Sammy Keyes and the Wedding Crasher

  In both cases it felt like I’d been robbed.

  And then, right there in the middle of the mall, I connected the dots.

  Both times, it was my mother who’d robbed me.

  It was like she was a soap character. One who kept secrets. One who manipulated. One who timed her interruptions for maximum dramatic effect. And Casey and I had been like two characters in her soap—held apart by forces beyond their control … finally on the cusp of getting together … finally in each other’s arms … inching closer and closer for their first kiss … when suddenly the Diva of Destruction enters the room and drops a bombshell that flings the characters apart forever.

  I don’t even remember getting to KC Shoes. I was too busy getting lost in Lady Lana’s soap opera. But then Marissa’s voice breaks through the daze. “Aren’t you going in?”

  “Huh?” I blink at her. “Oh. Oh, right.”

  Kenny’s leaning against one of the Plexiglas displays like a mannequin. “Hello!” he says, coming to life when we step inside. Then he recognizes me. “Oh, yay. Debra will be so relieved. I’m under strict orders to tell you to go over to her house immediately.” He hurries behind the counter and produces a shoe box. And as he hands it over, he says, “As a matter of fact, I think I’ll call her now and tell her you’re on your way.”

  “You’re sure a full-service shoe store,” I grumble.

  “What was that?” he asks, giving me an oily smile.

  “Nothing.” I open up the shoe box, and what I see kinda startles me. I mean, I was expecting lavender shoes—and these are definitely lavender—but I wasn’t expecting the little glass beads that were glued over the toe area in the shape of a heart.

  “Wow,” Marissa says. “Those are little princess shoes.”

  “Did you want to try them on?” Kenny asks as he punches at the phone keypad.

  I tell him, “No!” but it comes out in a ridiculously desperate way, so I take it down a notch. “I mean, no, I’m sure they’re fine.” I scoop up the box and head for the door, calling, “Thanks!”

  “So I guess we’re off to Debra’s?” Marissa asks once we’re back in the main mall corridor.

  “She lives on Elm. About a block away from that little white church on Constance Street. You want to come?”

  She says sure, and since I’m now lugging around a backpack, a skateboard, and a big shoe box, we go the coolest way possible—through Cheezers.

  Trouble is, as we’re filing through, I look over at the dining area and see the same three guys the Vincenator had been hanging out with over the weekend. Bad Mood Bob doesn’t seem to be with them, but on impulse I snag two menus off the counter, grab Marissa by the arm, and head for the dining room.

  “What are we doing?” she whispers.

  “Just be cool,” I whisper back.

  Then I drag her inside.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  I slip into a seat near the bikers and hold a menu in front of my face.

  “Why are we doing this?” Marissa whispers around the side of her menu.

  It’s a good question, and to tell you the truth, my real answer is pretty lame.

  It’s just a feeling.

  So instead of telling her that, I shrug and say, “So we can tell Spy Guy that we were tracking Captain Evil?”

  “Captain Evil’s not even here! And he’s not going to be here! He’s home having a nervous breakdown, remember?”

  “Shhhh!”

  She rolls her eyes and disappears behind her menu but pops out an instant later. “And I don’t have money for a pizza, do you?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t even have money for a Coke.”

  She gives me a stern look. “Then I suggest we go!”

  The biker guys are laughing and joking and passing around a pitcher of beer, but there are only three glasses, and Marissa’s right—it’s not like the Vincenator is anywhere around. Plus, the bikers are talking stupid stuff.

  “Do you think Mantrap Marcie will be back this year?”

  “You can have Marcie. I’m goin’ for Skullcap Sue!”

  “Man, it’s about the ride, not the chicks!”

  “No, man, it’s about the ride and the chicks!”

  “Kick-start my heart! Can’t wait to get outta here!”

  They all laugh and clink their mugs together. “Hogtoberfest!”

  Marissa gives me a disgusted look, then leans forward and whispers, “So, you’re planning to report all this to Mikey?”

  I sigh and put down my menu, and I’m about to get up and leave when the one with the blocky granite face opens his ringing cell phone and says, “Yo, Curveball, update me, man.” And after a couple of minutes of uh-huh-ing, he goes, “I’m with Flash and Bones—we’re at Cheezers.” Then he’s back to uh-huh-ing for another minute before saying, “When do you take delivery on that?” He gives the other guys a thumbs-up and says, “Awesome!” into the phone.

  One of the Evil Eye manager guys checks us over as he brings the bikers a pizza. And since Marissa’s obviously right and since I don’t want ol’ Evil Eye to ask what we’re ordering, or Flash and Bones and Gargoyle—or whoever the granite-faced guy is—to notice us, I just grab my stuff and we scoot out of the dining room, then hurry to the back door of Cheezers.

  “What was that all about?” Marissa asks once we’re outside. “Those guys are total losers.”

  And, yeah, I’m feeling kind of stupid and pretty defensive. So I say, “Hey, just because they’re bikers doesn’t mean they’re losers.”

  She looks at me like I’ve lost my very last marble. “It’s three in the afternoon and they’re sucking down beer. Obviously, they don’t have jobs!”

  “Maybe they work the night shift?”

  “So they’re getting hammered before work?” She flashes a look at me. “And did you hear the way they were talking about women? They’re disgusting losers!”

  She was right, and I knew it. And even though I’d always thought of Mr. Vince as being disgusting and kind of a loser, he seemed miles more responsible than his buddies inside Cheezers.

  Which got me to thinking that maybe they weren’t even his friends. Maybe they were just, like, acquaintances he’d run into there and had hung out with for a little while.

  Marissa’s squinting at me. “What were you hoping to do in there?”

  “I don’t know, okay? I don’t know!” And as we pass by the same three Harleys we’d seen the day we’d been to the mall with Mikey, I’m feeling like I’m Mikey—like I’m in some make-believe world where I can spy on people and figure things out. Only instead of spying on someone who might actually have something to do with what’s been going on, I’m spying on middle-aged men who call themselves Bones and Flash and make toasts to “Hogtoberfest.”

  Whatever that is.

  We trudge along in silence clear across the mall parking lot until finally Marissa says, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to come down on you like that.”

  “Hey, I was being an idiot.”

  She laughs. “That’s usually my role.”

  “No, it’s not. Your role is to wreck things that have wheels.” I grin at her and pull away. “So don’t even think you can borrow my skateboard.”

  “I am so done with skateboards,” she says. And since we’re real near Cypress Street, she asks, “Hey, can we drop our stuff at Hudson’s before we go over to Debra’s?” So we cut down Cypress, dump everything but my lavender shoes at Hudson’s, and then head out.

  “Her house is so cute,” Marissa says as we go up the walkway. But the minute Debra answers the door, the word cute vanishes, and what we’re thinking instead is some combination of Holy smokes and Ouch and … She’s a carrot!

  “I know, I know!” Debra says, and then bursts into tears.

  “What happened?” I ask, following her inside.

  “I went to the tannin’ salon, but it was my first time and I didn’t think I looked dark enough, so I bought some Quik Tan, and … and … now I look like this!”


  “Will it wash off?” I ask.

  “No!” she wails. She shows me her palms, which are bright orange. “And the weddin’s tomorrow.”

  I try, “Maybe it’ll fade into a perfect tan by then?” but she just bursts into tears again, crying, “No, it won’t!”

  “Where’s the tube?” I ask, looking around. “Does it give any directions about how to undo?”

  She collapses onto the couch. “I don’t think so.…”

  So I search, and when I find the tube, what’s it tell me?

  A whole lot of nothing.

  “Maybe there’s a site on the Internet?” Marissa says, standing by a small desk near the couch. “Do you want me to try to find something?”

  “Go ahead,” Debra hiccups.

  “By the way, I’m Marissa,” Marissa says as she types at Debra’s laptop. “You probably don’t remember, but I’ve met you before at the police station.”

  Debra sniffs hello and after a minute asks, “Did you find anything?”

  “How to Fix a Tanning Cream Mistake,” Marissa reads aloud.

  Debra sits up a little. “Really?”

  So Marissa skims the article and says, “Basically, you soak for an hour in the tub, exfoliate, then apply baking soda paste, rinse, and apply baby oil, then dab on lemon juice, take a shower, and moisturize.”

  “I don’t have time to do all that! The rehearsal’s at eight!”

  I put out my hand to help her off the couch. “You don’t have time not to.”

  “But I’ve got to hem your dress!”

  “Just show me how and I’ll do it.” I couldn’t believe the words actually came out of my mouth, but they did.

  She takes my hand. “Are you sure?”

  I pull her up. “Sure I’m sure. Marissa’ll help me. We’ll do it while you’re soaking in the tub.”

  So she brings out the Mountain of Lavender, which makes Marissa’s jaw drop. “That is a lot of dress,” she whispers in my ear.

  When I’ve burrowed my way into it, I let Debra triple-zip me up, then I step into my stilettos and stand completely still while she sits on the floor and pins the hem to the right length.

  After she’s cut off some extra fabric, she sets up Marissa and me with needle and thread and shows us how to do a slip stitch. And since the skirt is about a mile of fabric around, it’s like Marissa and I are hemming in our own little universes.

  “You got it?” she asks.

  “No problem,” I tell her.

  “Got it!” Marissa says. “Now go in there and light some candles! Turn on some music. Relax!”

  “Oh, that sounds so nice!” And after clicking through a stack of cases in a bookshelf, Debra pulls out a CD and says, “You girls ever heard of Darren Cole?”

  Marissa starts bouncing up and down. “I saw him! In Vegas! With my mom!” She laughs. “My mom loves him.”

  Debra chuckles and says, “Yup,” like, Who doesn’t? But all of a sudden I’m totally down in the dumps. Long story short, there’s a Darren Cole song called “Waitin’ for Rain to Fall,” and it’s, like, my “Casey” song.

  Anyway, once Debra’s in the bathroom with the door closed, Marissa whispers, “She looks horrible.”

  I force away thoughts of Casey. “Shhh!”

  “And she really clashes with this dress!”

  “She’s not wearing this dress,” I whisper back. “I am.”

  Marissa looks up from her sewing. “How do you get yourself into these things?”

  I shake my head. “One wrong step at a time?”

  Anyway, we sit there and sew, and although I do prick my finger hard a couple of times, I don’t die, or fall into an enchanted sleep, or anything like that. By the time Debra’s emerging from the bathroom, we’ve made it all the way around the bottom of the dress.

  Well, Marissa’s done about three-fourths of it, and I’ve done the rest.

  “Nice job!” Debra says, inspecting Marissa’s stitching. Then she sees some of mine and pulls a little face.

  “Hey! It’ll hold it together.”

  She kisses the top of my head like Grams might have and laughs. “I suppose it will.”

  “So baking soda’s next, right?” Marissa asks.

  “You know, I can do the rest myself. Soakin’ in the tub was so soothing. Thank you, girls.”

  She’s looking as orange as ever, but at least she feels better.

  So we head out the door, only at the last minute she calls, “Wait! Your dress! And your shoes!”

  I stop and blink at her because, really, I don’t know how I’m going to haul them up the fire escape without being seen. “Uh, I can’t leave them here?”

  At first she says, “No,” but then I can see the wheels turning in her head. And I don’t know if that’s because Officer Borsch has told her about my living situation or because she’s thinking she could really use some help, but she says, “Uh … the other girls, Brandi and Tippy? They’re meetin’ here tomorrow before the weddin’ to help me out.”

  “Brandi and Tippy?”

  “Mmm-hmm,” she says, like these are real names and not nicknames or something. Then she just goes on with, “I’m takin’ my dress over to the church after they show up. Would you like to come by here, too? We could take your dress at the same time.”

  Well, that sure beat hauling a mountain of lavender up the fire escape, so I tell her, “Sounds like a plan.”

  “All right. So I’ll see you at the church tonight at eight.”

  I start to say okay, but then I stop cold. “You’ll what?”

  She cocks her head a little. “For the rehearsal?”

  “Uh … what rehearsal?”

  “The weddin’ rehearsal?”

  “I don’t know anything about it.”

  She covers her face with her hands. “Oh, Sams, I’m so sorry.” She peeks out at me. “Please tell me you can make it.”

  “But … why do we have to rehearse?”

  Marissa looks at me. “How else will you know what to do?”

  “I don’t know! How should I know? I’ve never been in a wedding before. I’ve never even been to a wedding before!”

  Debra eyes me. “Which is why we need to rehearse!”

  I point to the dress. “Do I have to wear that?”

  “To the rehearsal? No, hon,” Debra says. “It’s just a run-through. No dress code requirements. I know eight o’clock is late, but Tippy and Brandi are flyin’ in today, and it’s the only time that worked for everybody. It’ll be quick, I promise.” She gives me a pleading look. “There’ll be refreshments afterward … ?”

  I let out a deep, puffy breath. “Okaaay.”

  Then I grab Marissa and get out of there.

  TWENTY-SIX

  By the time we get back to Hudson’s, it’s almost six o’clock. “I should have called Grams from Debra’s,” I tell Marissa. “She’s probably worried.”

  Sure enough, Hudson greets us with, “You better call home, Sammy.”

  So I do, and what I find out from Grams is that my mother has been waiting around the apartment so that she can spend some “quality time” with me.

  “She’s just trying to get out of painting and cleaning,” I grumble.

  Grams sighs. “Samantha, honestly. You need to be a little more gracious about these overtures.”

  “They’re more like overdues,” I grumble.

  “Samantha!”

  “I know. I’m sorry. But it’s not like she asked if I was, you know, available. All of a sudden she decides she needs to spend some time with me, and I’m supposed to drop everything? I’ve got a wedding rehearsal to go to tonight.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes, I do.” Then I add, “How else am I supposed to know what to do?”

  “But—”

  “So, see? If the world revolved around something besides Lady Lana, she might have checked with me ahead of time.”

  “But … why didn’t I know about it? When is it? What time will you be home?”
br />   Now, I don’t exactly want to get into the facts about this, so I start giving her other information. “Oh, Grams, you wouldn’t believe what we’ve been going through today. Debra went to a tanning place but didn’t think she came out dark enough, so she got some of that tanning lotion, and it turned her completely orange. So Marissa and I have been picking up shoes and hemming dresses and trying to help her get the orange off her skin.”

  “You were hemming?” she gasps.

  “All in the line of duty,” I tell her. Then I throw in, “So, see, the bride-to-be’s a basket case, and it’s been a pretty intense afternoon for the bridesmaid. I know I should have called earlier, but this was the first chance I had. And now I’ve got to eat something and get over to the rehearsal.”

  “Oh my,” she says, then after a pause she asks, “How orange is she?”

  “Carrot orange.”

  She sighs. “Poor dear. Poor, poor dear.”

  “So tell Mom sorry, but I really have no ‘quality time’ to spend with her tonight. I’m probably not going to be home until nine-thirty or ten.”

  “That late?”

  “Yup. Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.” Then, ’cause I know she will worry that I’m not fine, I add, “I’ll ask Officer Borsch to give me a ride.”

  “That would be good. And by the way, Warren does not know that you’re living here, so that secret’s still safe.”

  I hesitate, then ask, “So where does he think I’m living?”

  There’s a kinda long pause, and then Grams says, “With your father.”

  “With my—Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me!” Then something hits me. “So he does live in Santa Martina?”

  “Uh … I didn’t say that,” Grams says, and I can tell she’s really uncomfortable being tangled up in my mother’s secret. She drops her voice and says, “You know I can’t get into that.” Then she adds, “And I agree with you—I don’t like what she told Warren, either, but we’ll just have to deal with it. At least she had the good sense not to put us in jeopardy.”

  “But Casey knows! What if he talks to his dad?”

  “You see how unfortunate that is now?”