Call the Shots (Swim the Fly #3)(66)
“You don’t even feel bad about it, do you?” I ask. “Exploiting a disability like that?”
Coop makes a face. “Please. If anyone should feel bad it’s Paul Blart. He’s the one who didn’t have the patience to wait for a poor stutterer to f-f-f-finish t-t-t-telling his s-s-s-story.”
Just then, my bedroom door bursts opens and Matt rushes in. “Holy crap,” he says, looking all bleary eyed, like he didn’t sleep a wink last night. “Evelyn is totally insane. You were right. I’m sorry I ever doubted you.”
Coop, Matt, and me have convened at my house today to finalize the casting for the movie and to organize our filming schedule for this week.
Well, that, and to debrief each other on what went down at the mall yesterday.
“So what the hell happened?” Coop laughs. “Your texts last night were incoherent.”
“Oh, my God, okay, so listen to this.” Matt hops up on my bed and leans forward. “After Evelyn tried calling Sean’s phone a billion times. And after we tried calling your phone, Coop.”
“I was being detained,” he explains.
“Yeah, well, when we couldn’t get in touch with you guys, Evelyn started getting more and more panicky, until at last she’s convinced something terrible’s happened to you. So we search every freakin’ store in the mall, including both restrooms, then she badgers security to announce your names over the PA system. And we wait and wait, and when I finally say that maybe we should just give up and go home, Evelyn goes absolutely ballistic. I might as well have suggested we strangle a couple of babies. She started screaming and wailing and blubbering that I was a terrible friend and that you both could be dead in a ditch somewhere.”
“Oh, man. It sounds like a total nightmare.” Coop bites his lower lip, trying not to crack up as he leans back in my desk chair. “You’re a real hero, there, Mattie.”
Matt gives Coop a death stare. “Thanks for nothing, dipshit. But I’m still not finished.” Matt shakes his head like he can’t believe he actually survived this train wreck. “So we’re searching all the stores. Again. And Evelyn’s darting in and out asking all the employees — again — if maybe they’d seen you two. All this time, I’m trying to talk her down, but everything I say keeps making her madder and madder until finally, I swear to God, I see her jack a shirt from GUESS. Right after the store clerk blows her off. Evelyn’s totally steamed, ranting and raving, and she grabs this fancy blue guy’s shirt off the shelf and stuffs it into her purse.”
“What?” Coop says. “She doesn’t get caught and I do? That’s bullshit!”
“Yeah, well,” Matt goes on, “at this point I don’t know what the hell to do. I’m thinking maybe she was just so crazed she didn’t realize that she was stealing. So, when I try to casually ask her about it, Evelyn goes apocalyptic. She rips the arm off a sweater mannequin at H&M and starts clubbing me with it.”
That’s when Coop completely loses it. He doubles over, howling with laughter, tears rolling down his cheeks. And I can’t help it, I start cracking up too. The image of Evelyn whaling on Matt with a mannequin arm is just too priceless.
“Laugh it up, boys,” Matt says. “You weren’t the ones who got chased down an up escalator by an arm-wielding klepto psychopath.”
“Oh, man.” Coop is laughing so hard he can barely speak. “I would have paid good money to see that.” He sniffles, wiping the corners of his eyes.
“I’m so sorry, Matt,” I say, catching my breath. “God, she sure didn’t seem too concerned about me when I tried getting in touch with her last night. She wouldn’t even take my call.”
Matt grimaces. “Yeah, well, she was concerned. Until we were leaving the mall. We’re heading toward the bus stop, Evelyn’s blowing her nose, apologizing for wigging out on me, when suddenly she stops dead in her tracks. And her eyes narrow. Then she starts running after this bus and screaming at the top of her lungs, ‘Stop! Stop! Stop that bus!’”
Coop and I stare at Matt with identical you’ve-got-to-be-shitting-me faces.
Matt holds up his hand. “I swear to God, I had no freakin’ clue what the hell she was flipping out about until the bus pulled away and she came back. It was like she’d flicked a switch. She was totally calm. Eerily calm, especially after everything I’d just witnessed. She said that she’d just seen the girl you were flirting with in drama class. Then she told me to have a good night and marched off.”
“Leyna?” I say, my lungs feeling like punctured balloons. “She saw Leyna? Holy shit!” I stand and start to pace the room. “You should have led with that information, Matt. It would have given me more time to go into hiding.”
Matt screws up his face. “What are you talking about?”
“Evelyn’s brother! Nick? Giant guy? Navy SEAL? Remember him? I’m sure she’s told him by now. Oh, God. I’m a dead man. That’s it. Forget the movie. Forget everything. I have to get out of here.” I bolt to my closet, grab a duffel bag, and start shoving clothes into it.
“What the hell, dawg?” Coop says. “Chillax. It’s not like she saw you two together. So she saw Leyna at the mall? Big whoop. That’s hardly incriminating. I seriously doubt Nick will do anything just based on that.”