Stranger Than Fanfiction(32)

“Shhh… he’s back,” Joey whispered.

“Okay, this place officially gives me the creeps,” Cash said as he squeezed into the booth. “I think McCarthy’s stands for McCarthyism. I just peed in a bathroom marked No Commies Allowed.”

The others were quiet and their body language had changed significantly from when he’d left the group.

“Why the long faces, Downer party?” he asked. “Are you worried I’m going to totally ruin your road trip and you won’t be able to watch Wiz Kids ever again?”

“Of course not!” Topher said.

“No way!” Joey said.

“Never!” Sam said.

“Why would you say that?” Mo asked.

“I don’t know, these days people always act like I’ve crushed all their hopes and dreams whenever I speak my mind. Thanks for letting me be honest in the car and being so cool about it. Well, except Jane Austen over here.”

Cash nodded to Mo and she hid her face behind a menu.

“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,” said a waitress dressed as Marilyn Monroe. “Apologies for the wait, we’re a little understaffed today. May I start you off with something to drink, or do you know what you want?”

“Hmmm,” Topher said as he looked over the menu. “I’ll take a McCarthy Milk Shake and the Red Scare special.”

“Now, that burger is cooked very rare, hence the name. Is that all right with you?”

“I’ll take it medium rare,” Topher said.

“That sounds good—I’ll have the same,” Sam said.

“Me too,” Mo said.

“Me three,” Joey said.

“Me four,” Cash said.

“Great, thanks for making my job easy,” the waitress said. She wrote down their orders but froze when she saw Cash. “Do I know you from somewhere? Did we go to high school together?”

Topher, Joey, Sam, and Mo tensed up—afraid they were about to be featured in a future talk show story. Cash played it cool; in fact, he almost seemed to enjoy not being immediately recognized.

“I don’t think so,” Cash said. “Where’d you go to high school?”

“Richwoods High, and yourself?”

“I was homeschooled in California,” he said.

The waitress was positive she knew him from somewhere and couldn’t let it go. “No, I know we’ve met before. Or maybe you just have one of those faces?”

“I get that all the time,” Cash said. “By the way, could we also get the ‘Hollywood Ten’-Piece Appetizer? With onion rings and mozzarella sticks, please.”

“You’ve got it,” the waitress said. “That’s five medium-rare Red Scares, five McCarthy Milk Shakes, and one ‘Hollywood—’”

It suddenly clicked where the waitress had seen Cash before. She turned bright red, placed a hand over her heart, and lost her breath.

“Oh my God you’re that guy from TV!” She gasped. “I’ve never seen your show—I don’t even know your real name—but you were in my People magazine crossword! What in the world are you doing here?”

“Just eating lunch,” Cash said.

“Oh right… duh!” the waitress said. “Well, I’ll be… I’ll be right back with your milk shakes.”

Topher, Joey, Sam, and Mo had embarrassed themselves so much when they met Cash that it was nice seeing someone else make a fool of themselves, too. They wanted to bust up laughing, but Cash was completely unaffected by the exchange.

“So what’d I miss while I was in the bathroom?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Mo said. “We were just going over the schedule for the trip.”

“Cool!” Cash said. “I’m anxious to know where we’re going. Probably should have asked before I chartered a jet to be here, but I was too excited. Would you bring me up to speed?”

“I’ve got the whole trip down to a science,” Topher said. “This afternoon we’re going to stop by the world’s biggest rubber-band ball on our way to St. Louis. In the city, we’re going to spend the evening at the Lewis and Clark Museum and the St. Louis Gateway Arch. Then we’re staying at the Paul Bunyan Hotel a few miles outside the city near the Mark Twain National Forest.”

“The hotel is made up of little cabins,” Sam added. “And they have huge statues of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox out front. It’s a great Instagram opportunity!”

“Tomorrow we’re going to spend the day hiking through the Mark Twain National Forest, then drive to Oklahoma City and spend the night at the Vacation Suites,” Topher explained.

“It’s nothing fancy, but it’s cheap,” Joey said apologetically.

“Tuesday we’re driving to Amarillo, Texas. We’re going to take a tour of the Bundy and Claire Jailhouse, where the outlaws had their famous shootout with the police, and then we’ll stay at the Teepee Inn.”

“All the rooms are shaped like teepees!” Mo said. “It isn’t politically correct, but it’s still adorable!”

“Wednesday we’re driving to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Along the way we’re going to stop at the famous UFO Observation Tower, built on the spot where extraterrestrials allegedly crashed in 1948, then we’ll visit Dinoworld, the largest collection of life-size dinosaur statues on earth, and then we’ll spend the night at the Albuquerque Vacation Suites.”