometimes I really miss having a normal mom, you know, one who’s into knitting and cookies and stuff instead of belly dancing and tattoos.”
They’ve decided to put the haunted island on what we call the porch, the open-air court that’s fenced in behind the interior of the gym. We come face-to-face with the pirate ship, which Becca assures me was used in a Famous Hollywood Movie (due to legal restrictions, she says she can’t tell me which one). It is pretty spectacular; although not the size of what I’d imagine a real sailing ship to be, it’s still big, and looks like it’s made of old, rotting wood dripping with Spanish moss. I can’t resist, so I touch it as it glides by; it’s resin, fake, just like all the cheeseball snowman decorations people put on their lawns at Christmas.
“So what’s the haunted part of all of this?” I ask Becca as we grab two big boxes of beads and jewels and head for the gym.
“Brandon’s got some of his acting friends coming up to be the spooks,” she says as she balances the box on her knee. “We’ll have some real Island of the Damned action happening on board. Some awesome special effects. I don’t want to tell you everything, because then it won’t be a surprise.”
“I can’t believe you made this happen.” I trail along behind her, like I do in everything, it seems.
“We made it happen,” she corrects me as she shoves a hip against the double doors into the gym. We. Right.
Things inside look, in a word, amazing. The decorating committee had gone into overdrive. Jewel-colored banners and pirate flags lit by flickering tiki torches (battery-powered) wave above small carts with red-and-white-striped awnings where signs advertise Island Smoothies, Good Luck Charms, Madame Hula’s Crystal Ball Readings, and my personal favorite, Jerk Chicken. I wonder if Fletcher will hang out there all night. Well, at least I know he won’t be with me.
The members of the piercing-and-tattoo brigade are hoisting lights and plugging stuff into huge power boxes. The pirate ship heaves into place, and a truck full of sand pulls around to the back of the gym and starts dumping. Kids are jumping around in the sand like they’re all of two years old. The hardest part is trying to figure out a way to help the muscle-bound dudes who are now somehow erecting a rain forest with hidden sprinklers next to the brand-new beach that is gleaming where we usually play racquetball. We all just sort of stand around and watch, because they obviously don’t need our help.
Big fake palm trees and greenery come from nowhere and the men set them up on a grid, fluff them a little, and they suddenly look like a lush tropical paradise. Thea watches all of this, darting around and clapping her hands like the good fairy on caffeine. Or green tea. Or whatever.
Where’s Fletcher?
Nine o’clock rolls around and the rain forest and sprinklers still aren’t all hooked up. Most of us have had at least a partial drenching, which was kind of fun at first, but we all feel tired of the island way of life. “It smells like wet dog and glue,” Amber says, wrinkling her nose.
Thea, still looking fresh and dynamic, sweeps over to us and puts her arms around me and Becca. “You girls look absolutely done in. Let’s call it a day. We’ll just meet here again after school tomorrow to finish up.” She motions to the burliest of the burly men, a side of beef in pants. “Felipe? Why don’t you all come over to the house and shower. I’m sure you’re all just exhausted. We so appreciate your work here, don’t we girls?”
Felipe just sort of grunts and motions to the other men, who begin to pick up random pieces of palm tree and electrical conduit. “They’re not staying at our house, are they?” Becca hisses at her mom as we walk out.
“Well, what did you want me to do?” Thea hisses back. “They’re working for free, you know. I had to call in a lot of favors to do this for you, Becca. Do you have any idea what these people make in a day on a film set?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Becca says, rolling her eyes. “It would pay for my braces, if I needed them. I know.”
“I did meet them through your dad. At least he was good for something,” Thea chirps brightly. Becca stops abruptly, causing both Thea and me to nearly take a tumble into a pile of fake ferns.
“Do not talk about Melvin like that.”
Melvin?
Thea crosses her arms and faces her daughter. I am feeling like I’m caught in the middle of a brewing storm with no way out. After all, she is my ride.
Amber and Elisa, meanwhile, have other transport, so they make their excuses and scurry out of the gym, looking back to see if Becca and Thea have started to riot. Instead, Becca is about ten paces ahead, marching furiously toward the parking lot.
“She’s so dramatic,” Thea huffs as she follows her daughter. Gee, I wonder where she ever got that personality trait? We drive to my house in absolute silence that is thick with accusations. Becca sits, arms folded, and refuses to wear her seat belt. When Thea screeches into my driveway, Becca finally says, “Well, if I make it home in one piece, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” which kicks off another screechfest between the two of them.
I just go inside, go straight to my room, strip my clothes off, and flop into bed. I only barely notice Euphoria settling in for the night with a murmured, “Well, it would be nice if someone bothered to say hello.”
Thursday. School? What school? Who cares? Honestly, it’s a miracle I’m even passing anything at this point, and there are a couple of classes I’m not totally sure about, which I am conveniently forgetting to mention to my dad. At lunch, Becca and I drift over to the gym, just to gaze longingly at our brainchild. No Fletcher.
Becca seems to have overcome whatever problem she had yesterday, which is what she usually does. Nothing bothers her for long. “Yeah, yesterday was weird,” she says as we walk toward the food cart. “We had, like, ten sweaty guys sharing a bathroom. Luckily, they were all in the other part of the house.”
I mumble something in response.
“So?” Becca asks as I barely eat my disgusting rice-and-black-bean burrito. “Why are you so depressed? This is our crowning achievement. Everybody at this school is going to know who we are after this, and probably people for years to come will talk about this. Why aren’t you happy?”
“I don’t know.” I throw my lunch in the trash without eating much of it.
After school, we all bolt over to the gym as quickly as possible. I watch one of Thea’s beefy helpers as he positions a wind machine, turns it on briefly, and nearly knocks Amber on her backside.
The rest of the place is a theme park. The pirate ship looks like it’s beached against the outside door, and a hidden sound system is blaring Caribbean jungle tunes peppered with moaning and creaking. Even by daylight, it sounds creepy. But with someone cute, it would really give you an excuse to get close, wouldn’t it?
“Do you have your bathing suit yet?” Becca waves a hand in front of my face. “Hello? Anybody home? Seriously, this lovesick stuff is tired. Can’t you just call him?”
“Call who?”
She doesn’t even answe
r, just rolls her eyes at me and walks away. How rude. As if I can read her mind . . . okay, well, I did know who she was talking about, but I wasn’t about to let her know that.
By about ten o’clock, the gym looks ready to go. The lights focus on the pirate ship and make it look like a wreck bathed in moonlight, and the tall palm trees seem to sway in a tropical breeze. The movie guys even thought to pump in some plumeria and eucalyptus scent, so it really feels and smells like a rain forest. It literally seems like our gym just fades into a tropical paradise, like it dropped into the Bermuda Triangle and came out the other side. I can only imagine the horror the gym teachers must be feeling at this moment. But sand on the basketball court is the least of my worries.
“Who wants to take a walk?” Thea calls out. Those of us still left (including Becca, Amber, Elisa, and a few of the die-hard ASB types) line up next to a big wooden post with an aged-looking skull on top, and a sign that reads Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here. Yeah, well I already did that, like, days ago. I didn’t need any pirates to make my life a disaster.
“Now, of course, we don’t have the actors yet, and Brandon promised they will be spectacular,” Thea gushes. “But we do have all the other effects, so come on in and enjoy!”
With a soundtrack of bird and monkey calls, we tread cautiously along a path and immediately feel like we’re in a rain forest. It’s like school just disappeared, and for a moment I’m caught up in the excitement of it. Something whizzes past my ear, and I duck. “What was that?”
“Huh?” Elisa is behind me, and suddenly screams. “A spider! There’s a spider in my hair! Get it out!” She’s flailing like a puppet on a string, while Amber and Becca crack up. The big hairy spider, meanwhile, goes on its union lunch break and recedes back into the palm trees. “Not funny!” Elisa murmurs as she pats her hair back in place.
The path is a lot longer than you would think, given that it’s in a school gym. It seems like we walk for at least ten minutes. It gets darker too, and I start to get kind of creeped out. Becca grabs my arm, pulls me back a bit, and points silently to something moving in the trees. “Watch,” she whispers.
Amber is a few paces ahead, and as she steps on a branch lying on the path, something rustles and moves toward her. She turns and finds herself nose to nose with a moldy skeleton in pirate garb. Screeching like a monkey, she slaps at the skeleton pirate and runs away, knocking Elisa flat in the process.
“This is some fun,” Becca nods. “We will be so totally famous.”
We walk for another five minutes or so and finally end up at the pirate ship, where Thea tells us that tomorrow hordes of scary actors will be spooking the heck out of all our friends. The finale is when the beefy helper guys turn on the rain forest sprinklers and drench all of us.
“I wish I hadn’t worn my white T-shirt,” Amber mutters as she crosses her arms across her chest.
Friday I do something I never, ever have done my entire school career: I skip school. Dad is gone, and Euphoria is absolutely enraged, but she can’t do much about it since Dad never programmed her to beat me or anything. She does make me burnt toast and runny oatmeal, which is I guess her way of registering disapproval.
Becca calls me at about ten, and is frantic. “Where are you?” she yells. I hear the rush of people scurrying to class. “Why aren’t you at school? Are you sick?”
“Not really.” I’m lying with my head over the side of my bed, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars. “Just sick of . . . everything, I guess.”
“This is no time to throw in the towel!” She dashes into the bathroom, judging from the multiple flushing sounds. “You’ve got to be here tonight. I mean, it’s the end of all our great work this year. It’ll be the best dance the school has ever seen!”
How can I explain? Even to my best friend, I don’t know how to say it. Instead, I just say, “Yeah, I’ll be there. I’m not sick, I’m just tired. Don’t worry.”
I can hear in her voice that she doesn’t quite believe me. “Okay. Well, do you want me to come to your house with Brandon before we go to the school?”
“Brandon?”
“Uh, you know, the mega-movie star friend of my mom’s who’s donated a date tonight so we could promote our club? Hello?”
“I’ll be there. But I’ll just come by myself, thanks. See you at about five.”
“Hey, but I wanted to—”
The call gets dropped, or she hangs up, but either way, the line of communication is down. Something has happened to change me, not her, and I know it. It’s like there’s a big wall between me and the rest of the world suddenly, and even something as totally cool as an outrageous dance and changing the school culture for the better don’t bring me out of my funk. Maybe chocolate would do it. No, probably not.
I spend the day watching cartoons. Every cartoon I watch, and I am not exaggerating about this, features a tall, skinny guy with green eyes and auburn hair, almost as if the god of the boob tube decides to punish me by teasing me with tiny animated versions of Fletcher Berkowitz. And on top of that, I have to deal with Euphoria coming in about every half hour to let me know that I am wasting approximately 1.2484395 percent of my total estimated life span (rounded up).
“Four-thirty, Shelby. Time to get ready for the dance.” Euphoria brings in a tray with a nice green salad, a glass of mineral water and lime, and a dinner roll. “Eat light,” she advises. “Nerves make humans throw up.”
“How do you know I’m nervous?”
“Please. Do I really need to answer that?” She’s dissing me. My own robot is dissing me. What kind of world is this?
Anyway, I do get ready, even though I don’t feel like going. Becca calls five more times: to tell me she’s at the airport, that she’s spotted Brandon, that her mom is hugging Brandon, that she just hugged Brandon, and that they’re on their way home. I’m guessing I’ll get another call when Brandon uses the bathroom.
I look in the mirror before heading out. Blue-and-green batik sarong tied over a one-piece bathing suit in deep turquoise; turquoise necklace in silver that my dad got me for my birthday; hair tied in a ponytail; subtle but effective makeup. Why do I feel so ugly? Sighing, I shove my feet into some beaded flip-flops and head for the door.
Euphoria stops me, of course. “You’re wearing beach attire to a dance?” she asks as if I’ve committed a federal crime.
“It’s a beach party theme.” I grab my bag and take one last look in the hall mirror. If I weren’t me, and I saw that girl, I’d buy her some antidepressants and chocolate. Or maybe chocolate antidepressants, like spiked M&Ms. Why hasn’t anyone thought of that?
“Oh.” She senses my lack of enthusiasm, and tries to make me feel better. “Well, you look very bitchy.”
“Do you mean beachy by any chance?”
“Isn’t that what I said?” She buzzes and clicks in confusion.
“Never mind.” Opening the door, I feel butterflies start to wake up in my stomach. Nervous? Why? The most exciting thing that will happen at this dance is that I might get drenched or find a chocolate pirate coin. Whoopee. “See you later. I’ll probably be home late since I might have to help clean up. I’ll call when I’m on my way home, though.”
“Call me every half hour after eleven,” she answers, calling as I walk down the driveway, “I won’t sleep till you get home!”
“You don’t sleep anyway,” I mutter as I throw her a lazy wave good-bye.
It’s nearly five, and the dance doesn’t start until seven, but I have nothing to do really, so I figure I might as well go and help get the last-minute preparations in order.
Walking gives me a chance to think a little bit about my situation. Boys are a bother. As I decided at the beginning of the year, I do not want to be tied down by anybody, because it’s just not worth it. I mean, eventually they’ll leave you anyway, and why get all attached and then find out that it was all for nothing, when you could put your efforts into other, more important things, like . . . uh . . . kni
tting, or cooking, or games. Or school. Yeah, school! I could throw myself into my schoolwork next year; in fact, I could even do summer school to get ahead. I should be a total book nerd, somebody who everyone else comes to for help. I could just get straight As, and I could—ah, who am I kidding? I don’t even want straight As. I’ve always felt they were a sign of weakness and the result of a lack of social skills.
The Queen Geeks! Maybe I could make that my focus. I mean, Becca has huge plans, I’m sure, for next year. I could just pour myself into the club, make it my life’s work, and become the geekiest of the geeks. I could get a geek medal of honor, maybe even star in documentaries about geeks. How pathetic.
A horn honking snaps me out of my dismal fantasy. It’s Amber and her mom, whom I’ve never met; they pull over and Amber leans out the window. Her long, dark hair is braided with plumeria and she has on a jewel-toned swim-suit. “Hey! Want a ride?”
“No thanks.” I don’t think it’s fair to expose people to my dark thoughts and depressing attitude, especially before a party. “I’ll just walk. It’s not that far.”
“See you there!” She waves excitedly. What a difference from when I first met her! She was too cool for anything, all artsy and dark, and now she’s wearing a lei around her neck and hanging out of car windows. At least some of us have changed for the better.
When I get within view of the school, it’s like I stepped into a transporter out of Star Trek. The front of the gym is decorated with tiki huts and torches, and a Polynesian drum group is unpacking its gear. Becca is bent over a treasure chest and is arranging fake jewels, game tokens, and a skull.
“Hey, anybody we know?” I ask, pointing to the bones.
“I thought maybe it was you.” She stands up, dusts off her own red wrap skirt, and crosses her arms defiantly. “What’s with the silent treatment?”
“Sorry,” I mumble. “Just kind of feeling blah. Didn’t want to bring you down too.”
“What are friends for?” She gives me a hug and suddenly sparkles again. “Okay, so come in and see the gym. It is absolutely amazing!”