Shark Out of Water (Grab Your Pole, #3) (41 page)

I’d reclaimed the postcard from him when I got home and then taped the wrapper on the back and hid it in plain sight. Anyway, I took maybe one step in the board’s direction, stepped on a spiral notebook I hadn’t used since last semester and then reading my mom’s latest note on my whiteboard that said:

The Health Dept. called, your room is scheduled to be condemned. Also, I left something for you to look at on your bed. Good luck finding it.

I thought to myself, Christ, I really need to go through my shit and clean this pigsty up, but, it’ll just have to wait ‘cause I gotta get the hell outta here so I can see my baby and if all goes according to plan, my lips and hers will get to keep last night’s promises to each other! Yay lips!

Ten minutes later and amidst much steering wheel tapping and several choruses of “Come on, come on, come on, turn green, you bastard,” I managed to make it to Camie’s without having broken the speed limit or running any lights. Although I
was
tempted, I refrained every time I cared to look out the window to see the trees swaying violently from side to side, stop lights being rocked back and forth, and little dirt dervishes dancing in the streets, all letting me know in their own way that now wouldn’t be the best time to push it. I’ve got good reflexes and all, but still. My lips would be pissed at me for eternity if I was being careless and ended up dying in a car accident just because I was trying to get them and myself to Camie and her lips a little bit faster.

Sprinting up the steps and onto her porch, I was in the middle of asking myself the same question I’d asked the last time I showed up unannounced when Jillian opened the door and raised an eyebrow at me, and then letting all the air out of my sail with one sentence she said, “My dad’s lying down with my mom and Camie’s not here.”

“Where is she?”

“Out.”

“Well, uh, who’d she leave with?” I asked, becoming hugely annoyed in a hurry with Jillian’s lack of helpful answers.

“No one. She left on foot by herself.”

“What, for like a walk or something?”

“No.”

“For Christ’s sake, Jillian, your ambiguity is really starting to get on my fucking nerves,” I snapped, but trying to not growl at her at the same time. “Do you know when she’ll be back?”

“I can’t say that I know the exact minute she’ll be home, as I’m not her keeper, but I would imagine she’ll be home by twelve-thirty, that being her new curfew and all. And I’m sorry you’re not caring for my answers, which are not ambiguous at all but simply to the point, however, I am no more in charge of tracking my sister’s social activities than I am her keeper, so you’ll just have to deal.”

“Fuck, Jillian, what the hell crawled up your ass and died?” I blurted out. I didn’t mean to speak the exact question I was thinking in my head like that, but I couldn’t help it. Aside from that time in the desert, in which I felt she had just cause, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her
this
cantankerous.

She cocked her head to the side and chewed the inside of her bottom lip for a short second, considering whether to answer me, and then on a sigh she said, “A variety of things.”

I frowned and then asked, “Can I help?” As much as I might appear to prefer to avoid getting involved with Jillian, I like her and I try to help those people I truly like if I can.

She sighed again and shook her head. “No, people are just stupid sometimes and I find it irritating, that’s all. You could try calling her, but other than suggesting that, I really can’t help you…sorry.”

Humph.
I can see where she’d find people’s stupidity irritating, especially when
I’m
the one being stupid as I would eventually discover has been the case more than I realized.

I got back in my car and thought about what I wanted to say and then dialed Camie. I would’ve sent her a text, but I really wanna hear her voice and I’m hoping she’ll tell me she’s just at Brenna’s studying or someplace close by and that I can come get her so we can talk in person. But, unfortunately, that didn’t happen. After her phone rang a few times I got her voicemail, which is kind of weird, but I ended up writing it off as her probably not hearing it or something non-nefarious like that, because if I allow myself to think for a moment that she’s avoiding me, I’ll end up mind-fucking myself into a foul temper and that won’t be even remotely good when I do get to talk to her…whenever that ends up being. I left her a message though and simply said I wanted to talk to her and asked her to call me or send me a text to let me know if, when, and where we can meet up.

Then, continuing my effort to not mind-fuck myself into believing last night didn’t mean what I think it did, I sent Pete a text to see if he wants to hang out before Kristen’s party and while I wait to hear back from Camie. I know I should’ve gone home and cleaned my room, but I don’t think alone time with just the girls and my thoughts will be all that beneficial in my current endeavor to exhibit patience without letting it make me its prison bitch…

Anyone have some chainmaile I can borrow? How about a shield? A helmet maybe? Come on, guys, anything? ~ Pete

“You know, I don’t really feel like goin’ to Kristen’s tonight,” I told Tristan when we were in line at the movie theater snack bar, waiting for our popcorn and drinks.

“Yeah, me neither, but, I still don’t know if Camie’s goin’ so I’m gonna just in case she shows…I can drop you off at home after the movie though.”

“I dunno, we’ll see…I might feel more like it in a little bit,” I said and rolled my eyes after taking a bite of my popcorn to find that the clerk had either not heard me when I said no butter or just flat out ignored me. I hate movie theater butter…it’s like cooking oil that’s had food coloring added to it to make it look like butter and it always makes my stomach hurt if I eat too much of it.

“You okay?” He asked as we handed our tickets to the ticket attendant and were told what theater our movie is being shown in.

“Yeah, my knee is all bruised from chasing after your cats and I’m just kinda tired I guess…”

“You’re not getting sick are you?”

Well, that depends on what kind of illness we’re talking about here. I
am
getting sick of hiding my feelings for my girlfriend who’s not supposed to exist, not that I’ll be able to keep her a secret from you for much longer anyway with the link being so close to locking, not to mention that she’s in a really piss-poor mood today and was pretty much playing least in sight all day, but other than that, I’m healthy as a horse. “Nah, I went to the
Rocky Horror Picture Show
last night with everyone and then a rave and Denny’s afterwards so I didn’t get home until like four-something this morning. I tried to take a nap but that fucking wind was rattling the windows…”…making me visualize said non-existent girlfriend with her hair swirling around her like ribbons of shimmering gold that are atop a gift that’s been given to me on the one condition I don’t open it and at the same time, making any kind of sleep utterly impossible.

“That sucks, man, I’m sorry,” Tristan said in a whisper as we entered the darkened, semi-full theater in the middle of a preview.

“Here or up a little more?” I whispered to him, using my chin to ask if the row of seats we’re approaching is in the middle enough or not. Tristan likes being in
the
middle seat of
the
middle row in a movie theater and I prefer an aisle seat for pretty much everything so when he and I see a movie together, we compromise. We get a middle row but choose seats on the end.

“Up one more…” he told me and captured the second seat in from the end of, according to him,
the
middle row.

I’d pulled my phone out to put it on vibrate when it went off in my hand.
“Shit,”
I whispered under my breath and frantically turned it off before I made Tristan and myself the target of evil glares or punishment from vigilante moviegoers.

Tristan was pulling his phone out to do the same as he leaned over to read the text I’d just gotten and was showing him that read:

Mike:
Pwrs out…sardines pregame @ K’s *invite only*

His phone went off in his hand with the same message and at the exact same time, the theater went pitch-black and everyone groaned their irritation. And
someone
, one of the aforementioned vigilante moviegoers I’m sure, threw a handful of popcorn which pelted me in the back of the head.

After a couple of minutes, a theater employee came in with a flashlight, got everyone’s attention and then explained that there’s a downed power line somewhere on the block, but that the theater’s generator will be kicking on soon, so just “hold tight,” which was basically a plea to not rush the box office demanding your money back and to not trash the theater in the interim. Tristan and I sat there in the dark theater that was periodically illuminated in spots by people using their cell phones, discussing what we wanted to do… We could A) Leave and go to Kristen’s for a rollicking fun game of sardines, which is
never
any fun without the right people playing and unless the power is out. B) Leave and go goof off together somewhere else. C) Leave and go our separate ways. And finally, D) Hold tight and maybe catch a nap while waiting for the ancient generator to kick on. I’m leaning towards D myself…

“I dig it, but I’m not up for sardines without Camie,” Tristan told me and drummed his fingers on his knees impatiently, “I wish she’d just fuckin’ call me back,” he said and blowing out a hugely frustrated breath, he hit the back of his head on his seat a couple of times. Then, with his eyes closed, he took a deep breath, inhaling through his nose and exhaling out from his mouth like he was practicing some form of deep breathing exercise.

I watched him do it a few times and decided to exert myself and
really
concentrate. Generally reading him as a matter of course comes somewhat naturally to me now, but to actually get into each other’s heads off a baseball field…well, it’s not even a little easy and it’s sort of taxing on us not only mentally but physically as well unless we’re completely and totally synched up. However, we can both do it if we
really
want to and try hard enough during the periods of time when the link is either in the process of going into hibernation or like right now, starting to solidify. As I focused and centered myself on him, I started to pick up the first real clear thoughts from him this season like he’d unintentionally done with me last week… He was repeating;
Great White Buffalo, where are you? Why won’t you call me back? Because what you did was atrocious, that’s why…
over and over and over again in his head. I’m not even gonna
begin
to try to actually describe what those thoughts “looked” like. But just so you have something of an idea, let’s just say that each repetition looked the same and it never ended all that well for the faceless hunter
or
for the buffalo that was no longer white once the grisly words “what you did
”
were thought. Yeah, hopefully you can imagine why I flew out of there like a bat out of Hell and took a long sip of my Dr. Pepper wishing like all hell it was a shot of Southern Comfort or something just as equally calming to the nerves.

Jesus, I go from thoughts of immeasurable beauty and happiness that’s essentially unattainable for me in my own head, to macabre scenes of slain buffalo heaped on the Great Plains of Mid-America in his. Tristan and I are a pair tonight, huh? Oh, sorry if I got a little graphic there…I
was
trying to avoid that.

I was tired before and although just that one little trip into his head almost wore me out completely, and I was yawning and practically bone-tired, I was still about to suggest we just snap out of our individual funks by taking our selves and our texted invites and go play a fun game with good friends when all of a sudden, his eyes shot open and instead of breathing deeply to calm himself, the deep breath he took looked as if it was more like he was testing the air. Or rather, sniffing it…

“She’s here.”

“Who? Grea—Camie?”
I asked in a stutter full of disbelief and surprise, and hoping he didn’t pick up on the fact that I’d obviously just seen something he’s working hard to repress.

“Yeah. She’s here and she’s close.”

“How can you possibly
know
that? Do you see her?” Because last I checked, he doesn’t have a pair of infrared night-vision goggles. Jillian does, but, Tristan doesn’t.

Now, not that Tristan and I aren’t abnormal to begin with, but you know how when you lose one of your five senses, it’s said that the other four become heightened? Well, that’s the only way I can explain away the oddity of what he said next…

“No, I can’t see her, I can
smell
her…she’s here, c’mon…”

He dragged me down towards the front of the theater, and yeah, I banged my already (courtesy of his damned cats) bruised knee on the armrests of some seats, but I stumbled along behind him without question. However, when he pulled out his phone I asked, “Okay, I’m not
saying
you’ve gone off the deep end here, but, how can you
smell
a specific person in a theater this size that’s half full? And what are you doing? And
what
the fuck
is this
?!”

He’d stopped typing on his phone to dig in his pocket and then he handed me a small glass vial that was the same shape and maybe a little smaller than a tube of Chap Stick, which for the shortest of moments scared the absolute shit out of me because I thought it contained cocaine, or
real
poison maybe. I don’t know, the buffalo and the hunter thing really freaked me out…

He started typing again while saying, “
That
is Eau de Camie…it’s her very own special blend of fragrances that she wears. I bought some a week or so ago for our uh…cats. And Camie
always
forgets to turn her cell phone off when she goes to the movies so I’m sending her a te—no, I’m gonna flat out call her to see one, if she answers, two, where she’s at in this damned theater, and three, who the hell she’s with! Start scanning rows…”

As he put his phone to his ear, he and I both systematically scanned the rows of seats looking and/or listening for a clue as to where she was. It didn’t take more than five seconds and I’m pretty sure my mouth was hanging open when I saw that not only was he right about her being here, but that she was close as well. Three rows in front of where we’d been sitting just moments ago and not quite in the middle of the row, Camie’s phone started playing; inexplicably featuring a voice not many people our age would even come close to identifying. I could though; I’ve heard him in my head since I was a little kid. I covered my mouth to help stifle my laugh because really, I’m probably the only one who would find Kenny Rogers singing “Islands in the Stream” with Dolly Parton to be funny here. Tristan made it clear he didn’t find her choice in ringtone funny in the least by nodding in firm yet agitated agreement when the duet sang the lyrics; “You do something to me that I can’t explain … Hold me closer and I feel no pain,” as Camie held up her phone, all lit up, pinpointing for us exactly where she was. Unfortunately, it also shed some light on who the person sitting next to her was.