Unscripted

by Jayne Denker

  Amid “ewws” and agonized expressions—a couple of students put their hands to their throats and toppled over—I ate some more. It was fine. So much for their dare. In fact, my stomach was so happy to see food again it encouraged me to gobble up quite a bit of it. A large boy ran over to the piano at the edge of the stage and started playing Chopin’s funeral march.

  “Very funny,” I said, “but as you can see, I’m still standing. Dare vanquished. Now, what’s Kaylie talking about—what is this ‘thing’ you’re going to do?”

  “Just a little tradition, Ms. Sinclair,” Kaylie said.

  “It’s really no big deal.” Elias took my mostly empty food container away like an attentive waiter and came back with several cans of spray paint he had squirreled away behind the proscenium curtain.

  “Dude. Nothing good can come from any plan that involves spray paint.”

  “We’re going to tag the rock,” Trina said, taking one of the cans from Elias.

  “‘Tag the . . .’ what now?”

  Elias was patient with me. “Did you see the big rock, way high up the mountainside, just outside of town? The one with all the writing on it?”

  Come to think of it, I had seen that rock, and I wondered how—and why—someone scaled the giant, boulder-strewn hill to mark it up. I nodded.

  “It’s IECC tradition to tag it once in a while. Tonight the theater majors are going to do it.”

  “I see. Well, good luck with that.” I didn’t know if it was illegal or not, but if it was, I didn’t want to know anything more about it.

  “You should come too.”

  Kaylie. Damn her. What a stupid suggestion. Even the other students were looking at her like she’d lost her mind. “Uh, no.”

  “It’s less risky than eating that mac and cheese.”

  “I didn’t fall off the turnip truck yesterday, child. I know you’re trying to get me arrested.”

  Kaylie rolled her eyes. “We’re all going. It’s not like we’re sending you up there alone or anything.”

  “No way.”

  She hesitated, then shrugged and turned away. “All right. Whatever. We’d better get going, you guys.”

  “Hang on,” I interrupted. “I don’t think any of you should be driving. And thatI would rat on you for.”

  Elias stepped forward. “I haven’t been drinking, Ms. Sinclair. I can drive everybody. I’ve got my mom’s minivan.”

  “All right then!” Kaylie said, clapping her hands like Mason did when he wanted to get the group’s attention. “Let’s go. Alex and Michael are probably already there by now.”

  The minute my head whipped around, I regretted it, because Kaylie knew she had me. She gave me a smug sidelong glance but said nothing. I resolved not to rise to the bait . . . but of course I failed.

  I took her aside. “Kaylie, are you sure you’re going to be all right?” I asked softly.

  Kaylie matched my low tone. “We’ll be fine, Ms. Sinclair. We do this all the time.”

  “Maybe I should go along. Not, you know, climb the mountain with you, but be available, just in case.”

  She pretended to think about it for a minute. She knew that I was bluffing, and I knew she knew. And yet we kept up the charade. “Well . . . if you’re sure . . .” She did a quick head count. “I don’t think you’ll fit in the van, though.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t want to. I mean, I think it’d be better if there’s a backup vehicle too. What if Elias’s van breaks down?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll just meet you there.”

  “Okay. Let me give you directions . . .”

  * * *

  Fucking Moreno Valley. Fucking quasi-desert. Fucking dark roads.

  I had no idea where I was. Well, my map app told me I was just outside the city proper, which was clearly evident if I just looked out my windshield, because then I could see the lights of the city spread out below me in the haze, but I was sort of preoccupied with the little orange light on my dash that seemed even more insistent that I really was running out of gas. Not to mention being well and truly lost. I could pretty much figure out how to get back to town—head straight down—but that wasn’t what I needed to do. I needed to find the damned rock, because it sure wasn’t where Kaylie told me it would be.

  Oh, there were plenty of rocks. Millions, in fact. Big, small, every size. Brown and jagged when they loomed in my headlights, all black against the light-polluted amber sky when they weren’t directly in my path. The mountains that seemed low and close from the city roads were, in fact, farther away than I thought and much taller, steeper, and more imposing than I expected. I was, frankly, intimidated by nature for the first time in my life. Of course, this was the closest I’d been to nature for ages, unless hiking on a canyon trail carrying a fancy water bottle counted. And I was pretty sure it didn’t.

  And something else. It was sohotall of a sudden. I was used to the cooler air creeping in, closer to the coast, at night, and I thought it would be the same here. Apparently not, but why was it hotter than earlier in the evening? I turned up the air-conditioning in my SUV, but it gave me chills. I turned it off, and then it was too stuffy. I wanted to open the windows, but my tires were generating such a cloud of dust, I didn’t think that was a great idea.

  I went over the directions Kaylie had given me. They were simple and straightforward enough that I hadn’t felt the need to write them down. Now I had second thoughts about that. But no—they were simple. Take the main road out of campus, turn right, and keep going till the road started going up. Take the second left. Not rocket science. But there was no sign of Elias’s mom’s minivan anywhere. No sign of that damned spray-painted rock, either. Not that I’d be able to see it easily, now that I was on a road that was essentially right under it.

  I was ready to give up on the whole thing, Alex or not, but I just couldn’t. I wasn’t sure what was the stronger impulse—to be able to talk to Alex outside of school, which might give him a different perspective and give me some more influence over him, or my sudden desire to check on the students. I believed Elias when he said he hadn’t been drinking, but a bunch of tipsy young folk acting up in a van? Sounded like trouble. And what if the whole “tagging the rock” thing was more illegal than they let on, and the cops caught them? Somebody responsible should be around to speak up for them—or phone a lawyer. I turned my SUV around, carefully, on the empty but dark and shoulderless road, and retraced my route. The mountainous area around Moreno Valley was only so big, I reasoned; I’d have to come across that stupid spray-painted rock sometime.

  And then something else hit, and it wasn’t a brilliant idea about how to track down a van full of students. I felt like I was being stabbed in the gut. Instinctively, I hit the brakes as shooting pains radiated through my abdomen. My breath shallow, I broke out in a cold sweat. Then the pains dissipated. I took another, deeper, breath, straightened up, and kept driving.

  What the hell was that? Nerves?

  Another jab hit me, worse than the first, and lasting longer. I saw a turnoff along the road and pulled into it. Vaguely I wondered if this was the parking area Kaylie had said was just below the rock, with a trail leading up the hillside from it, but as another pain shot through me, I didn’t care as much anymore.

  So hot . . . I needed air. I opened the car door and took a few deep breaths, pushed my hair out of my face, and wiped beads of sweat from my forehead. Turning sideways in the doorway, I wrapped my arms around my stomach and leaned forward, willing the pain away.

  And it eased up. Okay. That was better. I sat up again and looked around the small parking area—just enough room for one car to pull over, really, so there was no mistaking I was the only one here. I peered into the darkness, trying to discern whether there was a trail or not. I thought I saw one in the distance, so I turned off my car and gingerly climbed out, leaving the headlights on. I wondered if there were scorpions around. I hated scorpions.

  I walked over to where I thought I saw a pa
th, and then another cramp hit. Dammit. Sitting down on a rock, I cradled my stomach again. When I thought the pain was gone, I stood up. Yeahhh, bad idea. Spots swam in front of my eyes, blending with the darkness, until I couldn’t see much of anything. A wave of nausea swept over me. I dropped onto the rock again, sure I was going to vomit on my beloved raffia wedges. I spread my feet apart to clear a space, just in case.

  More deep breathing. I could wait this thing out. I could. As soon as the nausea passed, I decided, I would throw myself into my SUV and beat it out of there, back down the mountain, students and their spray paint and their rock be damned. I would get my butt back into my monk’s cell and sleep this thing off, whatever it was.

  But the nausea didn’t pass. The minutes ticked by as I sat there, the warm breeze ruffling my hair and making me icky and chilled. I started shaking, partially from the chills, partially from the queasiness, and partially from . . .just everything.

  How in the world had I gotten here? I wanted to go home. I wanted to be able to click my red heels and be back in my own king-size memory-foam-mattressed bed in L.A., with no nausea, no safety of community college students weighing on my mind, no longing to have Mason in front of me, smiling warmly . . . (Wait—what was that last thing?)

  I wanted to reverse time, back to before my mother invaded, before Jamie stole all my money. Before stupid Random Shit Productions and Sean and Evan’s stupid obsession with vomit and strippers, before being persona non grata in the business, before Bea told me to get out of town, before being booted off the lot by studio security, before I grabbed Randy’s balls.

  Back to when I still had a job I was good at, back to when I was happily ensconced in my own home with no intrusions, no drama except what I put on TV each week, no disruptions at all.

  Could I get rid of all of that but keep Mason in my life?

  Wait—what?

  I started to wonder if I was inching toward delirium, but then all thoughts left my head as a new, more powerful wave of barfiness swept over me. I went from queasy to stand-back-she’s-gonna-blow. At that point everything went sort of hazy. The one thing that stood out was a lurch of panic that doubled my level of ickiness. Was I going to pass out? Was I going to die here, out in the weird semi-wilderness above Moreno Valley? Would anyone find my body, or would it be dragged off by coyotes? Wait—were there coyotes around here? Or could scorpions drag me off if they joined forces, like those killer ants did to that guy in Indiana Jones 4?

  Oh God, I really was delirious, wasn’t I?

  I tried more deep breathing, but that just made me barfier than ever. I prayed for wellness. I prayed for rescue.

  I realized I had my phone in my pocket.

  My hand shaking, I forced it to unclench from my abdomen, and I reached into the back pocket of my jeans. Doing that let in some cold air near my stomach, and I shivered. I pushed the button to bring my phone to life. My eyes tried to focus on my phone options. If I hit “redial,” it would get me Jaya, who was too far away to help. Should I call 911? Where would I tell them I was? “On a mountain somewhere—please help!” Just great. Could they track me by my phone signal, or was that a myth?

  I aimed for the keypad button, failed. More nausea. I stopped to tighten my grip on my stomach, then rocked back and forth on my rock perch. Oh, that didn’t help. When the cramp eased up a little, I hit the phone again. I ended up with my contacts list. Oh bloody hell . . . But then there it was. My eyes focused on Mason’s number, the one he had just put into my phone. Call him if I needed anything, he said. Well, I needed. I needed bad.

  I went to tap the number . . . and then I stopped. How could I ask for his help again? How could I ask him to come get me, wherever I was, late at night? I barely knew the guy. My pride wouldn’t let me dial.

  I groaned. Maybe I’d feel better in a minute. Sure I would. Another wave of nausea. Um, nope, I wouldn’t. But Faith Freakin’ Sinclair was not about to be laid low by some sickness, on the side of a mountain, outside ofMoreno Valley. That was notpart of the agenda, dammit. That was nothow this story ended.

  So I waited, my phone clutched in my hand, unused. I wrapped my arms around my legs and rested my forehead on my knees. And prayed for death.

  * * *

  That was the last thing I remembered, until a noise. A light. Someone was shaking my shoulder gently. “Faith. Faith, come on. How much did you have to drink, Faith?”

  I hadn’t been able to respond to whoever it was, except for a weak groan, until that question. The part of my brain that was still functioning thought, the nerve! “Nothing!” I moaned.

  “All right. Can you walk? No?” A sigh. “Okay. Let’s go . . .”

  More darkness, more nothing. Then I was jostled into consciousness as someone folded me into a car. Oh, too much jostling. Way too much. I tried to form words, wasn’t sure I succeeded.

  “Faith—what did you say?”

  Apparently I’d failed. I tried again. “Move.”

  I pushed on the person’s chest. He yielded. Somehow I slid back out of the car, landed on my feet, leaned forward . . . and spewed. A lot. And then some more.

  And when I was done, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “Goddamn. It’s always about vomit.”

  Chapter 16

  My eyes opened to dim light. A bed. Sheets. I moved my legs and realized that the bed was larger than my glorified cot in the dorm, but that thought was driven right out of my head by sudden blinding, searing pains shooting through my abdomen like ninjas were stabbing me with a bunch of knives, first here, then there—all over, all at once. Instinctively, I drew my knees up to my stomach and kept very, very still. The pain settled. I moved my leg a bit. More pain. Back to fetal position. I was afraid to even move my head to look around, although I wasn’t sure what I’d be able to see in the half-light.

  I decided to just focus on not moving. And, after a short time, when my heartbeat slowed to a normal rate, I dropped back off to sleep.

  * * *

  When I woke again, it was day. I was still a human knot, tensely perched near the edge of the bed. Vividly recalling what happened the last time I moved, I was afraid to budge an inch, but my legs were aching. I decided to chance it. Gingerly, I straightened my right leg; no stomach pain. Now the left leg; pain. I winced as my abdomen seized up, as though someone had sewn my innards with string and pulled them taut like lacing up a shoe. But it wasn’t nearly as bad as the last time. I waited; the pain passed.

  Next goal: roll over. And relax my shoulders—they were bunched up something terrible. I rolled over—slowly—onto my back. Still alive. That was good. Pain again but, again, bearable. I took some deep breaths. I didn’t think it actually helped, but at least it was something to focus on till things calmed down in my gut.

  Now . . . where was I? The blank white ceiling didn’t tell me anything. I was going to have to move again, maybe even—shudder—raise my head and have a look around. After the few moments it took to talk myself into it, I reached behind my head, bunched up the pillow a little, and propped my head up.

  It was a darned pleasant room, I had to admit. A comfortable bed, happy yellow walls, white IKEA-type furniture, flowery pictures in white frames, flowery quilt, dotted-swiss curtains. Judging by the light trying to peek through the blond wood blinds, probably a brilliantly sunny room most days. It was like I was in Oz, the brightness of this place, the difference between it and the dorm room, let alone the Super Duper Nine Motor Court. Too bad something smelled really bad. Super-Duper-Nine-Motor-Court-bathtub-drain bad.

  I shifted again and realized that smell was coming from me.

  Ew.

  Before I could puzzle that part out, the bedroom door opened.

  “Hey, you’re awake. How do you feel?”

  My cottony mouth moved, but nothing came out, no matter how desperately I tried to make it work. Or maybe, I realized, I had no idea what to say.

  Mason crouched down by the side of the bed and studied me. “Had me worried there
for a while, you know? I was ready to call 911 a couple of times during the night.”

  During the night? What? I turned my head to look at the other side of the bed, but it was still neatly made up, not even a body indentation on top of the happy flowered quilt. Then I saw a blanket and a pillow thrown on a small cushioned chair in the corner. He slept in that chair all night? Watching me?

  My eyes were pulled back to Mason, who was looking at me calmly, eyes clear (if a little red-rimmed), and with a pleasant, patient smile on his face. “You look better. Do you feel better?”

  Still I wasn’t able to answer. It was like someone had iced my brain. Thoughts weren’t connecting, ideas weren’t completing, and words definitely weren’t forming.

  And then a memory popped into my head. And then another. And another. And . . . aw, shit.

  “Sorry I yakked on your shoes.” My words came out all raspy, as though I hadn’t spoken in a month. My throat was burning—probably, it occurred to me, from said yakking.

  “I never liked them much anyway.”

  Then I remembered something else. “And your car mat.” He nodded, smiling serenely. “And . . . your driveway?” Nod. “And . . .” I winced. “Your foyer.” Nod. “And . . . oh damn, I’m so sorry about your ficus tree.”

  “I never liked that thing much either.”

  “I got your carpet too, didn’t I?”

  “And your attractive outfit, which was, I’m sorry to report, beyond salvation.”

  My clothes? Well, then, if they were . . . waitaminnit. Slowly, I lifted the quilt a few inches and peeked under it. I was wearing a stretched-out, faded heather-gray T-shirt with some red logo, split and peeling, on the front. Mason’s? I moved a little, and my bare nipples grazed the cotton. No bra? I pulled the quilt up to my chin.

  Mortification, that’s what it was. It must have showed in my face when I looked back at Mason, because he answered the question I didn’t ask, still quite calmly. “Kaylie.”

  That didn’t make me feel any better. “What?”

  “Kaylie took care of you. Actually, she called me late last night, told me about the plan to tag the rock, that the students invited you, but you didn’t show up. She got worried, thought you were lost. Elias had left with his van, so she called me.”