I looked down at my lap: there was a plastic sand pail between my legs, the word TIPS APPRECIATED written on it in black marker. Inside was a bit of liquid I chose not to examine closely, instead turning again to my surroundings. White. Metal. Rattling and in motion. And my ass wasfreezing.
“Wait,” I said. “Are we in the Yum truck?”
“Yep,” I heard Roo say, from somewhere to my right. “And on our way to the Tides.”
The Tides? Oh, shit. My dad. “What time is it?”
“Eleven,” Bailey said, handing me my phone. “Which would be an hour after your father first texted asking you how the movie was.”
Movie? Oh, right. I grabbed the phone from her, then opened up my texts. My dad had sent his first message at 9:58.
How’s the movie? Want company? Can’t sleep!
Then, at 10:05.
Hello? Are you getting this? Let me know please.
I was starting to panic now. I gave a sideways look at the TIPS APPRECIATED pail, swallowing down a bad taste in my mouth. 10:21.
Concerned. Coming down to find you.
“Oh, shit,” I said. I thought I might puke again.
“No joke,” Bailey replied, craning her neck to look ahead, out the windshield. “Where are we now? I can’t see anything from back here.”
“Still in North Lake,” a girl replied. “But we’re getting close to the line.”
Oh, that’s Hannah, I thought as I recognized her voice. A beat. Then I remembered. Everything. Oh, God. Shame went over me like a wave.
It’s so different, I’d said. I miss you, I’d said. I wish, I’d said.
Panicked, I made myself turn my head and look at Roo, who was bent over the steering wheel, squinting in the headlights of an oncoming car. How could I take it all back,now, after the fact? I’d been drunk, I didn’t know what I was saying.
But I did. And I’d meant every word.
“Okay,” Bailey said, pulling me back from this crisis to the other one at hand. “Now, the key is what you say to him first. It sets the precedent for the entire incident.”
“Incident?” I said.
“Well, he is pissed and, to use his word, concerned,” she said, gesturing to my phone. “Which means that once he sees you are safe, he’s just going to be pissed.”
“I’ll tell him I didn’t have reception.”
“And that might work,” she agreed, “if he does not see you arrive in this ice cream truck but instead finds you somewhere on the beach, ostensibly just finishing the movie.”
“Movie’s been over for an hour, though,” Hannah added from the front seat. I felt surprised by the rush of anger I felt toward her. What was wrong with me? “So you might want another plan.”
“How about this,” Bailey said as we went over a pothole, the entire truck rattling. “You were at the movie, then you bumped into Hannah and went to her place for a bit, where you had one beer, immediately regretted it, and returned to the Club, but the movie was over, so you just sat down on the beach to contemplate your bad choices.”
“This sounds like something we’d watch in health class,” Roo observed.
“Then come up with something better!” she barked at him.
“Okay, you don’t have to—” Roo stopped talking, suddenly, and I saw him look out his window. “Oh, crap. Pit stop ahead, at the market.”
“What?” Bailey asked. “We don’t have time for that!”
“We also don’t have a choice,” he replied, slowing down now and starting to take a left turn, widely, which almost threw both Bailey and me off the cooler and onto the truck floor. “It’s your mom with Gordon. She’s waving us over.”
