The Best Night of Your (Pathetic) Life

by Tara Altebrando

  “I have one guess,” Patrick said, and I pretty much ignored him and turned away.

  “You’re afraid of me now,” he said then.

  “I am not,” I protested.

  “You are,” he said. “And if you’re not, you should be.”

  Faster than I could process, warm hands—palms—cradled my head and warm lips kissed mine. It was more burst than kiss, like energy being transferred from Patrick to me through sheer force of will—like he was trying to cram every moment we’d ever shared, every secret spilled, every dream revealed, every deep desire admitted to into one grand gesture—and then it was over and he just looked at me and waited and said, “What about now? Do you see what I’m talking about now?”

  He was too much.

  Overmuch.

  But because I loved him, I didn’t slap him or say What the ef, Patrick? I gave it a moment—gave my lips and my heart and my head and the rest of me, still practically naked, the time to share signals and hormones and impulses and whatever else they shared, and I took my own heart’s pulse but still felt nothing.

  “I just don’t think that’s how it works, Patrick,” I said sadly, and then Winter appeared at the sliding door, with Carson behind her, and they tossed towels—warm, dry, thick—at me and Patrick before going back inside.

  Patrick towel-dried his hair for a minute while I patted down my body, tingling from the pool but not from the kiss, and then he looked at me with this look that just pained me and I realized he felt like I did—my liking Carson was, to him, the same as Carson liking Winter—and I wished we could somehow console each other, except I knew we couldn’t. That, for him, I was part of the problem, even if for me, he—my best friend who adored me—was part of the solution.

  “Apparently I once told Barbone he was ugly,” I said.

  “That doesn’t sound like you,” he said.

  “You always think the best of me,” I said, squeezing water from my hair. “Even when you shouldn’t.”

  “That’s what love is,” he said, and he got up and walked inside.

  Winter was brushing her hair the in bedroom where we’d changed. She looked confident—older, somehow—when she said, “Patrick looks like somebody died.”

  “I feel awful,” I said. “He kissed me and I felt nothing.”

  “It’s like you said, Mary. You can’t control who you like. You can’t feel bad about it.”

  “Well, I do,” I said. “I feel bad about a lot of stuff all of a sudden.”

  “Join the club,” Winter said, then she turned away from the mirror to face me. “How was it?” she asked. “Seeing Jill?”

  I was pulling my shirt on over my bra and my skin was cold and dry. “Well, she’s pissed.”

  “Well, she should be,” Winter said, a little bit too nonchalantly. She was running fingers through her long wet hair. “But she should be pissed at Carson! Not me!” Then, she added, more softly, “Or at least more pissed at him.”

  I just gave her a look. “Apparently it was Barbone who told her.”

  “Barbone?” Winter’s eyes went wide.

  “I guess he saw you guys,” I said.

  “Well, he’s got nerve,” Winter said.

  “I told him he was ugly once,” I said. “Like in fifth grade. When he had a crush on me.”

  “Well, he is ugly,” Winter said, and I just looked at her.

  She said, “Well, so what. It doesn’t excuse him.”

  “Yeah, but it doesn’t excuse me, either.”

  “You were in fifth grade!”

  “Still.”

  My phone, in my bag on the bed, buzzed. It was a text from Dez: BEING DISCHARGED. SPRAIN. PHYSICAL THERAPY. BUT SENDING ME HOME.

  I wrote back: HOME OR HUNT?

  “Dez is getting out,” I said.

  “Is he coming back out?” Winter asked.

  “Not sure yet,” I said, “but we should hurry, just in case.”

  Downstairs, the boys had put two pots of water on the stove, presumably one for the spaghetti and one to hard-boil an egg. They’d put the words Le Sabre in lights on the Lite-Brite, even though we were in the Lexus now, and texted it to the Yeti.

  “Dez may be coming back,” I said.

  “For real?” Patrick said, turning to me and holding an X-ACTO knife to Barbie’s head. “Awesome.”

  Winter covered her eyes, not wanting to see her Barbie operated on, as Patrick skillfully dug a hole into the doll’s brain. I got shivers just thinking of it ever being done to a living person but if it helped brain function, I thought I could probably do with some trepanation myself. This Flying Cloud thing couldn’t be all that hard.

  Carson was studying Barbie. “What’s the difference between a scalped Barbie and trepanation Barbie?”

  “Six of one, half dozen the other,” Patrick said, then he studied the flesh under the flesh he’d removed. “I guess we have to, like, draw a brain in there?”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said, and I crossed the room to the boiling water and put spaghetti in one and an egg in the other. “We could’ve used one pot, you know.”

  “Oh, whatever.” Carson laughed, and he went and opened the door to the huge pantry and pulled out a bag of flour. “Banana bread recipe plus banana bread is on the list, too. I already preheated the oven.” He pointed to a recipe box on the counter. “My mom’s recipe is in there.”

  “Your mom bakes?” Patrick asked.

  “Yes, Patrick, she bakes.”

  “No time for baking,” I said, “and we already have a recipe.”

  Carson stood at a computer that was sitting on the kitchen counter and said, “I think there’s some website for police sketching. We could do one of Mullin or Gatti or something.”

  “Oh,” Winter said. “Sounds fun. Let me,” and she went over to the computer and stood closer to Carson than I’d ever seen her stand before. They were almost cozy and my brain had to work hard to see that as okay.

  Then Carson left to get a sock, and to prepare the martini (Alas, no Piña Colada mix.), and also to get the markers and food coloring for the egg decorating. In the meantime, I sat down at the kitchen table and got busy setting up Gumhenge. My hands were shaking but I got it to stand just long enough for a photo, then I set about ticking off our achievements on the master list.

  • Gumhenge. [45]

  • Trepanation Barbie. [80]

  • Police sketch of Mr. Gatti. A rather impressive likeness, I thought. [125]

  • Egg decorated for Easter. [75]

  • One piece of cooked spaghetti. [20]

  • Put your name in lights. [150]

  • Sock [1]

  • Martini [80]

  “And skinny-dipping,” Patrick said. “Don’t forget skinny-dipping.”

  • How could I. [200]

  We had gotten 776, which meant 3784.

  A text from the Yeti said: FIRST TWO TEAMS TO LASER QUEST GET 200 POINTS. BONUS 250 FOR TEAM WITH HIGHEST SCORING PLAYER OVERALL. SEND POINT TOTALS.

  Patrick seemed to read and dismiss the text—rightfully so, I admitted, since Laser Quest was just too far—and said, “Oh, so I’ve been Googling more and there’s this weaponized blimp called the Flying Cloud that some guy is writing steampunk stories about.”

  “A blimp?” I asked as I started to gather our things. Carson was pitching the tent in his parents’ bedroom.

  “Weaponized blimp,” Patrick said. “You know, Mary, sometimes you have to scroll down to like the tenth or eleventh hit to get to the good stuff.”

  “The screen on my phone is small!”

  “Scroll, I said!”

  “Fine. Sorry. But what does a blimp have to do with anything?” I asked with frustration. “And what’s the item on list two that is supposed to help?”

  “Well, I don’t know…yet.” Patrick seemed frustrated, too, but for different reasons. “But it’s the only thing I see so far that could possibly lead anywhere. Like if we showed the Yeti the specifications. Or tried to make a small
one?”

  “Awesome,” Carson said, returning to the kitchen and showing me the picture of the tent [75, so 3859]. “We should load up and go.”

  “Go where?” I asked as we collected our stuff.

  “We go get a sub,” Patrick said. “At Blimpie. For twenty points and maybe a clue as to what the Flying Cloud stuff is all about?”

  “You may be on to something,” I said, and I smiled and felt a sort of mental invigoration. We absolutely had to figure this out!

  A text came through from Grace: YOU HAVE TWENTY MINUTES TO GET YOUR BUTT HERE BEFORE YOU’RE GROUNDED FOR THE REST OF THE SUMMER. I KNOW ABOUT THE STATUE. LOVE, MOM

  “Oh, shit,” I said as I carried the Easter egg carefully out to the car.

  “What?” Winter asked.

  “Either my sister is messing with me or my mother has taken over her phone and now knows that I’m doing the hunt.”

  “Crap,” Carson said, stowing the cocktail shaker in one of the car’s cup holders.

  “She said I have twenty minutes to get home before I’m grounded for the rest of the summer.”

  The next text said: I WILL NOT HESITATE TO CALL COPS ON HUNT!

  I studied the texts for clues while we got into the car.

  It was the YOU’RE that got me. Because Grace was, we’d always joked, homophonic. She could never get her sound-alike words—her yours and you’res—straight. “It’s totally my mom,” I said. “What am I going to do?”

  “You’re going to read an awful lot of books this summer,” Patrick said, and laughed and everyone else joined in, too.

  “It’s not funny!” I wailed. “I don’t want to go home!”

  “We all have to make sacrifices, Mary,” Winter said.

  “What sacrifices are you making, exactly?” I asked.

  “Well, maybe not all of us,” Winter said. “But even poor Poppy gave up her precious Goldie for the cause.” She laughed and the boys laughed again, too, then Winter said, “Speaking of which,” and started digging around in the car and then hoisted up the Ziploc, where Goldie’s dead body floated on the water’s surface line. “Aw, crap,” Winter said, and Patrick and Carson laughed again.

  But it wasn’t funny. None of it was funny.

  Back down to 3794.

  Dez’s message said: COME GET ME!!!!!

  “Dez wants to be picked up,” I said, then I shook my head and let it all sink in. “I honestly don’t believe this.”

  There was no way around it. Not if I really really wanted my team to win—more than I wanted myself to win. Because I could either throw a pity party right then and ruin it all for everyone or I could appreciate that I’d come pretty far, and that I had friends who could finish the job.

  I had to go home.

  “Fine,” I said. “Drop me off.”

  “Wait. Really?” Winter said.

  “It’s the only way.”

  A text from the Yeti said: IT’S ME, LUCAS. DON’T WORRY ABOUT YOUR SIS. I BROUGHT HER HOME.

  Oof. What was it with this guy? He was jamming me up left and right!

  “I was sort of joking,” Winter said.

  “I’ll try to reason with my mother,” I said, trying to be optimistic. “I’ll explain about Dez and Barbone. I don’t know. And if I can’t come back out, you all can pull this off. I know you can. And I deserve whatever I have coming to me for lying and for taking the statue and losing it.”

  “We don’t really have time to drive to your house,” Patrick said. “Not if we’re going to get Dez and get a Blimpie and still have time to get some more points.”

  He was right. “Then leave me at the train station,” I said. “Or that car service in town.”

  “You’re serious,” Carson said.

  “We’re not putting you on a train,” Patrick said. “But car service is okay. If you’re sure.”

  I was surprised by my own resolve, my own lack of tears and self-pity as Carson headed for the car service place. “I’m sure.” I turned to Patrick. “You said before that winning tonight wasn’t going to change things for Dez, but I feel like it’d change things for me. I thought it only mattered that I won, but it’s just as good if you guys can do it. You have to.”

  “We’ll try our best, Shooter,” Carson said as he pulled up by a line of cars for hire. And it was Winter who said, “Why do you even call her that? No one else does. Only her parents.”

  “I don’t know,” Carson said. “What’s the big deal?”

  I got out and left them to it.

  15

  AND SO I ARRIVED, A SHORT CAR RIDE LATER, at home. I felt something new looking at the house I’d grown up in—at the tiny brick stoop and at the honeysuckle bush climbing the fence and even at the squeaky old gate to the yard, where the shuffleboard court we’d painted years ago on the driveway had long since faded. I suddenly knew I was going to most miss the very place I wanted so much to escape, even though I was now dreading walking through its door.

  “Go to your room,” my mother said flatly, when I walked into the kitchen, where she was sitting at the table with a glass of wine. “I’m not ready to deal with you yet.”

  So I went upstairs and lay down on my bed and felt sorry for myself a bit, sure, and thought about the guy in Burger King. I wondered whether he was still there, flipping burgers and dipping fries into sizzling hot oil with metal baskets, and I felt grateful I wasn’t him.

  I believe that’s what they call a first-world problem.

  Getting caught lying to your parents about your whereabouts and sent to your room while your friends were out in the world doing dumb things definitely qualified, yes.

  Going to George Washington University instead of Georgetown—and having it paid for by my great-aunt—definitely qualified.

  Losing a treasured family heirloom? Probably, yes.

  My phone buzzed. A text from the Yeti. RUMOR HAS IT ONE TEAM HAS AMASSED A WHOPPING 4500 POINTS. ARE YOU STILL IN THE RUNNING OR SHOULD YOU JUST THROW IN THE TOWEL?

  Ugh.

  Towel already thrown. Mine, anyway.

  Over the next hour, reports from my team came in at a rapid clip.

  They got Dez.

  They got a Blimpie sub [20] but found nothing there to help crack the clue of the Flying Cloud.

  They finally stopped at Jungle Golf, which was just closing up for the night, and snapped pictures of themselves with a gorilla, and a giraffe, and an elephant. [75]

  They went to Matador Park with a razor and a can of shaving cream and lathered up the bull Bob’s balls and then took pictures of Winter—yes, Winter!—“shaving” them. [80]

  They stopped by The Pines, where Patrick, in a trench coat, stood holding a boom box over his head, blasting “In Your Eyes” at Leticia Farrice.

  They even, thanks to Dez’s Googling, learned that there was a stick-your-head-through-it photo opportunity at a bar called Wunderbar, so they went there and snapped a picture of him in front of a cardboard cutout of a body dressed in lederhosen and hoisting a huge mug of beer. [80]

  I was missing it all.

  4049!

  But I’d turned on my computer and spent some time on the George Washington University website, looking at pictures of the Foggy Bottom campus, where my program had its hub, and reading about dorm life and student life and D.C. in general and getting excited about it for real for the first time. Then I Googled “Flying Cloud” again and remembered, this time, to scroll…and scroll.

  The whole time I listened to some Blue Öyster Cult band songs, like “Godzilla,” which I was pretty sure I’d never heard and “Don’t Fear the Reaper,” which of course I had. I wanted to imprint them in my brain so that every time I heard them I’d remember this night, the best night of my pathetic life.

  There was the Wikipedia entry about the clipper ship.

  There was the link to the weaponized blimp stories.

  There were the charter boats, and the farm in North Carolina.

  And there was a link I hadn’t seen yet. />
  To Airstream.

  The trailer company. And a trailer called The Flying Cloud.

  My mother appeared in the doorway. “I’m not even sure what to do with you.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have lied. I just knew you wouldn’t let me go and it felt…I don’t know…important.”

  “Important enough to break our trust, and to land Dez in the hospital, and to lose Eleanor’s statue?!?!”

  So Grace had told her everything.

  “Well,” I said. “That Dez stuff was really the whole reason we even wanted to enter and to win. To show that the good guys could win, even if they’ve been tortured, like Dez has, since kindergarten. We wanted, I don’t know, some kind of victory lap?”

  She came forward and sat on the edge of the bed. “Well, you weren’t very committed to your cause if you came home just so you’re not grounded this summer.”

  “But you said you’d call the cops!” I said, and as soon as I did I understood that she had no intention of doing so. “And it’s a long summer, and apparently I am not the most noble or moral person out there.” I shook my head. “But it wasn’t even about that. I figured you could ground me anyway. I mean, you still might, right?” I waited but my mother’s expression was blank, so I added, “I got tired of lying and of being so afraid of getting caught.”

  My mother smiled and shook her head.

  “What?”

  “You are one smooth talker.”

  “No, I’m not!”

  “Yes, you are. You can be very convincing when you want to be. You’ve always been like that.”

  “I’m not trying to convince you of anything,” I protested.

  “I think you are,” my mother said. “I think you’re going to try to convince me to let you go back out tonight.”

  I flattened a wrinkle in my bedspread. “Does that mean that’s even a possibility?”

  My mother sighed. “The statue is a big deal.”

  I said, only, “I know.”

  “The money she left you is paying for your college education,” she said. “So I’d expect you to have a little bit more respect for—”