You’re Invited Too (12 page)

We turn down Sandpiper Drive and onto Pelican Street. Lauren is concentrating on navigating the dark streets, and I don't want to bother her, so I breathe in the smell of the salt water and listen for the crashing waves. The air is eerily still, and there's the tiniest hint of crispness to it, which makes me shiver happily. I love October the best, and not just because of Halloween.

Except, speaking of Halloween, Becca's been suspiciously quiet about her costume plans for us, and it's almost here. She always gets us to coordinate costumes. Last year it was the Four Musketeers (we added one we called Sadoths to match Porthos, Athos, and Aramis) and the year before that we were the Wicked Witch of the West, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, and Dorothy. Three guesses who insisted on wearing the sparkly red shoes!

I angle my knees toward Lauren. “Hey, is Becca still being super-secretive about her costume ideas for—” Before I can finish, an engine revs behind us, and the entire golf cart lights up with flashing red-and-blue lights. My heart takes a ride on the Tower of Terror all the way into my shoes. (Not red. Not sparkly.)

Lauren stands on the brake, and we both jerk forward, then slam back against the seat. The golf cart skids to a stop in the middle of Pelican Street while the police cruiser crunches gravel as it rolls close, then parks a few feet away. A car door closes. I'm too scared to look at Lauren, so I turn in my seat and squint at Officer Davis as he approaches.

He aims a flashlight right into our faces, and I blink hard to keep my eyes from watering.

“That you, Sadie Pleffer? And Lauren Simmons?”

Lauren recovers her eyesight—and her voice—first and answers a quiet “Yes, sir.”

“You girls out for a joyride or something?” Officer Davis asks, shining the beam of light all around the golf-cart floor and into its back storage space.

“We, um, we were just on our way to a meeting with a client, sir,” I offer. I still don't want to look at Lauren, because she must be totally freaking out, and I'm scared that if I see that, I will too.

“A client?” By the light of the flashing bar on top of the cruiser's roof, I can see Officer Davis's eyebrows hitch up. “Oh, that's right. You girls doing that birthday party thing these days, ain't ya? Planned my niece Molly's party this summer at the Plantation House. I heard all about that murder mystery you gals done up. First murder ever recorded at Sandpiper Beach, proud to say. And a fake one, at that. Molly had herself a right good time.”

I nod, and out of the corner of my eye I see Lauren do the same. When he doesn't say anything next, I decide he must want more from us.

“We're doing a wedding now, sir. And, um, the bride, well, she insisted we meet with her tonight about something. It's really important.”

“Thing is, girls, I wonder if y'all know the laws regarding operating vehicles on the road at night without any headlights.”

I gulp, and Lauren makes this tiny squeaking noise in her throat. “No, sir,” I answer. “But, um, it's just a golf cart, not really a vehicle.”

Lauren sinks into her seat. I know she's wishing I would just be quiet already, and I want to. I do. But I'm so freaked out, my mouth doesn't seem connected to my brain.

“Got four wheels and an engine, don't it?” Officer Davis asks. “Makes it a vehicle in my book. And Judge Athens's book too, I might add.”

Another noise from Lauren, and I reach over to grab her hand. My palms are so sweaty I doubt it helps calm her down, though.

“This your daddy's
vehicle
, Lauren?”

Lauren nods, completely silent.

“He can pick it up first thing in the morning, if he wants. Should be fine here till then. I need you to pull it on over to the side, please. Then I'm afraid I'm goin' have to ask you to step out of the vehicle and hop into the backseat of my cruiser.”

In the backseat of his police car? Like, where criminals sit? Omigosh, are we getting arrested?

Lauren drives into the sandy grass on the shoulder and flips the switch to power down the golf cart. When she gets out, her legs look all wobbly. I slide across the bench and step out next to her. My legs hold, but my stomach is feeling super twisty as I follow Lauren to Officer Davis's car. There's an acid taste in my mouth, and I'm worried I might throw up.

The policeman holds open the back door, and I duck my head and step in behind Lauren. Metal bars separate the front seat from the back. Officer Davis gets into the driver's seat and turns off the flashing lights. Having the red-and-blue lights go away makes me feel a tiny bit better, but I still don't know what's gonna happen now. Is he taking us to
jail
?

In the dark Lauren finds my hand and squeezes. Hard. When I peer at her face, her eyes are wide and round, and I can see she's just as freaked out as I am. My poor friend who never even jaywalks is sitting in the back of a police car, all because of me and my stupid jumping-whenever-Alexandra-Worthington-commands. I have to get us out of this.

“Um, sir,” I ask, and I can't even believe how shaky my voice sounds, “are we under arrest?”

My shoulders drop in relief when he laughs.

“Arrest? For driving without headlights in a golf cart? Shoot, no. I couldn't just leave you there in the dark. Don't know why you'd know this, but our crime rate is only 1.03 percent here on Sandpiper Beach. Even so, still never pays to take any chances. I'll run you by the station and Officer Rodriguez'll ring up your parents to come fetch you.”

Our parents. I guess I knew this wouldn't end without them finding out about it, but hearing Officer Davis say it makes it feel so much more real. My mom is going to kill me. Lauren's mom is going to extra kill her. Not only is she driving the golf cart at night, but she had me in there with her, which is a huge no-no and Lauren knows it. And we'll probably get Becca in trouble, since we didn't tell her mom that we were leaving.

I let my head fall back against the seat as we creep toward the station. Next to me Lauren is quiet, but her hand is squeezing mine tighter than ever, and I'm betting she's willing herself not to cry. I really, really,
really
wish I'd just walked there with Vi when she'd offered.

In the quiet and the dark, my cell phone springs to life with the ringtone for RSVP. Becca's voice singing “Ordinary Tuesdays” doesn't make me smile the way it usually does. Not even a little bit. I can only
imagine
the angry voice mail Alexandra Worthington is leaving right now, but even that is nothing compared to the lecture I'm about to get from Mom. Greeee
aaaat
.

remorse
noun -

a feeling of being sorry; a feeling of guilt over having done wrong

Use in a sentence:

I am full of remorse for driving Sadie in the golf cart at night, getting picked up by the police, and disappointing Mom and Dad.

I
've been in trouble with my parents exactly five and a half times in my life, not including stuff I might've done before I could remember, like flushing my toddler toothbrush down the toilet. But none of those five and a half times were for anything worse than hiding Josh's football equipment when he refused to play with me, or accidentally breaking Dad's favorite boat statue-thing when the girls and I were trying to do cartwheels in the living room.

This is way, way, way worse than any of that. And it's all because I decided that since I'm studying extra hard, I should also be having the most fun I can during those slots on my schedule. It sounded logical at the time, but now? I'm not so sure.

“Do you girls want some more hot chocolate?” Officer Rodriguez asks. “I'm sorry we don't have any marshmallows. My kids always like lots of marshmallows in their hot chocolate.”

We shake our heads. Sadie's barely touched hers, and mine isn't really sitting all that well in my stomach, because I can't stop thinking about how my parents are going to react to canceling their date night in Wilmington to come pick up their juvenile-delinquent daughter. Mom's probably already crying.

I don't know what I thought was going to happen when we got to the police station, but it definitely wasn't this. When we walked in, Sadie and I were so nervous that we had to hold on to each other. She kept apologizing to me, which is silly because I'm the one who offered to drive her. But I was so scared—and so angry at myself—that I couldn't say anything until about ten minutes ago.

We had to sit in these hard plastic chairs by his desk while Officer Rodriguez called our parents. After he made the calls, he told us to sit on the comfiest couch that's probably ever existed. Then he brought us blankets, made us hot chocolate, and rolled in a little TV on a wheeled cart. He put the TV on a cartoon channel, which is hilarious, because he has four kids, all under six years old. He's probably forgotten that anything besides cartoons even exists on TV. This is all really nice considering we've broken the law and everything.

The police station is a lot quieter than I thought it would be too. But then again, this is Sandpiper Beach, with practically no crime. I suppose a police station in, say, Raleigh or New York would be a lot busier, with phones ringing off the hook and criminals coming in and stuff. Sandpiper Beach's police station is just one room with some potted plants, a few framed pictures of the beach, this couch, the awful chairs, and a couple of desks. And hot chocolate.

“Are you hungry? We've got some cans of soup back in the break room.” Officer Rodriguez stands, ready to spring into soup-making action. It's not like that 1.03 percent crime rate means he gets to spring into action all that often.

“No, thank you,” Sadie replies. I shake my head in agreement. I couldn't eat anything right now. Not while I'm waiting for my parents to arrive in a storm of confusion and anger and worst of all . . . disappointment.

Officer Rodriguez sits back down, looking very dadlike and worried.

“I hope your mom gets here first,” I say quietly to Sadie.

Sadie reaches over and squeezes my hand. Her phone buzzes again—the fourth time since we got here—but she doesn't even look at it this time. We both know it's Alexandra Worthington, and I know Sadie's not really in the mood to explain what's going on. “She'll just think we got held up somewhere,” she says when the phone finally stops buzzing.

And that's when I finally notice the worry that's taken over Sadie's face. She keeps chewing on her bottom lip, and her eyebrows are doing that scrunching thing. Maybe I can stop stressing about myself for two minutes and do something to help my friend.

“Here.” I reach over and pluck Sadie's phone from her lap. I pull up her text messages and start typing.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

“Dealing with a little of this wedding stress for you.” I show her the message I've just sent to Miss Worthington.

Major emergency just came up. Can't come by tonight. Pls call Becca regarding the Singing Spaniard. (910) 555-1541.

“You're welcome,” I fill in when Sadie doesn't say anything. I can tell she's waffling between relief and a total meltdown about not being in complete control over everything. “Becs and Vi can handle it. Since, you know, they're not looking at a future in juvie or anything.” Just saying that makes my heart twitch. I really hope Officer Rodriguez was right when he said none of this was going down on our permanent records. I know—I made sure to ask him, even before he called our parents. It was about the only intelligible thing I could say at that point. Intelligible: able to be understood or comprehended.

I type out a quick message to Becca—
AW calling you in 3, 2, 1 . . .
—before handing the phone back to Sadie. “It'll be okay,” I say, when she still doesn't say anything. “She won't fire us over this. Not if she hasn't because of anything else yet.”

Sadie's eyebrows scrunch together even more under her bangs. “It's not that. It's . . . Lauren, he's the
Italian Tenor
! Not the Singing Spaniard.”

That's what she's worried about? We're waiting for our parents to get us from the
police station
, and Sadie's freaking out over me calling this singer guy by the wrong name?

She's flipping her phone around in her hands, and I realize that she's super nervous about everything too—being here, having her mom called, whether Miss Worthington really is going to fire us this time, not to mention whether her mom actually is okay about us handling this wedding—and that fixating on this one little detail is her way of dealing with it.

I'm about to say something when the door to the station flies open.

This is it. D-Day. The Rapture. The end of the world. Or, really, worse than any of those if it's my parents coming through that door. I clutch Sadie again as we wait to see who it is.

The quiet whine of a motor filters through the room, followed by a series of bumps and thumps, and a few not-so-nice words.