Chapter Thirteen
Jonah sat in the back seat of The Chum Buggy, with Laynie and me up front. He braided the hair at the nape of my neck, sending little bursts of warmth through my limbs.
“Plan?” I asked Laynie.
“We’re going to hit the Ped Mall, venture through Blick a little. Then, the ice cream parlor, then RagStock for a bit, and then the Coralville mall so we can play the stacky machine!” Laynie hooted.
I made eye contact with Jonah in the side mirror. He looked at me curiously.
“I have to say, I’m excited for the stacky machine.” Jonah chuckled, his breath warm against the back of my neck.
The stacky machine was Laynie’s favorite game ever. Which was an obvious thing since she was so good at it. It was one of those electronic games that malls had in the middle of the walkway every so often. There were claw machines, and those bucket games, and games where you just put in a quarter and it game you some random thing in a little plastic container. But then there was the stacky machine.
The stacky machine was a complex machine that consisted of a large electronic screen and one red button. To play, you inserted one dollar. Then you pressed the red button. Three red squares would slide back in forth in horizontal rows, starting at the bottom. Once you clicked the button again, the squares would freeze where they were and the next row of red squares would appear on the screen moving faster than the last. Eventually, the number of squares decreased until only one extremely fast little box was left, and if you managed to line up a row of squares clear to the top of the screen, you won a really awesome prize.
So far in Laynie’s stacky machine career, she’s one two IPods, one Nintendo DS, and a camera. She’s a stacky machine master.
I smiled to myself and touched my hand to my pocket, feeling the slender IPod touch that Laynie had bestowed upon me when she had one it with my dollar.
“I have no muns.” Jonah said, showing us his empty hands.
“None of us ever have muns.” Laynie pointed out.
“Did you guys both completely forget that I’ve been making bank or did I just not tell you about it?” I asked, pulling my wallet out of my bag and pulling out a wad of twenties.
“Holy crow, Tide!” Laynie shrieked.
“Which reminds me. Here, is the twenty dollars that I owe you.” I said, pulling out a bill and setting it on the dashboard.
“How exactly did you manage to make that much money? Last time I saw you, you didn’t even have a job. Are you selling organs or something?” Laynie questioned speculatively.
“I’m painting. Barn quilts mostly. Occasionally someone will buy one of the paintings I’ve done on my own.” I blushed.
“You get paid to paint? We don’t get paid to paint!” Laynie and Jonah looked at each other.
“It’s not like that, really. It’s just barn quilts.”
“Tide, that’s huge. You’re getting paid to do something you love. Every time you sell one of those things you’re putting your name out there. You’re going to be famous one day, and then I shall revel in our infamy.” Laynie exclaimed.
“Well, I doubt that’ll happen. But we have about… two hundred bucks spending money for the day. And another fifty for lunch. And if we need stacky money,” Laynie interrupted me midsentence.
“You’re nuts!” she shrieked.
“I’m spending money on the three of us whether you like it or not.”
Jonah kneaded the back of my neck with gentle fingers, making my eyes flutter closed and the argument I had prepared fell from my lips, my consciousness.
After walking around Blick aimlessly for an hour and a half, we walked out with a few new packs of brushes, which is what we bought when we didn’t know what else to get. We stopped by the ice cream parlor and made our way to Rag Stock.
“What do you think of this one?” Jonah said holding a mini skirt up to his waist.
“That’s hot.” Laynie said, kissing her teeth and looking Jonah up and down.
“You’d look like a French hooker.” I laughed. “Correction. A German hooker.”
He stuck his tongue out and then coughed. “Pale Italian.”
I scowled. Looking around for more ridiculous clothing for Jonah to try on, I found a fish net shirt, which Laynie put together with a pair of thigh hugging go-go boots.
“Fuck. That.” Jonah scowled at us with his arms crossed. “The skirt I can do. The shirt is too much. And my feet are huge. Those won’t fit.”
I pouted, jutting my bottom lip out. “Please? We don’t have to tell anybody about it.”
He eyed me speculatively. “Pinky promise?” he stuck out his pinky as we performed the ultimate pinky promise.
The first time that I had ever shared a secret with Jonah, I had made him pinky promise me he would never tell. The secret turned out to be that I was still in love with Nick Carter, but it didn’t matter, I still made him promise.
We crossed pinkies, bit the tips of our thumbs followed by a kiss in the same spot, and then blew, cold air rushing against our fingers.
To me it meant that bad things were destined to happen, hence the bite, and those things can be forgiven, hence the kiss, but eventually, everything will blow over. Hence. The blow. I hadn’t realized at all what I was doing when I made the promise up, but it ended up actually meaning something.
Jonah and I pinky promised.
He looked at me curiously and then grabbed the clothes from Laynie’s grip.
He went into the stall. I could hear the clinking of his belt, the whir of it sliding off and falling to the floor. He kicked off his shoes, grumbling to himself all the while.
“How can you wear these things?” Jonah groaned. “I feel like I’m being shoved into a straw.”
A loud ripping sound came from the dressing room.
“That one’s a bit too small.” Laynie snorted. She scrambled to find the next size up and then threw it over the top of the stall door.
When the door opened, my jaw dropped. Jonah walked out, a deep frown plastered to his face. “I think I need another size up, this thing is riding.” He said, pulling down the skirt in back.
“What size was that?” I yelped, turning Jonah around to examine the tag.
“Careful. I can’t move like that.” Jonah winced.
“How did you manage to put that on?” I yelped.
“I don’t know. I squeezed.”
“You managed to squeeze into a size two.” My jaw dropped.
The skirt wasn’t even the best part. The fish net shirt hung down from one shoulder and the go-go boots didn’t zip up all the way.
I looked down at his legs, tiny curls of hair sticking up from the leather boots.
“Doesn’t that hurt?” I ask with a smile.
He looked at me like I had a fish hanging out of my mouth. “Yes. It does.” He says, exasperated.
“Can I go change now?” he said, pointing back to the fitting room.
“Not quite.” Laynie said as she clicked the camera button on her phone.
“Gah!” Jonah shrieked. “We pinky promised!” he looked at me. “Tell her! We pinky promised!”
“I didn’t pinky promise,” Laynie sneered, sticking her tongue out.
Jonah groaned and stalked back into the stall, another large ripping sound came from the stall and Laynie and I walked away, hoping that none of the shop keepers had noticed the sound.
When we left, Jonah was completely mortified and Laynie was wearing a pair of sunglasses that had fishnet legs that hooked over her ears.
Jonah and I sat in the backseat together this time as we worked our way towards the Coralville mall. Laynie sat in the front seat talking away about how many people she wanted to send the picture to.
Jonah pressed his lips to my neck. I yelped and squirmed, pulling away.
“What?” he said, his voice a sweet and seductive sound.
Goosebumps broke out on my arms. That was the first time he’d ever talked like that. My stomach exploded with heat.
I smacked his arm lightly, and gave him a what-do-you-think-you’re-doing-with-Laynie-right-there look.
He shrugged and laughed.
“We’re here!” Laynie said pulling into a parking spot close to the food court. The stacky machine was just within the doors.
“Stacky machine!” Laynie and I howled together, dancing our way to the doors, leaving Jonah to stare after us.
We walked in still howling and dancing. The carousel was filled with children that watched us with amazement. The benches were filled with teenagers that thought they were too cool for us and the older people just smiled because they knew that they’d been there done that with their best friends from high school.
Laynie ran over to the stacky machine with me close on her heels. I flipped out my wallet and pulled out our first dollar.
“Loosen up!” I told her. She jogged in place while I rubbed her shoulders. “Jelly arms!” I laughed.
Laynie wiggled her arms about her head, still jogging in place, her knees hitting her stomach.
“Okay. Let’s do this thing.” Laynie said.
I stood by, watching as she slid the dollar into the money slot.
Jonah looked at me with one eyebrow raised. I stuck my tongue out and didn’t say anything, not wanting to disturb Laynie’s concentration.
Laynie pressed the button quickly and got up to the door prize line before she lost. I supplied another dollar. She began again.
This time, she got to the very last bar before she messed up by one square.
We played three more times with Jonah looking between us and the people watching.
“This one is it, Laynie. This is the last dollar bill that we have. This is precious. This is gold. You are gold.” I handed her the dollar.
Jonah rolled his eyes, clapping a hand over his face.
Laynie started again after stretching once more.
The boxes appeared and froze quickly. Laynie had this machine whipped. She reached the last square and took her hands off the button, cracking her knuckles.
“This is it.” She said, her shoulders tense.
She placed her hand back on the button, watching the little red square move back and forth at an incredible rate.
I closed my eyes, waited for the click, and then kept them closed.
“Well.” Laynie said somberly. She fake sniffed. “They don’t have any IPods left!” she shrieked.
Jonah and I happy danced around Laynie who was gushing.
A few of the people that had started to congregate around us began to clap and then disperse.
“What do you want Jonah?” Laynie asked.
“What do you mean what do I want?” Jonah questioned mutely.
“I have my IPod, Tide has her IPod, now you have a choice between a little Play Station doohickey that you can play on the go, or a DS, or a camera it looks like, and then there’s one of those IPad things that have been on TV lately.” She said, rubbing her chin. “And, if you don’t like any of those, we can just get one of them and then sell it on the internet or something so you can buy something else.”
“I can’t take your prize, Laynie. It’s expensive.”
“It only cost me five bucks!” Laynie said matter of factly.
Jonah glowered at her but then melted a little. “IPad.” Jonah grumbled.
“A wonderful choice my friend!” Laynie exclaimed and then selected the IPad that slid down into the bottom of the machine where Laynie pulled it from the compartment. She handed it to Jonah. “You have an IPad! You have an IPad!” she chanted, dancing around with her jelly arms.
Jonah walked around quietly, a small smile on the corner of his lips. We sidled over to the food court. Jonah and I, obsessed with Chinese food, went to the Paper Lantern concession line, while Laynie went to The Pizza Place to order a slice of cheese pizza the size of her head.
We sat down at a table, still chatting away about the IPad and how awesome Laynie was. Jonah was still sitting quietly when he looked up.
“Thank you, Laynie.” He said sincerely. “You have no idea how awesome this is.”
Laynie smiled back. “Don’t mention it, sir. You guys are like my best friends. That and I’m pretty sure my mommy has already bought me one for my birthday next year.” Laynie bit into her pizza, the stringy bits of cheese stuck to her chin. She wiped them away.
“Speaking of birthdays.” Jonah and Laynie both looked at me menacingly.
“Don’t even.” I told them, stabbing a piece of orange chicken with my fork and popping it into my mouth.
“You can’t expect us to not celebrate it. You’re turning eighteen,” she shrieked. “But I was thinking that we could celebrate it a day or two early, because your family probably wants to celebrate it with you too. Your Stepdad texted me the other day and asked if you were coming home for your birthday. So I decided that we’d hold your birthday party here a day early in case you decided you wanted to go home to see your family.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I probably should. I haven’t seen them in a while.” My shoulders slumped.
“It’s all good. We’re going to have the biggest birthday bash that Burg has ever seen.” Laynie said, taking another bite of pizza.
Her phone rang. Her eyes widened and she smiled, wiping her mouth on a napkin and then pulling her phone out of her pocket.
When she saw the screen she scowled. She pressed a button, the ringtone stopped sounding.
Jonah sighed angrily. “Let me see the phone.” He said, holding out his phone. “Did you just put it on quiet or did you hang up?”
“Quiet, if I hang up he can just call right back. If it’s on quiet it’ll take a few seconds more before he can call again.”
Jonah picked up the phone, flipped it open. “Hello?” he growled.
Jonah kept his hand on my leg, his fingers tracing small circles on my knee.
Laynie and I both leaned in trying to hear James speak. The food court was too loud.
“This is Jonah.” Jonah went from irritated to confused in all of about five seconds.
“Don’t mean to burst your bubble, but Hannah isn’t very reliable when it comes to information about Tide and me.”
The loud murmur that came from the receiver irritated me. James was yelling now.
Jonah changed moods again, switching from confused to conniving. “So what if we did, anyway?”
I slapped Jonah on the shoulder.
“No, you listen, James. There’s no reason for you to try to contact Tide anymore. Tide is perfectly happy where she is. With me and the rest of the people that love her. So if you have anything else you need to say how about you go tell it to that stupid bottle you never leave home without.” Jonah hung up the phone.
He looked over at me, that look of exhaustion written all over his face again.
“You’ve got to stop doing that.” I said softly.
“When exactly did all of this happen? He was talking about Hannah and a billion other things.”
“Well,” Laynie took the wheel on this one. “He’s called me about two hundred times within the last few days. And Hannah has been nonstop crazy for about the same amount of time. She called Megan who called me and said that Hannah had called you and had heard Tide in the background, so Hannah called James who then started calling me asking for Tide and wanting to kill you.” Laynie looked at the ceiling, trying to explore her head. “Did that make sense?” she asked.
Jonah nodded. “Have you called the police?”
“Not yet. My mom said that if he continued to call, like he has, that she’d handle it.”
Laynie’s phone went off again.
I rolled my eyes.
Laynie looked at her phone glaring, but quickly smiled. “It’s Bryce!” she yelped.
Laynie waited for the phone to ring, once, twice, three times before she answered it.
“Hello?” she said, trying to calm herself down enough to talk without yelling.
“I’m in Iowa City right now with Tide and Jonah.” She said and then paused to listen, her smile gradually widening.
“Well I think that they were planning to hang out tonight, so I’m pretty sure I’m free.” Laynie looked between Jonah and I questioningly, her eyes were pleading.
I nodded excitedly, urging her along.
“Yea, I’m free for the night. What time are you wanting me to be there?”
“Okay, sounds great. See you then. Bye.” Laynie’s smile radiated throughout the mall.
“What did he say?”
“He wants to watch a movie at his place tonight. And he said that I could head over whenever.”
“Well then what are we still doing here?” I asked, gathering up my things.
“I’m sorry for just sort of ditching you guys.” Laynie said sorrowfully.
“No, don’t be sorry! I really want you to hang out with Bryce. You’re going to have a great time.” I assured her.
“Can you guys give me a minute?” Jonah asked us. He’d been quiet for some time when his eyes lit up. He walked away with his phone pressed to his ear.
“What do you think that’s about?” I asked.
“I have no idea,” Laynie said. “But I have a feeling you’re going to have a pretty good night.” She nudged my shoulder.
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not going to sleep with him!” I hissed.
“You don’t know that! All of that sexual tension that’s been between the two of you during the past few years has got to come out sometime!” she teased. Laynie glanced down at her phone, checking a text message.
She looked back up at me absolutely beaming.
“What?” I asked, curious as to what she could make her smile any more than she already was.
“Nothing. Bryce just texted me. But we should really be going.”
After we hunted down Jonah, we proceeded to walk to the car arm in arm.
“I have a surprise for you.” Jonah whispered to me as we walked across the parking lot.
“What could possibly top the day that I’ve had?” I asked. “I got to spend the day with the two greatest people on the face of the planet. My whole week has been amazing.”
Jonah grimaced slightly. “It could have been so much better, though.”
I bumped into him with my hip and spoke both to Jonah and Laynie. “I don’t care if the world started falling down around me. This week has been fantastic because I’ve gotten to spend it with the two of you.”
When we pulled into the driveway, Laynie asked me to go upstairs and see if her sister was home, all the while Laynie and Jonah ran around the house, planning only god knew what.
“We’re not done yet!” Laynie yelled up the stairs. “Keep yourself occupied!”
“Do you have any idea how wrong that sounded?” I laughed down the stairs.
I sat down on the stairs, pressing my forehead to the wooden stair rail. I could hear Jonah and Laynie whispering in the kitchen, bustling about.
“She’s going to love it.” Laynie whispered as quietly as she could, which ended up being more of a quiet shout. “Tide! Get out of my house!” she yelled from the kitchen.
“Sheesh. Pushy pushy.” I said as Laynie guided me out the door by my elbow.
Laynie pulled me over to the side of the house while Jonah got into his car, started the ignition.
“You have strict instructions missy. I’m going to be staying out fairly late tonight.” She said.
“Okay. Do you want me to tell your mom when she gets home?”
“No. I want you to stay out even later,” she said.
I watched her walk to the Chum Bug and leave.
“That was strange.” I said Jonah.
We stood there in the cool summer air, shuffling our feet in the gravel.
“So.” I said down to my feet.
“So.” Jonah returned.
He grabbed my hand, leading me to his car.
“Where were we?” he asked as he started up the car, pulling out of Laynie’s driveway.
“What do you mean?” I leaned over, pressing my face into his shoulder.
“One, you wanted to be a boxer. Two, you cleaned out bird baths. Three, your favorite smell is horse fur. You’re on number four now.”
I gazed over at Jonah who was waiting for me to spill out my guts to him. “I can’t believe you remembered those.” I said honestly.
He shrugged, acting like it wasn’t a big deal that he remembered, like it was something that every boy should do.
“Okay, this one is perfect. Number four. When I was little and lived in that house next to the apartment, my mom used to send me to the basement and hide in the closet whenever the Schwan’s people came. I think she did it so then I wouldn’t bug her while she was ordering things.” I laughed to myself. “Number five. When I was younger, I read the bible at night. I thought that God was the coolest person ever and that I’d rest with him one day. I’d tell my stepmom and my grandma the things that I read, and it sort of freaked them out how many times I reread Revelations.” I zoned out, remembering my first bible.
“My stepmom was really big into it too, and she bought me all sorts of story books and children’s bibles. I could read an entire collection of stories in a day if she didn’t bug me about doing anything else.”
“What made you fall away from it?” he asked.
Jonah had never been a religious person. He believed that we needed to live our lives as if every day was our last because there may not be an afterlife like everyone thinks.
I paused, chewing on my lip while I thought about what had made me fall away from everything that I had believed. “I think reality just caught up with me. I prayed every night. I prayed that my parents wouldn’t get divorced, and that I’d have enough strength to want to live when I just couldn’t take it anymore… and most of my prayers weren’t answered. It wasn’t until I started to take matters into my own hands, and when I found you and Laynie, that I started to love being alive again.” A small smile played on the corner of my lips as tears already began to well up. “Crying already.” I laughed at myself, wiping away the tiny droplets of moisture at my tear ducts.
Jonah squeezed my knee. “I’ll take over for a bit so we get even.” He leaned over while he drove, pressing a quick kiss to my cheek. “Number four I think?”
I nodded in response.
“Okay, number four. When I was in the sixth grade, there was this girl that I thought I was absolutely in love with. Her name was Becky Flick and she was the Goth girl of the school.”
I winced. “I was the Goth girl at my school you know.” I stuck my tongue out.
Jonah laughed. “Of course you were.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I feigned mock horror.
“It means. That when I looked at you now, I can see that girl that stayed to herself and wrote her stories and drew her pictures. I mean really. We’re practically the same people. We can be in a room full of the people that we love and still feel like we’re being suffocated.”
I kissed my teeth, smiled wryly. “You’re probably right. But go on with your story.”
“Well anyway. Becky Flick was the apple of my eye. And I got into the school early and saw her backpack in the foyer, so I slipped a note in it that said that I was in love with her but I signed it anonymously. It turns out one of her friends then informed her boyfriend of what I had done, and he said that the next time I even laid eyes on her he’d bloody my nose.”
“Well, what happened?” I yelped.
“Three weeks later I got sent to the nurses office with a bloody nose.” Jonah smiled proudly.
“Oh my gosh! Were you okay?”
“Better than okay! Becky broke up with her boyfriend for being a jerk and then she gave me a kiss right in the middle of my forehead. She said that she couldn’t date me though, since she was an eighth grader and I was just a sixth grader.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh god, Jonah.” I stifled my laughs.
Jonah smiled, looking at me from the corner of his eye. “We have time for one more before we stop by my place.”
I wondered what he meant. Were we not just stopping and going inside? I pondered to myself about what he could possibly be planning, knowing that Laynie probably had everything to do with what was happening.
“Number five. Sometimes, when I’m completely alone in my house, I dance around the house singing to ABBA.” He nodded, kissing his teeth.
“No way! I did that too! But it was just freshmen year when we were working on a Mama Mia medley.” I laughed, pressing my hands to my stomach to try to stifle the eruption of giggles.
Jonah stuck his tongue out. He pulled into his driveway. “Stay put. I just need to grab a few things and then we’ll be on our way.”
“To where?” I asked. “Jonah.” I whined.
“Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.” He said, sticking his head through the door before he closed it and jogged into the house.
