“Since Mary said we needed more of a Nature Boy type,” Arden reminded her.
A picture formed in my head of one of those feral wolf children with the really long fingernails and matted hair.
“Where did you find him?” Terry’s voice vibrated with the pummeling of the massage chair.
“It was right after school. I happened to be walking past his car. Nature Boy’s, that is. Which of course was a Prius—”
“Where was I?” Lydia interrupted.
“Talking to your mom.” Arden held her hand to her face like a phone. “So he’s at his Prius, and I notice a big bag in back.”
Terry leaned forward in her chair. “Were you worried?”
“Not really? It was just a bag.”
“You never know,” Terry pointed out, in her most reasonable tone. “It could have been full of ropes and duct tape.” The young man towel-drying her foot paused to stare.
Arden shook her head. “I know it wasn’t anything weird because when we were talking he mentioned he was going to play disc golf in the park.”
“You talked to this rando?” Lydia cut in.
“He’s not a rando. My brother’s friend Tony used to play soccer with Jeff—a.k.a. Nature Boy—before he hurt his knee.”
This explanation did not satisfy Lydia. “Didn’t he think it was weird having you suddenly chat him up for no reason?”
“Ididhave a reason,” Arden informed her. “I was inviting him to our party.”
“What party?” I asked, afraid I’d missed something.
“The one I was going to plan if he said yes. But he was like, ‘Parties are not my scene.’” Arden relayed this in a rumbling bass before switching back to her normal voice. “I told him they weren’t necessarily our thing either. We just go to be sociable.” She smiled at her own cleverness. “Not bad, eh?”
Lydia gave her a look. “That he’s not coming to your pretend party?”
Arden waved this off. “There are plenty of other places we can hang out with him. For example, you know how Jeff is really into the environment?”
The three of us glanced at each other before shaking our heads.
“Remember, like the guy who swims naked outdoors? He’s all earthy and natural?”
“Tell me you didn’t invite him to go streaking through the forest,” Lydia said, giving voice to my private fear.
Arden sighed. “Give me some credit. While we were talking, I noticed that his car is covered with bumper stickers about saving the animals and clean water and ‘oh no, the trees’—that kind of thing. That’s where I got the idea, which by the way hasnothingto do with public nudity.”
The nail technicians weren’t even pretending not to hang on every word.
Lydia fiddled with her remote control, turning up the setting on her chair. “Whatdoesit have to do with?”
“Our club.”
“We’re not in a club,” Lydia pointed out.
“Yes, but Jeff doesn’t know that. Trust me, I made it sound convincing, but also casual.Oh hey, if you’re not doing anything Thursday, maybe you can stop by our amazing save-the-world club.” She fluttered her lashes aggressively.
It took Terry several tries to regain control of her jaw, which had fallen slack. “Is that the actual name?”
“I kept that part vague,” Arden assured us. “We can fill in the details later. He looked like he was trying to figure out how to say no, so I was like, ‘It’s just a few blocks away, at Mary Porter-Malcolm’s house.’ And it totally worked, because he got quiet for a second—probably thinking about baby seals—and then he was like, ‘What time?’ I said four o’clock,” she added, before we could ask. “Also, joining a club is totally on my list for Mary’s season.” She blew on her fingernails before pretending to buff them on her sweater. “That’s what you call multitasking.”
“Sounds like you thought of everything,” Lydia muttered.
