by Nic Saint
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” I said.
“What’s going on?!” Mabel cried. “First Elvis gets shot, then Priscilla keeps popping up all over the place and then some maniac stalks us in our own homes?! Where’s the police when you need them?!”
This from a woman who claimed we didn’t need the police, as the watch was perfectly capable of policing the neighborhood all by ourselves.
“I told Rock.”
“And?”
“He didn’t seem to think much of it.”
“What about the videos?” asked Fee.
“I told Rock about that, too.”
“And?”
“He seemed to think the whole thing hilarious.”
“Hilarious!” Mabel yelped. “Hilarious! Oh, I’ll show him hilarious!” And she stalked right off in the direction of the police station.
“Oops,” said Fee. “Looks like Rock is about to get an earful.”
“Well, it’s not like he doesn’t deserve it,” I said. “He was pretty cavalier about the whole thing.”
“I guess to most people this is just a big joke.”
“To most people but us.”
“Let’s talk to Ricky,” Fee suggested. “He might not be the guy who wrestled Paco Rabanne to the ground in the heart of the Colombian jungle, but he does know a thing or two about computers.”
“I’m pretty sure Paco Rabanne is not a drug dealer, hon,” I said as we walked off.
“And I’m pretty sure that’s the name Ricky mentioned. Or it could have been Christian Louboutin. Or Manolo Blahnik. Something sinister at any rate.”
Chapter 14
That night, Fee and Rick and I sat in our cozy living room, watching an episode of The Voice, and while Adam and Blake were engaged in their usual bromance, we told Rick about the videos.
“Oh, but I’ve seen them,” he said, raking his fingers through his shaggy blond mane, his crooked smile firmly in place. He’s a good-looking guy, though he looked a little tired now, having spent the day with his dad, real-estate mogul Chazz Falcone, working on the latter’s autobiography, which would culminate in his recent failed presidential bid.
“You saw the videos?” I asked.
“Sure. I think everybody did. Everyone who lives in Happy Bays, that is. Even Dad got them. He thought they were hilarious. Especially the whole Bolero thing. He says Mabel is a far cry from Bo Derek, though.”
“Bo who?” I asked.
“Bo Derek? From the movie 10? With that music? Ravel’s Bolero?”
“Doesn’t ring a bell,” I confessed.
“I guess I’m a lot older than I thought,” said Rick with a frown.
“We’re the exact same age!” Fee cried.
“Anyway,” Rick was quick to change the subject, “so these videos, huh?”
“Mabel thinks you should be our bodyguard,” I said with a slight smile.
Rick shuffled uneasily. “Bodyguard?”
“Yeah, the way you fought off Paco Rabanne in the Colombian jungle? I’ll bet you’d have no trouble fighting off this little dweeb who keeps posting these videos.”
“Paco Rabanne?” he asked. “The fashion designer?”
“Who cares!” Fee cried. “We need to do something. If this keeps up, he’ll be filming me in my underwear dancing the Macarena next.”
“I wouldn’t mind seeing that,” said Rick with a grin.
“I would mind if all of Happy Bays saw that.”
His grin faded. “Yeah, that might be awkward.”
“Can’t you figure out who’s behind these videos?” I asked. “I mean, I talked to Rock, but he seems to have a hard time taking any of this seriously.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Rick promised. “I know a guy who knows a guy who works for the NSA, so…” He avoided my gaze, and it didn’t take me too long to put two and two together.
“You’re not thinking about calling Reece, are you?” I asked, sitting up a little straighter.
“Well, he’s the guy who knows the guy who….” His voice trailed off as I shot him a fiery look. “So we keep in touch! Is that so wrong?”
“Yes, it’s very wrong,” I said. “Very, very wrong.”
“It is wrong, Rick,” Fee agreed. “You can’t be friends with the guy who jilted your fiancée’s best friend.”
“I didn’t know that was a rule,” said Rick stiffly. “I happen to like Reece. Plus, it’s nice to have a friend in LA. In case I need him for a story.”
“You can’t like Reece,” Fee pointed out patiently. “He’s the devil.”
“I didn’t notice any cloven hoofs or forked tails.”
“Very funny, Rick,” I said, shaking my head in disgust. “You’re a real pal.”
“Why can’t I be friends with the both of you?” he asked in exasperation.
“Because you can’t,” Fee said. “You have to choose sides.”
“I won’t,” he said stubbornly. “I refuse to choose sides. I like Alice and I like Reece, and simply because they don’t get along—”
“Don’t get along!” I cried. “He dumped me!”
“I like jilted,” said Fee. “It sounds less… painful.”
“Fine. He jilted me. And I’m still a little sore about the whole thing, so either you can be friends with Reece or you can be friends with me. Choose.”
Rick mussed up his hair. “Right now? You want me to choose now? Maybe I should get his NSA guy to solve this video thing first?”
Fee and I exchanged a look. I did need to know who was filming the watch. “Okay,” I said after a moment’s deliberation. “You find out what this NSA guy knows and then you jilt Reece.”
“I can’t jilt Reece,” Rick laughed. “You can only jilt a lover, and Reece was never my lover.”
“That reminds me of a song for some reason,” Fee murmured.
“Whatever,” I said. “You break up with him is what I mean.”
“You don’t break up with a friend.”
“So what do you do?”
“You…” He thought for a moment. “Actually I’m not sure. I never broke up with a friend before.” He groaned and stared at the ceiling. “Oh, man. This is going to be so awkward.”
“Good. I hope it stings,” I said nastily. The thought of Rick secretly seeing my ex-boyfriend behind my back felt all kinds of wrong, though he was probably right. It was kinda silly for him to have to stop seeing Reece because of what had happened between us. Aargh. Relationships can be so hard! I stared at Fee. She stared back at me. We still hadn’t told Rick the biggest news of the day. She gave me a firm nod, and turned to her live-in boyfriend.
“Rick. There’s something I have to tell you.”
“Apart from the news that I have to stop seeing Reece?”
“Yes. Remember I’ve been having stomach issues lately?”
He immediately looked concerned. “Oh, right. The nausea.”
“Yes, the nausea,” said Fee, looking at me. “Well, it turns out there’s a perfectly logical reason.”
“See? I told you,” he said, looking relieved. “I’ll bet it was that corn dog. Fried food is bad for you, honey. You really have to stop eating it.”
“It’s not the corn dog,” she said.
“Was it the corn fritters? You love those fritters.”
“Not the fritters,” she said, her voice taking on an acerbic tone.
“The calamari?”
“Not the calamari!”
“Rick. Just shut up and listen,” I suggested.
“Okay,” he said, pantomiming zipping up his lips.
“I’m pregnant,” Fee said with a deep sigh.
“Which means you’re going to be eating all the corn dogs, corn fritters and calamari you want,” I told her.
“You damn right I am,” she laughed.
We both looked at Rick, who was looking stunned, at least if his expression of having just been hit over the head with an anvil was anything to go by.
“Um, Ricky?” asked
Fee. “Are you all right, honey?”
He was uttering strange noises, his eyes wide as saucers.
“I think he’s in shock,” I told Fee. “He looks shocked.”
“Oh, no,” said Fee. “I should never have told him. This is the part where he’s going to say he’s leaving me.”
“He’s not going to leave you. He’s going to stay right here or else I’m going to string him up from the highest tree from his testicles,” I said, giving Rick a warning glance.
Finally, animation returned to Rick’s form. “Oh. My. God!” he cried, his face a mask of confusion. “Are you for real?! Am I going to be a daddy?!”
“I just said I’m pregnant,” Fee said seriously. “I never said it’s yours, Rick.”
His face fell, and he looked so stricken I took pity on the guy. “Don’t play with his feelings, Fee. He’s not taking it well.”
“Of course it’s yours, honey,” said Fee, patting his knee. “Who else could it be?”
“O, God!” he cried, letting out a long puff of air. “Ha! Ha ha! Ha ha ha! Honey!”
The next moment, there was a lot of hugging and kissing and so I excused myself and went into the kitchen. I was happy for my friend, and for Rick, of course, but I couldn’t help feeling a little envious, too. They were going to get married now, and start a family, which meant they’d be moving out of the house, leaving me all alone here, with only myself and my memories to keep me company. But before I could start feeling really down, Fee joined me to take a tub of Ben & Jerry’s Strawberry Cheesecake from the freezer. “Let’s celebrate,” she suggested.
“Yeah, let’s,” I agreed with a slightly choking voice.
“Oh, honey, are you all right?” she asked.
I turned to her, but couldn’t stop the tears rolling down my cheeks. “Of course I’m all right,” I said. “I’m so happy I could cry.”
“You are crying,” she pointed out.
“See! That’s how happy I am!”
She hugged me close, and that’s when I really started blubbering. “Reece is an idiot,” she said. “And so is Rick. And Rock, of course. In fact, now that I come to think of it, probably all men are idiots.”
“Rock is not an idiot. He keeps kissing me, which I like,” I said between two sniffs.
“That’s at least something, right? And maybe one thing will lead to another and before you know it you’ll be happy again.”
“I am happy!” I wailed.
“Yeah, you look ecstatic.”
Rick joined us in the kitchen, and when he saw me crying, he said, “Hey, tears of joy. Cool. Thanks, hon.” And quickly left again, practically on a trot.
“What did I tell you?” Fee asked. “Men are morons, every single one of them.”
“There’s something else,” I said, wiping away my tears.
“Something besides moronic men?”
“Well, it’s related,” I said. “Remember I told you about Rock finding my diary?”
“Sure. Casper the Friendly Ghost.”
“It wasn’t an old diary. It was a recent one. Very recent. And Rock read it.”
“Wait, he read it? But he can’t! Diaries are sacred.”
“He says he just glanced at it, wanting to know whose it was.”
“Duh. He found it stuffed behind your old bed, in your old room. Whose could it be?”
“Right? It gets worse.”
“God. Don’t tell me you spelled out intimate scenes of your love life with Reece.”
“No, I did not!”
“Good. That would have been awkward.”
“I wrote about ghosts.” I waited for the significance to hit her, and when it did, she didn’t disappoint me.
“What?! You wrote that you could see ghosts?! But that’s terrible!”
“I don’t think I actually wrote that I could see ghosts, otherwise he would have told me, but he did think it was kinda weird, especially after several people told him the watch members are ghost hunters.”
“Oh, God,” said Fee, clutching at her red curls and pulling. “This is a disaster!”
“It kinda is, isn’t it?”
“There’s only thing for it.”
“I have to tell him everything?”
“Are you nuts? You have to get that diary before he reads the whole thing!”
“Oh.” I frowned. “You mean, break into his room and steal it?”
“Technically it’s your room, and your diary, so you’re not doing anything wrong.”
“I guess so,” I said dubiously. “But breaking into Rock’s room? I don’t know, Fee. What if he sees me?”
“Then you just tell him you were feeling homesick and wanted to see your old room one last time. And if that doesn’t work, just jump his bones. Works every time.”
“You think?”
“Sure. Men have a one-track mind. Literally. They can’t think of two things at the same time. It’s a biological thing.” She frowned. “Or a brain thing?” She shrugged. “Whatever. Science has proven it. So if you jump his bones, he’ll forget all about that diary and you being there.”
I nodded. “Sounds like a great plan. The breaking-in part, I mean, not the jumping his bones.” Though that sounded pretty appealing, too, especially now that I was feeling a little vulnerable. Then it hit me. “Do you think Rock Walker is my rebound guy?”
Fee gave me a curious look. “Do you want him to be your rebound guy?”
“No! I mean…” I chewed my lip, then snatched that tub of strawberry cheesecake ice cream from Fee’s hands and peeled off the lid. I dug my fingers in and took out a big chunk and started devouring it. “If Rock is my rebound, it’s not gonna last, right?”
“No, it won’t,” said Fee, staring at the ice cream. I caught the desperate gleam in her eyes and shoved the tub back into her hands.
“So whatever happens between us… it’s not going anywhere.”
“Nope. Nowhere,” said Fee, digging a spoon into the ice cream before I could snatch it from her fingers again.
“So if he kisses me...”
“You should just go with it,” she advised. “And not worry about a thing.”
I made up my mind. “I’m going to break into that room and get my diary back.”
“And?”
“And when Rock catches me, I’m going to jump his bones.”
“Good girl,” she said with a satisfied sigh. Whether that was because of my decision or the ice cream or the pregnancy was hard to tell. Probably a bit of everything.
Chapter 15
That night, I slept a little fitfully. I kept tossing and turning in my little bed, even going so far as to throw off my Frozen-themed comforter, dumping two of my Frozen-themed pillows to the floor, and upending my Frozen-themed bedside lamp. Yes, it was Frozen week in Casa Alice. What can I say? I like cartoons.
All throughout my ordeal, though, I had the distinct sensation I was being watched, even though that was impossible, of course. Who would sneak into our house, with Fee and Rick sleeping in the next room and Gaston, our big, red cat, lying at the foot of Fee’s bed, and probably ready to slash anyone who came near?
At some point, I remember sneaking a peek at my Frozen-themed clock. It was two o’clock. I must have drifted off to sleep after that, because that was the last thing I remember before waking up, bright and early, to the delicious scent of coffee brewing downstairs.
So I tumbled out of bed, crawled to the door, got to my feet, and staggered down the stairs. I yawned and stumbled into the kitchen. “Coffee,” I muttered, arms raised. “Coffee,” I repeated when I caught sight of Rick, reading the New York Times at the kitchen table.
He laughed. “You remind me of the walking dead,” he said. “Only they want brains, not coffee.”
“Coffee,” I muttered, grabbing a cup from the cupboard over the sink and dumping the black brew into it. “Coffee,” I finally sighed as I took a sip.
“So? Slept well?” asked Rick.
“Horrible,”
I said as I took a seat. “Took me ages to fall asleep.”
“Must be all that sugar you ate.”
“Sugar? I didn’t eat any sugar.”
He arched an eyebrow. “You ate half a gallon of Ben & Jerry’s.”
“So? That’s ice cream, not sugar.”
“Honey, what do you think ice cream is?”
“Um… milk and… fruit?”
“Fat and sugar. And some flavoring chemicals. But basically a lot of sugar.”
“Okay,” I said, instantly forgetting what Rick was talking about. He was always going on about something he read somewhere. That’s what you get when you live with an intellectual. “So isn’t Fee up yet?”
“She’s taking a shower,” he said, diving back into his newspaper.
I rubbed my eyes, trying to decide what to do first. Eat or shower. Tough decision. Or I could finally pop in that yoga DVD Fee got me for my birthday. On second thought, nope. And that’s when Ricky’s phone chimed and he absentmindedly picked it up from the table. He frowned at the display. “Hey, that looks like…” Then his eyes went wide. “That’s you!”
“Huh?” I asked, very eloquently. I stared at Rick’s phone as he held it out to me. And then suddenly I was wide awake. That was me, wrestling with my Frozen-themed sheets, upending my Frozen-themed bedside lamp, kicking away my Frozen-themed pillows, and looking absolutely ridiculous in my Frozen-themed PJs. “Omigod!” I squealed. “Omigod. Omigod. Omigod! Someone was in my room! In my room!”
Rick’s expression was grim. “That’s it. I’m calling your dad. Now they’ve gone too far.”
There was no need to call my dad, though, for at that moment the bell rang and I hurried into the hallway to open the door. Dad poured through the door, followed by my mother, Rock Walker, Virgil Scattering, and Mabel, Marjorie and Bettina. They were all talking simultaneously, holding out their phones. It was obvious all of Happy Bays had been treated to the video of me looking like Anna of Frozen fame. And now that I came to think of it, I was still looking like Anna of Frozen fame, dressed in my PJs!
Mortification rendered me mum, so I held up a finger, and then hurried from the living room, up the stairs and into the bathroom, where Fee was adding the finishing touches to her famous russet curls. “Hey, hon. Up so early?” Then she got a closer look at me, and frowned. “You look a little… weird. Had a bad night?”