Shattered Castles 1 : Castles on the Sand (16 page)

Alex just looks back at the screen. “And here's our hero, with a shirt on? Aw, you know that's gotta come off. I'll bet you five M&M's that it'll be off within the next fifteen minutes.”

“Five M&M's?”

“It's what I've got.” He pulls a bag out of his pocket. “I figured sneaking beer in for a church activity would not be cool. These were too easy. You want some?”

Right at that moment, the hero takes his shirt off.

“How many will I owe you then?” I ask.

He chuckles. “Oh, greasy hair. You know that's a bad guy.”

The greasy haired guy pulls out a gun and starts shooting, and I laugh, which I realize is completely inappropriate.

“Yeah, this is a great church activity,” mutters Alex.

I remind myself that the person who's cracking me up is a psycho.

“Listen!” bellows the hero on the screen.

“Morons,” Alex slips in.

“You-”

“greasy-”

“low-life-”

“B-listers-”

“need to know-”

“that we've got two more hours of this garbage and we can't blow anything too big up yet or else we'll be through the special effects budget and have to just use stock footage for the rest of the film.”

I'm laughing before I can even think to stop myself.

Carson switches hands and slips his arm around my shoulders. I turn to him. “Sorry. I'll be quiet.”

“Since when does Alex do movie reviews?”

“I dunno.”

“Is there trouble in paradise, kids?” says Alex.

“Hey,” I turn to him. “Knock it off, all right?”

“Knock what off?”

“Mocking me.”

That shuts him up for a few scenes.

I want Carson to let go of me. His arm feels like it weighs a ton, but I can't extract myself without rejecting him outright. Madison, I think, you made out with JP on the first date, and it wasn’t even really a date. Why are you being so frigid with Carson?

Part of it, I know, is that I still feel attached to JP. I wish he'd responded to my message and that we could have talked. I don't really know what I'm doing here. Another part of it is that I just don't feel the same draw to Carson that I did to JP. I still don't feel like kissing him.

“You ever listen to Rifftrax?” Alex asks.

“'Kay, let's just watch the movie.”

“These guys who do audio tracks that you watch with a movie. You sync it and they make fun of the movie as it plays. I wanna see this movie with the Rifftrax.”

“Sounds like you can do that all on your own.”

“Am I interfering with your cinematic experience here?”

“Yes, you are and you know it.”

“Sorry.”

“You are not.”

“Yeah, true. I'm not. Man is this a stupid flick.”

“You drove yourself. You don't have to stay.”

That shuts him up again. He munches more M&M's.

Carson squeezes my hand so tight I wince and tug it loose. “Ouch.”

“Sorry.”

Alex holds out the bag of M&M's to me. I politely refuse and he resumes eating.

I have completely lost track of the movie, though as Alex has pointed out, the plot is so formulaic that I'm sure I could pick it up again with a glance. I don't want to be here, sitting between these two. I wonder if I have the courage to get up and walk out, but then I examine how that would look. Carson asked me out, but then I sat next to Alex and spent the whole first part of the date talking to him. That, I have to admit, probably made Carson feel left out, which wasn't very nice of me.

But come on, I think. It's
Alex
. Who cares if I talk to him?

I turn back to Carson and hold out my hand. “Sorry. He's just joking around, okay?”

He takes my hand again with a wary look at Alex, who ignores both of us and eats more M&M's.

We all sit in silence for most of the rest of the film, which feels as if it's ten hours long. Alex finishes his candy, wads up the wrapper, and holds it in his clasped hands. I don't dare look at him, but I find I strain my peripheral vision, wondering what he's doing.

The movie reaches its climax and the explosions begin and go on, and on, and
on
. I glance at Alex and he just stares at the screen, as if he's actually watching.

When I look at Carson, though, he's looking at me.

“What?” I say.

He rolls his eyes.

“No, seriously. What?”

“You and Alex buddies, then?”

“What are you talking about? I've known him just as long as I've known you.”

“Minus the months he's spent in juvie, so not as long.”

“Okay, fine, you want to talk to me, talk to me. Don't pick a fight with him.”

“Can you keep it down?” says Alex.

I ignore him and round on Carson. “Seriously, what did I do? I am here with you, holding your hand, okay?”

“Very charitable of you.”

I pull my hand out of his. “I don't do charity.” I get up and walk out.

As soon as I'm squinting in the bright lights of the lobby, I wonder why I did that. Was Carson right to get his feelings hurt? Did I seem to be flirting with Alex? I laughed at his jokes, and I have to admit that I do think he's gorgeous. But I also think he's a psycho, and furthermore, he's not interested in me. Or did Carson think that he is?

Suddenly the lobby feels stifling too. I head out into the parking lot, where the fresh air feels glorious, as if I've been in a sauna for two hours. There's a light mist in the air and everything smells like damp earth and asphalt.

“Madison?”

I turn to see Carson coming out the front door.

“I'm sorry, okay?” he says.

“I wouldn't hold hands with you if I didn't want to.”

“Sure you would. You're nice like that. You don't like hurting people's feelings.” Somehow he makes a compliment sound like an insult.

I don't know how to respond.

He folds his arms across his chest and says, “I have never heard Alex talk that much to anyone. I didn't know he told jokes, like ever.”

“Carson...”

“It was weird. I'm sorry. I was surprised. Since when are you two friends?”

“We aren't friends. And I thought he talks to everyone these days.”

“A little bit. He doesn't hold conversations, or like in there? He was talking more than you were.”

“So what are you trying to say?”

“What am I trying to say? Okay... I'm trying to say I'm sorry, and I'm trying to explain why I said what I did.”

“Apology accepted.”

People start to come out of the theater, and before long, the rest of the Mormon herd are arrayed around us. Alex stands slightly back.

“Okay, let's go home,” says Carson.

LaDell turns to Alex. “Can I get a ride with you? You live closer to me.”

He nods.

I wave goodbye to her just like everyone else does, and then the rest of us get into the MAV and again, for the ride home, I sit across from Carson, who puts his full attention into driving, signaling at every single turn. There is silence in the back, and I can't tell if it's stoney silence or just exhausted silence. It is pretty late.

Carson drops me off first, and again, I don't know whether to read anything into that or not. He does walk me to the door and we shake hands, which I find weird, but in a good way. I don't want to kiss him, even on the cheek, in front of the other girls. I'm not sure I want to at all.

What I really want to do is call Kailie and gossip, but there's no way I can. She'd just play more mindgames.

I step inside and my gaze falls on Mom, who sits at the kitchen table, looking at me like I reek of garbage and excrement. “I let you do pretty much anything you want, and you're joining up with the Mormons?”

“N
o, I haven't joined them. It was a movie night,” I explain.

“It was Mutual.”

“Huh? No... I think they said mutual, or whatever you call it, was cancelled. Carson asked me out.”

“It's John, isn't it?”

“What? No-”

“Has he been in touch with you?”

“Yeah, but-”

“Why? Why do you talk to him?”

“I don't really. He emails me.”

“He emails you
what?”

“He tells me about our family and stuff. It's no big deal.”

“Your family are a bunch of Mormons.”

“They're still my relatives. I'm not gonna go to church with them. I just want to know who they are.”

“Toxic, weak minded sheep who follow their cheerful leader. They claim to have a prophet, did you know that? One guy in Salt Lake City who talks to God and tells everyone else what to do.”

“Yeah, I kind of looked that stuff up. Definitely not gonna join the religion, so don't worry about it.”

“Mormons hate women, all right? They're misogynists. They believe your place is home, pregnant, with a lot of craft projects so that you can pretend you matter to the world but you
don't.”

“I'm not gonna marry Carson or join the Church, so it's all good.”

“I said the exact same thing about James. Oh, I'll never marry
him
. I'm
no one
and he could have
anyone
. I'd be
lucky
to end up with him. Then at eighteen I'm living in a studio apartment with twins on the way and that's it. That's my life.”

“Okay, stop. Getting ahead of ourselves here.”

She buries her face in her hands. “I did
not
escape from that life to have you turn right around and waltz back in.”

“I am not going to church with them!”
I shout.
“
Stop lecturing me and
listen
. I am not looking for a relationship with God. I went on a date with Carson. There's a
difference.”

Mom gets to her feet. “How often do you talk to John?”

“I don't know. He emails me. Sometimes I email back.”

For a moment she just stares at me, her eyes narrowing, then she lunges across the room and slaps me across the face. Pain explodes across my still tender nose and sinuses and I find myself clinging to the fridge door handle to keep from falling down. I must have stumbled into it after Mom's blow. “Mom...”

She curses, then ducks out the back door.

Papers flutter in her wake and I snatch one out of the air. It's a cancelled rent check. The others on the floor prove to be other canceled checks, but I take a closer look at one and see that it's actually a bounced check. Mom's overspent her bank balance again. I pick them all up – a headache beginning to throb behind my eyes – and stack them neatly on the table again. I hate it when mom hits me. She never does it hard enough to leave a mark, but it stings to have the one person I live with hate me so much that she resorts to violence.

It makes me feel like a stranger in my home, an intruder, someone who isn't welcome. When I walk back to my room, I can't even sit down on my bed, I perch on the edge and catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. The two black eyes have faded into just dark circles, but I wonder if they'll purple up again.

Out in the back yard, I sense more than hear her potters wheel start up. I hope that calms her down.

And I really wish I could call Kailie. I flip through my pitifully short list of phone contacts and stop on John's name. A glance at the clock tells me it's eleven p.m., which means it's midnight in Utah. My thumb hesitates, then punches the send key.

One ring and I feel like I'm being rude. Two and I feel like I'm taking a bad night and making it a million times worse. Three and I get ready to hang up.

“Hello?” says a sleepy voice.

“Hi.”

“Mmm, hi. Who's this?”

“It's Madison.”

“Madison?” He says my name as if I'm a movie star who just called him at home. “Really? How
are
you? It is so good to hear your voice.”

“I
'm sorry to call so late,” I say.

“I love you,” is John’s reply.

“Thanks.”

“What's wrong?”

“Nothing,” I lie.

“If you say so.”

“Yeah, I'm sorry to bother you. I should just get to bed.”

“Whoa, hang on. What did I say wrong?”

“Why do you always have to be such a know-it-all?”