Going Bovine (41 page)

“Cameron! The Cam-right-answer-man. What are you doing here?”

“Um, nothing.”

“You smoked it today. Good job. Is that the gnome?” The scarf has fallen off Balder’s face. Parker eyes us suspiciously. “What are you up to?”

“We … ah … they told us to bring it to the stage,” I lie.

“Bullshit. I’m calling security.” Parker reaches for his phone.

“Okay!” I shout. “You totally busted us. We just wanted to take some pictures. School prank. You know?”

“Yeah. I know. I know that you’re trying to make off with YA! TV property. Gonna need this little guy for promos.” He flicks his finger at Balder’s nose. Balder flinches, but Parker doesn’t notice.

“Parker. Please. Just let us take him for pictures.” I fan out the bills in my hands.

Balder’s eyes get huge.

“Come on, dude,” Gonzo adds. “Don’t make us go home empty-handed. There’s bills riding on this in the locker room. Reputations.”

Parker tries on a pair of expensive sunglasses and checks himself out in the mirror. “You can have the gnome,” he says, taking off the glasses and pocketing them. “On one condition.”

“Anything. You name it,” I say.

He points to Gonzo. “Your friend here does I Double Dog Dare You.”

We are so screwed. Balder shuts his eyes. He knows his fate as a cross-dressing object of destruction has just been sealed.

“He can’t, but I can,” I say.

Parker shakes his head. He pokes through the food tray, taking some grapes and a hunk of cheese. “You’ve already been on. Besides, we’ve never had a dwarf.”

I put the four hundred dollars on the table.

“I make that in an hour.”

“What if I let you dunk me? You could put me back on the show and I’ll miss the question on purpose and …”

“I’ll do it,” Gonzo announces with a look of grim determination on his face.

Parker grins at me and slaps Gonzo hard on the back. “Excellent! Little man, you just bought yourself a yard gnome.”

He puts his arm around Gonzo’s shoulders and ushers him down the hall.

Gonzo looks back at me. “It’ll be okay,” he says, puffing like a dying man on his inhaler.

“You okay, Balder?” I ask, once we’re out of Marisol’s room and sneaking our way out of the Party House.

“I have suffered the humiliation of capture, and I am what you call cranky, but I am okay. Thank you,” he says. “I saw you bidding.”

“You’re welcome,” I say. “I’m sorry I didn’t realize they’d taken you till we were an hour down the road.”

“Neither did I at first. I was asleep. Next thing I knew I woke up in a strange hotel room with those three idiots. They took photographs of me on top of the minibar and e-mailed them to all their friends. Posing me with chocolate bars and soda cans. Can you imagine?”

“Shake it off, man. You’re okay now.”

“Cameron?” A familiar voice stops me cold. Standing five feet in front me is my sister, Jenna. She’s got on her white capris and a striped shirt. For once, her hair is not in a ponytail but down and curled. She looks different. Older, maybe. Less like a kid.

“Cameron!” she shouts, smiling. She runs over and throws her arms around me. “Oh my God! It is you!”

“Jenna, hey,” I say, hugging her back as best I can with an armful of yard gnome. I’m not putting Balder down for anything.

“What are you doing here?” she says. Her eyes are wet. She rubs them with the back of her hand.

“Top-secret mission,” I say, trying to make her laugh. It’s what I used to do when we were kids.

“Cameron …”

I hold up a hand. “I know, I know. I’ll explain everything. I promise. But first I’ve got to drop something off in my room. Wait right here.”

I try to break away, but she pulls me back. Either I’m really weakening or she’s got a grip that’s even manlier than Chet King’s. “No way,” she says with a determined smile. “I’m going with you.”

It would be impossible to fight her. “Fine.”

We make our way downstairs and push through the packed bodies on the dance floor they’ve built on the beach, walking through the warm sand till we’re at the crappy motel.

“Yikes,” Jenna says, taking a look around at the seedy décor—the stained carpet, butt-ugly floral bedspreads, and lack of any amenity, like a minibar or even an ice bucket. She doesn’t step inside.

“It’s sixty-five dollars a night and free cable,” I explain. “I’ll be out in one second.”

She nods and I enter the hazy room with Balder. I turn on the bedside lamp. “Balder, I’ve gotta deal with my sister. Will you be okay here by yourself?”

“Just lock the door, please,” he says. “I don’t care to have any more adventures.”

“Sure thing.”

“Cameron.”

“Yeah?”

“That was a very brave thing you did today, rescuing me, offering all your money.”

“Well, I couldn’t let them turn one of my best buds into a promo snuff reel,” I say.

Balder gives me a self-satisfied little smile. “I’ve told you, I can’t be harmed.”

“Yeah. Sure. I know that. But still.”

“Will Gonzo be okay?”

Gonzo. Shit. “Don’t worry. The show doesn’t tape till late tonight. I’ll rescue him before then and we’ll all be long gone by morning.”

Balder nods. For the first time, he looks worried. “What’s up?” I ask.

“Sometimes, I dream of my ship, of Ringhorn. It shines like the sun after rain, and I’m running toward it.”

“Sounds like a good dream.”

His face is thoughtful. “But I never reach it.”

“We’ll get there,” I promise him. “We’ll make it to the ocean.”

I help him up into Gonzo’s bed, pour him a soda, and give him the remote. When I close the door behind me, he’s lying there, happily channel surfing, a Viking warrior on spring break.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Wherein I Have a Conversation with My Sister and the Fates Throw Me a Bone

Jenna and I find a place to sit in the loud, packed beach lounge. Every television is turned to YA! TV except one, which shows the ConstaToons channel. The sound has been muted on all of them. A succession of musical acts plays on the tiny stage—bands, acoustic-guitar girls, comics who sing, rappers. Partiers wander in from the mosh pit scene outside, carrying cups of beer. Some have flasks that they hide in their swim trunks and pull out when they think no one’s looking. They’re all checking each other out.

I buy Jenna and me a couple of sodas. It takes half an hour just to make it to the bar. “Here you go,” I say, handing her a cup.

“It’s diet, right?”

I roll my eyes. “Don’t worry.”

Some guy shoves another guy, who sort of half falls onto our table, nearly spilling Jenna’s soda.

“Sorry,” he says, laughing. “Look what you did, man!” he screams to his friends as he runs over and grabs one in a drunken headlock.

Jenna gives me a frogger in the arm, not hard, just like she used to do when we were eight.

“Ow.”

“Cameron, I am so mad at you!” she says. “Why did you run away from the hospital? Have you really been doing all those things?”

I rub the sore spot on my arm. “It’s hard to explain.”

“Try me.” She’s got her all-business face on, the one that has seen her through countless cheerleader tryouts and student council elections. I’m defenseless against the Face. I take a deep breath and dive in. By the end of it, I’m exhausted and Jenna looks like somebody’s secretly replaced her reality with a different one, which I suppose is one hundred percent true.

“You know this sounds crazy,” Jenna says finally.

I shake my head. “Believe me, I know. But I’m not going back, Jenna. I can’t. Not yet.”

The guys goofing around near our table get a little too physical again, and the same guy bumps our table hard. He doesn’t apologize this time.

“Do you mind?” Jenna says, and the guy moves away. “Cameron, how do you know this is all true?”

“I don’t.”

“That scares me.”

“Yeah. It scares me, too.” I need to change the subject, and fast. “So, spring break at the Party House, huh? How’d that happen? Weren’t you supposed to go skiing with the Lord?”

She makes a face.

“I meant Chet. I get those two mixed up sometimes.”

Jenna fiddles with her straw. “Chet and I broke up.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“No you’re not,” she says, laughing.

Okay, I’m not. But I am sorry she’s sorry. “He didn’t mess with you or anything, did he?”

She rolls her eyes. “No. He just kept pressuring me to be more like him, and if I wasn’t like him, he didn’t know what to do with me. He’s dating some girl from his church now. They like all the same things.”

“Did you come here by yourself?” I ask. I can’t imagine that. Dad wouldn’t allow it, and Jenna can’t go anywhere without at least two other girls in tow. It’s against her personal bill of rights.

“I came with Staci and those guys. Mom said it would be good for me to get away.” Jenna takes a drink of her soda, and we sit for a minute watching some punk-poser band in cutoff work pants and tattoos hop around onstage screaming out a song.

“Everybody’s completely freaked out. I mean, Cam, those bounty hunters aren’t fooling around, and Mom and Dad …”

“I know. I’m sorry. I promise I’ll be back as soon as I can and make everything right. You’re not going to tell them, are you?”

She gives me a hard look, like I’m material on the blackboard she needs to understand, classify, and master for the test. I never realized how much she’s like Dad in that way. “Yeah. I am. I have to, Cameron. But I’ll give you a head start. I’ll wait till tomorrow when I call in again.”

“Fair enough,” I say.

Somebody’s done the unthinkable and changed the channel to the news and our story. They cut from our flyer to Arthur Limbaud at the lot of his Resale Beauties. He’s sitting on the hood of one of his best, shiniest models, with his secretary by his side, not missing an opportunity to work it. It doesn’t matter that the sound’s muted, because I know what he’s saying. He’s telling them about us, about the car. They flash a picture of the Caddy up there, and we are in deep shit now.

The drunken idiot guys have stopped playing. They’ve broken out into a real fight. Other people are getting in on it now, either trying to break it up or land a few punches, too. Two guys fall into our table, and the crowd falls with them. Somebody pulls Jenna out of the mix on her side, a big dude in a Midgard University shirt. He’s a good-looking guy.

“Careful there,” he says.

“Thanks,” Jenna says.

He sticks a hand out. “Name’s David Morae.”

“Jenna Smith.”

“Nice to meet you, Jenna Smith.”

Jenna laughs and shakes his hand. He’s got her full attention, and that’s just the opening I need to slip away.

Rescue Gonzo, pack up, and leave. Now. Immediately. That’s the plan as I make my way through the hordes of spring breakers, trying to find a three-foot-six-inch dwarf sporting the world’s most ridiculous mustache. I don’t see him anywhere. It’s wall-to-wall people. I bump into a blond chick.

“Sorry,” I say, trying to move past her.

“Cameron? Is that you? Oh. My. God.” Staci Johnson’s standing right in front of me, holding a beer in a plastic cup. “You look so hot!” The next thing I know, Staci Johnson kisses me, and it’s like a mind eraser. “Where were you going?” she asks.

“Nowhere,” I say.

“Want a beer?”

“You bet.”

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

In Which I Discover Eleven Dimensions All in One Person

My whole body has that light, early-drunk feel. I’ve had three beers—not enough to get ugly or sick, just enough to be riding out a pleasant, mellow groove. Staci’s only had two. She’s very giggly. We dance for a few songs, and then Staci suggests we go back to my room. She wants to “see it.”

“So, this is it,” I say, letting her in. Balder’s not on the bed. I guess he went out. The bedside lamp is still on; so’s the TV. I flip it off.

“Great room,” Staci says, flopping onto the bed.

“Thanks,” I say, like I have anything to do with this shithole.

“You know I always liked you.” She bites her lip. Her shirt’s fallen off her shoulder. She’s wearing a black bra. “But you seemed like you only went out with those smart, punker kinda girls. Remember when we were lab partners in seventh grade?”

“Yeah.”

She traces a circle on my leg. “I gave you my school picture with Love, Staci on it. You were so nice. Hey, you’re not drinking.” She puts her still-full cup to my lips. “Drink, drink, drink.”

The beer’s warm and a little flat. Some of it dribbles down my chin and onto my shirt.

“Oops,” she giggles.

I abandon the cup on the nightstand. Staci leans back on her elbows, giving me a calculated shy look. “So … did you ever think about me?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Shut up!” She swats at me playfully. “For real? Did you ever think about asking me out?”

I shrug apologetically. “I thought you only went out with the Über Genetic Specimen types.”

“The what?”

“The Chet King guys.”

“That is so not true!” She hits me on the leg again, and I wonder if I’m going to be completely bruised by the end of the night. She gets a serious look on her face. I’m not sure what to do, so I sit there and hope something brilliant comes to me. After a minute, she says, “Do you remember when I was dating Tommy?”

“Sure.” Everybody remembers that. For a year, they were like one name, StaciandTommy, with daily hallway PDA. When school started again, they had become Staci. And Tommy.

“You know how he went to Dallas for the summer, for football camp?”

“Uh-huh,” I say, like I follow Tommy’s every move.

“He stopped calling me, and I knew, I just knew he was with somebody else. He’d hooked up with this skank from Plano.” Staci looks really small sitting on the cheap bedspread with her shirt falling down. “You know how I found out? I heard him talking to Bobby Wender and David Mack about her. He said she was the best he’d ever had.”

I think about my dad and Raina, and I wonder if they’ve ever done it, and if so how many times? I wonder if Dad feels guilty. Or maybe he feels great. I wonder if my mom knows and if she cares. How do people stay in love, anyway? Is it a choice? Or is it like those plants we studied in biology that mutate into something new and totally different but are still part of the same plant family?