Devoured (9 page)

“So have you gone all the way yet?” Ari asks with a giggle.

I choke on my champagne and then pick up some of the foam gathered at the edge of the hot tub and throw it toward her. “Ari!”

She leers at me. “You’re still a virgin, aren’t you?”

“That’s none of your business!” I squeal, splashing her.

She laughs again. “It’s okay, I’ve never done it either.” She sinks a bit lower in the water, the top of her champagne glass tilts and fills with hot tub water.

“Look out!” I laugh.

She sits up and fumbles with her glass, dropping it into the tub. “Shit!”

We laugh some more as we feel around the bottom of the tub with our feet. “I found it,” I say, reaching down and grabbing the
flute
—which Ari explained is the proper name for a champagne glass. I explained that we don’t do a whole lot of celebrating at my house and therefore I was ignorant to the fact that there was a type of flute you don’t blow into. Ari then asked if I could tell a merlot glass from a chardonnay—to which I replied, “No,” and she vowed to educate me in the ways of sophistication.

She dumps the water out of her flute and pours more champagne from the second bottle we opened.

“What if Patty or your dad comes out and catches us?”

Ari snorts, dips her lips below the surface, and blows some bubbles. She comes up and crosses her eyes, looking woozy. “Patty’s probably out cold.” She shakes her head and looks at me sadly. “And my dad is such an old fuddy-duddy he’s in bed by nine o’clock sharp.” She raises her flute in the air. “This is why it’s important to party while you’re young and can still enjoy it!”

I raise my glass to hers and then we both sip our drinks. I look up at the sky and marvel at the stars. I went to New York City with Nicki’s family a couple of years ago to see
The Lion King
and was shocked that there was so much artificial light it made seeing the stars near impossible. But here, up high on the mountain overlooking the park, each and every star stands out crisply in the black sky.

“It’s so beautiful here—perfect.”

“I guess,” Ari says softly. She swirls a hand across the surface of the water and sighs. “But I’m still missing the key ingredient to my happily ever after.”

“Does Luke know you like him?” I ask, not bothering to pretend I don’t know she’s hot for him.

Ari clucks her tongue. “Sadly for me, he does. I stupidly made the first move and got the you’re-like-a-sister-to-me speech. That was over a year ago, and I keep hoping things will change—but it’s hard waiting, and seeing him all the time and wondering when he’ll realize I’m not a little kid anymore.”

“Do you think it’s because you were friends with his sister?”

“How did you know Kayla and I were friends?”

“Nicki told me.”

Ari nods. “Yeah, I think that may be part of it, but Kayla wasn’t much help either. She didn’t want us going out because she said if we broke up, it might ruin our friendship. I contended that my marrying Luke would make us sisters.” She drains her glass and then fills it again. “Sometimes I think Kayla just didn’t want to share him.”

I look up at the stars, not sure Ari will like what I’m going to say. I consider keeping my mouth shut, but I do feel bad for her, and the champagne is making me feel brave.

“You might want to back off a little, give him some room. It was kind of obvious you had it bad for him when we were in the costume room that day. Instead of always trying to hook arms with him or stand next to him, which gives off this needy vibe, let him come to you.”

I wait to see if Ari’s going to bite my head off.

“Maybe you’re right,” she says.

I realize I’m holding my breath, and exhale.

“Maybe if I turn off the I-love-you vibe then he’ll …” Ari sits up straight as a huge smile breaks out on her face. “Oh my God, he’s here! This is like fate!”

I turn around and see Luke walking out of the house with Nicki.

“Hey, ladies,” he says.

“What are you doing here?” Ari says. She looks sideways at me and beams.

“Patty called me a while ago to ask if I finished touching up the sign leading to Hansel and Gretel’s forest.” He picks at the paint clinging to his hands. “She sounded pretty out of it, so I thought I’d check in on you.”

Ari rolls her eyes. “Yeah, she started drinking as soon as she got the call that the new minicoaster is being delayed
again
.”

“That’s pretty sad,” Nicki says. “Are you going to get her some help?”

Ari’s smile evaporates. “It doesn’t happen all the time,” she snaps, then she looks at Luke. “I take it you’ve met Nicki.”

“Oh, I remembered her from the chorus.” He turns to Nicki. “I’ll never forget that song you sang a couple of years ago—‘Glitter’ something.”

“‘Glitter and be Gay,’ from
Candide
! That’s one of my favorite performance pieces! I can’t believe you remembered that.” Nicki smiles and waves a hand around like her performance was no big deal, despite the fact that she got a standing ovation.

“No, that song stuck with me for a while. Well, Kayla was singing it a lot too, but she was always talking about how good you were—that you should be on Broadway.”

Nicki gives him a bittersweet smile. “She was really good too, but I don’t know if I’m ready to take on Broadway.”

“Of course you are,” Ari says coldly. “Everyone says so, and you made quite an impression on Luke, who I didn’t know was such a music aficionado.”

Nicki gives Luke a quick, nervous glance, and I can tell she’s realized Ari’s heading down that slippery slope of jealousy. “Um, everyone likes music, right? It’s universal. Um, you know, it’s getting late, and don’t you have your big Land of Enchantment orientation tomorrow, Megan? Wouldn’t want you to be late for the slushy machine seminar.”

I nod and climb out of the hot tub, suddenly self-conscious of being in a bathing suit in front of Luke. I quickly grab my towel and wrap it around me. “Yeah, it’s first thing in the morning so we should get going.” I wobble a little on my feet, and Nicki grabs my arm to steady me. “There’s more champagne, Luke. Maybe you should join Ari.” I wink at her and she smiles appreciatively. “Thanks for having us over. Good to see you again, Luke.”

“Yeah, you too. I’m sure I’ll see you at the park.”

I come out of the bathroom clutching my wet bathing suit, and Nicki is leaning against the wall, her arms folded across her chest. “I hope your mother isn’t waiting up for you— she’ll know you’re trashed.”

My cheeks burn as I slide the straps of my tote bag over my arm. “I’m not trashed, but my mom has an early meeting with her lawyer so she’s probably in bed anyway.”

“Whatever, and, uh, thanks for abandoning me tonight.”

I scoff. “I just figured you were enjoying the movie, and you even said you weren’t sure if you wanted to go swimming.”

Nicki takes her keys out of her purse. “It would’ve been nice to have been asked! After the movie ended I had no clue where you two where. Luckily, Luke showed up and led me to the pool so I wasn’t wandering around this flagrantly overdone McMansion filled with butchered-up animal parts.

“Seriously, PETA would be picketing the Land of Enchantment in a heartbeat if they knew what was in here. Just look,” she says, pointing to an elephant foot turned into an umbrella stand by the front door. “How sick is
that
?”

I roll my eyes. “It’s obviously
old
stuff—from before endangered species were on anyone’s radar.”

“That doesn’t mean they have to keep it around.”

“It doesn’t, but why get all freaked out about it?”

Nicki opens the front door. “The real question is why are you okay with it?”

“I guess I’m not as morally superior as you are.”

Nicki glares at me. “Oh,
that’s
nice, and it must be nice knowing you can down as much champagne as you want, seeing as you have a chauffeur to drive you home.”

I sigh. “I’m
sorry
, I had a few drinks. It’s not like I make a habit of it, but I just don’t have the energy to analyze everything like you do. Yes, I think all the dead things are creepy, but they’re like antiques—maybe there’s some sentimental reason for keeping them around.”

“Well, FYI, this is my first and last visit to Casa Roy; if you plan on coming again, I suggest you finally get around to getting your license like you keep talking about or have Ari start chauffeuring you around.”

“Fine, I will!” I get in the car and wonder when Nicki turned into such an insufferable stick-in-the-mud—or what took me so long to notice. And she’s totally delusional if she thinks Ari will ever invite her over again, anyway.

Nicki turns the volume up and I know we’ll ride home without talking. It’s not fair. She’s always harping about stupid stuff and she doesn’t even know how lucky she is. I’d give anything to go home to a normal family every night and get praise for being great at something like her.

Instead, I’m stuck watching for Remy to pop up around every corner ready to scare the hell out me, and then go to sleep knowing I’ll probably have a nightmare about a girl left butchered on a forest floor. I close my eyes, feeling sleepy, and lean my head back against the seat. The face in the mirror comes to me. I see its hands clapping, with their long monster fingernails, and pray this image won’t be added to my repertoire of nightmares as well.

EIGHT

I walk downstairs and Mom’s on the phone. Great. I was hoping she’d be gone by now.

“I’ll try to find it, Shelly, but surely in this day and age, you can come up with some loophole—that is what I’m paying you for.”

Mom sees me and tilts her head toward the kitchen table, where I see she’s laid out breakfast—juice, melon balls, toast—something she hasn’t done in ages. I’m guessing Dr. Macardo thought Mom and I should sit down and talk, and this is her way of saying she’d rather just move on instead of rehashing the Remy stuff.

Fergus saunters over and I rub his ears. “Hey, boy,” I whisper.

“Look, I just want them to admit they were negligent and have his equipment upgraded.” Mom scoffs in frustration at whatever Shelly’s just told her. “Well, see what you can dig up before I get there!” She turns off the phone and takes a deep breath.

I sit down and help myself to some toast. I figure Mom is absolutely dying to grill me about the meltdown in Dad’s room, but I know she’ll avoid it so we can pretend the other night didn’t happen.

She pours herself some coffee and runs her fingers through her disheveled hair. “So,” she says after taking a sip. “Shelly’s trying to have the home take some responsibility for what happened and upgrade all of your father’s equipment,” she says like I didn’t just hear this when she was on the phone a second ago. “And I’m having her talk to the insurance company about doing some more tests—just to see how he’s progressing, see if there’s any new brain activity the home’s missed. It’ll be a fight, but …” She trails off, sipping her coffee again, and I wonder if deep down she knows it’s hopeless.

“Don’t forget I’ll be home late tonight,” she continues. “The competition is in Boston. Fergus and I have been working really hard and I think we have a good shot of beating that Brussels griffon—unless the judges feel sorry for the thing. A dog that ugly could get sympathy points. There’s a bichon frise from Long Island that’s getting a lot of buzz on the message boards too. I haven’t been able to find any online video of her; it would be nice to see what kind of costumes they have.” She rolls her eyes. “Although, I can’t for the life of me figure out what attracts people to those yappy little breeds.”

“I’ve got training at Land of Enchantment,” I say, not the least bit interested in talking canine freestyle with Mom. Seriously, who cares what ridiculous getup they’ve put on a small white dog with a bad Afro?

“That’s nice.” Mom pushes away from the table and puts her mug in the sink. “I might go through some of your father’s medical records before I head out to see if I can find something to help our case. I left some money for you on the counter so you can get something to eat tonight.”

“Thanks.”

She smiles at me, but I don’t feel any real emotion behind it. I suspect it was an automatic reaction to my “thanks,” and she’s already miles away thinking about the competition— and Dad. I watch her go into Dad’s study and wonder if she needs to find something that’ll fuel her hope that he’ll wake up to counteract anything Dr. Macardo may have said to her.

When I talked to Dr. Macardo, despite his efforts to appear unbiased, it was obvious he’s not a fan of leaving people hooked up to life support. He must’ve said, “You have to consider the quality of life,” a dozen times, punctuated by “Of course, only the surviving family members can make that judgment call after keeping themselves fully informed about their loved one’s condition.” I know he was trying to choose his words carefully, but the term “surviving family members” gave him away—he’s written Dad off, just like the doctors.

I hear Ryan’s car pull into the driveway and honk twice. I give Fergus one last scratch on the head. “Good luck, Fergie, kick some lapdog butt!” I grab my purse and head to the door. “Bye, Mom,” I call out. “Good luck!” I count to three but get no response and head out hoping Ari made good on her promise to keep Ryan and me together in the park.

“This is so exciting!” Samantha squeals as we head to the Over the Rainbow Café for our park assignments. “I was looking over our training packet, and I
so
want to do the Mermaid Lagoon boat captain thing. You get to sail around Enchanted Island, and I’ve even memorized the script just in case they have tryouts or something.”

I stare at Samantha in disbelief as she starts reciting the cheesetastic lines.

“While her sisters swam happily in mermaid lagoon, Meriope, the mermaid with long pink hair, longed to play with the children visiting Land of Enchantment. Can anyone find Meriope’s hiding spot?”

Samantha pauses, looking around with wide eyes as if she’s actually waiting for a boatload of kids to take their fingers out of their noses long enough to spot the fiberglass mermaid hidden in the rocks under the crushing weight of the waterfall.

When we were little, Remy and I always laughed at the poor mermaid statue getting severely pounded by the unnaturally blue water pumped out above her. Once the boat docked at the water park on the other side of the small island, some Land of Enchantment person playing Meriope—complete with the legs our laughter “magically” gave her—greeted us with a Super Soaker water gun. Nothing says “fun” like a mermaid packing heat.

Samantha nods, with a wild smile on her face, and points off to the side of the path. “Yes, you’re right, there’s Meriope! Wouldn’t you like to play with her too?”

Ryan and I exchange looks, and I’m relieved he looks as disturbed as I feel.

“You nailed it, Sam,” he says without any enthusiasm.

“It made me wish I was a kid again,” I lie, finding it hard to believe she’s seventeen and not seven. Of course, she’s exactly the kind of person they want working here— Samantha Lee Darling has found a home.

“Really?” she asks.

I nod. “Definitely.” Of course, I really want to refer her to Dr. Macardo, because taking the time to memorize such complete drivel is surely a sign of mental illness. Her being the ditz that she is also makes me worry about her ability to safely navigate a boat. I do have to admit I can see the four-and-under crowd totally eating up her schmaltzy performance, though.

“I checked off copilot on my application,” Ryan says. “I didn’t think I’d be up for the captain spot—it’s a little girly.”

“Thank God!” I say. “If you’d put in for that, I would’ve had no choice but to break up. As it is, I’m a little freaked out you signed up for copilot.”

“You know I like boats,” he says, looking embarrassed.

I raise one eyebrow. “Boats filled with cranky toddlers?”

“Well, no,” he says.

Samantha shakes her head. “If you’re doing your job right, they won’t be cranky. But anyway, I was reading the info packet, and it doesn’t take much to get bumped up the salary chain. I’m going to do whatever it takes to make level four and breathe some life into my bank account.”

“I don’t think you’ll have any trouble moving up a level,” I add.

“Megan!”

I turn to see Ari booking down a path in a rainbow-striped golf car.

“Hey!” I call out.

She parks the cart and leaps out. “Oh my God, I have to talk to you!”

“Ryan and Samantha, meet Ari—her dad owns the park,” I say as she bounds toward us.

“Your dad owns the park?” Samantha asks.

“Sadly, yes,” Ari says.

Sam gawks at her. “Seriously? Could you maybe talk to Miss Patty? Because I would do
anything
to get on the Enchanted Island boat captain rotation!” Samantha turns to me and gives me a look like she can’t believe her luck. “I even know the part by heart! While her sisters swam happily in mermaid lagoon, Meriope, the mermaid with long pink hair, longed to play with the chil—”

“You don’t have to do that,” Ari says, holding up a hand in Samantha’s face. She stares at Samantha for a second and then blinks twice. “It’s more than obvious you’d be
great
, and while I can’t make you any promises, I’ll see what I can do.”

Samantha pumps her fists in the air. “Oh, thank you so much!”

“You’re welcome,” Ari says. She gives me a sideways glance, and it’s obvious she’s picked up on the fact that Samantha’s completely deranged. “Hi,” she says, turning to Ryan and thrusting out a hand. “I’ve heard so much about you. Do
you
have any requests? Are you dying to be a captain too?”

Ryan shakes his head and blushes a bit. “No. I’m just hoping I get to work with my girls.” He puts his arms around me and Samantha, and I could crawl under a rock.

Ari gives Ryan an incredulous look. “How very
Hugh Hefner
of you.”

Ryan pulls his arm off Sam’s shoulder and starts stuttering. “Oh, no, uh, Sam’s just a friend.”

“I told you, Samantha’s his
best
friend,” I say, pretending to be annoyed with her. In reality I’m hoping that if Ryan hears this stuff from someone other than me, it’ll finally sink in that keeping Samantha around is not okay.

“Yeah, I think you mentioned that,” Ari says. “Hey, do you mind if I steal Megan for a few minutes?”

“Sure,” Samantha chirps a little too eagerly.

“I’ll catch up to you in a few,” I say.

Ari watches them walk away and then gives a low whistle. “She’s a piece of work! I definitely don’t think you have anything to worry about—I mean, who would go out with someone like that?”

“I think she got dropped on her head as a baby or something—she’s totally clueless, but there isn’t a mean bone in her body,” I concede.

“Well, I’m sure she’ll have a nice time cleaning up after the baby goats. I’ve got her spending the afternoons in the Fun Farm.”

I feel torn. On one hand, it’d be fun hearing Samantha complain about the shit factor in the farmyard, though there’s a good chance the baby animal cuteness will trump crap for her. On the other hand, she’d be 100 percent better at the boat captain gig than, say, the Goth girl I saw walking toward the café a few minutes ago. I mean what was Mr. Roy thinking when he hired
her
?

“You know, Ari, Samantha really
would
like to do the mermaid thing. Seriously, she’s memorized the whole speech, and as sad and pathetic as that is, she recited it to us and did a really good job.”

Ari raises an eyebrow. “Are you sure? You’re being awfully nice to the girl who’s just waiting to get her sugarcoated claws into your man.”

“Yeah, I’m sure. Besides, she’s exactly the kind of person your father would want leading the way to Meriope’s hideaway.”

Ari shrugs. “Okay, I have you and Ryan on the other side of the park running rides in the Forest section—the log flume, Hansel and Gretel’s, and the Gingerbread Coaster. Hmm. I’ll need someone to take Samantha’s place in the farm, though. Hey, you!” Ari stops an exceedingly tall brunette walking by. “What’s your name?”

The girl looks down at Ari. “Yohanna,” she says with some sort of thick European accent.

“Do you like animals, Yohanna?”

She gives Ari a puzzled look. “An-ee-mals? Yez,” she says with a shrug.

“Fabulous!” Ari walks over to her golf cart and takes a clipboard off the passenger seat. “Can you please spell your first and last name for me,
Yohanna
?” Ari says, imitating her accent.

The girl narrows her eyes. “J-O-H-A-N-N-A. L-U-N-D. Any-ting else?”

Ari scribbles on her clipboard and then looks up at Johanna. “Nope, I’m good, thanks. You’re gonna
love
the goats.”

The girl stalks off toward the café, and Ari puts the clipboard back in the cart. “Some of these foreign exchange students need to learn their place big-time. I mean, they think we’ll fall all over them just because they have an accent. Enough of that, though, because I have been
dying
to tell you what happened last night after you left!”

“What?”

“Luke happened! I did just what you said. I was
totally
cool—like I didn’t care if he stayed or not—
and he stayed
! He got in the hot tub with me, and even though I was dying to get right up next to him, I kept away and we just hung out and it was like old times—you know, before I told him I liked him and things got weird.”

I smile, but a part of me is bothered that Luke got in the hot tub with her. Another part of me wants to slap myself on the wrist for caring.