Side Trip(26)

With Judy dead and Joy alive. Sisterless.

This time the memories picked up right where she’d shut them down while waiting for Dylan to get onstage. She was back in the back seat of Judy’s car, hiding under the wool blanket, and trying not to puke as the Plymouth Belvedere lumbered around one hairpin curve after another.

They finally made it without Joy making a mess in the back seat. After Judy had parked her car and left for the party, and after Joy discovered that Taryn’s family never made it to the lake as planned and that she was locked out of their cabin, she realized she had to do something until she could duck back into Judy’s car before she left. She was starving, sticky with dried sweat from hiding under the blanket for almost an hour, and she had to pee. Desperately.

She ran down the street into Kevin’s yard and weaved through a crowd of drunk and stoned graduates. She stole into the house, around a corner, down a hallway, up the stairs, through another hallway, and slipped hopefully unseen into the first unoccupied bathroom she could find.

She peed, applied a fresh coat of guys’ deodorant she found in the medicine cabinet, and had just rinsed her face when someone knocked on the bathroom door.

Startled, Joy stared at her reflection.

“Joy? It’s Kevin.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. Shoot. She’d passed him in the hallway downstairs. He was talking with some other guy and she didn’t think he saw her. So much for thinking she could be invisible. Did he know Taryn wasn’t home? Had he asked Judy where she was? Joy hadn’t thought of that. What if Judy had told Kevin that she was grounded?

Ugh. Could she be any more embarrassed?

She glanced at the window. Two stories up and not an exit option. No way out the door either but to walk through.

She stared at her reflection. Play it cool.

“Just a sec.” She turned on the tap, pretending to wash her hands. She then opened the door and stepped into the hallway. Kevin backed up, giving her space.

“Hi.” His voice was shy.

“Hi.” She twisted her fingers, her gaze at his chest level, suddenly feeling shy herself. Kevin wore board shorts and a loose tee. Blond hair spilled over his face in tousled disarray, towel dried and uncombed. His nose and cheeks were sunburned red. He smiled.

“You made it. Your sister said—”

A shrill voice shot upstairs, cutting him off. Judy, looking for Todd.

“Do you want to hang out?” Joy blurted with an anxious glance toward the stairs.

He gestured at the door behind him. “My room.”

“Cool.” Joy scurried across the hall and into the room. Kevin closed the door right after she heard Judy shout, “Where the hell is Todd?”

“Wow, it’s noisy downstairs.” Joy breathed a sigh of relief.

“What’s up with Judy?”

Joy shrugged. “Who knows?” She didn’t care, so long as she could avoid her sister the rest of the night. She needed to get back into the car without Judy knowing that she was there, or Joy’s single night of punishment would change to sixty-plus nights. The whole summer break. Her dad would ground her for sure, because Judy obeyed the rules. She’d rat Joy out.

Joy walked farther into Kevin’s room, gaze darting everywhere. Along the dresser, over to the nightstand with a beige lamp, and the unmade bed. Nothing in the room revealed much about the guy who’d held her interest since the fifth grade. And now she was alone with him in his bedroom. Butterflies fluttered in her throat, beat their wings inside her chest.

The house was his family’s weekend home and there weren’t many personal belongings on display, other than a tube of sunscreen and Oakley sunglasses on the dresser. Damp swim shorts bunched on the floor.

“I wasn’t expecting company.” Kevin dived for the bed and straightened the covers. He scooped up the swim shorts and dropped them in the hamper in the closet.

Joy’s gaze fell on a paper plate with a half-eaten hamburger and an empty red Solo Cup. He scrambled around the bed and snatched up the plate and cup and tossed them in the trash. He wiped his hands down the sides of his shirt.

“I ate dinner up here.” He blushed as if the admission humiliated him. “Everyone’s drunk downstairs.”

She looked at the red Solo Cup in the trash. “Have you been drinking, too?” She hoped he wasn’t a boozer. Loser boozers. Kids that never amounted to anything.

“What?” He looked at the cup. “That was a Coke. My parents would kill me if they caught me drinking.”

“They’re here?” Joy looked from the door to the window like a trapped animal. His parents would call hers if they saw her.

Kevin went to the window. Joy reluctantly followed, but stayed back from the glass, afraid someone would look up, recognize her, and mention her to Judy. He pointed at the barbecue. “That’s my dad at the grill. My mom’s in the kitchen playing overlord to the key basket.”

“The what?”

“She collected everyone’s keys when they arrived. They have to crash here if they don’t have a designated driver or pass a sobriety test. Dad has a breathalyzer. There are two kegs out back.” He tapped the window with his knuckle. “No one’s going home tonight.”

“What?” Joy risked moving closer to the window and frantically searched for Judy in the crowd. She’d better not be drinking. Judy had told their parents she’d be home by eleven. Joy sneaked up here because she knew that she could get home before their parents returned from the country club gala.