Save Steve

by Jenni Hendriks

  “It’s not a date, Steve. It was the only place to eat around here.” I refused to admit my fantasy even if it was blindingly obvious.

  The waitress arrived with another tray, this one piled high with bee-adorned desserts. “Everything okay?” she asked.

  “Delectable,” Steve crooned.

  She smiled and walked away.

  “Cam, this is an itty-bitty little cake with a bee on it. This cake definitely says, ‘May I stick my penis inside you?’”

  “It’s dessert, Steve. There isn’t a hidden message.”

  “And this tea! So aromatic! Will I suddenly find your gawky ass more attractive if I drink it?” He took a long slurpy sip and then stopped. His eyes went wide as he sloshed the tea in his mouth and then swallowed. “Goddamn! This tea is the shit.” I rolled my eyes at him. “Dude, I’m not lying,” he insisted, and poured me a spot.

  Certain he was just mocking me, I took an unenthusiastic sip and put the cup down. But then it hit me. “Whoa!”

  “Right?”

  It was like an eruption of syrupy goodness in my mouth. “It’s the honey. It’s the fresh honey.”

  “It’s not the tea?” Frenzied, Steve grabbed the top honey jar from the pyramid, popped it open, and thrust his finger inside.

  “I don’t think—You’re not supposed to—”

  But he shoved the honey-covered finger into his mouth anyway. Again, his eyes burst wide. “It’s not just honey. There’s something in it.”

  He handed me the jar he had just penetrated with his finger. I grabbed a tiny teaspoon, scooped some out, and tasted it. Wham! Pleasure spread through my body. “It’s orange. You can taste the orange blossoms!”

  Steve took the jar back. “Holy shit. You’re right. That’s crazy. You can taste what they ate.” The older women were craning to see us and shaking their heads.

  “Yeah,” I said, and savored the remaining sweetness.

  “So we’re eating bee shit.”

  “No. It’s not like that. It’s an excretion.”

  “So it’s bee jizz?”

  “Staaaahhhpp.”

  “Bee jizz is delicious.” He drizzled the jar directly into his mouth.

  The waitress appeared. Embarrassed, I sat back and kicked Steve to stop drizzling. She had clearly overheard our idiotic conversation and felt the need to clarify. “Actually, honey is stored in the part of a bee’s stomach called the ingluvies. When the forager bee returns to the hive, they regurgitate the nectar and begin the process of trophallaxis, where they transfer it via mouth to the house bee.” Pleased with her speech, she filled our teacups and left.

  Steve and I sat for a moment as we pieced together what she’d said. Then Steve slowly put down the jar.

  “So . . . it’s vomit?” I stared at my full cup of tea.

  “No. Worse. They vomit into each other’s mouths and then vomit it out. It’s double vomit.”

  I pushed my teacup away.

  But the syrupiness still coated my mouth. Was it any more gross than yogurt? I mean, that was just bacteria. “It is delicious,” I tossed out there to see if Steve could also look past the barf factor.

  Steve sighed. “Fuck it. Pass me one of those bee vomit cookies.”

  I laughed and took one before handing them off to Steve. The crunchy biscuits crumbled in my mouth like an avalanche of honey bliss. Before we knew it, we’d dusted off the entire tray. While we basked in our golden glory, I wondered if this wasn’t a good turn of events. Maybe I’d just needed some time with Steve, so he could see that I actually cared?

  “So, how’s your treatment going? You’ve had two rounds of chemo, right?”

  But Steve groaned. “Wow. Talk about a buzzkill, Cam.”

  “Seriously, this must be more difficult than you’re letting on.”

  “It’s fine,” he answered, and scooped up crumbs from his plate. “If I knew a little cancer would get me out of school so quickly, I’d have gotten my lymph nodes to tumor up long ago.”

  I thought about leaving it there, but then I remembered his parents arguing at his house. I’d lived through something like that. “Well, your mom is pretty upset.”

  But instead of softening, he became rigid and put down his plate. “What do you know about my mom?”

  “It’s just. I heard them arguing. . . . That must be stressful for you.” I tried to sound sympathetic but could see him bristling.

  “Oh, it’s not enough to try to steal my girlfriend. Now you’re going to sit there and judge my family?” What was happening? We’d just been drizzling honey moments ago. How had we ended up here with just a few words?

  “I’m not trying to—I’m just being friendly—”

  Steve shoved his plate my way and the rest of the flatware shuddered. “Look, just stay out of my life, okay? We all know why you’re here. And it’s not because of me.” He was sincerely pissed. “I don’t need you to suddenly start pretending to be my bro because you spied on my parents and overheard something you don’t understand. We are fine. Nobody wants you hanging around, Cam. Nobody wants you.” My stomach clenched. My legs braced. “So just go back to sniffing around Kaia and stay out of my family’s shit.” He stood up and threw down his napkin. “We aren’t friends.”

  The old ladies in their hats watched on.

  “We could be . . .” I tried desperately to calm him down.

  “Really?” He smiled but his eyes were hard. “We’ll see about that.” And he left.

  I was motionless, stunned at the sudden turn.

  A moment later the waitress walked up to me with the bill. It was on a doily that had the inscription: Bee the Change You Want to See in the World—Ghan-bee.

  12

  Because he’s my very best friend in the whole world, if we raise $15,000, I’ll get Steve Stevenson’s name tattooed on my ass, read Steve’s latest challenge.

  I glared at the posting through the cracked glass of my phone. What a dick. I’d already raised $8,000 for this guy and he just kept coming. We could be friends. But instead of seeing an opportunity to talk about his family, he was going to take out his stunted emotions on me. Well, whatever, Steve. I’d almost gotten stung by twelve thousand angry bees. Did he really think I was worried about a little tattoo? You could get those removed. I scrolled back through all of Kaia’s amazed texts about the bees.

  Kaia: Mind blown!

  Kaia: Video’s got 3,000 views!

  Kaia: So much buzz!

  Kaia: Just had a dream about your bee beard! Guess I still feel guilty I missed it. I suck. You’re the best! Hero!

  She was dreaming about me! I could taste the $20,000. And Steve’s tattoo might just take us over the top.

  Bring the pain!

  “You’re going to regret this,” my mom said as she scrawled her name on the permission slip, “but that’s okay. Mistakes are part of growing up. Actually, you still make mistakes when you’re a grown-up, too. Anyway, I already talked to Mario about cover-ups. He’s the one who put the roses over your dad’s name.”

  It had taken a lot of convincing to get my mom to agree to this, but I was determined. Steve wasn’t going to beat me. Not that I’d told my mom that. I’d just showed her how much people had already donated, then reminded her that she’d gotten her first tattoo in her friend’s garage when she was fifteen. Sometimes my mom’s chronic oversharing came in handy. “Have you considered henna?” my mom asked. “It’d still make a statement. A less permanent one.”

  Barely listening, I scanned the room. Steve was in the back, chatting with Mario. Of course, Steve had insisted on recording the whole thing himself. He caught my eye and gave me an excited thumbs-up. After our bee lunch, we hadn’t spoken more than a few sentences to each other. But today, Steve seemed to have decided to pretend nothing had happened.

  My mom glanced at her phone. “I have an open house I got to get to. Good luck, bud.” She straightened her blazer and kissed me on the cheek. “It’s your butt. It’s your choice. Even though I don’t
approve, I’m proud of you.”

  Five minutes later, I lay on my chest with my pants pulled down while Mario, who kept talking about my mom and how great she was, carefully placed the paper with the design of the “Save Steve” tattoo onto my body. I focused on the giant demon mural painted on the back wall. I was glad I hadn’t invited Kaia. She did not need to be staring at my bare butt. Neither did Steve, but apparently that couldn’t be helped.

  “That looks beautiful. Cam, you are such a good friend.” He pushed his phone closer to my ass. “Show him, Mario.”

  Mario pulled out a mirror and tilted it so I could see his handiwork. It was bigger than I’d hoped it would be. And in Comic Sans. Steve had run a poll on the site and of course everyone had chosen the goofiest font. Out of my peripheral vision I could see Steve’s giant stupid grin.

  “So?” he said, clearly relishing this. “You like?”

  I held his gaze, not giving him any hint of regret. “Looks great.”

  He matched my stare. “I love that wacky font. Such a great choice for something that will permanently mark your body.”

  “For you, Steve, anything.” I gave him as sincere a smile as I could muster.

  “All right. Buckle up. Should just take a few minutes,” Mario announced, and grabbed his needle. He flicked it on and it zapped to life. It sounded like a couple of harmless bees. I took a deep, confident breath. Steve leaned forward with his phone, right up to my face.

  I smiled and spoke into the camera. “Save Steve.org, everyone!”

  Mario coached, “It should feel like a pinch . . .”

  ZIZAZT!

  A shock of searing pain jabbed me. It flashed up my spine and arced through my body. I was like Homer Simpson getting electrocuted, his body flashing between flesh and skeleton. “Yeooooowwww!”

  I bolted up, jumped off the table, jerked up my pants, and ran. Fast. Away. From Mario. And his death pen.

  As I slammed through the front door to the tattoo parlor, Steve’s voice trailed behind me. “Come back, best buddy. Come back!” And then, through tears of laughter, “You’re my best frieeeeeeennnndddd!!!”

  “You’ve been hacked like the Democrats were in 2016 and you can’t let that prick get away with it. You need to tell Kaia the website isn’t under your control anymore, my man.” Todd paced, reusable coffee cup in hand. We probably should stop holding our city council planning meetings at Earth First Coffee because everyone just ends up agitated from the caffeine. I was jacked up on a double mochaccino, which was why I’d even started blabbering about Steve.

  Patrice chimed in, “I told you, Cam. You can’t mess with a cancer love story. Watch a classic, Here on Earth.”

  “Here we go . . . ,” Todd huffed.

  Patrice ignored him and leaned in, excited. “I know it’s way before your time, but I really think it’s the most relevant. A cancer-ridden girl has to choose between a nice boy and an asshole jock. Guess which one she chooses . . . ?”

  “Kaia doesn’t have cancer,” I tried to clarify.

  “The asshole,” Patrice declared. She took a sip from her turmeric latte like a mic drop.

  “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to take away from that.” Clearly Patrice didn’t understand the dynamics at play here.

  Todd nudged me and motioned to the entrance. Kaia had just walked in, wearing her Save the Shark hoodie. The other protestors greeted her, and I hopped up. It was the first time I’d seen her since the tattoo debacle and I needed to assure her that we would still reach our goal. I had the start of an S on my ass but nothing more. It looked like a weirdly shaped birthmark and definitely didn’t fulfill the requirements of the pledge.

  Squeezing through the tightly packed tables, I finally reached her.

  “Hey,” I said, with my hands in my pockets.

  She looked flustered. “Sorry I’m late. I had a thing with mock trial I couldn’t get out of. How’s it going? Did we pick a speaker for the city council meeting yet?”

  “Not yet.” I looked down at my shoes, more nervous around her than I’d been recently.

  “Oh, good,” Kaia said, and waved at Todd. He gave me a prodding smile.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t go through with the tattoo. It turns out I have an unusually low threshold for pain—”

  “Hey, I don’t blame you. Did you really want every girl to think of Steve when they saw you naked?” She laughed. Why hadn’t I thought of that? And why were we talking about other girls? And me naked? “It’s a bummer we might have to give the money back.” She sighed.

  Once I’d bailed on the stunt, there had been an onslaught of complaints. “I know, who knew HelpSomeone.org has such a convenient refund policy?”

  “People are such assholes. Like the more important thing isn’t saving Steve.”

  “Right. . . . Well, I have a couple of ideas that could get us back . . . ,” I began, ready to inspire her confidence.

  “I think it’s gonna be pretty hard to top the bees, really.” Kaia stopped me before I could even get going. “And if you keep on having to top yourself and then can’t follow through, I think people will get annoyed and we’ll have burned up all our goodwill.”

  “Right, but—” I rushed to stem the tide of her withdrawal.

  “Maybe we should stay with social media and email and stuff. It’s easier schedule-wise anyway.” She gave me an apologetic smile. I could feel my pedestal being pulled out from under me. I was going down. Fast.

  “I still want to get the twenty thousand.” I sounded desperate.

  “I know. But it was crazy to think we could.” The dream was vanishing. She was ready to move on and let Save Steve be one of the things we did together that one time. A memory.

  “Look. Just give me one more shot. I have a great idea.”

  “You do? What?” There was doubt, but also a glimmer of interest. She was still in. Barely. And even though I had absolutely no idea what this brilliant idea was, I could keep the dream alive for a little bit longer until I figured out something more amazing than a beard of bees.

  I summoned my best carnival barker smile and trumpeted, “It’s a surprise.”

  I pressed the doorbell to Steve’s house and waited. The various bags and buckets I was carrying dug into my shoulders and palms. There was a crackle of static. “What?” Steve’s voice sounded small and tinny over the intercom. I fumbled, switching the bags to one hand, and pressed the button to respond.

  “I came up with our next fundraiser! You’re going to love it.” There was no answer from Steve. Just as I started to wonder if he had gone back to shooting things on his Xbox, the door opened.

  “Aren’t you done? I assumed that scream of pain was your final surrender.” Steve glared down at me. He was wrapped in a fuzzy bathrobe with unicorn slippers on his feet. But the ridiculous footwear wasn’t what I noticed first.

  “You’re bald.” The words slipped from my mouth, unbidden.

  Steve’s expression flickered, but then he rolled his eyes. “I have cancer, dweebnuts.” He opened the door wider. “Well, let’s see what you got.”

  Standing in Steve’s backyard in a swimsuit, my phone mounted on a tripod nearby, I lifted a pitcher over my head. Steve watched, nonplussed, still wearing his robe and slippers. At his feet were the various buckets I’d brought.

  “Is this a sex kink?” he asked.

  “Just start filming.” With a shrug, Steve clicked on the phone. I tipped the pitcher and a golden river of honey poured out, coating my hair, then eyes, then body.

  “This is definitely a sex kink.”

  “It’s called the Honey Stick Challenge. You know, like those viral stunts people do for various causes? I do this, then people copy me, and we’ll raise tons of money.”

  “I don’t know. I’m getting weirdly turned on.”

  “It’s not a sex kink!” Actually, it came out as, “Bits naw a se kinf,” because a big glob of honey rolled over my nose and into my mouth. I choked it down (it still tasted deliciously
of orange blossoms) and continued, “It’s honey. That’s, like, our thing, right?” I needed to make sure Steve would approve of the stunt, but also wanted to see if we could pave over our rough patch at the café. Show him I had no hard feelings. Go higher.

  “I’m sorry. We have a ‘thing’?”

  I ignored Steve and gestured to the containers. “Now open the buckets and you’ll see stuff to throw at me. Get it? Honey—”

  Wumph! I was hit in the face with a handful of flour.

  “Stick!” Steve finished, delighted. “Yeah. I think I got this.” After that, it was five solid minutes of flour, Froot Loops, glitter, feathers, Legos, and rainbow pom-poms being either thrown at or dumped on me. Steve practically skipped as he decorated me like a Christmas tree, tossing glitter into the air and letting it rain down. Every time a pom-pom or a Lego came close to hitting me in the nuts, he let out a happy giggle. Finally satisfied with his work, he sat down, a bit out of breath, and turned off the camera. We were both smiling. “Oh my god,” he panted. “That was actually fun!”

  “Right?” I wiped a Froot Loop off my eyebrow. “People will love it.”

  “I’m impressed, Cam.”

  “So you’re in? We can upload it?”

  Steve nodded. “Definitely.”

  I stepped out of Steve’s bathroom, toweling my hair dry. I’d managed to wash all the honey off. It hadn’t taken long, because Steve had, like, twelve shower heads in his enormous glass-enclosed shower. As I’d dried off, I couldn’t help but notice all the bottles of pills lining the sink. There was even one of those rainbow pill cases with the days of the week on them that I thought only old people used. It had felt wrong to stare at them, like when I looked at Steve’s bald head too long.

  When I stepped into his bedroom, Steve looked up from his computer.

  “Cam, my sticky friend, I just posted your new idea!” He spun the laptop around for me to see.

  “Wait . . . that doesn’t look like the Honey Stick Challenge.” There was no video on the website, just a box of text.