Famous Last Words (13 page)

I told him how I made Shelby apply for a job there and how she asked Fiona to settle a bet for us.

Now AJ’s shocked. “Your ditzy friend? Really?”

“Really. Fiona says Mayor Amato drops off their checks and that she has never seen Sy.”

“No one has. That’s just the thing,” Michael says. “We suspect other people of having bogus jobs in the city. But all of them at least
pretend
to do something. They show up from time to time. No one has ever seen Sy. That’s why I’m targeting him. It’s my best chance at proving some kind of abuse of funding or power.”

“So, you think the whole Sy-is-on-his-deathbed thing is a cover?” I ask.

“Sy is probably healthy as a horse and collecting a paycheck in Miami,” Michael says. “That’s my best guess.”

“You’ve done searches on him?” I ask.

“Of course. Nexis, Google, the works. Nothing turned up, which doesn’t mean anything except that nothing’s been written about him.”

It’s sad to think that for some people, an obit is the only time they’ll be in print, and then they’re not even around to enjoy it.

I survey the sparsely populated newsroom and throw
Waiting for Godot
,
CosmoGirl
, and
Seventeen
onto my desk. Only a handful of people are in, which is only slightly better than yesterday, when it was only Rocco and me. I raise my eyebrows when I see Tony’s here. Alice too, which means Harry’s in his office.

“I’m glad I brought some backup entertainment,” I say.

“Yeah, a lot of people took the holiday off,” Michael says. “Stinks to be the intern. Been there.”

“Why are you here?” I ask Michael.

“Just trying to get caught up after—”

“Yeah, yeah. Irving, we know,” AJ says. He’s fiddling with the ring around his neck. I find the Jessica thing puzzling.

The door smacks open, and in walks photog Alexis. There goes my plan for quality face time with Tony. Michael and AJ watch her go by and exchange that
knowing
guy look. I don’t blame them. It’s hard not to. Her legs are nearly as long as my whole body. She looks like she belongs in front of a camera, not behind one.

What I wouldn’t give to look like her for just one day.

Meg comes bounding through the door and walks toward the obit desk. “It’s dead in here. No pun intended.” Meg laughs. “This is the kind of day that requires an afternoon field trip to the megadrugstore and some bubble tea. Wanna come, Sam?”

“Sure. If Harry lets me leave,” I say. “What’s bubble tea?”

“You’ve never had it? You are so coming along. I’ll talk to Harry,” she says.

“Okay, then.” I’m happy to have something to look forward to, since this seems like the start of another uneventful day.

I spend the morning answering a barrage of phone calls from people—clueless people who obviously can’t read or Google—inquiring about the start times and locations for various parades, festivals, and fireworks. I also field a few complaint calls from older people who don’t like the way our newspaper’s ink gets all over their hands. Just like the obit versus death notice question, I get at least one of these calls a day. We apparently have substandard ink at the
Herald Tribune
. One more advantage to reading the news on smartphones, tablets, and laptops.

“Hey, Sam. I’m taking off.”

I glance up to see Tony standing by my desk, and I quickly turn toward my computer screen and click on something, anything, so he doesn’t see how nervous he makes me. AJ is sitting across from me, on the phone.

“Can you do me a favor? If this person calls, can you have her call my cell?” He hands me a piece of paper, as if I’ve already said yes.

“I’m covering a concert in Liberty State Park tonight. She’s supposed to hook me up with VIP parking.”

“Sure, no problem,” I say.

He begins to walk, stops midstride, and turns around. “If you don’t have plans, I’ve got a plus one. You’re welcome to come along.”

Are you kidding me? I’m there!
That’s what inner Sam screams. Outwardly, it’s business as usual. The responsible-to-a-fault people pleaser.

“Uh-oh. I can’t. I’ve got plans to see the fireworks with a friend.”

“Well, have fun,” he says.

“You too.”

“Hey, and don’t forget. Bar night on Wednesday. We missed you last week.”

AJ’s off the phone now and listening, I can tell.

Holy crap!
Did that just happen? I’m such an ass. An amazing-looking guy asks me to do something fun, and I totally blow him off. Why don’t I just bag my evening with Shelby? It’s my parents’ fault for raising me to be so loyal. Maybe it’s not too late. I look down at his number in my hand. I can give it a half hour and call his cell. My stomach gets all floaty at the thought, and then AJ pokes a hole in my happiness bubble.

“He’s probably looking for help writing the review. It’s some eighties act.”

“Oh yeah! He said he missed me at bar night too. Did he want me to write a review of
that
?” I’m so pissed, I can barely keep my voice from shaking. “At least he asks me to do things. Not like some people who cover bands in my town and don’t bother calling.”

AJ looks temporarily perplexed but quickly gets on board. “Are you talking about that thing in Chesnutville on Saturday? I thought you’d have something better to do.” Then he looks up over the top of his glasses. “How’d you know I was there, anyway?”

“It was in the paper! You wrote about it?” Thankfully, I remembered that small fact. “Speaking of which, don’t you have a parade to cover?”

“I do indeed,” he says.

“You’d better get out of here.”

My mood takes a serious dive after AJ leaves. It doesn’t help that Michael also packs up to go and I’m alone on my side of the newsroom. I do make myself smile, however, with the comical mental image of AJ at his parade, surrounded by kids with balloons, people waving flags, and marching Boy Scouts. He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who does anything in daylight.

I call Shelby around lunchtime to see if her mom can pick me up after work. I don’t want to ask AJ today.

“Sure,” she says. “We’re still on for fireworks, right?”

“Of course,” I say, trying to sound happy about it.

Meg rescues me around one o’clock. I’ve been flipping through
Seventeen
. I can’t believe their back-to-school issue is out already. Oh where, oh where is this fictional high school from the
Seventeen
magazine photo shoot with girls sporting the latest fall fashions as they walk toward the front doors of their school, leaves scattered at their feet, a perfect mixture of warm autumnal colors? Disgusted, I toss the magazine aside. I’ve had enough false hope for one day.

“Whatcha doing?” Meg asks.

“I just took a quiz called ‘Do You Take Enough Beauty Risks.’” I tell Meg. “I don’t.”

“What counts as a beauty risk? Applying lipstick while driving on the New Jersey Turnpike? Getting a bikini wax from an unlicensed technician?”

Meg has porcelain skin, big, blue eyes and straight black hair she wears in a perfect, chin-length bob. Although she’s probably considered curvy by high school standards, in the real world, it doesn’t seem to matter. The men in the newsroom are always checking her out—just like they do Alexis—the difference being that Meg is genuine.

“Still going to the drugstore?” I ask. “I’m feeling a strange urge to buy berry lip gloss and navy mascara.”

“Sounds like a plan,” she says. “Let’s go.”

It’s more than an hour later when Meg and I finally walk into the newsroom with our haul from the drugstore and bubble tea (I got mango; it’s delicious). I’m beginning to panic about being gone so long, but Harry doesn’t yell at me or anything. I’m sure the burger Meg brought back for him helped.

I see AJ is at his computer, working on his parade story, no doubt. We work in silence for a while before AJ gets up, wanders over to the TV, and starts flipping through channels. When he lets out a really loud yawn, I look up from my computer to see him stretching his arms and twisting his back like he’s warming up for a run. His shirt is more formfitting than usual, and I find myself staring at his broad back and biceps. Drummer muscles, I guess. My skin feels warm and tingly. I quickly look at my screen again when he turns around and starts heading back toward his desk.

“Still mad at me?” AJ asks.

“I wasn’t mad.”

“Good. ’Cause I was only pointing out the obvious about Coma Boy,” he says.

“What? That he uses people? Sounds an awful lot like dating some girl and then referring to her as your I-don’t-know.”

My annoyance resurges as I picture AJ with Jessica on Saturday and the way he was absently touching the ring around his neck this morning.

“Are you talking about Jessica? Because I never said—”

I cut him off. “You don’t have to tell me. I don’t want to know. Who you date is your own business.”

AJ opens his mouth to say something but perhaps thinks better of it.

We drift back into another forty-five minutes of working without talking, till my ride arrives and I can finally put my superslow Fourth of July weekend at the
Herald Tribune
to bed. Seems like even death took a holiday.

“Nice job on that parade story,” Harry says to AJ as quitting time approaches. “I hate parades, but your writing convinced me that this one was worth seeing.”

“Thanks,” AJ says.

It must have been some article, because Harry’s in an exceptionally good mood and doesn’t make either of us write a feature obit. Maybe he has a barbecue to get to.

chapter fourteen

Holiday Wrap-Up

Shelby’s mom drops us both off at my house after work. The plan is to have pizza with Gram and then walk downtown for the annual prefireworks reunion. It’s been only a few weeks since we’ve seen our classmates, and yet we all flock to Memorial Field, the high school’s football stadium, to walk laps around the bleachers and check one another out.

“You’re sure you don’t want to come with us, Gram?” I feel guilty leaving her home by herself again. I haven’t been around that much this weekend.

“You two have fun. You don’t need an old lady like me tagging along.”

“You’re not old,” Shelby says. She loves Gram. “You should see Ms. Highland, the eleventh-grade English teacher. Now,
she’s
old. She’s, like, too senile to even be teaching. Sometimes her wig shifts when she’s writing on the chalkboard.”

Gram reaches absently toward her wavy gray hair that she keeps stylishly short. “I’m glad I inherited my father’s good locks.”

The doorbell rings. My grandmother hands me some money.

“Pay for the pie, hon,” Gram says. “Maybe it’s a cute boy.”

I peek through the skinny window alongside the door to see if it’s anyone we know. He’s not cute as Gram had hoped. He’s not even a boy. He is old. Not old like my parents, old like Gram.

“Uh, Gram. I’ll let you handle this one,” I say. I walk back into the kitchen and hand her the money.

Gram returns a few minutes later carrying the pizza.

“Would you believe that was Freddy from the senior club?” Gram says. She puts the pizza on the kitchen table.

“
Freddy
, huh?” Shelby teases.

Grandma actually smiles and waves Shelby off in an aw-shucks kind of way. Great. Now my grandmother is getting more action than I am. I reach for a slice of pizza and take a bite.

“So, what are you going to do tonight?” Shelby asks.

“Watch the New York City fireworks on TV like I always do.”

“You should have gone to the family picnic, Gram. You could have watched the fireworks on the boardwalk,” I say.

“Are you kidding me? I’m not going to any family functions until that witch Angie apologizes.”

The D’Angelos are notorious grudge holders. There is always some cousin or aunt or uncle who’s at odds—or full-out warring—with another family member. The Gram–Aunt Angie feud is a fairly recent one (some last for years) and concerns Aunt Angie’s oldest son, the podiatrist. Gram made the mistake of patronizing a local foot doctor instead of having someone drive her the seventy-five miles to Aunt Angie’s son’s office in Toms River to have what amounted to nothing more than a high-tech toenail clipping. One has to wonder how word of Grandma’s toenail clipping ever got out. Not that it matters. Our family arguments are rarely grounded in logic.

Still, I know Gram is just using this as an excuse. She probably wanted to give my parents some space.

“You girls get ready to go,” Gram says when we’re finished eating. “I’ll wrap up the rest of the pizza.”

“Thanks, Gram,” I say.

“Come on, Sam,” Shelby says. “I can touch up my makeup while you change.”

“What’s wrong with what I’ve got on?”

Shelby is wearing a star-spangled ensemble, complete with a red-white-and-blue halter. I was planning on wearing the same jeans and T-shirt I’ve had on all day.

Shelby rolls her eyes at my grandmother. “Upstairs. Let’s go,” she says.

In my room, Shelby reapplies her red lipstick while I look through my closet. She looks at me in the mirror.

“Why don’t you wear that miniskirt? Show off your runner’s legs.”

“My legs are fat,” I say.

“Would you stop? You’re a size four,” she says. “Your legs are athletic.”

“I want them to be skinny,” I say.

“Just shut up already,” she says, and joins me at my closet.

She makes me change into a denim miniskirt and red tank top with skinny straps—and apply lip gloss—before we make the one-mile trek downtown.

*   *   *

After one lap around Memorial Field, Shelby runs into Mark, the guy behind the keg at the island-themed pool party. Mark is flanked by two guys, one of whom is that Josh guy who wanted me to play Quarters.

“Hi, Shelby,” Mark says. “Where ya been? I’ve missed you.”

“Around,” she says.

“Wanna sit with us?”

Josh stares at me like he’s trying to make me look at him. I chew on my lower lip.

“Maybe,” she says. “We’re walking right now.”

“We’ll be under the scoreboard if you want to come and look for us.”