I saw how happy this place had made so many people, and while my heart indeed panged with regret that Happies was all over, it also felt a surge of pride. My sleepy desert town created this wonder spot, and kept it alive for generations. So much had happened in this roadside attraction. Pageants had been won. Birthdays celebrated. Romances born. Major calories consumed.
I stared at the cash register, wishing I had the resources or even just cleverness to raise the money to buy Happies and save it from demolition. Probably USC had been right to deny me admission. I had ambition—but nothing to back it up. Who was the true dumbfuck in this town? Probably Victoria Navarro.
“Domestic disturbance at 504 Harrison. Can you take this one?”
The voice from nowhere caused me to jump off the counter in surprise. But there was no one in the room besides me. Then some static noises came from below the counter, and I realized Bev’s police scanner was on.
“Roger that,” said Deputy Sheriff Lane’s voice.
“I owe ya,” responded the first voice, which I realized belonged to Sheriff Cheryl. “The wife’s finally started serious contractions and I can’t be going on nuisance calls right now.”
“Yes!” I cried aloud, to no one. I wished I’d remembered to bring the cigar that Mayor Jerry had gifted me. Now would be a great time to smoke it. I had hoped this would happen, and some unknown genie had granted my wish. Sheriff Cheryl’s wife in labor tonight was the best news possible for the underage drinkers about to arrive at my party.
“En route to 504 Harrison. Good luck tonight,” said Deputy Sheriff Lane.
“Good luck at 504 Harrison,” said Sheriff Cheryl, laughing.
We’re not such hicks in Rancho Soldado that we don’t take a domestic disturbance threat seriously, but everyone knew who lived next door to 504 Harrison: Miss Ann Thrope. And she was known to call the police on her neighbors when their lovemaking got too screamy.
My Last Call at Happies could also double as my Last Laugh at Miss Ann Thrope, I thought, as I looked around the decorated party room. How Happies-hating Thrope would despise this scene! During the past couple weeks before Happies officially died, bored cashiers and serving staff had started making origami crafts out of Happies wrappers. Their efforts had not been in vain. Throughout the restaurant, strands of decorations made with their creations—Happies-emblazoned burger wrappers, fry containers, ice cream cone wraps, and napkins—were strung along the walls, side by side with the high school yearbook pictures I’d cut out and taped up that afternoon. The room looked like an art installation, I thought, silently patting myself on the back. And everything Thrope hated was celebrated in the party’s decorations: Happies, her students, and carbs. Already it was the best party in the history of Rancho Soldado and it hadn’t even happened yet.
I texted Slick: How’s things going at 504 Harrison?
She replied: Screamy as ordered! I can even hear those horny apes over the music blasting out of their bedroom window. The chocolates, handcuffs, and ’90s R&B mix CD Zeke put together worked exactly as planned. Go Team Cuddle Huddle! (+Zeke)
I wrote back: Did Thrope see you leave the care package on her neighbors’ porch?
Slick: Doubt it. Zeke and I used the binoculars you gave us and saw Thrope through her window before we made the drop. She was at the back of the house on her computer.
Me: Do you think Thrope looks at porn?
Slick: Gun porn, probs. Uh-oh, Deputy Lane has just pulled up in front of Thrope’s house! We’re out of here. Will pick up Fletch and see you soon!
Me: Good work.
Slick: Thanks. Pause, then: Do you have any idea who ♫ Jodeci ♫ is and why they be feenin’?
I smiled and put down my phone. I had no clue who Jodeci was and promised myself not to ask DJ Zeke, because he’d probably tell me, in detail, for about an hour.
Thrope was being kept busy. Excellent. I gazed at the restaurant’s wallpaper, searching for Thrope’s Miss Happies winner’s poster, so I could give it the finger. Thrope’s was the easiest one to find because it was so recognizable. Students at Rancho Soldado could often be found after Thrope’s class looking at the image on their laptops or phones, trying to figure out how Thrope went from Miss Happie to Miss Ann Thrope. In the poster photo, Thrope wore a classic, museum-worthy aerobics outfit (spandex bodysuit with a Happies-emblazoned sweatband across her forehead) and had a rifle tucked into her Miss Happies winner’s sash (she won the talent competition with her firing skills). The poster’s text read: Hello, Miss Happies Annette Thrope! Gorgeous Annette has got it all. This gal with the killer smile is the youngest Team Captain ever of the Rancho Soldado Rifle Club. She’s also a California State silver medalist aerobics champion, and the mightiest poker player west of Las Vegas! Currently in her sophomore year at Cal State-Riverside, Annette plans to earn her teaching degree with honors, and we have no doubt she’ll win that all-important Mrs. degree, too! Lasso this lady’s heart, fellas, if you dare!
Suck it, Thrope!
My stomach grumbled from hunger but it was still too hot to want much to eat. I scooped out some RASmatazz sorbet and took a lick. Perfect. As the refreshing sweetness glided down my throat, I made a mental note to self: Ask Bev Happie for the RASmatazz recipes, trademark them, then market and sell RASmatazz pies, ice creams, and sorbets to the world; become rich. Finally, I had a destiny beyond going to crash on the floor in my sister’s group house in San Francisco till I figured out something better to do.
I heard a mewing sound from outside the back door and went to check it out, suspecting that the Happies’ Cat Pack had come begging. A mangy black cat with big amber eyes greeted me from a cautious distance when I got outside. “Hold right there, little gremlin,” I told the cat. Years earlier, when the theme park was still open, Happies let feral cats have free rein of the park at night, to keep rodent populations under control. Cat colonies still lived in the theme park on the other side of the fence, but occasionally drifters would appear behind the restaurant in the employee parking area. The cats knew they’d find sucker Happies employees who’d feed them, and, on particularly hot days like today, place ice bricks outside to help the cats stay cool.
Ever the sucker, I returned to the freezer room, took out a few bricks the staff had kept in there for the cats, and then stopped in the kitchen to retrieve a couple cans of tuna. I brought the ice bricks and the food outside to the back parking lot. “It’s earthquake weather. Didn’t you hear?” I said to the black cat. I placed the bricks at the base of the fence along with an opened can, and the black cat eagerly pressed against the cold bricks before moving on to the food bowl. I stayed on the ground to watch it, observing that the cats were entering and exiting the theme park through a small hole between the ground and the fence. I looked closer through the hole, trying to get a good glimpse of the park, but the view was too limited.
Jake’s Chug Bug pulled into the lot, causing the cat to scurry under the fence and out of my sight. “Where should I park?” Jake called to me from the open driver’s side window.
I stood up. “Right here.” Jake parked the beermobile in front of my perch at the tall fence. “Mind if I climb up on your roof?” I asked Jake. The original VW bus’s roof was still over the driver and front passenger sides of the vehicle; that part hadn’t been sawed off in order to insert the customized section. It would make a great viewing perch.
Jake said, “I guess so. But what’s that got to do with the party?” He put the Chug Bug in park and stepped out of it.
“Nothing,” I said. “It’s just for me. Help me up?” I lifted an ice brick from the ground to rub it along my hot arms, since the cat wasn’t going to use it at this moment, while Jake stepped into the middle of the Chug Bug and raised the new part of the roof. I stepped inside the center of the Chug Bug, placed the ice brick down onto the old front part of the rooftop, which reached my neck level when I stood in the middle of the bus. Jake bent down slightly, and I grabbed on to his shoulder to steady myself. “Mos
t girls would be all weird about letting a guy lift up her entire body weight,” said Jake.
“Are you saying I’m fat?” I was not fat. I was normal-sized, but with a modest amount of Happies pudge that many employees acquired during work hours. When high school seniors who’d toiled at Happies graduated and went to college, their moving-away-from-home rite of passage was that they would typically lose the “freshman fifteen” instead of gaining it.
“No,” said Jake. “I’m saying you’re refreshingly unself-conscious.” That was not true about me at all, but I suspected I’d just been given a small compliment. I liked it, and did not refute it. I placed my foot in his hands and lifted myself up onto the old rooftop over the front seats of the Chug Bug.
“What’re you looking for up there?” Jake asked.
I stood tall and took in the view. “I was three when the theme park closed. I don’t remember it. I want to see it before it’s gone.”
“Great idea. Help me up, too?” Jake said. Significantly taller than me, he easily hoisted himself up as I held his hands to assist him.
“Whoa,” we both said at the same time as we gazed over the debris of the park.
“Don’t copy me, Bill,” I said.
“Don’t copy me, Ted,” Jake said.
We looked at one another and nodded. “Be excellent to each other,” we both said, and laughed. I’m not too proud to admit that I knew practically every line from Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, but in my defense, that’s because Jake and my brother Chester watched it, like, every day when they were adolescent boys. Actually, what’s to defend? Ace Ventura: Pet Detective is my number-one favorite movie.
Thanks to Bill & Ted, I could totally appreciate a good time portal when I saw one, and Jake’s and my view of the old Happies theme park was exactly that. An abandoned, decrepit little village, locked in time. Behind the enormous graffitied clown face was the area called Clown Town. It was a holding area with rusted lockers that had pieces sawed out of them and an information booth, in front of which there was a giant, rusted metal clown that had to be several stories tall, lying flat on the ground, facedown, as if hungover from a night of revelry. Beyond Clown Town was Main Street, lined on the right with a sign that said BYGONE RANCHO, and included a strip of fake Western mining town building facades—a general store, a bank, a saloon. On the left was a sign for the UnHappies Jail, which had been the last stop for drunk or contentious park visitors before they got kicked back to the security team in Clown Town and then sent on their way out of the park. The remnants of the UnHappies Jail structure were mostly still there. It had standing walls at the sides and at the back, with jail cell bars still in the ground in the front, but no ceiling. Bottles and cans and random cactus trees sprouted up in the middle. In the farther distance past Main Street, a merry-go-round of fallen horses lay with weeds sprung up between them, and there was an entire field of faded and picked-apart bumper cars on their sides.
The park was a mess, but there was something beautiful about it, too: a time capsule that Mother Nature had taken back. The sight was haunting and creepy, but also breathtaking. I would have pulled my phone out to take a picture, but somehow I sensed the park didn’t want to be photographed. It wanted to be left as is, not captured in an artificial image that didn’t breathe and swelter in its natural desert habitat.
Maybe the sight made Jake as pensive as it did me. “I was conceived in that park,” Jake noted.
“No way.”
“True story. In Lovers Lane.” Jake pointed to a weeded-over miniature golf course in the distance, past Main Street, where you could still see the heart-shaped “Lovers Lane” castle at one of the tees. I knew Selena and Jon Zavala-Kim had once been scandalous prom royalty—a pregnant prom queen and her baby daddy prom king—who married right after graduation, but I had no idea their courtship spawned inside Happies’ ancient Lovers Lane castle.
“Impressive,” I said. “I’m surprised they fit in there. It doesn’t look that tall.”
“I think the horizontal ratio was more important than the height,” said Jake, laughing. Then his face turned more serious. “You’re cool, you know that? It wouldn’t even have occurred to me to take in one last view. But you, like, see the big picture of things. When all this is gone, I’m gonna be glad to have this last image in my head of what old Happies looked like in its final hours. Like, maybe the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.”
Whoa, as Bill & Ted would have said. “I’m not cool,” I said. “Actually, I’m hot as hell,” meaning that literally. My skin burned as beads of sweat rolled down my back.
“Yeah ya are,” said Jake, and my heart dipped like a soft-serve cone in hot fudge sauce.
Suddenly, I was soothed. Jake lifted the ice brick I’d left on the roof and rubbed it down the back of my neck and then along my spine. “That feels nice,” I said.
“I’ll rub your back if you’ll rub mine.”
I smiled and held my hand out. He placed the cool brick into my hand, and I returned to rub down his perfect spine, and his hips swayed happily.
Flash memory: half an hour after closing time at Happies. We were in the freezer room to do an inventory check for the next day’s supply order. The door jammed, again, because Bev never wanted to pay the money to have a new one custom-made. “Paco knows how to fix it,” I assured Jake. “He used to be a locksmith before he became the cook here.”
“After his brief incarceration for unlawful entry into some rich folks’ homes to steal jewelry,” Jake said, laughing. “Yeah, we can trust that guy to help us out.”
“Rumor. Not confirmed,” I said.
We pounded our fists against the door until we heard longtime waitress Missy’s voice from the other side. “Paco’s on break. He rode over to Al’s Wine ’n’ Donuts for some smokes. He oughta be back in ten. Hold on in there, shouldn’t be long.” She snort-laughed. “I’m sure you kids can think up ways to stay warm till Paco gets back.”
Jake raised an eyebrow at me. “We gotta pass some time,” he said. “Nobody disobeys Missy if they wanna be let back into Happies.” I raised an eyebrow in return. Was he actually propositioning me after all these years I’d been secretly crushing on him? Did he just not care about Slick’s rules?
“That’s true,” I whispered. I’d never disobey Missy. I regretted that I would disobey Slick. Her brother was too irresistible. Slick never needed to know.
Jake stood before me, like inches away, smiling. “Yeah?” he whispered. “Yeah,” I said. He moved closer until he pressed into me and my back slid against the cold door. My skin didn’t have time to process the chill because immediately Jake’s lips were on mine, and oh wow, his tasted like mint chocolate chip ice cream, and I couldn’t wait to discover how the rest of his flesh tasted.
Then Paco the cockblocksmith returned from break, way too early.
Now, on top of the Chug Bug, once again I felt the same warm sensation spreading across my body as I felt during that freezer room lock-in with Jake. I rubbed the ice brick along Jake’s back, thinking about what we’d be rubbing later, when we were counting the money. “Mmmm,” Jake said.
“Mmmm-hmmm,” I said.
Yes, we produce well-rounded, eloquent scholars here in Rancho Soldado.
The blast of a loud song ended the moment. I threw the brick onto the ground, as Fletch and Slick waved their arms out of Selena Zavala-Kim’s SUV windows and Gwen Stefani sang from the speakers, “Hey baby, hey baby…”
“Hey!” we all three cried out.
Jake looked at his baby brother, Zeke, in the driver’s seat. “The Cuddle Huddle is called to session,” Jake said, imitating what Slick, Fletch, and I would say when we were ditching others’ company for our own company. Jake jumped back down into the Chug Bug while Zeke screeched, “Par-tay!”
The Chug Bug roof height wasn’t too high, so I jubilantly jumped down to the ground to greet my girls. “Showtime!” I squealed.
Slick and Fletch got out of the Z-K car while Z
eke head-thrashed in the driver’s seat in time to the song on the stereo. We girls formed into Cuddle Huddle, joined our fists in the middle, then lifted our arms in unison. “Good cuddle!”
Once disbanded from the Cuddle Huddle, Slick said to Jake, “We’ve got a shitload of ice in the back of the SUV. Can you unload it into the Chug Bug ’cuz I don’t feel like it.”
“I bought you a six-pack of Guinness,” Jake said, who knew how to play Slick even better than me. He tossed her a warm can. She liked her beer cold, but her beloved Guinness cans warm, as they’re supposed to be. Just because we live in the desert doesn’t mean we’re savages.
“Sucker punched again,” said Slick. She popped open the can and took a gulp. “Ahhh! Okay, I’ll move the ice to the Chug Bug. Come on, Zeke. You help me.”
I looked at Fletch. “Help me with the ice cream?”
“Yep,” said Fletch.
The two of us headed toward the Happies back door as Slick called to us from the Chug Bug. “I love you so much the moon farts snowflakes.”
I called back, “We love you so much we’d even slay Bambi’s mom if she got all up in your shit.”
Fletch said, “We love you so much that afterward we’d take you with us in our murder-suicide pact ’cuz we’re so distraught for being such fuckheads who’d kill Bambi’s mother.”