Mayne Attraction: In The Spotlight (17 page)

It happened after lunch, during a Goth free
period, after I’d just bought a cherry Icee at the concession
stand. I felt the eyes on me and glanced up in a different
direction so that I could get a quick peripheral view. It was a
young man with medium length curly black hair and light coffee
colored skin sitting at one of the tables on the far side of the
food court, facing me. My heart skipped a beat as I raced in my
mind to explain why Ash would show himself so plainly, looking
directly at me, after months of careful, but not always successful
concealment.

I couldn’t come up with an answer that made
any sense, but I was thrilled any way and turned my gaze directly
at him, only to be deeply disappointed by the face of a stranger.
This face wasn’t handsome at all. It featured a disproportionately
large nose, beady dark eyes and a scruffy goatee. It was a huge let
down, like black licorice instead of dark chocolate. Plus, moving
the encounter even deeper into dissatisfaction was the dawning
realization that he was leering at me, intentionally moving his
eyes up and down my body until they rested back on my face. Then he
took long drag on a cigarette and stood up like he was coming
over.

The warning bells in my mind were ringing
furiously as I scurried away in a panic to the Ladies’ Room, as if
that would actually deter a bad guy. I hung out for a while inside
the handicapped stall with my feet up, all alone, listening
intently. No one ever came in, either to use the facilities or to
accost me, and after a good five minutes of cowering, I summoned
the courage to step out into the sun again. I’d given myself a pep
talk about not being paranoid and trusting the security people to
do their job, and how cool it would be to see someone like that guy
get his butt kicked, possibly by Ash! That last line of reasoning
had me rushing out the door actually hoping it wasn’t too late to
run into creepy goatee guy. But alas, I never saw that character
again, though I was on high alert the rest of the day.

That episode had disrupted my normal change
review procedure where I check for quarters received in change that
appeal to me. Now as I looked through my money, I made a point to
separate out the coins that were important, generally any quarter
that pictured something other than an eagle on the back, carefully
sealing them away in a separate little zipper area of the change
purse section of my wallet. Then I put my wallet on the dresser and
picked up the room key card. I’d been so engrossed in what I was
doing, and rethinking the paranoia episode, that I didn’t realize
Trevor was standing over me, watching my entire
obsessive-compulsive ritual as it played out unmistakably.

“Do you have enough quarters there
Ellery?”

He was amused, of course.

“Yeah, I brought extra in case we ended up
at a laundromat,” I joked and moved away, not wanting to be
interrogated any further on this subject.

Then I stepped out into the hall and
purchased my drink. When I returned to our room, Sam was out of the
bathroom so I moved in for my turn. I took a quick shower. The
water was off now and I could hear the conversation fairly well on
the other side of the door.

“Do you want anything? My treat,” I could
hear Sam asking, and then she laughed after the last part.

She was right outside the bathroom, by the
hallway door. Trevor’s voice was harder to understand since he was
farther away.

“Okay. I’ll be right back,” she said and
then I heard the door click shut.

Wait a minute!

What was Sam going to do at a vending
machine with her debit card? She was the incredible cashless wonder
girl. I’d never seen anybody get by so smoothly with no actual
money. I’d even witnessed her buy a pack of gum with her card,
which had embarrassed me, on her behalf. Then with sickening
clarity it dawned on me. They must have been discussing the quarter
situation in my wallet, and she’d just helped herself to my
collection.

NO!

In a panic, still dripping wet, I pulled on
my jeans, not wasting precious time with underwear first. Then I
desperately grabbed a towel and wrapped it around my top and bolted
out the door and down the hall to the scene of the crime, hoping I
wasn’t too late.

I called frantically to her before I got
there, “Sam! Wait! Don’t use my quarters!” but I could hear the
clinking sound of deposited coins even as I approached.

She looked shocked as I rounded the corner
in double-time, making the turn bouncing on one foot, crazy half
dressed outfit and all.

“Sam! Stop! Let me have those!” I demanded
breathlessly.

I was being totally ridiculous and I knew
it, but it was the principle of the thing, and I was afraid she’d
taken my special quarters. When I grabbed her hands and emptied
them of my coins, sure enough, she’d taken all of them, including
the very ones I was most loath to part with.

I scanned the face of the machine, searching
for the tally in red lighted digits. It read seventy-five cents. So
she’d sacrificed three already.

Darn it!

I carefully pushed the metal ‘CHANGE RETURN’
button, the vending machine equivalent of a parking brake on a car;
a feature with the appearance of purpose but not always accompanied
by actual functionality.

To my amazed and thankful great relief, that
familiar clinking sound tinkled out again, as the quarters dropped
into the change bin with the little clear plastic door, and I
rescued my treasures from certain doom.

If only there was a way to rescue my dignity
at this point! Nope. That was now completely forfeit.

I fingered through the pile in my hand and
pulled out six acceptable quarters, the kind with the eagle on the
back, and turned them over to her.

“Here. Use these. And please ask me before
you get in my wallet next time. You can’t spend my Kentucky
Quarters in a vending machine,” I pronounced with finality and deep
conviction, at the same time hitching up the towel around my middle
and pushing a section of tangled, dripping wet hair out of my eyes.
Then I turned and quickly walked away before she could respond or
anybody saw me half dressed and totally crazy.

After that, we headed out to get some dinner
at the Outback Steakhouse that we had spotted when we were getting
off the exit for King’s Island that morning. I ordered the coconut
shrimp (our food choices really are indicative sometimes), which
was great, as usual. We took our time, ordering appetizers, our
entrees and then dessert, but afterwards we found ourselves at a
loose end and it wasn’t even seven o’clock.

My interpretation of ‘loose end’ was greatly
mistaken, though, when it was revealed that the hotel Sam had
chosen for us had its own indoor water park. This fact had been
suspiciously concealed from me until the last moment, but I didn’t
really care. They could go swimming if they wanted. I had my book.
I had finished it, but I would just start over. I was tired anyway;
so hanging out in our cool room that looked like a summer camp was
fine with me.

Neither of them was having any of it,
though. In fact the whole conspiracy became shockingly clear once
we were back in our room and Sam produced a swimsuit for me to
wear. She guilt tripped me into joining them downstairs with the
whole ‘Please? I need you’ thing that worked every time, no matter
how bad the consequences seemed like they would be for me.

Her dark sense of humor never failed to
assert itself, even in her attempts to be solicitous, though as
things unfolded, ‘dark’ didn’t seem to capture the essence of the
situation. Upon my inspection of her gift, ‘evil’ seemed a more
fitting description.

The swimsuit, a misnomer, as there was
nothing remotely ‘suitable’ about it, but evil in and of itself,
was not a swimsuit at all. It was a bikini; something I would never
consciously choose to wear. Oh, but it got better. It was a Hannah
Montana bikini.

I had no ill will towards Hannah herself; I
would just prefer not to be identified with the demographic of her
fan base, even if every person knowledgeable enough to make such
determinations would put me there, based on my appearance, whether
my bikini actually said ‘Hannah Montana’ on my butt or not.

“Do you hate me?” I asked as I exited the
bathroom, fully clothed over the top of my joke swim fashions
underneath.

My button-up shirt was open so she could see
I was in compliance, though highly passively aggressively so.

“Would you be serious?” Sam replied, rolling
her eyes in mock affront.

“Right after you.”

It was the most edge I’d ever used with her.
There was a deeper nervousness at play here than being embarrassed
about my swimsuit. She thought she knew exactly what I meant and
didn’t play dumb about it.

“It was the only thing I could find that
would fit. You’re a stick you know.”

“Yes. I’m quite aware of my figure, thanks,”
I cut back, with more edge.

“Now Ellery, you know that’s not what I
meant. There are people who would trade their soul for your figure,
so I don’t want to hear it. Now, let’s go have some fun. We’re
having fun on this trip, remember?”

I just shook my head.

Well I can see that you certainly are.

I moved past her out the door with a towel
in one hand and my book in the other. Trevor was standing there
with us, but had remained intelligently silent throughout the
exchange. He closed the door behind us as Sam led the way to the
water area.

The chlorine smell grew in intensity until
we passed through the doors leading into the water park and I could
actually feel warm wet waves of the chemical in its semi-liquid
gaseous form sticking to my face and burning my nose and
throat.

I hated swimming pools. I always had.

So gross.

Chlorine might kill the germs,
theoretically, but the bodily fluids mixed in the water in which
those germs were transferred remained completely unaltered by the
chemical…diluted a little, but still…so gross.

As if in answer to my silent reflections,
the first person I saw was a toddler, probably only a year old,
ready to have big splashing fun in the pool, his swim diaper in
place making him all set to go—literally.

So gross!

I tried to distract myself from the growing
panic attack gathering strength like a storm at sea heading for
shore. An interesting way to do that was to closely scrutinize my
uncharacteristically natural looking framily members. They had both
shed their Goth personas when they got cleaned up for dinner, in
preparation for pool time, I now realized. Sitting across the table
from them had not been the best venue for gawking, obviously, but
now in the pool as they held on to each other and fooled around
splashing and dunking and enjoying being semi-dressed together, I
had ample opportunity to observe.

It was no secret now. They were both
fabulously good looking—especially when you put them together, even
wet, maybe more so that way.

As I stood ankle deep in the water, I felt
an overwhelming need to turn and run. My theme song was starting to
play in my mind, a song called ‘Creep” (radio version, of course).
This had been a key mental soundtrack in my life, which had become
distinctly and pleasantly absent since I’d made friends with Sam. I
could hear the music now and my own voice singing “What the hell am
I doing here? I don’t belong here.”

No, I did not. I slowly turned my back on
them, preparing to slink away since I wasn’t part of what was
happening anyway.

I got as far as the table, one hand on my
book, the other reaching for the keycard, when hands on both sides
looped under my arms and picked me up off the ground, hauling me
backwards towards the pool.

“I can walk guys. Put me down.”

They didn’t. The hurricane was breaking
ashore now. The panic was rolling in like a storm surge.

“Seriously, let me down. NOW.”

It was like I was talking to myself. We kept
moving, maybe faster. I couldn’t even see where we were going
because I was turned around the wrong way, though I already knew, I
guess. My feet hit the water now, but we kept moving.

“Okay. Please?”

I sounded panicked to me. They didn’t
care.

We were moving into deeper water now. The
imaginary storm turned real as the wave pool waves started up. It
was very serious now. I couldn’t swim and they were going to let me
loose in deep water in the waves. My friends were actually going to
kill me. Well, at least they’d feel guilty when they had to explain
what happened to my mom and the police. There was some satisfaction
in that. No, actually there wasn’t.

How about if I just confess that I can’t
swim while they still have me? Will they believe me or think it’s
just a trick to get released so I won’t get my hair wet? Too
late.

They hoisted me so that I broke free of the
water, just as a break between the waves rolled through, so that I
would fly farther into the deep end. Would it be my pride or my
friends that was the death of me? A little of both I thought as I
sucked in a last breath of air and then plunged under the
water.

Just like that snowy day when I slipped on
the ice, I wished for so many reasons that it wasn’t happening to
me. Though, I hadn’t actually expected to die that time. This time
I was counting on it. Even my security team couldn’t help me now.
This would be fast, and the waves would obscure the situation
somewhat, costing me critical rescue response time.

Oh well.

That’s what I got for cutting school and
being deceitful with my mom and wearing a Hannah Montana
bikini.

I tried to fight and stay afloat, but I had
precious little experience with that, and as soon as I got nasty
pool water in my mouth I panicked and started going under. And that
was it…