Butter (18 page)

I knew we were never going to work on Anna's paper. I doubted we'd ever be alone together again. And maybe that was for the best. If I had Anna even as a friend—and a real friend, not one of my temporary follower friends—then it would be a friendship worth staying alive for. And that was too tempting.

Because if I didn't go through with my plan, I could lose more than my place at Trent and Parker's table; I could lose any scrap of social standing whatsoever. If I turned out to be a liar and a coward who tricked the whole school into feeling sorry for me, then I'd be
lucky
to go back to being invisible. And that was a risk I wasn't willing to take … not even for Anna.

• • •

For the second time in a month, I had to pull my car over to puke in a parking lot. Only this time, it wasn't from overeating. The spinning that Anna had started in my head slipped down my body like a hula hoop and was now swirling in my stomach. She'd forced me to say things out loud that I hadn't even admitted to myself.

My life was black-and-white. Go through with my plan and go out a high school hero; or pussy out and go back to being a nobody. I didn't have time for Anna's shades of gray. If I allowed
myself to hope, to believe that kids might forgive—hell, might even root for me to live—I would only be disappointed in the end.

The only thing I knew for sure was that ever since I'd posted my plan on the Internet, my life had been better. I didn't want anything—not doubt, not even hope—to derail that train. I wanted to ride it all the way to the end … even if it was a dead end.

I heaved a few more times, but there was nothing left in my stomach to come up. I had to keep moving, distract myself from the danger of taking time to sit and think. I would even go another round with Anna if I had to—nothing like a fight to push everything else out of your brain.

And a fight was exactly what I was prepared to have when I got home and caught my mom in my room.

She was sitting on the bed, my saxophone between her hands.

“What are you doing in here? Why are you touching my things?”

Every time I snapped at her it stung, but I knew it was for the best. The fights would make it easier for her to let me go.

“You haven't played in weeks,” she said quietly, not looking up from the instrument. “I can't remember the last time you went a
day
without picking this up.”

I lowered my head. “Never.”

“Once,” she corrected softly, “when you were eleven. You had strep throat, and I wouldn't let you play. I locked your sax in our bedroom closet, remember? You were so mad at me.” She didn't
look up, but I could see that sad smile she was so good at slip onto her lips.

I had forgotten about that.
Man, moms remember everything.

“Are you mad at me now?” She sounded like a little girl asking the question, and when she finally looked up, I could see tears in her eyes.

I sighed and sat next to her on the bed. The mattress shifted under my bulk.

“Mom, I'm not mad at you. I'm just going through some stuff. I'm a teenager; we go through stuff.”

“Are you falling behind in school?”

“No. Why would I—”

“I don't see you doing homework. And you never mention Tucker or the Brass Boys. I worry you're giving it all up for friends who don't even come to the house.”

I sighed. “You worry too much.”

“You're not eating.”

“I
am
eat—”

“No, you're
not.
You have to eat. Baby, your diabetes—you
have to eat!
” She was crying openly now.

There is just nothing to cut a guy up like making his mom cry. I would have promised her anything right then, done anything in my power to comfort her. The emotion hit me like a thunderbolt.

Anything to comfort her—just like she had been doing anything to comfort me, including feeding me her
comfort
food.

And I'd been rejecting that food—rejecting
her
—for weeks.

I hesitated, then reached around Mom to wrap her in an awkward one-armed embrace. “Okay, Ma. I'll eat. I promise.”

She sniffled into my shoulder—or not so much sniffled as
sniffed.
She dragged her nose all over the arm of my shirt. “Did you get sick?”

“What?”

“Your shirt—it smells like vomit.”

Then, like a mom, instead of pulling away and wrinkling her nose, she buried her face deeper in my tee. “You threw up.”

“I wasn't feeling well.”

“Baby.” She pulled back, wiping tears from her cheeks with a stiff hand. “I need you to be honest with me about something. Are you bulimic?”

“No way!”

“Tell me the truth.” She was all business now.

“I swear. I would never throw up on purpose.”

“Then you're anorexic.”

“Ma, trust me. If I were anorexic, I would have lost a lot more than fourteen pounds.”

“You have. You're getting thinner every day.”

“Ma, that's a
good
thing.”

“It's too fast.” She chewed her lip, considering something. “Baby, I'm proud of you for losing weight, but I think you need to do it the right way. I think … I think you should consider Chicago. Consider BI.”

I sighed. Seeing my mom so distraught had sucked all the fight out of me.

“I'll think about it,” I said.

Mom blinked. “You will?”

“Yes.”

What was the harm in that? It made Mom feel better, and by the time I'd have to make good on that promise, I'd either be dead or just dying to transfer schools so I wouldn't have to face everyone.

A carton of eggs

An extra-large anchovy pizza

A stack of pancakes

An entire bucket of
fried
chicken

A package of uncooked hot dogs

One raw onion

A jar of peanut butter (sugar free)

An extra-large box of cookies

An entire meat loaf

A tub of ice cream

Three cans of Diet Coke

A jar of strawberry jam (sugar free)

16 oz. slab of raw prime rib

And one stick of butter

Trent's call came just in time. It had been two days since the faceoffs with Anna and Mom, two days of returning to those cushions in front of the TV and obsessively checking my website. I had tried to call Tucker, but either I'd waited too long to apologize for the bowling alley incident, or he was too busy getting ready for the institute to bother with the people he was leaving behind. I'd even swung by Logan's, hoping to catch the Brass Boys jamming, but had found the doors locked.

I was doing just about anything to keep my brain occupied; I even picked up the sax and blew a few notes for Mom's sake. My life was dangerously close to being back to normal, and worst of all—after two days, I was starting to get my appetite back.

So Trent's timing was perfect.

“Agent Butter, your mission—should you choose to accept it—is to meet Trent Woods and Parker Johnson in the parking lot of Scottsdale High at oh-nine-hundred hours.”

“Excuse me?” I said into the phone.

“Dude, it's Trent. Just play along.”

I laughed. “Okay.”

“Come alone. Bring your Beemer and your big-girl panties. Prepare for awesome.”

I was still smiling long after the line went dead.

The school lot was empty, save for Parker's familiar Corvette parked at the far end and two odd-shaped figures leaning up against it. They had to be Trent and Parker, but something was wrong with the shape of their heads. They were too tall and too …
flat?

Curiosity pushed my foot on the accelerator, and as I sped toward the guys, those long, flat heads came into focus—not heads at all, but hats.
No, wait, not hats either.
I squinted, then burst out laughing. I was still laughing as I parked my car and rolled out of the driver's seat, pointing at Trent and Parker.

They were decked out in shin guards, elbow pads, and two tiny little sandbox pails strapped upside down to their heads. They were also wearing their most serious expressions, which even my contagious laugh could not crack.

“Agent Butter,” Trent began in his booming voice. But that's as far as he got. The sight of him trying to be so serious in that getup just caused me to double over in a fresh peal of laughter. I looked up and saw the corner of Parker's mouth twitching.

“Wait, wait,” I gasped, wiping tears from my eyes. “What the hell are those?” I pointed to the sand pails.

“You're criticizing the official uniform?” Trent said in mock anger.

Parker touched the lime-green pail on his head. “We stole 'em from my little sister. This douche got the pink one.” He nodded at Trent, and the movement made his own pail wobble back and forth. That was too much. My laugh was coming out now like a thin whine.

“
Eeee hee-hee-hee!
”

Trent finally cracked. He and Parker laughed openly with me, our voices echoing around the deserted parking lot.

“Okay, okay,” Trent said, catching his breath. “So much for playing it straight.”

“Seriously, what's with the pails?” I asked.

“Hellooo!” Parker said. “They're not
pails
. They're
buckets
.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Buckets?”

“Butter, catch up!” Trent said. “It's Bucket List Day.”

Parker bounced on his toes. “Yeah, we're on a mission to complete your bucket list.”

“But I told you guys I don't really have a list,” I said. I wasn't sure I liked where this was headed. I'd been so keen to get out of the house and so caught up in Trent and Parker's energy, I'd forgotten to keep my guard up around my faux friends. Now I was suspicious.

“That's why we made a list
for
you.” Trent pulled a folded piece of paper from his back pocket and shook it open with a flourish.

I reached for the paper, but he snapped it back. “Oh no. One thing at a time.” He read from the page, “Do you swear to complete every item on this list without question and with all the courage you can muster?”

“I'm not swearing anything until I
see
that list.”

Parker laughed. “Told you he'd want to see it.”

Trent sighed. “You're taking all the fun out of it.”

“All right, whatever.” I threw my hands up. “Just tell me the first thing on the list.”

“Gladly.” Trent smiled and returned to the paper. “Number one: defend the Beemer's honor in a race against Parker's 'Vette.”

I eyed Parker's sleek Corvette. That one was tempting. No one ever gave the BMW enough credit. But I had no desire to spend a night in jail for drag racing, so I compromised.

“Tell you what,” I said. “I'll take you both for a ride in my car instead and show you what it can do.”

Parker looked relieved and lifted his eyes to Trent for approval. Trent thought for a moment and then nodded. “Acceptable.”

“Yes!” Parker pounded a fist in the air and leaned over to kiss the hood of his Corvette. “You're safe, baby.”

I moved toward my car, but Trent stopped me. “There's just one thing first.”

He leaned into the backseat of Parker's car and emerged with a tiny blue pail. A thin string dangled from the pail—a makeshift chin strap. “This bucket's for you.” He smiled.

“Aw, hell no. I couldn't fit that thing on my head if I wanted to. And I
don't
want to.”

“Good.” Parker tugged off his own pail. “That was starting to itch.”

• • •

Ten minutes later we were soaring down the freeway. The desert flew by my window so fast it was a blur of brown and green. Parker's fingers were white from bracing himself against the dashboard, and even Trent sounded timid when he occasionally spoke up from the backseat. “Dude, take it easy.”

The speedometer tipped toward a hundred as I left the city in my dust. With the windows down, the roar of the wind was almost as loud as the music blasting from the stereo. I had four wheels under my feet, two friends at my side, and this single thought in my head: for the first time since I'd decided to face down death, I felt really truly alive.

• • •

Trent directed me to drive east, and we sailed away from the city until the roads narrowed and began to wind. I watched him in the rearview mirror, consulting both the “bucket list” and the navigator on his cell phone. He ordered me off the highway and around some unmarked turns. We finally parked along a dirt road surrounded by saguaro and prickly pears and climbed out of the Beemer.

Parker laid his hands flat on the hot hood of my car. “BMW, I have a new respect for you.”

I smiled and tipped my head at Trent. “Who's got their big-girl panties on now?”

“Don't get cocky until you see what's next on the list.” Trent
motioned for us to follow him through a mess of sticky bushes. I fell behind, partly because the thorns on the bushes were catching my pants and partly because the uphill walk was making me tired. I was about to call out to Trent that I couldn't make it when he stopped short and turned back.

“This is it.” He grinned.

I huffed and puffed to catch up, and what I saw at the top of the hill took away the little breath I had left. The desert stretched out for miles ahead of us, while water rushed by below. We were on top of the Salt River cliffs. In the summer the cliffs towered over a river full of teenagers on inner tubes, floating down the Salt to escape Arizona's evil heat. But now, in the dead of winter, the water was unpolluted by humans. I would have appreciated this rare sight, if I hadn't suddenly realized what we were doing there.

“I know you don't think I'm jumping off this cliff.”