I started toward it, but Summer still held my hand quite firmly and didn’t move, anchoring me to the spot. “So this is it?” he said, gesturing at the bottles and glasses on the table. “Nothing happier and stronger than alcohol?”
“No one had anything for tonight. You?”
“Sure,” Summer said, which surprised me. “I always come prepared. It’s good manners.”
All of them finally smiled. He let go of my hand and stepped forward to kneel at the table. Everyone leaned over to watch him take a small, flat white box out of his right pants pocket and put it on the table. He looked up at them, turned to me, winked, and then opened the box to reveal a dozen small pink pills.
“These are the latest and the best,” he said.
“What is it?” Ward asked.
“Some people call them Smiles for obvious reasons,” Summer replied.
“I’ve heard of those,” Jason said. “My cousin in Chicago told me about them. Where’d you get them? They’re not easy to get. They’re illegal to manufacture, sell, or possess.”
“I have a trusted source,” Summer said. “These live up to their reputation. I can testify from actually experiencing them, more than once. They give you a great kick. I can guarantee that they’ll get the party kick-started.”
“Did he tell you about this? Are you going to take one?” Ginny asked me.
“Sure I told her, and sure she is,” Summer said, answering for me. He plucked one out of the box and held it out for me.
I looked at it in his palm and then at him and saw him wink again. He was up to something. Maybe the pills were nothing, but he wanted to see how they would react if they thought they were something special. It would be a good joke on them, and from the way they were acting toward me and the fact that they hadn’t told me they weren’t going to meet me at the mall first, I was happy to see a joke pulled on them.
Trusting him, I took the pill out of his palm.
“Well, that’s a surprise,” Darlene said. “Must be your influence, Summer. I would never think Sage would do any drug, happy or not.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised. Everyone has secrets,” he replied. He picked up the box and offered a pill to everyone. Everyone took one.
“Can you take it with alcohol?” Mia asked.
“Sure,” Summer said. “You won’t want much more vodka or whiskey after, anyway.”
“You’d better take it with your soft drink, Sage,” Ginny said, taking hers. “We don’t want anything weird to happen to you since your parents don’t know you’re here.”
“Very thoughtful and considerate,” Summer said. He took one of the pills and poured himself a little vodka. “Bottoms up,” he said, and everyone joined him. Then he walked me to the bar. Even if what he gave them was a joke, it still made me nervous to participate.
“I don’t want to take this,” I told him, sotto voce. “Don’t,” he whispered. “Don’t drink any of that lemonade, either,” he warned. “Pretend to. It’s bad stuff.”
I looked at the lemonade. There was no way to tell by its color. How did he know what was in it? I wondered. Obviously, they had been planning to have fun at my expense and had spiked it with something. With our backs to them, I did just as he said. I poured some in the glass, brought it toward my mouth, and put it back on the counter. He took my hand again and fingered the pill he had given me. Then he put it in his pocket.
“You don’t need this now,” he said. I was surprised he didn’t whisper.
We turned to look at the others.
Only a minute or so had passed since he had given them the pills, but they all had the same stupid smile.
“No wonder you called them Smiles,” I told him, loudly enough for them all to hear, but none of them reacted. They held their smiles and stared at us. “They look like they’re hypnotized,” I said, more loudly. Again, no one reacted.
“Well, it can have that effect,” he said. “You might say it’s the only effect.”
“What?” I looked at him, a surprised smile on my face.
Then I looked at them again. Nothing had changed; no one had moved. They seemed frozen in time, no one even blinking.
“What’s going on? What’s happening to them? What did you give them?”
“I knew they were out to do you harm,” Summer said. “It wasn’t the original purpose of this party, but it quickly became their intention. There’s enough Ecstasy in that lemonade to set you on fire.” He nodded at the glass on the bar. “You would be in quite a lot of trouble with your parents when your father picked you up later, and from the way you’ve described them to me, I wouldn’t see you for years except at school. Couldn’t let that happen,” he added.
I looked at the others again. There was still no sign any of them had heard anything he said, nor had any of them moved an inch since they had taken the pills Summer had provided.
“What is in that pill, and how come you aren’t reacting to it like they are? I saw you take one.”
“Mine was what is referred to as a placebo. It’s shaped and colored the same way, but it’s just sugar.”
“Where did you get the rest of them?”
“I picked them up in Europe. Don’t worry. It won’t harm them permanently. In fact, when they wake up, they won’t remember anything.”
“When they wake up?”
“Don’t they look asleep, even with their eyes open? Did you ever see a more vulnerable group of idiots?”
“What are you going to do, Summer?”
“Well, what do you want to do? They were going to hurt you, Sage!”
“Let’s just leave,” I said. “If you’re sure they’ll be all right.”
“Can’t just leave. That’s a waste of all my efforts,” he said. “Besides, they’ll not have learned anything, and they might just come after you in some way again.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“No offense, but you wouldn’t have taken care of yourself too well tonight if I hadn’t been with you,” he said.
I looked from the gang to the bar, where the drug-spiked lemonade remained untouched thanks to Summer. I couldn’t disagree with him.
“Besides, this is a party. They like to party. So let’s let them party.”
He went to the music system and turned up the volume. Then he went to each one of them and whispered something in their ears. I stood back watching. One by one, they rose, moving very slowly, just like someone who was hypnotized, and to my shock and surprise, they all began to undress.
“Summer!” I shouted as the boys began to take off their pants and then their underwear. “What are they doing?”
He smiled. “It’s just your typical nudist party,” he said.
Even Jason was struggling to get out of his clothes. I shook my head and backed away. The girls were moving just as quickly to get undressed.
“I can’t believe you’re getting them all to do this.” “It’s nothing special,” he said. The girls were nearly naked. Neither Darlene nor Mia had been wearing a bra.
“Stop them.”
“They’ll stop themselves,” he said. “C’mon. Let’s not let them ruin our evening.”
“What?”
He took my hand and started me toward the front door.
“But . . . when will they stop?”
He looked at his watch. “Give them another fifteen minutes. Maybe they’ll enjoy one another more,” he said. He opened the front door.
“But are you sure they’ll be all right afterward? I mean . . .”
“Depends what you mean. They’ll be plenty embarrassed, and they’ll wonder what happened, but no one will be able to explain it.”
“They knew we were here, and you gave them the pills.”
“What pills?” he said, smiling. “They won’t remember us even being here.”
“How can you be so sure?”
He held his smile.
“You’ve done this before?” I asked.
“A few times,” he said, �
�but never with more glee,” he added, and led me out.
The music was so loud now that we could hear it clearly all the way to his car.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Let’s get something to eat. I’m starving. I know a better pizza restaurant than the one you were supposed to go to in the mall,” he said, opening the car door for me. I looked back at the house, and then, as if I had been tapped on the shoulder, I spun around and looked back down the street. Once again, I thought I saw the silhouette of a man in the shadows.
“There’s someone there,” I said, nodding in the silhouette’s direction. “Watching us.”
“Where?” He looked and shook his head. “Naw, that’s not anyone. It’s just a small tree.”
I looked again. The silhouette was gone.
Of course, the first thing I thought was that it had been my father.
“Stop worrying so much. I’ll be sure to get you back in front of that mall by twelve.” We got into his car.
“When they regain their senses, they’ll wonder why we didn’t show up, even if you’re right and they forget we were there, Summer.”
“So what? Simple answer is you and I decided we wanted to be alone for our first date. They’ll buy into that. No worries.” He started away.
I looked back at the house. The girls would be devastated, I thought. “Will they all wake up at the same time?”
“Practically. No one will wake up early enough to cover himself or herself up from the others. I can guarantee you that.”
“Really? So where and when did you do this before?”
“What’s the difference? Stop worrying about them, Sage. They were out to get you tonight, and I told you, promised you. I’m not going to let you get hurt, now or ever,” he said and drove on.
I wasn’t sure whether I should be grateful or upset. Despite what they were planning to do to me, I couldn’t help but feel bad for them.
Summer laughed. “I can’t wait for the story those girls give you tomorrow, if they decide to tell you anything at all,” he said. “Can you?”
“Yes.”
“Relax,” he said. “You didn’t do anything to them. I did, but don’t you tell them. Believe me, they wouldn’t be this concerned about you.”
“When did you know about all their planning to hurt me tonight?”
“Almost as soon as they concocted the idea,” he said. “I’ve got amazing hearing.”
He laughed again, and we drove on in silence for a while. Did he have amazing hearing, or was there some other way he had found out? When did he overhear them? He was with me almost every moment of the day.
“C’mon, stop thinking about them,” he said, seeing how deep in thought I was. “We didn’t do them any permanent harm.”
“Oh, I think those girls will carry that for a long time,” I said.
He shrugged.
“Imagine what you would have carried for a long time if they had succeeded and gotten you into big trouble with your nervous-wreck, obsessive parents,” he said.
He was right, I thought, but still . . .
He made a few turns and brought us out onto a street I had never been on. Right on the corner was a small Italian restaurant called Mamma Mia’s. He parked right in front of it.
“How did you find this place?”
“My father found it. He’s like that. He’ll scout an area for days locating the best of everything. Wait until you taste the pizza here. Everything’s made from scratch and fresh. It’s the closest thing to pizza in Europe that we’ve had.”
It wasn’t until we got out and approached the front door that I realized this was the first time I had been to any restaurant without my parents. He smiled and kissed me on the cheek before he opened the door. I knew I looked at him strangely, because I thought, although it was nice, it was so unexpected. Why kiss me then and there?
“Couldn’t help myself,” he said, reading my thoughts in my eyes. “I could kiss you all day. I want you to feel good about this night, Sage. I warn you, I’m going to work at it.”
I laughed, finally relaxing, and we entered the small restaurant and went directly to a booth as if it had been reserved for us. When the waitress came to hand us menus, he shook his head.
“No need. We’ll have a Margherita pizza and two Cokes. We’ll share a house salad,” he said quickly. “They’re pretty big,” he told me. As soon as she left, he reached across the table for my hands and put his around them. “There’s no reason we couldn’t have had a date like this from the start and avoided all that back there,” he said.
“Maybe we will next time.”
“I don’t know. I’m not confident. You haven’t even been permitted to sleep over at a girlfriend’s house until now, right?”
I nodded.
“I don’t care how you excuse it. There’s something wrong with them treating you like a serial killer or something.” Suddenly, he let go of my hands and sat back.
“What?”
“I didn’t notice until now that you had on two necklaces. I can’t see what’s on the second one. You have it under your sweater.”
“Oh. It’s a pentacle,” I said, pulling it up to show him.
He nodded.
“Do you know what it all means, each star corner?” I asked.
“Yes. Where did you get that?”
“My great-uncle Alexis sent it along with a wall-sized one. He’s coming to visit us tomorrow. Actually, I’ve never met him or my great-aunt,” I said.
“You have one weird family. So your parents are into that sort of thing?”
“You mean spiritual stuff?”
“Yes.”
“They are. But your father bought you something spiritual. You’re wearing that double dragon piece.”
“My father’s into lots of things, but he doesn’t take anything that seriously. He thinks most religions are full of superstitions. Are your parents superstitious, too?”
“About some things,” I said. “Yes.”
The waitress brought our Cokes and salad with some bread.
“Bread’s homemade,” he told me. “The olive oil is from some family vineyard.”
“You know everything about this place?”
“My father asks lots of questions. He uses everything in his writing. I’m sure this restaurant will turn up in a novel.”
“Do you read his books?”
He smiled. “Not a one. They’re too girlie.”
“Did he always write romance novels under the name Belladonna?”
“As long as I can remember. Great salad dressing, isn’t it?”
“What? Yes.”
“So what are some of your parents’ superstitions, besides black cats and walking under an open ladder or something? Anything unusual?”
“I don’t like talking about them like this,” I said. “It feels funny, like I’m betraying them or something.”
“Betraying them? Jeez, they really do have you shackled. It’s not right. You should be soaring. You could easily be the most popular girl in the school. If you keep a bird’s wing tied to its body, it’ll never fly, and you can fly, Sage.”
I nodded slightly and ate some more.
“That’s it. I’ve made a decision,” he said.
“What decision?”
“I’m making you my cause. I’m determined to help you free yourself of your bondage.”
“Oh, it’s not that bad,” I said. “I wouldn’t call it bondage.”
“Believe me. I’ve been around, Sage. It’s that bad,” he said. “There are girls two years younger than you in our school having more of a social life.”
The waitress brought our pizza. It looked delicious.
“We’d better wait until it cools a little,” I said.
He ran his hand about an inch over it. “It’s fine.” He looked at his watch. “Eyes are opening back at Jason’s,” he said with glee. “I’m almost sorry we didn’t stay around to see.”
“I’m not.
”
I put a piece of pizza on my plate. It looked like it still should be too hot, but when I felt it, it was just right. It was the best pizza I ever had eaten. I told him so.
“I won’t ever disappoint you, Sage,” he said with such confidence that I couldn’t help but be impressed.
“I hope not,” I said. Something kept me from matching his words and making the same promise.
When we were nearly finished, he looked at his watch. “This might sound nuts for me to suggest. I should be monopolizing every minute with you.”
“What?”
“We have lots of time yet. How would you like to meet my father? I told him about you,” he added quickly. “I don’t talk about girls with him much, about anybody, for that matter. He’s dying to meet you, and I’d like you to meet him.”
“He might be disappointed, Summer.”
“I doubt it. We don’t have to stay long. I kinda said I would bring you around,” he confessed. “I’ll get you back to the mall in time. Don’t worry about that,” he added. “Well?”
“Okay,” I said.
He signaled for the waitress to pay the bill.
I wanted to suggest that we circle back to Jason’s house to see if the others were really all right, but he was too excited about my meeting his father. They lived in the opposite direction, a good two or three miles from downtown Dorey. Here the houses were farther apart. The area looked more rural, with older buildings and some abandoned or no longer working farms.
“How come you live out here?”
“Dad always looks for the quieter, more remote places whenever we settle down anywhere,” he said. “He likes less distraction when he’s writing, and he’s always writing.”
“I guess so. I saw he had more than forty novels published.”
“No lack of ideas. Sometimes he works on more than one at the same time. He changes from one story line to another like you and I change television channels.”
“Was he always a professional writer?”
“He’s always been an entertainer. Let’s say that.”
“What do you mean? What else did he do?”
“He had a magic act when he was younger,” he said.
He slowed down as we approached a two-story Dutch colonial house with dark gray shingles and white frames around the windows. The gambrel roof had double slopes on each side, making it look like a dressed-up barn at first. It had two narrow white pillars on its wide entry portico. There wasn’t very much landscaping, and the grass in front and on the sides looked untended. He pulled up to the single-car garage.
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