Returning my gaze to the Burger King guy, I said, “And one of our original teammates is in the hospital with a broken wrist because some of the jock assholes doing the same scavenger hunt tonight never stop dogging him about being gay.”
I had to stop to breathe, felt like my brain was swelling inside my head.
“If you want to withhold the crown you withhold it from them if they come in here tonight. Because they are going to take one look at you, working here, and figure your whole life is a waste and not think for a second that maybe you can play the guitar really well or do the Sunday Times crossword puzzle in an hour or whatever. We get that there’s more to your life than this.”
But when I looked at my teammates for confirmation they were just standing there, staring at me. I took their expressions in, trying to determine which one of them was less mad, and said, “What?” to the group. “It’s true!”
“What about you,” the guy said. “Why should I give it to you?”
I had to breathe, had to think.
What was there to say that could be said?
Because I broke my best friend’s heart tonight? Because my other best friend betrayed me? Because the guy I’ve spent years pining for likes her and not me? I couldn’t say any of that, not with them all standing there. I felt my shoulders sink when I said, “Because the King of the Assholes got into Georgetown and I didn’t.”
The guy took a beat and said, “I believe that’s what they call a first-world problem.”
“What’s that mean?” I asked, but the guy just pushed the crown across the counter and walked away toward a long row of flame broilers. I took the crown and walked out and the others followed.
When we went to get into the car, Carson pointed to a small stuffed Winnie-the-Pooh on the dashboard of a car whose driver-side window had been left half open. “Isn’t Winnie-the-Pooh on the list?” he said.
“Dude,” Patrick said. “We’re not stealing somebody’s Pooh.”
There was no sign of the car’s owner.
Patrick added, “We’re not stealing anything else tonight. That was the deal.”
I didn’t remember making any such deal but then again, it was sort of unspoken. We hadn’t stolen anything yet that couldn’t be returned and I wasn’t keen on the idea of starting now. Though Pooh was worth a solid 40 points.
“I made no such deal,” Carson said, just as a man approached the car. Carson nodded at the dash and said, “How much for Pooh?”
The guy said, “How much you offering?” He smiled. “I mean, this ain’t no ordinary Pooh. This Pooh is straight from Disney World, man.”
Carson studied the Pooh doll, which was covered in dust and looked seriously inbred, off-market. “Five bucks?”
“Ten,” the guy said, and Carson said, “Fine,” and slid a bill out of his wallet.
The guy reached in through the open window to fetch the doll and handed Carson the Pooh and in a minute we were off again, into the night—windows down—with Pooh sitting on the dashboard looking sad and somehow ominous. I wished Carson had thought to just walk away, or charm the guy out of his Pooh. Money made it, what was the word, dirty?
After I added up all our new points—we were at 2535—I realized it had been a while since I had heard from Dez, so I texted him: WHAT’S “FIRST WORLD PROBLEM” MEAN?
Right away, my phone lit, and a bunch of texts came through:
LIKE IF YOUR CAVIAR IS EXPIRED.
OR YOU BROKE A HEEL ON YOUR JIMMY CHOOS
OR HAVE TO WAIT TWO HOURS FOR YOUR LIMO
Then after a pause, he sent this: WHY?
I didn’t have the energy to reply properly so just wrote, WILL EXPLAIN LATER. MRI NEWS?
He said, STILL WAITING.
A text from the Yeti came right on its heels.
It was the text I had been waiting for all night.
Patrick and the others had gotten it, too, and Patrick read it aloud: “If the lake in the sky has been visited by you/you’ve scored yourself a massive clue/just show us the clipper ship’s principal namesake/and three hundred points will be yours to take.”
“I have no idea what that means,” Carson said, and “Me neither”s filled the car.
Patrick said, “God, the poetry just gets worse.”
At Patrick’s we all went in to the living room and Patrick announced our arrival, our time line—we had to be back in the car in fifteen minutes tops—then told his folks why we were all there. For a copy of his cousin’s wedding invitation [80], the Boba Fett action figure [35], the item made of red glass [25], the Superman comic book [50], the Ping-Pong paddle [20], the fan with the remote [40 plus 20], and screwdriver [40].
“That’s it?” his mother said, so he handed his mom the list.
“So, how are we doing?” Patrick’s father came into the room. “You guys going to take home the Yeti?” He went over to Patrick’s mom, stood behind her on the sofa, and started rubbing her shoulders and something about the whole scene made me uncomfortable. There was music playing, and both of Patrick’s parents had wine glasses, and were wearing fuzzy slippers—yes, in June!—and if I wasn’t careful I could see Patrick’s future, the whole of it.
Blissful domestic life.
Me not a part of it.
Why wasn’t I in love with him? Would that make things easier?
Carson said, “We’ve got about twenty-five hundred points but we have no idea how anyone else is doing right now. Still, only six teams left and we are clearly the overachievers of the bunch.”
“It’s looking promising,” Patrick said, just as his mother said, “Skinny-dipping?” and raised an eyebrow. Then, suddenly distracted, she said, “Oh! Mary! Prom picture!” She pointed across the room.
Winter was closest to it, a framed photo on a glass table by the front door, and she picked it up to study it. Across the room I could see that Patrick had his arm around me, in my shimmery purple dress, a dress I had loved but which was now burdened with weird memories. Patrick’s mom said, “Such a handsome couple,” and I wanted to tell her to get her priorities in order and to worry less about a prom picture and more about finding money to send her son to Harvard!
“Mom,” Patrick said.
“Well, it’s true,” his mom said, looking at me sort of wistfully.
“That’s my cue,” Patrick said, then he headed for the stairs and started to climb two steps at a time.
I said, “We’ll all come,” and we followed Patrick up the stairs to his room, where he was already looking for the Superman comic book.
“Here,” he said to me, and gave me a box of comics, then he put another in front of Winter and another in front of Carson. “They used to be more organized but they got messed up. Any Superman you see was from my uncle’s collection and is definitely older than two thousand.”
I sat on the bed, flipping through comics, and thought about all the times I’d hung out with Patrick in this room over the last few years—all the movies watched and conversations had surrounded by baseball cards and weird trophies and medals and guitars and keyboards. What if, after tonight’s declarations and my unimpressive response, Patrick never got on board with the whole friends thing again? What if we all came home for Thanksgiving come fall and he didn’t want to see me? Like, ever?
“Patrick!” His mother’s voice came up the stairs. “There’s a tent in the attic.”
Set up camp somewhere uncampy.
“Somebody come help me,” Patrick said, and since Winter jumped up and said, “I’ll come,” it was obvious to me she didn’t want to be alone with Carson.
That left me and him alone with the comic books, which seemed strange, neither of us being that into comics.
“What are uncampy places?” I said.
“I don’t know,” Carson said. “A rooftop.”
“Nah,” I said. “People love camping out on their roofs. Maybe someplace indoors,” I said. “The mall?”
“Mall’s going to be closed by the time we get to it,”
he said, then we were quiet for a minute, until he said, “Just because they’re not around a lot and have money doesn’t make them bad people.”
It took me a second to realize what he was talking about. I said, “I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Even if you didn’t, I just wanted to say it. Being rich doesn’t make them bad. It doesn’t make me bad either. It doesn’t define who I am or what my life is going to be like.”
“I know,” I said, but I had to work to hide the fact that I wasn’t so sure. And why had I aspired to vacation in Italy with Carson and to become a staple at places like Mohonk if I thought there was something wrong with being wealthy enough to do all that? And how was it possible to aspire to all that and also to aspire to, well, not saving the world, exactly, but serving? Why did I want any of what I wanted and why did I want it so badly?
“What’s going on with you and Patrick tonight?” Carson asked, then, but I didn’t want to tell him and was saved by the image of Superman. I pulled the comic book out of the box and checked the date on the cover and said, “Got it!” then stood.
“He told you, didn’t he?”
And my mind went to the top secret of the night, to his kissing Winter. “No,” I said. “I told him.”
“Wait,” Carson said. “Told him what?
“What are we talking about?” I asked.
“That he’s in love with you,” he said.
“Oh,” I said. “No.” Then, “I mean, yes. He told me.”
“And?” He looked at me hopefully and it pained me that he didn’t know, would probably never know, how much space in my mind and heart he’d occupied for the past two years, the hours wasted fantasizing, dreaming, planning, scheming. Or maybe one day he would. Maybe we’d sit at a table together at a reunion twenty years from now at the Shalimar and reminisce about scav hunt and from the comfort of my happy life I’d be able to say, “You know. I always had a thing for you,” and he’d cock his head and say, “Really? I had no idea,” and we’d laugh about it.
“I just don’t feel that way about him,” I said finally.
“Well, that’s too bad,” he said, and I managed only, “Yeah.”
“I’m jealous, you know.” He sat on the bed. “Of what you and Patrick have.”
“What do we have?” I asked.
“You know,” Carson said. “It’s big, your friendship. It’s more than friendship, even if you don’t want it to be.” He smiled a little bit then said, “He would follow you to the ends of the earth.”
“I know that,” I said, feeling awful that the sentiment made me so uncomfortable. “But I don’t want him to. I want to go there myself.”
He shrugged. “Sounds lonely.”
I said, “Not to me.”
Winter and Patrick came back and we went downstairs and said good-bye to Patrick’s parents—they’d filled a small box with more stuff from the list, including a Bundt pan [30], a completed crossword from yesterday’s paper [75], a can of tuna [3], a picture frame [5], a teapot [30], a bobby pin [30]—then left.
In the car we set out for the meet-up at Rainey, and we all agreed that the others would go by the Cupcake Corral’s Dumpster while I was at the park and also try really really hard to figure out the Flying Cloud clue while finding an uncampy place to pitch a tent.
DON’T BE LATE, said a text from the Yeti. And Carson seemed to drive faster.
“We should talk about this meet-up,” Patrick said, turning to me.
“What’s there to talk about?” I asked.
“What kind of information are you looking for?” Carson said, nodding into the rearview. “What are you willing to divulge? That kind of thing.”
I thought for a moment. “Well, I’m looking for anything having to do with the Flying Cloud clue for starters.”
“What else?” Carson asked.
“I have no idea,” I said, and by this point we’d arrived at the park and the clock on my phone read 8:59. “I think I’m going to have to just wing it.”
The gate to Rainey Park was open and I heard far-off voices.
“Wish me luck,” I said, and I stepped out into the night.
13
PEOPLE MOSTLY WENT TO RAINEY PARK, UNDER the bridge, to make out. I’d come here with David Fielder once during our brief junior-year romance and then never again with smooching on the agenda. But we had all come here just to hang out a lot of times over the years and to look at the city, whose skyline you could just about see off to the south. Tonight it twinkled like a promise in a clear black sky. This was where we’d come earlier this year, after our last big band championship, which we’d lost. It was the place where Dez, who’d had some beers that night, though no one could quite figure out where, said that he wanted, more than anything, to walk over the bridge. To just leave Oyster Point and go to college in the city, where maybe people were different. But he also said that he was afraid that if he set out to cross the bridge, he might not make it to the other end without giving in to the temptation to just jump and be done with it.
“I’m gonna do it,” he’d said, standing at the foot of the pedestrian path across the bridge. “I’m gonna walk over it and see what happens and if I jump then whatever, right?”
And we’d all pulled him back and he’d sobered up and that had been that.
We had to win. Not for me, but for Dez.
Of course Barbone was there. They’d hardly send Chrissie or Allison or Smitty. But for some reason, the sight of him standing there in the park, without any of the members of his posse, caught me off guard. He was the enemy, and here he was, laughing and yapping. It made me feel a little bit angry and a little bit pathetic at the same time that I despised him so much, and that he seemed to see me as nothing but a nuisance.
Tom Reilly was there, and Kerri Conlon, and Matt Horohoe was representing The Matts. Last but not least, Jill was there, flipping her curls around by Tom.
I should’ve walked right over to her and apologized for being a jerk at the hay bales. She was my friend. She’d been there that night with Dez, had helped keep him off the bridge. But I felt complicit in Winter’s behavior, guilty. Not because Winter was one of my best friends, but because I couldn’t be sure I wouldn’t have done the same thing if given the chance.
Leticia Farrice and Lucas and the other two judges walked into the park then, with a case of Red Bull, and that brought the total of people there to ten. Something about it felt like a scene from a movie but not a teen movie. More of a heist movie, with an unlikely mix of people being assembled for some complicated bank robbery or hijacking.
The Oyster Point Ten.
Lucas said, “Hey, I was hoping you’d be here,” and handed me a Red Bull.
“Why?” I asked. “Did you find her?”
“No,” he said. “Sorry. How’s it going?”
“Good,” I said, a little bit startled by how comfortable he seemed around me and me him. We barely knew each other. “I mean, the hunt is going good. But I am so screwed if I don’t find that statue.”
“It’ll turn up,” he said. “We’ll find it.”
I nodded and hoped he was right.
You would think that a bunch of teenagers who’d been through all of high school—and in most cases grade school—together, and so had survived puberty and sex ed and the SATs and, well, everything together, would have some kind of stronger, invisible bond, but I felt nothing but awkwardness around most of these people and couldn’t imagine ever wanting to show up for a reunion—not in five years, ten, or twenty—not even if it did mean the chance to confess my old crush to Carson.
I was going to head for Jill, but she was talking to Tom, which reminded me that Jill had had a whole other life before Carson, before us. Tom seemed pretty focused on her right now, so maybe there was something to that, and maybe that would somehow let Winter off the hook. If Jill was so quick to move on then would it be okay if Carson did, too?
“So how are you guys doing?” Kerri Conlon asked me, and I tu
rned. We’d had a bunch of classes together over the years, but I couldn’t be sure we’d ever spoken one-on-one and now that made me sad.
“Pretty good, I think,” I said, trying to remember my goals as laid out by my team. “Did you guys leave town at all?”
“No,” Kerri said. “Were we supposed to?”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” I said. “Just making sure.”
Kerri said, “We’re mostly focusing on getting stuff and doing stuff, and not spending too much time on all the stuff that’s more mysterious or whatever.”
“Good strategy,” I said, sipping my drink, which was somehow almost already half gone. “Us, too. What about a Mary on the Half Shell?” I asked, because why not.
Kerri shook her head. “I don’t even know what that is.”
It had to be Barbone. He knew we had the statue. He’d been pissed about the Home Depot thing. It was the only thing that made sense. Unless it really was Jill. And let’s face it, I’d been sort of an asshole.
I decided to walk over to her and get it over with. “I’m sorry,” I said, “about the hay thing.”
“I just don’t get you sometimes,” she said.
“Join the club,” I muttered.
“Did those guys tell you what they did? About prom?” She had this look of defiance, of being wronged, in her eyes that gave her a different sort of confidence.
I just nodded.
“The whole thing is unbelievable to me,” she said. “What did you even say when they told you?”
“What’s there to say?” I said. “I said it was a shitty thing to do.”
“I can’t believe you let him join your team,” she said.
“I didn’t know what he’d done when he joined us,” I said. “But even if I had, I mean…I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do. He’s our friend.”
“Is he really?” she asked.
“Of course he is,” I said. We were at an impasse. The drawing of this conversation would have a line drawn smack down the middle.
“Please tell me the truth.” I sounded weary. “Did you take the Mary statue? Because I was a jerk to you?”
The Best Night of Your (Pathetic) Life Page 15