Summer on the Short Bus Page 7

  “No,” I say quickly. “A burrito actually sounds good.” Like freaking good. “I’m sure that will be fine.”

  “Well, great. I think Claire saved you a seat—go help yourself.”

  I hobble my way up the remaining stairs, blowing by Rainbow with the most convincing smile I can muster, and stumble into the mess hall. My sudden need for grease overrides my irritation with life. I hardly flinch when I see Claire waving me down like an airliner.

  “Chirp! Chirp!” she says. I take the empty seat between her and a boy who is wearing a duck-shaped oven mitt on his hand. “Do you like Mexican food? I love Mexican food!”

  “I do today.” Wasting no time digging into the basket of tortilla chips and bowl of salsa sitting in the center of the table.

  “You smell like candy,” says Oven Mitt.

  “Good to know,” I say, stuffing another salsa-drenched chip into my mouth.

  I quickly polish off the entire basket of chips before I notice Quinn looking at me from the next table over.

  “Hungry?” he says.

  My initial instinct is to flee, but as my headache eases with each gram of sodium that enters my blood stream, I realize there’s no point in being embarrassed. If puking on myself didn’t turn him off, going Miss Piggy probably won’t, either.

  “You have no idea,” I answer back.

  The rest of lunch carries on in about the same fashion as it has every day since I’ve been here. Claire rambles on to no one in particular about the American Idol concert she’s going to next month, and Meredith is using her fork as a microphone to perform Pink songs while Oven Mitt plays the drums with his spoon. I continue to stuff my face with more food than that Kardashian chick did during her pregnancy. All in all, I’m doing pretty well considering how my day started.

  “Remind me what’s on the agenda today,” I say to Fantine as we escort our small herd from the mess hall back to the bunkhouses.

  “We’re hitting the pool for a few hours, then it’s free time till dinner,” she says.

  “Really, the pool?” I’m feeling better with nine pounds of lard and a handful of Motrin in my gut, but baking under the sun doesn’t sound particularly appealing. “Um . . . I think I might have just developed an allergy to Mexican food.”

  She laughs before flicking my arm with her finger. “Nice try, Miss Pukes-A-Lot, but your ass is officially healthy now and you will be at that pool.”

  On instinct, my bottom lip rolls out into a pout, but I don’t say anything. With Fantine as my audience, I know there’s no point.

  “Damn, girl,” Fantine says while surveying my skimpy hot pink bikini that Cambodian children probably slaved over. “If Quinn doesn’t fall over dead when he sees you in that, then we know he’s gay.”

  I think this is a compliment, but considering she’s standing in front of me with washboard abs and looking like a model in her gold bikini, I can’t help but feel a tad insecure. At least my food baby is gone. “I probably should’ve brought a one-piece,” I say, tugging down on my top. “I had no idea camp would be, well, you know. It’s probably not appropriate.”

  “Are you kidding me? Wait until you see what they’re wearing.”

  She crosses the tiny space that makes up our bedroom and slides the curtain away from the wall. What she reveals is so shocking I have to blink hard to make sure I’m not hallucinating. Each of the five girls is sporting a bikini made of increasingly less fabric than the one standing beside it.

  “Whoa. I never would have thought they’d be into making that big of a statement at the pool.” No matter how horrible a statement it might be.

  “Oh, they are. They’re all about turning heads and getting attention. They might be different than us on the outside, but they’re really just normal teenage girls, too.”

  I’m not sure what I consider these girls to be, but normal has never crossed my mind.

  “All right, ladies,” Fantine says, striding into the main cabin area. “Let’s hit the pool!”

  “Do you work out a lot or something?” I ask Fantine. “Nothing on your body moves or shakes at all.”

  “I guess that’s what training for four hours a day will get you,” she says with a smirk. “Big muscles, ripped abs, and a tight ass.” She pats herself on the backside and generates a round of applause from some of the girls.

  “What kind of training do you do?” I ask.

  “Sheeeeeeeee’s a sprinter!” Meredith says proudly, rolling between us and wearing a smile almost as bright as her orange bikini. “Sheeeee’s going to the Olympics!”

  “Well, one of us is,” says Fantine, high-fiving her two-wheeled friend.

  “Wait . . . what? You’re going to the Olympics? Like the Olympics?”

  “I wish.” Fantine laughs. “The Olympics were my lifetime dream, but once I got a taste of college-level competition last year, it proved to be enough for me. This one, on the other hand, has already been to the Olympics and won a silver medal. Isn’t that right, Meredith?”

  “You did?” I make no attempt to hide my shock.

  “That was laaaast year. Next yeeeear I’m getting the goooooold!”

  “Damn straight you are,” Fantine says.

  I find myself nodding with an artificial smile, as I try to make sense of what I’ve just heard. At nineteen Fantine has already pursued a lifetime dream. The only lifetime dream I have involves me and a limit-free Visa. But the real mind-number is that Hannah Montana and her wheelchair of doom has made it to the freaking Olympics. How is that even possible?

  Before I have time to rationalize the absurdity of what I’ve just heard, my arms are loaded down with sunscreen and flotation devices, and I’m in the middle of a handicapped procession toward the swimming pool. Claire is on my right blathering on about some kid named James she can’t wait to play Marco Polo with, and Meredith is rolling along on my left, whistling a tune I recognize from The Sound of Music. Ordinarily I’m not a big fan of whistling, but today it’s kind of soothing. I’m probably still drunk.

  When we arrive at the swimming pool, I quickly determine that it is far from the infinity-edge country club pool I’m used to. There are no waterfalls, no lounge chairs with WiFi/Bluetooth capability, and no bubbly waitstaff eager to bring me a lemonade. Instead, I get a rectangular-shaped hole in the ground with stairs at one end and a thousand-foot-long wheelchair ramp at the other. The glamour factor is staggering.

  “What took you guys so long?” Quinn yells from the far end of the pool. As subtly as possible, I glance in his direction for my first sober glimpse of shirtless Quinn. Damn . . .

  “Duuuh! Weee had to get beauuuuuuutiful,” Meredith answers in her most dramatic voice. With catlike dexterity, she manages to steer herself with one hand while simultaneously releasing her hair from its pigtailed prison with the other. Her long red tresses fall easily over her shoulders, and she runs the fingers of her free hand through them very slowly, proving she’s got a lot more game than I ever would have imagined.

  “I told you they meant business,” Fantine says, giving her own tail feathers a dramatic shake while I surprise myself and actually laugh out loud.

  “Well, you did a good job,” Quinn says behind squinted eyes. “Isn’t that right, guys?”

  “Agreed!” Colin calls from the opposite end of the pool. A few pathetic whistlers chime in while Oven Mitt offers up his best catcall.

  The girls giggle at the attention, and I find myself smiling—forgetting for a brief moment that these people are not actually my friends.

  “Why are they such pathetic creatures?” Fantine says under her breath.

  I peer over my lenses and see that every male eye in the pool, even the googly one that’s usually looking elsewhere, is trained on us.

  “Boys are silly sometimes,” Claire says behind a schoolgirl grin. Without a shred of modesty, she steps out of her tent-size cover-up and presents herself in full, barely covered glory. From behind the safety of my glasses, I wince as her gleaming white b
utt cleavage makes its debut around the thin strip of neon fabric. Much to my surprise, no one laughs or makes jokes at this nightmarish display. Instead, there’s just one stuttering voice rising up from the back of the pool.

  “C-C-Claire! Are y-you ready to p-p-play?”

  “Yes!” she screams, thundering her way across the cement. “I’m coming for you, James!”

  Ah-ha. James—aka Oven Mitt.

  Claire plunges into the pool with the grace of a hippo, while I’m left to wonder what sort of alternate universe I’m living in. Girls with no legs win Olympic medals and girls whose asses have just eaten their own bathing suits aren’t made fun of.

  “Coooome on, Cricket!” Meredith calls from the pool’s edge. She’s dragging her hands through the water while her legs dangle in the water below her. “The waaaaater is great!”

  “Uh, yeah. Okay.” I shimmy off my cutoffs, and am just pulling my tank top over my head, when I see Meredith face-plant into the water. “Oh my God! Is she okay?”

  Without waiting for an answer, I race toward the pool’s edge, prepared to jump in after her.

  “Cricket, wait!” Fantine’s instruction grabs my attention only a moment before I feel her death grip on my arm.

  “She’s going to drown!” I say, trying to wiggle away from her.

  “No, she’s not,” Fantine says, in a voice that seems much too calm given the circumstances. “Look at her.” With her free hand, she points toward the deep end of the pool where two pale arms are cutting through the water.

  I blink hard to make sure I’m not seeing things. “Holy crap.”

  “Pretty amazing, huh?”

  Amazing is David Beckham in an underwear ad. This is something entirely different.

  “Yeah,” I say, my head shaking in disbelief. “It’s . . . wow. I had no idea you could swim without, uh . . .”

  “Legs?”

  I look down to find Quinn staring up at me. His tanned arms are crossed on the lip of the pool, and the smile on his face is radiant.

  “Yeah,” I admit with a shrug. “That’s probably really stupid of me, huh?”

  “Nah,” he says, and now it seems his eyes are smiling, too. “Most people probably can’t swim without the use of their legs. But Meredith is pretty exceptional. Most swimmers at her level have some use of their legs, but not her—all her power comes from her arms. She’s got some serious guns to contend with. I’m pretty sure she could take me.”

  “Somehow I doubt that,” I say, admiring the beads of cool water glistening on his firm shoulders and perfectly defined biceps. Zac Efron has nothing on Quinn in the muscle department.

  “So what about you, do you swim?”

  “Well, I can,” I say, tossing my tank to the ground. “But I don’t do it competitively or anything.” Like I do anything competitively. “I guess I’m not much of an athlete. What about you?” Although he’s subtle, I still catch him taking a glimpse at my bikini. I can’t help but smile. Claire is right, boys are silly sometimes. “What about you?” I ask again.

  “Huh? Oh yeah,” he says. “I . . . play soccer.”

  “Soccer. That’s right. Fantine told me about the scholarship. That’s awesome.”

  “It’s only a partial, but it helps. Without it there’s no way my parents could afford to send me there.”

  I think back to the T-shirt I woke up in. My heart starts beating a little faster. “DePaul, right?”

  He nods. “It’s got a solid engineering program and it’s not too far away, so it worked out well.”

  “So that’s what you want to do then? Be an engineer?”

  “Something along those lines,” he says. “I’ve always liked piecing things together—constructing things and stuff. There are a lot of different fields I can get into with an engineering degree, so I figured it was a good fit. What about you? What are your plans after graduation next year?”

  His question catches me by surprise. Not because I haven’t been asked about it before, but because for the first time I feel like I should know the answer. Or might actually want to know the answer.

  “I’m still debating,” I lie. “I have a couple different things in mind but I’m not ready to say anything for sure.”

  “Holding out for a big announcement, huh?”

  “Yeah,” I say. Or a revelation.

  “Do I even get a hint?”

  I stare down at the cute little wrinkle that has suddenly formed in the center of his forehead, and wish I could. Other than trying to land that striped Burberry bag I spied last month, I haven’t given much consideration to my future at all.

  “Nope,” I say, shrugging off my insecurities with a smirk. “You’ll have to wait like everybody else.”

  “You’re no fun,” he says, and splashes my legs with water. “Well, I’m sure whatever it is it’ll be great. I can’t wait to hear what it is.”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  You and me both.

  ELEVEN

  Somewhere in Katie’s magazine vault, there’s an article detailing how stupid it is for girls to go starry-eyed over a guy they’ve just met. Before Quinn, I’d have nominated that author for some sort of magazine award. Now, I’m pretty sure I’d be the inspiration for the story.

  In my head, I am aware that my infatuation for Quinn could be considered embarrassing. But try as I might, I can’t convince my heart and my body to respond any differently than they are. Besides the gorgeous, makes-my-insides-turn-to-Jell-O factor, he’s also sweet, funny, and painfully smart. Which is why I nearly strip off my pajamas and offer myself to him on a bed of poison oak when he shows up outside my window with a flashlight and that cute, lopsided grin.

  “What do you want, Pretty Boy?” Fantine says through the dusty window screen. “Aren’t you the one always telling us we need our beauty sleep?”

  “I’m not here for you, Marquez,” he says from the shadows. “I want to borrow Cricket for a few minutes.”

  We are already sharing what limited space our tiny window frame allows, but as soon as I hear Quinn’s request, I shove her out of the way and press my forehead against the screen. “Hey, Quinn. What’s up?”

  Fantine falls back against her bed, laughing at my lack of subtlety while I shush her with my hand.

  “Can you come out for a few minutes?”

  “Yeah! Just give me a sec.” I hop off my bed and begin the mad search for my flip-flops.

  “You are officially pathetic. You know that, right?”

  “I’m not pathetic,” I say, clawing through the dark for my damned left shoe. “I just want to see what he wants, that’s all. Ahha!” I pull the flip-flop out from under the bed and give it a quick shake, praying no spiders have taken up residence. “I’m just a hospitable person.”

  “Hospitable? You? Just promise me you’ll use a condom.”

  “Ew! You’re disgusting,” I say, tossing my pillow over her smirky face. “You’re just jealous because Colin’s not out there doing the same thing for you right now.”

  “Colin? Oh please. That boy wouldn’t know what to do with a girl if you gave him an instruction manual. Besides, I don’t date men under twenty-five. Or over seven feet.”

  “Whatever. You know you’d be all over him if he offered.”

  She snorts. “In his dreams.”

  “Okay, fine, I’m outta here. Don’t wait up.”

  “Have fun,” she says. “And remember, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

  Now it’s my turn to snort. “Like that’s even possible.”

  In an exaggerated attempt not to wake the girls, I creep through the main cabin and slide out onto the front porch. Quinn is waiting for me on the bottom step. He looks so dreamy beneath the silvery moonlight that I have to grab the handrail so I don’t fall over.

  “What’s up?” I say, sounding a lot calmer than I actually am.

  “Hey, I wanted to talk to you about something. I was hoping for a little privacy.”

  “Uh . . . yeah. Sure.” Not e
xactly the do-you-wanna-taste-my-ChapStick invitation I was hoping for, but it’ll do.

  I fall in line beside him as we head up the paved trail that leads away from the cabin. The air feels extra muggy tonight and, per usual, the mosquitoes are in full grazing mode. But much like wheelchairs and lazy eyes, when Quinn’s nearby they don’t seem to bother me as much.

  “Where exactly are we going?” I ask, realizing that my flip-flops don’t make the best hiking shoes.

  “It’s a surprise.”

  “But you do know where you’re going, right? We’re not just wandering for the sake of wandering. . . .”

  He stops suddenly, turning his head over his shoulder to look at me. “Why, Miss Montgomery, you’re not scared of the dark, are you?”

  “No, Mr. Youngsma,” I say, with an equal amount of sarcasm. “I’m not scared of the dark. I’m scared of tripping and adding another Band-Aid to my collection.”

  Despite the darkness I see him smile. “Well, you have a point there. I’m pretty sure Pete’s all out of vampires, which means you’d probably be stuck with SpongeBob, so . . . here.” He extends his hand toward me. “I should probably help you the rest of the way.”

  “Such a gentleman.” I drop my hand into his and nearly melt. It’s as warm as I remember. I clutch that hand until we finally descend down a steep, overgrown hill and into a leaf-carpeted gully and he releases me.

  “So what do you think?” he says, aiming his tiny flashlight in front of us. “Was it worth the hike?”

  The dim beam can’t possibly enhance the view the moonlight already provides. “Wow,” I say, stepping forward to survey one of the gray, ancient-looking trees. I graze my hand along its trunk. The way the roots erupt through the ground reminds me of Carolyn’s fingers, all bent and knobby. “This is so cool. It’s like something out of a Harry Potter movie. I feel like the trees are going to start talking or something.”

  “I know, isn’t it awesome? I stumbled across it last summer.” Like some sort of pretty-boy ninja, he begins hopping and leaping his way through the maze of bending roots. “I come out here sometimes when I feel like I need a break from things at camp,” he says, balancing a foot on a particularly narrow root. “It can get a little intense sometimes.”