Unscripted (26 page)

Security lights illuminated the small lot at the back of the building; I could see people milling about on the loading dock. The scent of cigarette smoke drifted toward me on the warm air. Someone left the group, slipping back into the building, and the slam of the heavy metal door echoed loudly.

It seemed weird that the students would be working on something in the theater this early in the school year—an upcoming lecture or dance show, perhaps? But there was a fair amount of activity, and my first thought was perhaps Alex was there, putting in his required tech time for his degree. I just couldn’t resist taking a little peek.

Once the shadowed figures had gone back inside, I waited a few more seconds, then followed them. It was pretty difficult—no, impossible—to keep the door from making noise, so I decided to be up front about my arrival. I let it creak open and close behind me with a
whunk,
then crossed the stage. A bunch of kids were sitting there, but they didn’t notice me until I entered the glare of the hot lights past the proscenium. The students who were facing me, their back to the house, jumped.

“Ms. Sinclair! What are you doing here?” Brandon exclaimed, as the students who were directly in front of me turned to see what was going on.

“Just passing by,” I said.

“We can be here,” a girl I recognized from the advanced acting class said, pretty defensively. “We have a key.”

“Didn’t say you couldn’t.” Although tempted to try to look stern and make them squirm, I just didn’t have the heart. “Relax, guys. I don’t care what you’re doing in here as long as you’re not vandalizing the place.”

As I glanced around the circle—there were about ten kids but no Alex (I tried not to feel disappointed)—the back door opened again, and a voice called, “Fresh provisions!”

I looked over my shoulder. Kaylie and Elias stopped dead in their tracks, perilously close to dropping the cases of beer they were carrying.

“Hey,” I greeted them genially.

Elias recovered first and turned on his brilliant smile. “Beer, Ms. Sinclair?”

“No, thanks.”

I almost didn’t recognize Kaylie; she was looking exceptionally pretty tonight—her brown hair down, waves framing her face, and she was wearing a floaty, sleeveless tunic over barely there denim shorts. Then the pleasant effect was spoiled when she scowled at me. “Are you going to tell on us?”

“Are any of you underage?”

Brandon said, “No,” as some students surreptitiously slid their bottles behind their backs.

“I’ll just go then,” I said, working hard to hide my amusement. I really didn’t care if some of the kids were underage—hell, the drinking age was considered an adorably outdated formality in Hollywood (imagine telling Miley Cyrus she could only have soda at a party)—but I figured my current status as an instructor, even a temporary one, obligated me to blow the whistle on underage students drinking in the theater after hours. What I didn’t know, I couldn’t report on.

Kaylie stalked away, but Elias hurriedly put down the beer he had brought in and crossed to me. “No, stay! We’re lots of fun.”

“I’m sure that’s true. But . . . can’t. Sorry.” I indicated my plastic container. “Dinner’s getting cold.”

A girl to my left looked at the box suspiciously. “What
is
that?”

Brandon rose to his knees. “Did you get that from the after-hours cooler?”

“Uh . . . yeah? Why?”

Alice made a face and shrugged. “It’s your funeral.”

“What are you talking about?” I checked the food; it looked and smelled fine. “A little mac and cheese never hurt—”

“Omigod, you did
not
get the mac and cheese!” Trina exclaimed.

“No!
Never
get the mac and cheese!” Brandon cried, and several other students agreed, loudly.

“I like to live dangerously.”

“Then it really
will
be your funeral,” Taylor muttered.

“Hey, missy, I’m pretty tough, you know. I’m not afraid of some suspect leftovers from a hinky cafeteria.”

Kaylie reappeared and interrupted with, “So are we doing this or what?”

“In a minute,” Brandon said. “I think we should dare Ms. Sinclair to eat her mac and cheese first.”

“Doing what?” I asked Kaylie, then what Brandon said registered. “‘Dare’ me? Honey, nobody
dares
me to do anything.”

“Does that mean you’re gonna eat the mac and cheese?”

“Eventually.”

“No, I mean now. Where we can see you.”

And then a merry chant of “Eat! It! Eat! It!” erupted from the happily buzzed kids. It didn’t stop till I shouted over them, “All right! All right! Just to shut you guys up, I will absolutely eat some of my delicious dinner right in front of you.” I popped open the plastic top and whipped out my spork. “Nobody get jealous, now. This is all mine.”

“No problem there,” Trina said, making a grossed-out face.

I looked around at the circle of students, all watching me eagerly. “Y’all are weird, you know that?” And then I downed a big sporkful.

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
that
I 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 so
hot
all 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.