“Come on. It could be fun. Don’t you think we all need a little break?”
“I don’t even know if it will be all of us. Do you really think Val will leave Javi? And Jean is still trying to get somebody to take his weekend lawn-mowing gig. Besides, I don’t know if babysitting a bunch of developmentally disabled people is a break.”
“We’re not babysitting, Alice. They’re adults. We’re just keeping Gordie company. God, stop being so negative all the time.” I riffled through a plastic bin for flashlight batteries.
“Okay, Mom.” She sat on the step and watched me collect the batteries and stack the flashlights, bug spray, and waterproof mat before we told my parents we needed to buy snacks for the camping trip.
We pulled up in front of Shawn Flynn’s hedgerows a little after nine. I was sure we would be early and I would be able to make small talk with Shawn and D-Bag, grab a bottle of rum, and leave. But it must have been one of Shawn’s happy-hour-starts-at-four parties, because people were already stumbling all over the place.
“You can totally stay in the car,” I said to Alice, whose violet hair, piercings, and camo skirt didn’t exactly fit in with the bikini chic.
“No, I’m dying to see what one of these parties is like. I’ve heard they’re exponentially more obnoxious than anything we have in my town.”
“I’m sure.” We bypassed the inflatable bounce house, probably left over from one of Shawn’s little sister’s over-the-top kid parties (a vomit disaster waiting to happen), and went around back.
“Oh my God, Sadie, where have you been? I’ve texted you, like, five times.” Parker was drunk.
“Hey, Parker.” I hugged her and reintroduced Alice. Parker had also been in troop 186. “Sorry. I’ve been recovering still. My spleen is really acting up.”
“Oh, you poor thing.” Parker made a pouty lip. “I feel terrible. I have a bunch of cranes I’ve been meaning to drop off.”
“That’s so nice of you to keep making them,” I said, pulling Alice into the crowd.
Music blasted from the Flynn mega-speakers and people were actually dancing. Shay and I always tried to get people to dance at last year’s parties, and nobody would.
“Sadie, where’s D-Bag?” Seth’s friend Alec said, dripping water all over my sandaled feet.
“I think he’s up in Shawn’s room,” I lied, glancing over at Alice, who was taking it all in. I grabbed Alice’s hand and pulled her toward the laundry room entrance. Lucky for us, the door opened. I checked the cabinets above the washing machine. “Voilà,” I said. A row of small bottles was shoved behind the detergent and fabric softener.
“Do I even ask?”
“Shawn’s housekeeper has a bit of a drinking problem. And I was the friend who washed the puke towels the morning after parties.”
“Of course you were.”
I grabbed one of the small bottles of rum, tucked a ten-dollar bill under one of the other bottles, and led Alice out the front door. It was both a relief and a disappointment that nobody noticed I had been missing from the parties for weeks.
“Yeah, pretty much what I expected,” Alice said when we were safely in the car and en route to the old cemetery. “Was there any part of you that wanted to stay?”
I considered the question, thought about the times I would get a little nervous if I had to miss a party, worried I would be out of the loop, afraid I wouldn’t get the latest round of inside jokes. “No. Actually, I’d much prefer to be burying a drug dealer poppet in a cemetery with nine pennies and a bottle of rum.” I laughed. Alice laughed so hard she snorted.
“When you put it that way, it does sound kind of weird.”
We parked at the edge of the cemetery.
Alice whispered, “Come on. Let’s do this.”
With the light of our phones, we waded through brush that was probably full of ticks and thick, overgrown woods to the cemetery, a mismatched plot of seven or eight stones. Alice reached into her bag and pulled out the Hector doll, which she had wrapped in black cloth, tied with twine, and knotted precisely nine times.
“Here, start digging.” She gave me a serving spoon.
After several minutes of digging furiously, tossing rocks, and burrowing around stubborn roots, I looked up. “I think we’re good.”
“Remember, we’re supposed to walk away without looking back,” she said, kneeling down. I nodded. She placed the wrapped poppet in the hole, along with the bottle of rum and the nine pennies, supposedly gifts to the spirits, and we quickly covered the hole with dirt.
“Let’s go,” Alice said. We walked back through the creepy wooded lot and sped away in the Subaru.
“Feel better?” I asked before I got out.
“I think so,” she said.
I hoped, for Alice’s sake, her spell would work.
Usually, the only thing my parents ever fought over was yard work. Mom was abnormally protective of her garden and she went ballistic if Dad accidentally mowed one of her plants. She might be less upset if he mowed me.
But that night, my parents had a huge fight. They fought so hard I was sure Willie Ng could hear them over the sound of his porn. They fought about how to best help me get over the night wanderings. Dad said to let me be and allow me the freedom to hang out with my friends and get over it in my own time. Mom accused Dad of still not being over what happened to him when he lost his thumb. Dad accused Mom of taking away his stand-up comedy, the only thing that helped him stay sane. She told him not to go there.
I stayed in my bed, still as the summer air, overhearing the whole ugly interaction. I woke terrified in the middle of the night, sticky with sweat. But Flopper and I stayed right where we were.
I didn’t want to cause any more trouble.
By breakfast, the storm had blown over, and my parents were annoyingly affectionate.
“You must be pretty comfortable with this crew to introduce them to your Flopper,” Dad said as I tucked Flopper inside my sleeping bag and rolled it up.
“Hey, there’s no shame in having a Flopper, Woody,” I said.
My parents loved that I was hanging out with the homegrown heroes, that I was going camping with the Turtle Trail folks, that I had found my do-gooder people. “And guys, please stop worrying about me. I’m good. I’m really good.”
I kissed them and got into Gordie’s car before Are you sure? Let’s talk about it could escape from either of their mouths.
TWENTY-ONE