Maybe I would have pressed the button when the sluggers abducted me from Diego’s house if they’d given me the chance. Maybe it was better that they’d taken me before things with Diego went too far. Maybe we were better off just being friends.
It doesn’t matter. Maybes won’t save the world.
? ? ?
The one thing I never thought to hope for was to not be awakened by a sandy kick to the ribs from a homeless man with curled, yellow toenails because aliens from outer space had dumped me in the middle of nowhere mostly naked again. I’d prayed to God for money and for my parents not to get a divorce, I’d begged Santa for a new computer, I’d even offered the devil my soul in exchange for a passing grade on my Beowulf exam, but I’d never thought to hope for something useful. Not until after the fact, anyway.
“Kid, you okay?” I peeked through my crusty eyes as a fungal zoo of a toe prodded my arm, and a grizzled, bearded face framed by ashy predawn light leaned over me. He reeked of piss and seaweed.
My mouth felt like I’d gargled used urinal cakes, and my cracked lips stung.
“Kid?” The man dipped nearer. His foul breath jolted me awake as surely as if I’d been electrocuted by sluggers.
“Where am I?” I asked instinctively, though the familiar sand dunes and sea oats were a dead giveaway. A cool breeze blew off the water, misting me with salt. Though it could have been any beach on any part of the planet, I knew it wasn’t. It smelled like home.
The old man cackled and coughed and hacked up a glob of phlegm that he spit into the sand too near my feet for comfort. “Must’ve been some party.”
“What time is it?” I asked. The sun was still little more than a vague promise in the eastern sky. “God, what day is it?”
“Bit young to be living so rough,” the bum said, and I wanted to laugh at the irony of being told off by a man who clearly hadn’t showered since Clinton was president.
“Just . . . what day is it?”
“Monday. I think.” He scratched his beard and tapped at the sky, mumbling about dates, trying to recall where he’d been yesterday. “Definitely Monday. Maybe.”
That meant I’d been missing since Thursday, which wasn’t possible. People only went missing for that long in sitcoms, which always ended happily, or horror movies, which rarely ended happily unless you were white and chaste and not gay.
I remembered kissing Diego—Diego who liked me and wanted to kiss me and didn’t care who knew—and he’d gone to get us drinks. Then the sluggers abducted me. Which meant that when Diego had returned to his bedroom, I’d disappeared without saying good-bye. He must have thought I’d freaked out and run away. I instinctively reached for my phone, but the aliens had stripped me of everything but my festive turkey boxers. Gobble, gobble.
“I have to go.” When I tried to stand, I stumbled, but the old man caught me. His fingers were rough and grimy, and left streaks of filth on my arm that I fought the urge to wipe off. “Thanks,” I muttered, and pointed myself toward the road, ignoring his offer of help.
? ? ?
Charlie’s legs stuck out from under the Wrangler when I trudged home twenty minutes later, and country music filled the morning silence. It wasn’t loud, but I was still surprised Mr. Nabu hadn’t called the cops to complain. He complained about everything, including the fact that we still had our Christmas lights up in July. By that time, Charlie refused to take them down because it was already closer to next Christmas than it was from last.
I exaggerated my stride, letting my feet smack the driveway so I didn’t startle Charlie. When I got within two feet of the Jeep, he froze and said, “Zooey?”
My throat felt like a lemon was lodged behind my Adam’s apple, and I tried to work up a mouthful of saliva to swallow so I could answer. “Nah, I’m much prettier.”
Charlie scrambled out from under the Jeep. His face was smeared with grease, and he was wearing his WIZARDS DO IT WITH WANDS T-shirt. In one motion, he embraced me and squeezed out my breath, wordless but shaking. He’d pinned my arms to my sides so I couldn’t even hug him back, not that it seemed to matter.
“Where the fuck have you been?” He held me at arm’s length, examining me.
“Nowhere.”
“We called the fucking police, bro.”
“When?”
“Saturday.” Charlie knuckled his temple. “Some guy came by looking for you Friday. Said you were at his house on Thanksgiving.”
“Diego?”
Charlie grabbed a rag from his back pocket and tried to clean his hands, but they were so filthy, all he did was smear the dirt around. “Maybe. Yeah, I think so. He was worried about you.”
Diego had come to look for me. I was an asshole. He’d probably spent the weekend searching Calypso for me. I had to let him know I was okay. “Do you have your phone?”