by Robin Mellom
“The food’s taking forever.” Mike was making pictures out of the paper he tore off his straw. He was writing messages.
I heart you, with an arrow pointing to Serenity. That girl was the proud owner of Mike’s bleeding heart.
It made my stomach ache. When would I be the one getting paper straw messages?
“Where’s Ian?” Other Mike asked. We had talked about it in detail in the car, but he had been too busy trying to keep his balance on the coolers to remember.
“He’s out doing favors,” I reminded him in my I’m-trying-to-not-show-hatred voice.
“Right now?” he asked. “Couldn’t he help Grandma get her grocery shopping done some other time?” Other Mike was very talkative in the presence of In-N-Out burgers.
“Not that type of errand, I’m guessing.” He perked up. “Oh. Oh! Tel him to hook me up.”
“Not that type either, I’m hoping.” But I wasn’t sure of anything anymore.
Before I knew it, someone had slipped into the seat next to me. “Can I sit here?” It was Brian Sontag.
I shrugged. It’s not like I was in charge of seating order.
“Sure.”
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But then it hit me: where there was Brian Sontag, there was—
“Hi.” Al yson elegantly sat down in the seat across from us. “Having fun, Justina?”
I didn’t respond. My eyes locked on the exit sign.
“Your dress looks good. What’d you use to tie it together?
Fishing wire? Did Ian do that for you?” I was used to her being sarcastic, but she sounded sincere, which total y confused me. Was this the calm before the hair pul ing? Was she toying with me like Hannibal Lecter? I was not going down Silence of the Lambs-style with Al yson Moore getting into my psyche.
I supposed I could’ve been reasonable and assumed she was being genuinely nice. . . . But no, I was hungry so I assumed she was making plans to skin me alive in a basement.
But then again, that conversation in the bathroom was all the evidence I needed.
Serenity must have noticed I was not in the right state of mind to defend myself, so she stepped in. She gritted her teeth—yeah, I could actual y hear the squeaky grinding. “I fixed her dress. She needed someone to help her.” Serenity stared Al yson down with an intense heat—the Ledbetter girl in her was starting to come out. She was about to go werewolf on her.
Brian tried to change the topic. “So where is Ian?” Which was not a good choice of topic. “Wait, he didn’t dump you, did he?”
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And suddenly I felt an instant jabbing pain in my right shin. “Ow! !” Total immense pain!
Al yson looked under the table. “Oh my god! I’m so sorry!”
“You kicked me! ”
“I didn’t mean to!”
Serenity jumped up, fist coiled, ready for action. “What the hel ?”
“I swear!” Al yson pleaded, her arms flailing to protect her polished rock of a head. But it looked as though Serenity was about to kick some serious flag-twirling ass.
“That shin kick was meant for me.” Brian stood up too, hands out, trying to stop the girl-on-girl hair pul ing that was about to erupt.
“It’s okay,” I said to Serenity. She took in a deep breath and slowly sat back down, her eyes stil squinty and ful of protective rage.
Brian turned to me. “I’l get you some ice.” The pain was intense. I didn’t want them to see me cry. I fake smiled and whimpered, “Just need some air.” Al yson leaned across the table, hands clasped as if she were a church choir member. “I just didn’t want him to bring up Ian. Thinking about him might upset you.”
“Me? Upset?” I don’t know why I didn’t confront her.
Why didn’t I tel her I knew she’d been talking to him? Why didn’t I kick her skinny-ass shins? My voice cracked, and I said, “This has been the best night of my life.” 172
I raced out to the parking lot, where I let out a hyena-like squeal. Those ridiculous Jimmy Choo pumps were lethal weapons. And my ass she was aiming for Brian’s leg. She didn’t want me to think about Ian because she didn’t want me to think about Ian!
“Here, put this on it.”
Brian had joined me and handed over a bag of ice.
“Thanks.” I plopped down on the curb and gently placed the ice on top of my new shin indentation, wincing from the pain.
“Sorry about that. It was my fault, real y.”
“You’re not the one who kicked me.”
“No, I was stupid. She said something earlier about making sure I didn’t mention Ian to you.”
“Did she say where he is?” I asked in disbelief. Al yson seemed to know where Ian was, and I had no clue. What in the paral el universe was going on?
“She said something about you getting upset if you found out where he went. I dunno—I can’t remember exactly. I tune her out sometimes.” He reached over and adjusted the ice pack on my shin. “Sorry I brought him up. I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
He ran his fingers through his short, buzzed hair, and his smel washed over me. Sweet. A little spicy. Maybe even a little minty. Nice.
“Brian?”
“Yeah?”
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“Why do you think your date knows where my date is?
Don’t you think that’s weird?”
He took a deep breath and puffed up his cheeks before letting the air out slowly. “Al yson seems to be friends with everyone. She likes to help people out. Sometimes too much.
She has a problem with making other people’s business her own.”
If only she’d stay out of my business—maybe I wouldn’t be crumpled on the pavement at the In-N-Out. I wiped my face, making sure there weren’t any remaining tears, and handed him the ice pack. “I’m okay. The pain is only slightly unbearable now.”
He helped me to my feet. It felt weird having Al yson Moore’s boyfriend take care of me. But I wasn’t going to complain. “Thanks,” I said. “I seem to be finding help in surprising places tonight.”
He smiled, and his eyes softened. His smel eased over me again. I had a weakness for boy smel s—they made me say and do things I later regretted.
So I quickly turned away to go back inside, but everyone was emptying out of the restaurant, ful on greasy burgers.
I peered around looking for the Mikes, hoping they would come out with my meatless burger wrapped in paper, al cozy and warm.
“We’l give you a ride.” Al yson had walked up. “We’re going to a party at the Hampton Inn. Come with us, k?” She winced, like she felt sorry for me.
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I wasn’t about to be the third wheel in Al yson Moore’s world. Especial y at some party at a hotel. And especial y not because she felt sorry for me.
But then her words reverberated in my swirling, confused, food-deprived brain.
“Wait. Did you say Hampton Inn?” Ian’s text had said to meet him there. That’s what Al yson was talking to Ian about on her cel . They were planning to meet at the Hampton Inn.
“Yeah. Maybe Ian wil be there?” She said it like a question, as if she didn’t know.
My fist clenched. I was about to make bodily contact.
But punching out the prom queen in the parking lot of the In-N-Out was beyond redneck. Surely there was a glimmer of class left in me.
I decided to have her send him a message instead. “When you see Ian there, tel him I said I’m glad I gave the ring back.”
“He gave you a ring?”
She didn’t need to know I was referring to a two-dol ar Shoney’s vending machine daisy ring—she just needed to know it was a ring. “He’l know exactly what it means.” I pushed my hair back in an exaggerated way, trying to look super casual.
“Just come to the hotel.” She swal owed hard, clearly having a difficult time getting the pretend-nice words out.
“Please, Justina.”
I picked at my fingernail. “Hel no.”
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A
l yson threw her arms up in exasperation and headed out to the car without waiting for Brian.
“So you’re not coming?” Brian shoved his hands into his pockets.
The last thing I needed was to hang out with another guy who was being nice and smel ed good—Operation Lips Locked was stil in effect. I pressed my lips together and shook my head.
Brian turned and fol owed Al yson to his car, where she was waiting with folded arms and judgmental eyes. Even her tennis bal s looked a little deflated. While he held the door open for her, she yel ed something at him. I could tel it was of the nasty sort, because he dropped his head. No wonder he tuned her out. Why couldn’t Ian?
The Mikes and the girls skipped out of the building, arms locked, attached at the hips. Like human magnets.
“Got my no-meat burger?” I asked with my hand out, ready to scarf down al that cheese and bread, wrapping paper and al .
Other Mike’s mouth fel open. “Dude . . . you were gone!”
“So you . . .” I was sure this was not what I wanted to hear.
“Ate it.”
Mike punched him on the arm. “I told you that was for her, bro. Why’d you—”
“I was hungry.” Other Mike placed his hands on my shoulders, “Sweetness”—he dipped his chin to his chest—“I am a horrible person.”
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“No. You’re not.” Luckily, the pain in my shin was overpowering the hunger pain in my stomach, and I was able to have a brief moment of empathy.
“Let’s go!” Bliss held up a piece of paper, one she had ripped from the yel ow pages. “Got the address. Four twenty-seven East Main.”
“Let’s do it!” Serenity threw her arms in the air, and the girls howled again. Their howling was amazing—it was in harmony.
I knew East Main was where the Olive Garden was.
Thank god these stoners had serious munchies. Suddenly I didn’t care one bit that we weren’t going to go find Ian. He wasn’t going to ditch me . . . I was ditching him.
After a few tries, the Caddy final y started and I bounced in my seat as I drove, because I had a kil er case of the giddies. . . . I was on my way to a bowlful of pasta and endless bread sticks. Yum.
Yumyumyumyumyumyum.
With the promise of al those carbs, I managed to zip the Beast over to 427 East Main—seven blocks and four turns away—in under three minutes. We rol ed into one of many empty parking spots. It was deserted and dark, and the only light came from one dim streetlamp and a flickering candle in a shop window.
This was no Olive Garden.
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11
Corn Nuts
“I NEED TO go to the bathroom,” I say. Not because I need to go to the bathroom. I say it because this is the part where my story goes from pathetic to officially pathetic. And I want to run away.
Gilda hands me a key hanging off a metal rod and points over my head. “Back corner.”
I cross the store with my head lowered and lock myself in yet another bathroom. There’s a small mirror over the grimy sink. It’s the kind of mirror that actually should be used for a metal toilet or something, because the reflection isn’t real, it’s distorted. Carnival-like.
Or maybe this is how I real y look. A freak? A non-human?
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I don’t know the truth anymore. About anything.
I can hear laughter coming from the store. Gilda and Donna. Laughing about my ridiculous life, I’m total y sure.
I glance around, looking for some sort of window to the outside, and I imagine myself escaping, maybe like Harrison Ford, with a dagger clamped between my teeth. I’d much rather play Indiana Jones right now than go back out there to face them. Because this next part of my story, I don’t want to tel —the part where I find out how he real y feels about me.
I just wish I had heard it from you, Ian. It would have changed everything.
“You okay?” Gilda taps lightly on the door.
I turn on the sink. “Yep. Be out in a sec.” I splash water on my face and stare at my distorted reflection. “Tel them what happened,” I say to myself. “Nothing is black and white. Tell them.”
I slip out of the bathroom and ease myself back onto my stool while Gilda organizes the Reese’s Miniatures display, and Donna digs into a bag of corn nuts.
“Want one?” Donna asks.
I nod, even though I’m not al that hungry anymore and I’d much rather have something from Gilda’s Reese’s display.
Before I can even start explaining what happened next, Donna starts in with her advice. “Here’s what I’m thinking.” She crunches loudly. I start crunching loudly too, and she has to practical y yel because we sound like dueling cement mixers. “This Al yson girl?”
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“Yeah?” Crunch.
“She’s a Parasite Pal.”
“Parasite Pal?” Crunch. Ow. Did I just break a tooth?
“She’s the type of girl who pretends to be your friend.
And deep down she real y does want to be your friend.” I pick at the igneous rock now lodged in my teeth. “I don’t think so.”
“She does. She’s a parasite. Because she wants what you have.” Double-crunch.
“A filthy blue dress?”
Donna shakes her head. “Captain Scumbag. Or at least someone like Captain Scumbag. Even if she doesn’t get him, it gives her hope that a guy like that is real to someone. Does that make sense?”
She pauses this time. A real pause. She actual y wants to know if this makes sense to me. I swal ow hard. Because it does. It makes perfect sense.
“But you have to be careful: the moment they see a crack in the armor, they charge. She’l snag him when you’re not looking.”
I clutch my stomach. I have no idea where he is right now, and al I can do is hope it’s not somewhere with her.
Did I leave a crack open? Is she charging?
Donna shrugs and pops another nut in her mouth. “But as far as friends go”— Crunch! —“a Parasite Pal is not an awful one to have.”
“Why?” I ask, because any phrase with the word parasite 180
in it sounds like something one needs to quickly repel.
“She’l do anything for you. Give you anything you want.
They’re confusing. Some girls don’t even know they have one.”
I think of Eva being consoled by Brianna—who, of course, ended up in the back of a limo with Eva’s date.
Parasite Pal.
I nod. “But why doesn’t Ian see she’s trying to snag him?”
“Fol ow along, dol .” She grips the side of the counter.
“Men are scumbags. The definition of scumbag includes a Section B, which defines a scumbag as a man who enjoys having the parasite feed his ego—sucking his ego blood, so to speak.” She scrunches her face. “Is this too graphic?” It is too graphic and it also doesn’t sound like Ian. Unless I’m missing something. “It’s . . . um . . . technical.”
“I took a human psychology class at Fresno State. It’s all science.”
“What if he never figures it out? What if I’ve lost Ian to her?”
“He’l figure it out. But by the time he does, you’l be long gone. There’s nothing you can do about it, dol . It’s a biological survival instinct-type thing that al ows our species to evolve.” I was starting to question how much attention she’d paid in her psychology class. But she was on a rol . “And so the wrong people mate and then their kids are screwed up and they spend their lives in search of a perfect partner. But it never happens because the parasites move in first, so they 181
hook up with the wrong person and the cycle starts al over again. It’s how humans have survived al this time. We’re motivated by unhappiness.”
Gilda folds her arms. “You’ve had one too many corn nuts, Donna.” She snatches the bag from her. “We’re not going to depress the poor girl any more, okay?” While I appreciate her stepping in at this point, I want to hear more of what Donna has to say. “But what about what
Pastor Rick said? Maybe guys behave based on how they’re treated by girls. Maybe I was the one who pushed Ian away.”
“What are you saying?” Donna squeezes her eyes shut for a moment. “Of course you didn’t—”
“No,” I interrupt. “This next part . . .” I pause, feeling the rush of tears as they gather with a mob mentality and plot their return. “It’s the part I don’t want to tel you.”
“Why, dol ?”
“Because I found out how Ian real y feels about me.”
“Aww, honey,” Gilda says. “We can’t control if people fall in love with us. You’re a beautiful girl. This wil fade from memory soon.”
My voice trembles. “But the words keep lingering in my head.”
“What did he say to you?” Gilda asks.
“It wasn’t him. I heard it from someone else.”
“Parasite Pal.” Donna offers.
“No, Al yson didn’t tel me.”
She squints her eyes. “Your BFFF?”
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“It’s BFF. Two F’s. And no, it wasn’t Hailey. It was a stranger.”
“What stranger is this?” Gilda puts her hands on her hips like she’s going to kick this stranger’s butt.
“It was Fritz.” I lift my arm so they can see. “The guy who gave me this tattoo.”
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12
Tinker Bell Tattoo
I STARED AT the closed sign on the heavy wood doors of the Olive Garden. The staff was vacuuming and cleaning tables. I had no idea it was already almost midnight. All I could think about was noodles and marinara. And bread.
And garlic. And—
“Come on.” Serenity put her arm around me as she dragged me away from the restaurant, toward a creepy-looking shop next door. “We’l find you some nuts or something.”
The Funky Monkey Tattoo Shop had a smal wooden sign and was only noticeable because of the tie-dyed flag hanging outside the front door and a candle flickering in the 185
darkened window. It was tucked in the corner of the strip mal next to a Relax The Back store. “We’re going to a head shop?” I stood stil , my sequoia tree feet rooted firmly in the asphalt.
“It’s not super you know . . . legal to cal it a head shop,” Mike explained. “Sure, there may be people who consider themselves potheads who frequent the establishment, but we are not such people.” He spoke loudly as he looked around, like a cop might pop out of the Michaels craft store. “The Funky Monkey is just a sticker and superfun happy store.