Panic

Panic Page 8

“I wanted to thank you again,” Nat said. “You were so . . . You were great. For helping me last night.”

Dodge felt vaguely disappointed, as he often felt when interacting with other people, when the reality failed to meet his expectations. Or in this case, his fantasies. Some part of him had been hoping she’d come over to confess that she’d fallen madly in love with him. Or maybe she’d skip the words altogether, and strain onto her tiptoes and open her mouth and let him kiss her. Except she probably couldn’t stand on her toes with her ankle the way it was, which is one of the 2,037 ways his fantasy was unrealistic.

He said, “It’s not a problem.”

She twisted her mouth, like she’d swallowed something sour. For a second she didn’t say anything. Then she blurted, “Did you hear Cory Walsh and Felix Harte were arrested?”

He shook his head, and she clarified, “Drunk and disorderly conduct. And trespassing.” She shifted her weight. “You think Panic is over?”

“No way,” he said. “The cops are too stupid to stop it, anyway.”

She nodded but didn’t look convinced. “So what do you think will happen next?”

“No idea,” he said. He knew that Nat was asking him for a hint. He swallowed back a bad taste in his mouth. She knew he liked her, and she was trying to use him.

“I think we can use each other,” she said abruptly, and it was this fact—the fact of her acknowledgment, her honesty—that made him want to keep listening.

“Use each other how?” he asked.

She picked at the hem of her skirt. It looked like it was made of terry cloth, which made him think of towels, which made him think of Nat in a towel. The sun was so bright, he was dizzy.

“We make a deal,” she said, looking up at him. Her eyes were dark, eager, and sweet, like the eyes of a puppy. “If either of us wins, we split the cash fifty-fifty.”

Dodge was so startled, he couldn’t say anything for a minute. “Why?” he asked finally. “Why me? You don’t even—I mean, we hardly even know each other.” What about Heather? he almost said.

“It’s just a feeling I have,” she said, and once again he found her honesty appealing. “You’re good at this game. You know things.” It seemed somehow surprising that Nat Velez, with her thick, perfect hair and slicked lip-gloss lips, would speak so frankly about a subject most people avoided. It was like hearing a supermodel fart: surprising and kind of thrilling. She plowed on: “We can help each other. Share information. Team up against the others. We have more of a chance of getting to Joust that way. And then . . .” She gestured with her hands.

“Then we’ll have to face off,” Dodge said.

“But if one wins, we both win,” Nat said, smiling up at him.

He had no intention of letting anyone else win. Then again, he didn’t care about the money, either. He had a different goal in mind. Maybe she knew that, or sensed it somehow.

So he said, “Yeah, okay. Partners.”

“Allies,” Nat said, and stuck out her hand, formally. It felt soft, and also slightly sweaty.

She stood up, laughing. “It’s settled, then.” She couldn’t crane onto her tiptoes to kiss him, so she just grabbed his shoulders and planted a kiss on the side of his neck. She giggled. “Now I have to do the other side, so you’re even.”

And he knew then that he was going to fall totally head over heels for her this summer.

Afterward, no one knew who had posted the video online; it appeared on so many pages simultaneously, and spread to everybody else so quickly, it was impossible to determine its point of origin, although many people suspected it was Joey Addison or Charlie Wong, just because they were both dicks and two years ago had secretly filmed, and posted, videos of the girls’ locker rooms.

It wasn’t even that interesting—just a couple of jerky shots of Ray and Zev swinging at each other, shoulders butting up into the frame as a crowd formed; and then flashing lights, people screaming, a moment when the feed went dead. Then more images: sweeping lights and cops’ distorted voices, tinny and harmless-sounding in the recording, and one close-up of Nat, mouth wide, with one arm around Heather and the other around Dodge. Then darkness.

Dodge still kept a copy on his hard drive, so he could freeze-frame on that final moment, when Nat looked so scared and he was helping support her.

Just a few hours later an email made the rounds as well. Subject line: blank. From:

[email protected]

The message was simple, only two lines.

Loose lips sink ships.

Nobody tells. Or else.

TUESDAY, JUNE 28

heather

“YOU’RE SURE THIS IS LEGIT, RIGHT?” BISHOP WAS SITTING forward in the driver’s seat, both hands on the wheel, maneuvering the car over a pitted one-lane dirt track. His hair looked even more exuberant than usual, as though he’d tried to style it with a vacuum cleaner. He was wearing his dad’s old Virginia Tech sweatshirt, loose flannel pajama bottoms, and flip-flops. When he came for Heather he had announced, with a certain pride, that he had not yet showered. “You’re not going to get axed to death by some psychopath, right?”

“Shut up, Bishop.” Heather reached out to shove him and he jerked the wheel, nearly sending them into one of the ditches that ran along both sides of the road.

“That’s no way to treat your driver,” he said, pretending to be offended.

“Fine. Shut up, driver.” There was an anxious feeling in Heather’s stomach. The trees here were so thick, they almost completely blocked out the sun.

“Just looking out for you, m’lady,” Bishop said, smiling, showing off the overlap in his teeth. “I don’t want my best girl to be turned into a lamp shade.”

“I thought Avery was your best girl,” Heather said. She’d meant it as a joke, but the words came out sounding bitter. Like a bitter, heartbroken, lonely spinster. Which she kind of was. Maybe not a spinster—you couldn’t be a spinster at eighteen, she didn’t think. But close.

“Come on, Heather,” Bishop said. He actually looked hurt. “You’ve always been my best girl.”

Heather kept her face to the window. They would arrive any second. But she felt a little better now. Bishop had that effect on her—like a human antianxiety pill.

The day after the challenge at the water towers, Heather had overslept, waking only when an anonymous text pinged on her phone: Quit now, before you get hurt. She was so shaken, she’d spent fifteen minutes searching for her car keys before remembering she’d stashed them on the hook by the door, then got fired from Walmart when she showed up twenty minutes late for her shift. And suddenly she had found herself blubbering in the parking lot. A week and a half earlier, she’d had a boyfriend and a job—not a good job, but still a job. A little money in her pocket.

Now she had nothing. No boyfriend, no job, no money. And someone wanted to make sure she didn’t play Panic.

Then, out of nowhere, she’d been attacked by a dog with the biggest tongue she’d ever seen. Maybe attacked was the wrong word, since the dog was just licking her—but still, she’d never been much of an animal person, and it had seemed like an attack. And some crazy old lady carrying a shit ton of grocery bags had offered her a job on the spot, even though Heather had snot dripping from her nose and was wearing a tank top streaked with salad dressing, which she hadn’t noticed in her rush to get out of the house.

The woman’s name was Anne. “Muppet’s taken a shine to you,” she’d said. Muppet was the name of the dog with the long tongue. “He doesn’t usually get on with strangers. You seem like you’re a natural with animals.”

Heather had stayed quiet. She didn’t want to admit that for the most part she thought animals, like pimples, were best to ignore. If you fussed too much with them, it would backfire. The only time she’d tried to keep a pet, an anemic-looking goldfish she’d called Star, it had been dead within thirty-two hours. But she said yes when Anne asked if she’d be into doing some pet sitting and light chores. It was $150 a week, cash in the hand, which was roughly the same as she would have made working part-time for Walmart.

Suddenly the trees opened up and they arrived. Heather immediately felt relieved. She didn’t know what she’d been expecting—maybe, after what Bishop said, a dingy barn full of rusting farm tools and machetes—but instead she saw a sprawling red farmhouse and a large circular parking area, neatly trimmed of grass. She could see a barn, too, but it wasn’t dingy—and next to it, a series of whitewashed sheds.

As soon as she opened the door, several roosters came trotting toward her, and a dog—more than one dog?—began furiously barking. Anne emerged from the house and waved.

“Holy shit,” Bishop said. He actually looked impressed. “It’s a zoo.”

“See? Not a human lamp shade in sight.” Heather slid out of the car, then ducked so she could say good-bye. “Thanks, Bishop.”

He saluted. “Text when you need a pickup, ma’am.”

Heather closed the door. Anne crossed the yard toward her.

“Is that your boyfriend?” Anne said, shielding her eyes with one hand, as Bishop began to turn around.

This was so unexpected, Heather’s face got hot. “No, no,” she said quickly, angling her body away from the car, as though Bishop, in case he was still watching, would be able to read the conversation in her body language.

“He’s cute,” Anne said matter-of-factly. She waved, and Bishop tapped the horn before pulling away. The blush grew to an all-over body inferno. Heather crossed her arms and then dropped them again. Fortunately, Anne didn’t seem to notice.

“I’m glad you came.” Anne smiled, as though Heather had just dropped by for a social visit. “Let me show you around.”

Heather was glad that Anne seemed to approve of her choice of outfit: clean jeans, sneakers, and a soft, nubby henley shirt, which had belonged to Bishop before he accidentally shrank it. She hadn’t wanted to look sloppy, but then again, Anne had told her to wear clothes she could muck up, and she hadn’t wanted to look like she hadn’t listened.

They started toward the house. The roosters were still running around like crazy, and Heather noticed a chicken pen on the other side of the yard, in which a dozen yellow-feathered chicks were strutting and pecking and preening in the sun. The dogs kept up their racket. There were three of them, including Muppet, pacing around a small enclosure, barking lustily.

“You have a lot of animals,” Heather pointed out, and then immediately felt like an idiot. She tucked her hands into her sleeves.

But Anne laughed. “It’s awful, isn’t it? I just can’t stop.”

“So is this, like, a farm?” Heather didn’t see any farming equipment, but she didn’t know anyone who kept chickens for fun.

Again, Anne laughed. “Hardly. I give the eggs away to the pantry sometimes. But I don’t pull up a damn thing besides bird poop, dog poop, poop of all kinds.” She held the door to the house open for Heather. Heather thought that she would probably spend the whole summer shoveling shit. “My husband, Larry, loved animals,” Anne continued as she followed Heather into the house.