Out of Whack (24 page)

       “Okay, bad call on my part,” remarked Travis.

       “No, it’s fine, it was Mike.”

       “Oh. You should have told him to fuck off for me, too.”

       I grabbed my portable CD player off the desk. “I’m going for a walk.” Maybe listening to the group Everyone Should Die But Us would calm me down.

       “No, you’re not. You’re going to call Laura.”

       “Quit bugging me about this, I mean it.”

       “If you don’t call her, I’m going to call her myself.”

       “The whole thing is over. Let it drop.”

       “Nope. I’m part of Out of Whack, too.”

       I was getting exasperated. “What is it with you people? There
is
no Out of Whack.”

       “There will be after I call her.”

       Travis got up and picked up the phone. I could have wrestled it out of his grip or thrown part of the wall at him, I suppose, but I just stood there. Though I desperately wanted Laura back in my life, I just couldn’t see her having any desire to return after what happened.

       Travis glanced over at Laura’s phone number, which was on a piece of paper designed to hold the wide array of numbers we planned to accumulate. So far it contained the numbers for Laura and Stinky’s Pizza Parlor.

       He dialed.

       “Hi, may I speak to Laura?... Laura, hi, it’s Travis... yeah, I know... yeah... yeah.. .okay, see you then. Bye.”

       He hung up.

       “Everything’s cool,” he said.

       “I beg your pardon?”

       “We’re going over there tomorrow night at eight. You’ll need to have a script ready.”

       “I beg your pardon?”

       “Pretty wild, huh?”

       “What’d she say?” I demanded.

       “She said she figured you’d change your mind, and that all was forgiven. Personally, I thought the conversation went fairly well.”

       I sat back down, flabbergasted.

       “Now, I expect you to behave yourself tomorrow,” Travis informed me. “If we can get through the evening without you killing Out of Whack again, we should be fine.”

“We Actually Accomplish Some Stuff”

       Larry knelt down next to the coffee table with his five year-old daughter, Ashley. They had blank paper, crayons, and a pair of plastic scissors spread out in front of them.

       “Okay, Ashley, what do you want to draw?” Larry asked. “Do you want to draw our house?”

       Ashley shook her head. “I want to draw a person.”

       “Do you want to draw Bill, our mailman? Miss Polyer said that her art class enjoyed drawing him so much that they hired him for private sessions.”

       “Uh-uh. I want to draw Aunt Margaret.”

       “Oh, Aunt Margaret is a good person to draw. You had a good idea, Ashley.”

       Ashley began to scribble on the paper. Larry looked on with approval.

       “You’re doing a very good job, honey. Can you draw Aunt Margaret’s brown hair?”

       Ashley nodded, then picked up a brown crayon and began to draw in some hair.

       “That’s very, very good,” Larry told her. “You’re going to be a famous artist when you grow up. Now can you draw those huge copper earrings that Daddy bought her as a joke, that Aunt Margaret feels obligated to wear whenever Daddy is around?”

       Ashley drew in the earrings.

       “Oh, that is very, very, very good, honey. Now can you draw the tumor that’s slowly killing her?”

       “Uh-huh.” Ashley continued drawing.

       “Wonderful, sweetheart. Daddy is so proud of you. Now, what color will Aunt Margaret be after the tumor kills her?”

       “Green!”

       “That’s right!”

       Ashley used her green crayon to color over the picture.

       “Okay, let’s play a game,” said Larry. “When the worms finally make it inside her coffin, what parts will they eat?”

       With the plastic scissors, Ashley cut off both of the arms and one of the legs.

       “Once again I can see why I love you so much. Now, let’s suppose that cultists break into the graveyard and exhume her corpse. Which part of Aunt Margaret would they find most useful for their unholy rituals?”

       Ashley cut off the head.

       “Exactly! And what would they do with the head?”

       “Burn it.”

       “And why aren’t you going to show me that?”

       “It’s dangerous to play with matches,” Ashley said, beaming with pride.

       “That’s absolutely right! You’re Daddy’s girl, no doubt about it.”

* * *

       Laura set down her script. “This is really sick,” she said with a grin, dropping the little girl voice.

       “Why, thank you very much,” I said.

       Travis dipped his chocolate bar into his glass of Mountain Dew and took a bite. It was a new taste sensation he’d discovered that was gradually getting on our nerves. “I think it sounds good.”

       Laura nodded. “I like it, but do you think it’s too, um,
dark
for us to perform in front of people?”

       “Nope,” I said.

       “Uh-uh,” Travis said.

       “Okay, as long as we’re in agreement. What about the paper? Should we have a really big piece, so they can see what I’m drawing?”

       “We should have a pre-drawn picture,” I suggested. “You can just pretend to draw at first, but really scribble the green on it, and hold it up when you cut off the arms and legs.”

       “That’ll work.”

       Laura was doing an exceptional job of pretending that nothing had happened. We’d been in her dorm room for about fifteen minutes and hadn’t said one word about last night. If Laura wanted to wipe it from her memory, well, I was all for it.

       “Next,” said Laura, extending her arm toward me. I handed her and Travis the next script. I’d written the tumor skit during that day’s English class, but this was one I’d written during the summer.

       “This one should be easy to do,” I said. “We’ll just push two chairs together and pretend that you’re in a car. Costumes might be a problem—you two have just gotten married, so we’ll at least need a veil or something.”

       “We’ll see what we can find at Goodwill,” Laura said.

       Travis took another bite of dipped chocolate. “Ready for the read-through?”

       “Always,” Laura told him.

       Through their almost-magical acting abilities, Travis and Laura became Sean and Tracy, a newly married, rice-covered couple driving away from the church.

* * *

       “This is the happiest day of my life, sweetie,” said Sean.

       “Mine too, honey,” said Tracy.

       They drove in silence for a moment, just enjoying each other’s company. Then Tracy pointed out the window. “Slug bug!” She punched Sean lightly on the arm.

       “Hey, watch it!” said Sean, amused. He chuckled, but then his eyes began to dart back and forth, actively seeking out another slug bug.

       “I can’t believe everything went so smoothly,” said Tracy. “The caterers really knew what they were doing. Here I was all worried that there wouldn’t be enough butter, and yet there was plenty for everyone, which was surprising because you know how much Aunt Lyn loves butter.”

       “Mmm-hmmm.” Sean’s eyes were squinted as he moved his head back and forth. If there was a slug bug to be found, by God he was going to find it.

       “And you know,” Tracy continued, “I was against little Charlotte being one of the bridesmaids. I mean, she’s only seven, but she didn’t misbehave or anything. Oh, I think I caught a glimpse of mischief in her eyes once or twice, but she managed to keep it in check. The McCormick boy, though...I don’t know why his mother thinks he’s ready to go out in public. I mean—”

       “Slug bug!” Sean shouted, victoriously. He lightly socked her on the arm. “What was that you were saying about the caterers, sweetie?”

       “The conversation about the caterers is over and done, honey.”

       “Oh. Sorry I missed it.”

       They drove in silence for a moment.

       “Ha! Slug bug again!” shouted Sean. “But since it’s our wedding day, I’ll skip the slugging part just this once.”

       He grinned.

       “You’re very happy with yourself, aren’t you?” asked Tracy.

       “A little.”

       “Oh, you’re just pleased as punch that you saw two slug bugs to my one.”

       “I did see two, and I deserve to feel good about myself.”

       “I don’t think you need to be so smug about it.”

       “I have every right to be smug. I saw them before you.”

       “Fine. Be smug.”

       Another moment passed.

       “Slug bug!” Tracy shouted.

       “Where?”

       “In the alley. We just passed it.”

       “I didn’t see it.”

       “It was there.”

       “What color was it?”

       “Blue.”

       “You lie!”

       “I’m not lying!” Tracy insisted.

       “Okay, fine, let’s just turn the car around and check.”

       “Don’t turn around. We’ll miss the plane.”

       “What’s the matter?” Sean asked. “Scared that if we go back the slug bug will have mysteriously vanished? Or are you just doubting what you think you saw?”

       “This is ridiculous.”

       “Admit it. There was no slug bug in that alley.”

       “I’ll admit no such thing.”

       “Well, then, you’ll have no problem with us going back to confirm your little slug bug sighting.”

       “Come on, honey...”

       “Scared? Scared that the slug bug you say was just shining away in that alley for all the world to see might have floated up into the heavens? Oh, I know—maybe
elves
took it!”

       He started to turn the car around. Tracy placed her hand on his shoulder and spoke quietly, head hung. “I didn’t really see a slug bug.”

       “What was that, sweetie?”

       “I didn’t really see a slug bug.”

       “Gosh, what a surprise!”

       There was a long, uncomfortable pause.

       “So,” began Tracy, “isn’t Hawaii going to be fun? Relaxing on the beach, sipping champagne...”

       “I’m not entirely certain I want to relax on the beach and sip champagne with somebody who would purposely try to deceive me about a slug bug sighting.”

       “Please, just let it drop.”

       “Oh, would we have let it drop had I been the one to falsify the report?”

       “Can’t you find it in your heart to forgive me?”

       “I don’t know,” said Sean. “You betrayed my trust. You tried to claim points on your slug bug witness scorecard that you hadn’t really earned, and something like that takes time to get over. And I honestly don’t believe that you’re truly sorry. I think that if we had to rerun the whole ugly scenario a second time, you’d pretend to see that slug bug all over again.”

       “I wouldn’t!” Tracy insisted.

       “I guess we’ll never know, will we?”

       Tracy pointed up ahead. “Look! There’s one! I’ll let you have it!”

       “You...you’d do that for me?” Sean asked, genuinely touched.

       “Of course I would.”

       “No, this is our wedding day. Let’s do it together!”

       “Slug bug!” they shouted in unison.

       “I love you, sweetie,” said Sean.

       “I love you, honey,” said Tracy.

       “Now, sweetie, let’s pull over to the side of the road and ravenously claw at each other’s bodies.”

* * *

       “No ad-libbing, Travis,” I said, dropping my copy of the script on the floor. “Okay, I think that one sounds all right, if I can say so myself without being an ego-maniac. Now all we have to do is scoot the chairs apart and we’ll be all set for the next one.”

       “What about costume changes?” Laura asked, glancing at the third script. “Most talk show hosts don’t wear bridal gowns.”

       “We should probably make the veil the only wedding thing you wear during the slug bug skit,” I said. “Then all you’d have to do is take it off and you’d be in costume for the interview.”

       “Works for me,” said Laura, transforming into talk show host Heather.