The Best Night of Your (Pathetic) Life (18 page)

He shrugged. “I don’t really care if we win.”

“You don’t want to beat Barbone? After what happened to Dez.”

I left off the,
after what Barbone did to me
? It was hardly fair to expect Patrick to defend my honor now, if that’s what it even was.

“No,” he said. “I mean, it’d be great to do it for Dez and all. But in the grand scheme of things I don’t know if it’s really going to matter that much. It’s not going to change things here. Beating Barbone isn’t going to make Dez’s life any easier.”

“But it might make him happier,” I said. “Tonight.”

“I know. And that would be great. But I care only to a point.” He played with a blade of grass. “And I mean, you’re still not going to Georgetown.”

I was about to say something, like “ouch” or “damn” but didn’t.

It was true.

Patrick said, “It’s Carson, isn’t it?” and I felt my breath leave my body too fast.

Patrick wasn’t looking at me, was studying the flies already in the jar. “You like him.”

“Patrick,” I said sadly.

Because it wasn’t about Carson.

“Please,” Patrick said. “Just don’t, okay?”

I had no idea what was going on. “Don’t what?”

Patrick looked off toward Carson and Winter, who were doing some kind of silly impersonation of fireflies, flapping
their wings and buzzing. Patrick said, “Don’t go for Carson. Please. Not now. Not ever.”

“He likes Winter,” I blurted. “They kissed at prom.”

A funny look crossed Patrick’s face and he said, slowly, “That guy is unbelievable.”

Winter and Carson were laughing and I said, “Why does he like her and not me?” They were having way too much fun. “I swear,” I said, “I never get anything I want.”

Patrick just shook his head and huffed, then he stood and said, “Oh, grow up, Mary. And stop thinking so much about what everybody else has and look in a mirror.”

“Let’s go, guys,” he shouted to the others, and he picked up the jar and walked off.

I checked off “Jar of fireflies” on the master list, and counted up our catch—11 bugs at 3 points each, for 1790—before getting up to follow. But I didn’t head for the car right away. I just stood there on the grass for a minute and watched the bugs that we hadn’t caught. They were starting to fade back into the trees, into the darkening woods, and the light of day was all but gone. I felt sort of sad that I couldn’t remember the last time, before tonight, that I’d paid such close attention to the sky. It felt like that must be some kind of sign that I’d lost my innocence and grown up without even realizing it. But as I watched Patrick heading for the car—Patrick who’d proclaimed his love for me—and Carson, right next to him, the love of my life who wasn’t—I wondered whether Patrick had been right.

I hadn’t really grown up yet.

Not really.

Maybe not at all.

FOR A WHILE THEN, THE NIGHT JUST SEEMED TO
whip by and we were too busy, too distracted, for me to be mad or tense or heartbroken or anything. I think I was quietly processing what Patrick had said, but also still feeling stung, and focusing on the hunt made it easy to push away some ugly truths. Why
was
I so jealous of Barbone? And of Winter? And of everyone?

We were driving all over and talking nonstop about the list and rapidly accumulating points. The Yeti was sending texts like crazy, adding items like two-dollar bills and any set of instructions to put together something from IKEA and a collector’s spoon from the Statue of Liberty. We weren’t sure we’d be able to get any of those things, but it added to a sense of frantic.

There was still nothing about the Flying Cloud.

And no clues about the whereabouts of Eleanor’s Mary either.

Dez had had his MRI but that was all we knew.

It was all going too fast for my liking—this cramming in of activity before the meet-up at Rainey Park at nine—and every time I checked the clock, I wanted to somehow rewind
the hands of time. I felt that way about high school all of a sudden, too. Like I should have paid better attention. Should have learned more or done more or done less and learned less. As we drove around Oyster Point, I saw the ghosts of my childhood and adolescence everywhere. Up Hylan Boulevard to the right was Lisa Englehart’s house, where I’d fallen off the pool ladder when I was maybe eight and cut my knee so bad I still had the scar. A few more blocks down from Lisa’s was Danny and Ray Bolan’s house, where there’d been some pretty crazy band parties my sophomore year, before the Bolan twins had graduated; Winter and I both had our first beers there together.

And our second and third ones.

Right there on the other side of Hylan was Alphabetland Preschool, where I had gone for dance classes for years, before my interest in the flute and band took over. And there was the roller rink, Skate Odyssey, where I’d had my tenth birthday and also where Patrick and Carson and Heather and Mike and Jill and Winter and Dez and I had gone for a laugh a bunch of times, roller-skating around like idiots to weird songs you only ever heard in roller rinks, one called “Come Dancing” with an organ bit that I liked and that seemed just right for roller-skating and another called “Whip It!”

It was relentless, the flood of memories, with new ones still being made even as the old ones trotted by as if on floats in a parade.

So that was what I would remember?

We went to the Stop & Shop and got the maple syrup in the maple leaf–shaped bottle [75], the SpongeBob inflatable inner tube [100], a rain poncho [15], a beer cozy [30], a kite [potential for 80], a bouquet of flowers [50], a scone [25], a bathing cap [75], the Kleenex [20], the 12-pack of paper towels
[10], a squirty toy [35] and enough gum to set up a Gumhenge model when we went to Carson’s house for another potential 45.

That was 435 actual points, which I thought was pretty good considering they didn’t have any red velvet cupcakes or succulent plants, and we left out a bunch of stuff that we knew we could get at Carson’s or Patrick’s for free.

With 2225 points to our name, we went to the office of Susan Witherton, its windows full of laminated pictures of houses, and found a little dish full of business cards [50]. Carson called her cell and the fact that she was an Oyster Point High alum who’d done the hunt when she was a senior probably helped when he tried to convince her to personally deliver her own business card to the judges on our behalf. Surely, that would win us some Special Points on top of the 80 we’d get just for having a stranger turn up with one scav hunt item.

Along the way, I set about writing the opening paragraph of a novel about Oyster Point High on my phone in an e-mail to the Yeti. It was worth a lot of points (150, if you won) and it also helped me to hide the fact that I was feeling so conflicted about everything and everyone.

The family Gilhooley had long lived in Oyster Point.

Delete. Delete. Delete.

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like.

Delete. Delete. Delete.

Jake Barbone awoke one morning to discover that he had been transformed into an insect.

So this was writer’s block.

Because I thought I had an awful lot to say about Oyster
Point High but when I considered that someone else might
read
it—and that that someone might be Lucas Wells—that certainly limited things. I could just make up any old bs, really, but it seemed like an opportunity to say something of worth, though I didn’t know what. In light of Patrick’s scolding, grievances that had seemed really important even an hour ago suddenly seemed small, unworthy.

Carson liked the same radio station as Patrick, the station that played old alternative hits, and I recognized the song playing now and the lyrics of the chorus seemed just right though it was hard to say why:

I close my eyes and I see…blood and roses.

I closed my eyes, then.

What did I see?

I saw an image of two army nurses, standing by the bed of a male mannequin, smiling and pretending to take his vital stats. It was a photo I’d found at Eleanor’s house, while sorting through crap with my parents, and I’d eventually concluded that it was the strangest photo I’d ever seen. There was an official Army Photography Office credit on the back, but I couldn’t imagine why such a photo would have ever been staged or taken. I had seen some old
M*A*S*H
reruns, courtesy of Patrick. I knew people sometimes felt the need for humor in war. But there was something about it that gave me the creeps.

What would Eleanor, who’d lived through an actual war, think of tonight’s foolishness? Would she have stolen Mr. Gatti’s trash can and Poppy’s Pillow Pet? And where-oh-where was Mary on the Half Shell?

After a quick stop back by the hay bales—where we considered re-creating Hayhenge in order to photograph it but then opted instead just to briefly fly our bat kite [80]—we
made a quick stop to take a picture of ourselves at a bus stop after a text from the Yeti told us to [30], then decided that before going to Patrick’s house—our next agreed-upon destination—a stop at Burger King was in order, especially because the crown [30, which was ten more than the Blimpie sub would be] could easily be procured.

Or so we thought.

When we pulled into the parking lot, noting the crazy long line at the drive-through, Winter said. “Don’t you need to be a kid to get a crown?”

“What do they care?” Carson said, and so we went inside and took turns ordering; then Carson said, “I got this,” and paid while we argued about whether to stay or go.

“I don’t like people eating in my car,” Carson said, and I said, “You’re joking, right?”

“Not so much,” he said, stealing a French fry off my tray.

“We’re in a race,” I said. There was also the fact that spending time in Burger King on a night like this seemed especially lame.

Winter said, “We’ll eat really fast, Mary. Let it go.”

“So what’s the plan?” Patrick said, unwrapping his Whopper and taking off half in one large bite as we grabbed a table. “Who’s going to go to the meeting at Rainey Park?”

Carson put another French fry in his mouth and chewed, then took a sip of soda, and it all had the effect of seeming like a delay tactic. When he swallowed and wiped his mouth, he said, “I nominate Mary.”

I was wolfing down some kind of crispy chicken sandwich when I got a text from Dez that said, DOC COMING WITH MRI RESULTS SOON.

“Why her?” Patrick asked, as if I wasn’t sitting right there.

“I’m sitting right here,” I said.

“It was Mary’s idea to sign up in the first place,” Carson said. “I seriously doubt you’d be here if it weren’t for Mary.”

“Yes,” Patrick said, seeming annoyed. “I suppose you’re right.”

“I don’t care,” I lied. “You go if you want to so badly.”

I capped it with a single-shoulder shrug. I didn’t want Patrick to feel like he was bestowing some gift upon me out of the kindness of his heart.

“No,” Patrick said. “It’s okay.”

“I vote for Patrick,” Winter said, and I looked at her, stunned. “What,” she said. “I think he’d do a really good job of finding out what everyone’s up to and stuff. Everyone likes him.”

“Well, thanks,” Patrick said, smiling big. “One vote for me!”

I said to Winter, “You just told me everyone thinks of me as an ambassador.”

“True,” she said. “But Patrick’s more…well…popular.”

I was about to argue, but didn’t. It was true.

“Why don’t either of
you
want to go?” Patrick asked, and Carson and Winter both shrugged.

It was obvious to me Patrick was baiting them, even though that seemed unlike him. He had even less reason to be bothered by what they’d done than I did, and yet that kind of thing—immorality, if that’s what it was—always bugged him.

“Well if Mary votes for Mary and I vote for Mary,” Carson said, “then she goes.” He looked at me and was clearly looking for some kind of gratitude in my eyes, but everything about him seemed different now that the potential for more was gone. And what did that say about me? That my judgment of a person could be so clouded by romantic
interest? A few hours ago I’d wanted to spend my life—or at least the summer—with him and now I didn’t even want him on our team?

“Fine,” Winter said. “Mary goes.”

We had all pretty much devoured our food, and it was Winter who said, “The more pressing question is who’s going to ask for a crown?”

I said, “I’ll do it,” and went up to the guy working the register and said, “Oh, hey”—super casual-like—“can I get a crown?”

The response, “What’s it worth to you?” brought him into focus. He was maybe—I was terrible at this—twenty-five? And just a little bit overweight, like puffed up, and he was sweating a little too much.

“I’m sorry,” I said, and I turned to my teammates to see their reaction but they hadn’t heard so I turned back. “What did you say?”

He looked right at me. “You’re like the fifth kid to come in here and ask for a crown tonight. So I’m wondering, how much is it worth to you?”

I didn’t entirely understand. “Did people bribe you or something?”

“Not yet,” he said. “But there’s only one crown left and I feel a certain obligation to make sure it goes to the right person.”

“Not yet?!” I repeated loudly, and my friends looked over. “He’s fishing for a payoff,” I explained.

“Not worth it!” Patrick shouted out, and went back to collecting our trash on a tray. But Carson was up with long fingers on his wallet, coming to my side.

“What’s it worth to you?” he said, and something about the whole package of Carson—with his hipster T-shirt and
trendy sneakers and hair—must have really irked the guy because he said, “More money than a guy like you could ever give me.”

“Woah,” Carson said. “You’re kidding, right?” which seemed to me to be the exact wrong thing to say, though I couldn’t be sure I didn’t say it myself—or had I only thought it?—just a few seconds ago.

“This is your big play?” Carson said. “Your big power trip of the day?” He actually fanned the money in his wallet. “How much are we talking?”