“At least her dad doesn’t have a rack of guns in the back of his truck, right, Matthew?” Joe’s laughter seemed to be completely out of control, and I kind of looked at him sideways as I processed what he was saying. Then I realized Scott and Aimee must have had to tell her parents at some point, and I understood what Joe meant. Henry just might shoot me if something similar happened.
I shuddered a little.
“Here ya go,” Ian said. He handed Scott a red plastic cup like the one Joe had, and he tilted it back to take a long swallow and then wiped his mouth with his sleeve.
“Mayra went after Aimee?” Scott said as he turned to me.
I wasn’t expecting him to talk to me and was definitely taken off guard. I felt my mouth open as if I might say something, but nothing actually came out. I ended up looking away as Carmen answered for me.
“Mayra will bring her back,” she said. “Don’t you worry.”
“Mayra’s a damn fine girl,” Scott said.
His hand clapped me on my shoulder, and I tensed up. My chest felt heavy, and I couldn’t breathe or swallow past the lump that had formed at the base of my throat. He continued to pound on my shoulder as he talked.
“She’s a damn good friend to Aimee, and I know Aimee was going to tell her tonight anyway,” he announced to everyone around us but kept looking at me. “She’ll get her all calmed down and bring her back so we can have some fun for a while. I didn’t mean to put a damn damper…damned-per…I mean, I didn’t want to ruin everyone’s…”
His voice trailed off, and I started tuning him out. He wasn’t making any sense anyway.
“I thought Aimee was having a party at her house.” Ian suddenly piped up.
“That’s what everyone whose parents wouldn’t let them come out here tonight think.” Scott nodded vigorously. “’Cept Aimee’s parents. They think the party is at Carmen’s.”
“Don’t drag me into this.” Carmen grumbled as she picked up an empty red cup from a stack of them and filled it from a large cooler with a spout at the bottom. The liquid coming out of it was red and smelled sweet.
“I gotta go find her.” Scott abruptly stood, stumbling a bit. He shoved his cup at me, and I grabbed it before the liquid inside ended up all over my pants.
“You’re not going after her,” Carmen said. “Mayra’s got her, and they’ll be fine.”
“But she needs me!”
Scott shoved away and started down the beach with Ian and Carmen running after him and grabbing him by the arms. I took a deep breath, glad the area had cleared out a little. I looked around and noticed a large basket of potato chips near me on the table and took a handful of them.
They weren’t exactly popcorn, but the whole night still had a movie theater quality to it.
The chips were salty, and I was getting pretty thirsty. I still had Scott’s red cup in my hands, so I tipped the liquid into my mouth, glad germaphobia wasn’t on my list of issues. It was some kind of fruity punch, but it had a nasty aftertaste. I drank a bit more and then ate another handful of chips as I watched kids move back and forth. Some of them were still talking about Aimee and Scott, but most seemed to have moved on to the graduation ceremony or their plans for the summer.
I finished the cup of punch, but I was still hungry and thirsty, so I kept eating chips and then refilled the cup from the big cooler. Joe left and then came back a few minutes later with a cigarette in his hand. I never knew him to smoke, but once I saw him, I checked around and saw a few other kids smoking as well. The smell was nasty, and I turned my face away when he sat down next to me again.
“Never thought I’d see the day,” Joe muttered. He belched loudly and refilled his cup, too.
“Never thought you’d see what?” I asked. I wasn’t sure why I was suddenly curious about Joe and his random remark, but I felt compelled to ask.
“You with Mayra Trevino,” he said. He flicked the butt into the sand. “I mean…Matthew, you know I love ya like you’re my own brother, right?”
“You do?” I said. My eyebrows went up in surprise. I didn’t recall asking them to, but they went up anyway.
“Of course I do!” he said. For some reason, all the words ran together in my head, which was hilariously funny, so I laughed out loud.
Joe laughed as well.
“You’re my brudder from anudder mudder,” he informed me.
“A mudder?” I asked. My eyebrows crunched down now in confusion. They weren’t the only things confused though. I was baffled about how my eyebrows had suddenly come up with their own ability to move around without me asking them to. “What the fuck’s a mudder?”
“Did you say fuck?” Samantha plopped down on the bench next to me, and the whole table shook.
We all seemed to think that was funny.