Sammy Keyes and the Wedding Crasher (23 page)

Whatever. I had nothing to hide. If they wanted to follow me to the mall and see me pick up lavender high heels, fine.

So as we crossed Broadway and cut over to the mall, I changed the subject by asking Marissa what was going on with her parents. What I got back from her was a big, fat
“Who knows?” followed by a rant about how her mother hadn’t bothered to check in with them yesterday, and why even have kids if you’re not going to be good parents, and how she wished she and Mikey could stay at Hudson’s forever.

“You don’t mean that,” I told her as I pulled open one of the mall’s big glass doors.

“Yes, I do!” she said, but her chin was quivering. “I used to feel sorry for you because you don’t know who your dad is, but you know what? I’m starting to think you’re lucky. At least he can’t let you down.” She swiped away a tear. “And he won’t drop you in the dirt in the middle of your life.”

A bunch of thoughts ran through my head.

The first one was You have no idea what you’re talking about! followed by It’s better to have been held and dropped than never to have been held at all.

That, of course, made me think of the original cliché: It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, which, of course, made me think of Casey.

And this may seem weird, but to me there was some sort of connection between my dad never having been in my life and Casey now being out of it.

In both cases it felt like I’d been robbed.

And then, right there in the middle of the mall, I connected the dots.

Both times, it was my
mother
who’d robbed me.

It was like she
was
a soap character. One who kept secrets. One who manipulated. One who timed her interruptions for maximum dramatic effect. And Casey and
I had been like two characters in her soap—held apart by forces beyond their control … finally on the cusp of getting together … finally in each other’s arms … inching closer and closer for their first kiss … when suddenly the Diva of Destruction enters the room and drops a bombshell that flings the characters apart forever.

I don’t even remember getting to KC Shoes. I was too busy getting lost in Lady Lana’s soap opera. But then Marissa’s voice breaks through the daze. “Aren’t you going in?”

“Huh?” I blink at her. “Oh. Oh, right.”

Kenny’s leaning against one of the Plexiglas displays like a mannequin. “Hello!” he says, coming to life when we step inside. Then he recognizes me. “Oh, yay. Debra will be so relieved. I’m under strict orders to tell you to go over to her house
immediately
.” He hurries behind the counter and produces a shoe box. And as he hands it over, he says, “As a matter of fact, I think I’ll call her now and tell her you’re on your way.”

“You’re sure a full-service shoe store,” I grumble.

“What was that?” he asks, giving me an oily smile.

“Nothing.” I open up the shoe box, and what I see kinda startles me. I mean, I was expecting lavender shoes—and these are definitely lavender—but I wasn’t expecting the little glass beads that were glued over the toe area in the shape of a heart.

“Wow,” Marissa says. “Those are little princess shoes.”

“Did you want to try them on?” Kenny asks as he punches at the phone keypad.

I tell him, “No!” but it comes out in a ridiculously
desperate way, so I take it down a notch. “I mean, no, I’m sure they’re fine.” I scoop up the box and head for the door, calling, “Thanks!”

“So I guess we’re off to Debra’s?” Marissa asks once we’re back in the main mall corridor.

“She lives on Elm. About a block away from that little white church on Constance Street. You want to come?”

She says sure, and since I’m now lugging around a backpack, a skateboard,
and
a big shoe box, we go the coolest way possible—through Cheezers.

Trouble is, as we’re filing through, I look over at the dining area and see the same three guys the Vincenator had been hanging out with over the weekend. Bad Mood Bob doesn’t seem to be with them, but on impulse I snag two menus off the counter, grab Marissa by the arm, and head for the dining room.

“What are we doing?” she whispers.

“Just be cool,” I whisper back.

Then I drag her inside.

I slip into a seat near the bikers and hold a menu in front of my face.

“Why are we doing this?” Marissa whispers around the side of her menu.

It’s a good question, and to tell you the truth, my real answer is pretty lame.

It’s just a
feeling
.

So instead of telling her that, I shrug and say, “So we can tell Spy Guy that we were tracking Captain Evil?”

“Captain Evil’s not even here! And he’s not going to
be
here! He’s home having a nervous breakdown, remember?”

“Shhhh!”

She rolls her eyes and disappears behind her menu but pops out an instant later. “And I don’t have money for a pizza, do you?”

I shake my head. “I don’t even have money for a Coke.”

She gives me a stern look. “Then I suggest we go!”

The biker guys are laughing and joking and passing around a pitcher of beer, but there are only three glasses,
and Marissa’s right—it’s not like the Vincenator is anywhere around. Plus, the bikers are talking
stupid
stuff.

“Do you think Mantrap Marcie will be back this year?”

“You can have Marcie. I’m goin’ for Skullcap Sue!”

“Man, it’s about the ride, not the chicks!”

“No, man, it’s about the ride
and
the chicks!”

“Kick-start my heart! Can’t wait to get outta here!”

They all laugh and clink their mugs together. “Hogtoberfest!”

Marissa gives me a disgusted look, then leans forward and whispers, “So, you’re planning to report all this to Mikey?”

I sigh and put down my menu, and I’m about to get up and leave when the one with the blocky granite face opens his ringing cell phone and says, “Yo, Curveball, update me, man.” And after a couple of minutes of uh-huh-ing, he goes, “I’m with Flash and Bones—we’re at Cheezers.” Then he’s back to uh-huh-ing for another minute before saying, “When do you take delivery on that?” He gives the other guys a thumbs-up and says, “Awesome!” into the phone.

One of the Evil Eye manager guys checks us over as he brings the bikers a pizza. And since Marissa’s obviously right and since I don’t want ol’ Evil Eye to ask what we’re ordering, or Flash and Bones and Gargoyle—or whoever the granite-faced guy is—to notice us, I just grab my stuff and we scoot out of the dining room, then hurry to the back door of Cheezers.

“What was that all about?” Marissa asks once we’re outside. “Those guys are total
losers
.”

And, yeah, I’m feeling kind of stupid and pretty defensive. So I say, “Hey, just because they’re bikers doesn’t mean they’re losers.”

She looks at me like I’ve lost my very last marble. “It’s three in the afternoon and they’re sucking down beer. Obviously, they don’t have jobs!”

“Maybe they work the night shift?”

“So they’re getting hammered
before
work?” She flashes a look at me. “And did you hear the way they were talking about women? They’re disgusting losers!”

She was right, and I knew it. And even though I’d always thought of Mr. Vince as being disgusting and kind of a loser, he seemed miles more responsible than his buddies inside Cheezers.

Which got me to thinking that maybe they weren’t even his friends. Maybe they were just, like,
acquaintances
he’d run into there and had hung out with for a little while.

Marissa’s squinting at me. “What were you hoping to
do
in there?”

“I don’t know, okay? I don’t know!” And as we pass by the same three Harleys we’d seen the day we’d been to the mall with Mikey, I’m
feeling
like I’m Mikey—like I’m in some make-believe world where I can spy on people and figure things out. Only instead of spying on someone who might actually have something to do with what’s been going on, I’m spying on middle-aged men who call themselves Bones and Flash and make toasts to “Hogtoberfest.”

Whatever
that
is.

We trudge along in silence clear across the mall parking
lot until finally Marissa says, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to come down on you like that.”

“Hey, I was being an idiot.”

She laughs. “That’s usually
my
role.”

“No, it’s not. Your role is to wreck things that have wheels.” I grin at her and pull away. “So don’t
even
think you can borrow my skateboard.”

“I am so done with skateboards,” she says. And since we’re real near Cypress Street, she asks, “Hey, can we drop our stuff at Hudson’s before we go over to Debra’s?” So we cut down Cypress, dump everything but my lavender shoes at Hudson’s, and
then
head out.

“Her house is so
cute
,” Marissa says as we go up the walkway. But the minute Debra answers the door, the word
cute
vanishes, and what we’re thinking instead is some combination of
Holy smokes
and
Ouch
and … 
She’s a carrot!

“I know, I know!” Debra says, and then bursts into tears.

“What happened?” I ask, following her inside.

“I went to the tannin’ salon, but it was my first time and I didn’t think I looked dark enough, so I bought some Quik Tan, and … and … now I look like this!”

“Will it wash off?” I ask.

“No!” she wails. She shows me her palms, which are bright orange. “And the weddin’s
tomorrow
.”

I try, “Maybe it’ll fade into a perfect tan by then?” but she just bursts into tears again, crying, “No, it won’t!”

“Where’s the tube?” I ask, looking around. “Does it give any directions about how to
undo
?”

She collapses onto the couch. “I don’t think so.…”

So I search, and when I find the tube, what’s it tell me?

A whole lot of nothing.

“Maybe there’s a site on the Internet?” Marissa says, standing by a small desk near the couch. “Do you want me to try to find something?”

“Go ahead,” Debra hiccups.

“By the way, I’m Marissa,” Marissa says as she types at Debra’s laptop. “You probably don’t remember, but I’ve met you before at the police station.”

Debra sniffs hello and after a minute asks, “Did you find anything?”

“How to Fix a Tanning Cream Mistake,” Marissa reads aloud.

Debra sits up a little. “Really?”

So Marissa skims the article and says, “Basically, you soak for an hour in the tub, exfoliate, then apply baking soda paste, rinse, and apply baby oil, then dab on lemon juice, take a shower, and moisturize.”

“I don’t have
time
to do all that! The rehearsal’s at eight!”

I put out my hand to help her off the couch. “You don’t have time not to.”

“But I’ve got to hem your dress!”

“Just show me how and I’ll do it.” I couldn’t believe the words actually came out of
my
mouth, but they did.

She takes my hand. “Are you sure?”

I pull her up. “Sure I’m sure. Marissa’ll help me. We’ll do it while you’re soaking in the tub.”

So she brings out the Mountain of Lavender, which makes Marissa’s jaw drop. “That is a lot of dress,” she whispers in my ear.

When I’ve burrowed my way into it, I let Debra triple-zip me up, then I step into my stilettos and stand completely still while she sits on the floor and pins the hem to the right length.

After she’s cut off some extra fabric, she sets up Marissa and me with needle and thread and shows us how to do a slip stitch. And since the skirt is about a mile of fabric around, it’s like Marissa and I are hemming in our own little universes.

“You got it?” she asks.

“No problem,” I tell her.

“Got it!” Marissa says. “Now go in there and light some candles! Turn on some music. Relax!”

“Oh, that sounds so nice!” And after clicking through a stack of cases in a bookshelf, Debra pulls out a CD and says, “You girls ever heard of Darren Cole?”

Marissa starts bouncing up and down. “I
saw
him! In Vegas! With my mom!” She laughs. “My mom
loves
him.”

Debra chuckles and says, “Yup,” like, Who doesn’t? But all of a sudden I’m totally down in the dumps. Long story short, there’s a Darren Cole song called “Waitin’ for Rain to Fall,” and it’s, like, my “Casey” song.

Anyway, once Debra’s in the bathroom with the door closed, Marissa whispers, “She looks
horrible
.”

I force away thoughts of Casey. “Shhh!”

“And she really clashes with this dress!”

“She’s not wearing this dress,” I whisper back. “
I
am.”

Marissa looks up from her sewing. “How
do
you get yourself into these things?”

I shake my head. “One wrong step at a time?”

Anyway, we sit there and sew, and although I do prick my finger hard a couple of times, I don’t die, or fall into an enchanted sleep, or anything like that. By the time Debra’s emerging from the bathroom, we’ve made it all the way around the bottom of the dress.

Well, Marissa’s done about three-fourths of it, and I’ve done the rest.

“Nice job!” Debra says, inspecting Marissa’s stitching. Then she sees some of mine and pulls a little face.

“Hey! It’ll hold it together.”

She kisses the top of my head like Grams might have and laughs. “I suppose it will.”

“So baking soda’s next, right?” Marissa asks.

“You know, I can do the rest myself. Soakin’ in the tub was so soothing. Thank you, girls.”

She’s looking as orange as ever, but at least she
feels
better.

So we head out the door, only at the last minute she calls, “Wait! Your dress! And your shoes!”

I stop and blink at her because, really, I don’t know how I’m going to haul them up the fire escape without being seen. “Uh, I can’t leave them here?”

At first she says, “No,” but then I can see the wheels turning in
her
head. And I don’t know if that’s because Officer Borsch has told her about my living situation or because she’s thinking she could really use some help, but
she says, “Uh … the other girls, Brandi and Tippy? They’re meetin’ here tomorrow before the weddin’ to help me out.”