The Best Night of Your (Pathetic) Life (14 page)

Then he walked off and shouted, “GO HOYAS!” and I was standing there stunned and ashamed and thinking,
How do people get to be like this, like human cinder blocks? And how are people like me supposed to deal with them?

My phone buzzed: DID YOU QUALFY?

It was Grace. Grace who was probably drunk.

YES. ARE YOU DRUNK? I wrote back.

BUZZED my phone buzzed back.

I looked over to the five or six cars all parked facing one another other, around a keg, at the opposite end of The Pines and spotted her leaning on a car that I knew had been part
of Round 1. There were maybe only six or seven cars that seemed to be lined up with Barbone’s and ours for judging.

I walked over and said, “Are that many people out of the running?”

“Apparently, some people got bored and just want to drink,” Grace said. “And the others just didn’t get enough points.”

“Someone took Eleanor’s Mary on the Half Shell,” I blurted.

“What?” Her eyes were a little bit unfocused. “Why?”

“It was on the list,” I said. “Shuck a Mary on the Half Shell. So I took it, but somebody stole it from us.”

“You are so screwed,” she said slowly.

“You think I don’t know that?” I shook my head. If anyone understood how deep the shit was that I was in, it was Grace. “So I take it you haven’t seen it.”

She shook
her
head then nodded toward the LeSabre. “Isn’t that your team with that judge guy right now?”

I looked over and saw Lucas with a clipboard, peering into the trunk of the car so I bolted over. He nodded hey and smiled and I said, “Hey. I have a question.” Actually, I had two and I had to make a quick decision as to which to ask first. “That team over there—”

I pointed at Barbone, and my friends gathered closer. “One of their guys pushed one of our teammates off the hay bales and he’s in the hospital. Shouldn’t they be disqualified or something?”

“Let me talk to Leticia,” Lucas said, then he walked off.

“Mary,” Patrick said seriously. “You sure you want to do this?”

“I’m sure,” I said.

In a moment Lucas was back, with Leticia by his side. “Who did the pushing?” she asked.

“Dave Fitzgerald,” I admitted reluctantly.

Leticia shook her head. “Hey, Fitz!” she shouted out, and we all turned and saw Fitz look over. “You’re out,” she said. “DQ’d.”

“What the hell?” Fitz said, and Leticia walked toward him, saying, “Crap like that just doesn’t cut it. Not this year. Not with me in charge,” and I loved her more than ever.

Barbone looked over to the keg and said, “Yo, Smitty. You’re up!”

And so Joseph Smith, aka Smitty, took Fitz’s place, leaving Barbone’s team certainly no better off, but no worse either.

“Thanks,” I said, turning back to Lucas. It wasn’t the same as getting the whole team disqualified but it would have to do.

“No problem,” Lucas said, then added, “Hey, I go to George Washington.”

I cocked my head and said, “That’s where
I’m
going.”

He laughed and said, “That’s sort of why I mentioned it. Your sister told me.”

He went back to our list and I felt dumb—of course he’d go for perky Grace—but went about showing him our loot, and then he looked up and said, “You’re good for Round two.”

“Awesome.” I smiled.

“Here you go.” He handed me a few copies of the second list. “You can look but you can’t start your cars until the whistle. Good luck. And hey, nice work on the umlaut.”

“Thanks,” I said, letting the realization that it was Lucas on the other side of those texts sink in. “One more question for you,” I said.

“What’s up?” he said.

“Have you seen a lot of Mary on the Half Shells so far?”

He considered a second. “None, but you’re only my third team. Why?”

“Because I had my great-aunt Eleanor’s Mary on the Half Shell but somebody took it from our car and I
really
need to find out who and make sure I get it back by the end of the night.”

“Oh, crap,” Lucas said.

“What?”

“That was my idea.” His eyes apologized. “I put that on the list.”

“Well, how were you supposed to know?” I said.

“I feel bad, though,” he said with a wince. “I promise I’ll be on the lookout, okay?”

“That’d be great,” I said. “The one Barbone has isn’t it, just FYI. Unless he shows you a second one.”

“Got it,” he said, then he took off.

“Who was that?” Winter asked. “I don’t remember him.”

“Lucas Wells,” I said. “I remember him. He goes to George Washington.”

“He’s cute,” she said, and she elbowed me playfully but I wasn’t up for it. Did she really think I’d shift my affections away from Carson so easily?

Carson came closer and said, “Is that the list?” so I handed him one, then gave one to Patrick, too.

I started reading, looking for anything to do with the Flying Cloud clue. But when I saw that there were things on the list that only one team would be awarded points for, I flipped to the last page and started to read backward, so I’d maybe see something we could do before anybody else even got to the list’s last page.

Patrick went to get into his car and Carson said, “I thought we’d take mine?”

“Why?” Patrick asked. “I don’t mind driving.”

But everybody knew why.

“We’ll have more room for more crap and there’s more room for Dez,” Carson said, diplomatically dodging the issue of Lexus vs. LeSabre. “Jill took everything and is finishing out with Mike and Heather. So we can leave all your stuff here and just combine all the stuff when we get back.”

It was a perfectly logical reason. Even Patrick couldn’t argue with that and appear sane, though I could tell he felt a little one-upped.

“Okay,” he said, closing the driver’s side door and locking the car after we’d all grabbed our bags. “I guess.”

When he called shotgun on the way over to Carson’s car, I had to push down some annoyance that I’d have to be in the backseat beside Winter. But then I found it, the sort of thing I’d been looking for on the list. “Guys, be ready to go the second they blow the whistle.”

“Okay, why?” Carson said, but the whistle came then and, with the grunt of the engine, we were on our way out of the parking lot.

“Where am I going?” Carson asked, and I threw a quick salute to the Yeti and pictured bringing him into Dez’s hospital room just a few hours from now, victorious, and said, “Take the right toward town.”

Winter said, “What’s going on? Where are we going?” and I said, “We’re going for a gondola ride!”

Right then, Jill’s car went by and her window was rolled down—Mike was driving and Heather was in the backseat, hair blowing wildly, but they’d failed to pick up a new fourth—and Jill looked right at Winter, whose window was also open, and shouted, “I know what you did!”

Just before she was out of sight she added, “Real classy.”

A little bit shocked and looking entirely mortified, Winter turned to me and I gave her a sort of
what-did-you-expect
look then turned away, though I was just as confused as she appeared. I studied the backs of the boys’ heads in the front seat and felt my stomach flip and not in a good way because I very much wanted to be very far away from both of these boys—and from Winter, too—and probably
should’ve
changed teams. Looking away, back toward the The Pines, I saw my sister talking to Fitz.

In the front seat, Patrick looked up from his own list and said, “And bam! Skinny-dipping!” He laughed and looked back at Winter. “We’ll have to tell Dez I got to see you two naked after all.”

I texted my sister and said, STAY AWAY FROM FITZ!

She wrote back EYE EYE CAP’N just as Patrick turned in his seat to face Winter. “So what did you do that’s so classy?”

“Yeah,” I said. “What’s
that
about?”

I watched the tendons in Carson’s neck tighten when Winter said, “God only knows.”

It sounded entirely like a lie.

•    An unopened box of Kleenex (in case we get emotional at judging)—20

•    A coffee mug (ceramic)—10

•    A red-and-black screwdriver—40

•    A pillow (in case we get sleepy at judging)—20

•    A fan (in case we get overheated at judging)—40

•    A remote control (yes, another one)—10 plus 10 bonus points if remote control goes with aforementioned fan

•    A bib—10

•    An alarm clock—20

•    An acorn—50

•    A gel pen—25

•    A sock—1

•    A can of tuna—3

•    A toothbrush—3

•    Picture frame—5

•    A red crayon—10

•    An abacus—40

•    Teapot—30

•    Tape dispenser—30

•    Bobby pin—30

•    Change purse—25

•    Bundt pan—30

•    Last year’s yearbook—30

•    Ticket stub from any
Twilight
Saga movie—75

•    A wedding invitation—80

•    A bathing cap—75

•    Go fly a kite (and take a picture)—80

•    
A picture of at least one team member with someone with a moustache—100

•    Any comic book featuring Superman and dated before 2000—50

•    A business card from Susan Witherton—50

•    A piggy bank that is not actually a piggy—45

•    A sub from Blimpie—20

•    Completed crossword from yesterday’s
Oyster Point Advance
—75

•    A rain poncho—15

•    A Ping-Pong paddle—20

•    An inflatable SpongeBob SquarePants inner tube—100

•    An E-ZPass—50

•    An eye examination chart—100

•    Shave Bob’s balls—80

•    A pair of dice—20

•    A photograph of a local ghost—80

•    A hard-boiled egg, decorated for Easter—75

•    A trepanation Barbie—80

•    A scone—25

•    Is the next Hemingway or Franzen on your team? Write us the opening paragraph of a novel about Oyster Point High—100 to best author only

•    A cooked number 8 spaghetti noodle, al dente—20

•    Put the union rat to work—100

•    You have been an eyewitness to some really bad teaching these past four years. We want the police sketch of the culprit—125

•    Any likeness of Pooh (but not with Tigger)—40

•    The largest thing you can take from Mr. Gatti’s property—100 to largest

•    Save water, drink beer, go Wunderbar!—80

•    A condom—15

•    A bouquet of flowers—50

•    Tag the town red—100

•    A beer cozy—30

•    Gumhenge—45

•    Set up camp somewhere uncampy—75

•    A martini (shaken not stirred)—80

•    A stain-free, completely clean family-size bucket from Kentucky Fried Chicken—35

•    Be the first team to say “salut!” to the gondolier. You know the one.—100

•    A stain-free, completely clean copy of
Penthouse
magazine (so we can read the articles!)—80

•    Give us your best Lloyd Dobler—100 to the best only

•    Convince a stranger to deliver one of your Scavenger Hunt items to us before 9
P.M.
—80

•    A 3 x 5 index card—5

•    A bar of soap from a hotel—10

•    A squirty toy—35

•    A silhouette profile of one of your team members—40

•    A plant that falls under the category of
succulent
—50

•    Go skinny-dipping. We don’t care where so long as you are naked and wet.
All
of you. Send multiple pics if required—200

THE RADIO WAS LOUD AND AWESOME SOUNDING—
some new Spoon song—and everything felt new. The meters and knobs on the dash were shinier, the seats more comfortable, the air cooler and cleaner. Even Patrick seemed to be distracted by our new ride, rubbing the leather by his knees, fussing with the handle above his door where his hand finally settled with a cling so that his arm hung in front of the window. And with Carson behind the wheel, driving with race car–driver swagger—totally confident, totally in control—Patrick—up there in the passenger seat with rainbow suspenders and knobby knees—looked more than ever like a big kid.

How was it possible so much had happened in one afternoon?

Rolling down my window and letting the wind whip my face, I slipped my hair out of my pigtails, put it in a ponytail instead, then assessed my work as best I could in the car’s side-view mirror. I looked good—different—and that felt right, because I
felt
different. Betrayed. Stunned. But something else, too. Maybe excited in an entirely new way. Because things, for better or worse, were actually happening tonight.