Bad Call Read online

  “It’s not like that. We were—or at least I thought we were—really good friends.”

  “Camping? In Yosemite? That’s Frisbee code, Els!”

  Ellie stares at the green remnants of her tea.

  Nadia says, “Did you answer him?”

  “No.”

  “You’re revenge-ignoring him?”

  “No.”

  “Because?”

  “I’m conflicted.”

  “Aha! So that’s why you paid for my drink. You want me to de-conflict you!”

  “If that was a real word. But more like I want you to set the process in motion.”

  “Okay. I can do that.” Nadia takes a thoughtful sip. “Are you ready to start?”

  “Yes.”

  “First question. Do you trust him?”

  “Your version of trust or mine?”

  “We’re on you now.”

  “In that case, yes. I trust him.”

  “Why?”

  “Like I previously stated. We’re friends.”

  “With or without benefits?”

  Ellie takes a long beat. “Next question.”

  “Ho-kay.” Nadia carves a check mark in the air. “I’ll put that in the N folder for no benefits. Unless you want to explain.” And sips again. All she gets from across the table is blank-faced silence. “All right, then. Moving on. Mr. Frisbee’s text said ‘this weekend.’ Does that mean a sleepover?”

  “I assume so.”

  “What are the sleeping arrangements?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Nadia carves another check mark. “That goes in the B folder for bullshit. My next-to-last question: Who are his friends?”

  Ellie thinks about the friends Ceo made at the workshop and discounts them right away. He didn’t connect with any guys because they were all jealous of the attention he got from the girls, and she doubted he would be asking more than one female on a camping trip, although she could think of two at the workshop that would say yes without thinking twice. The only friends Ceo talked about with her were on the tennis team at CGA, and only one that he mentioned more than once. That friend was from Vermont, and Ceo referred to him as “Q.” The team picture on the website listed one guy from Vermont. His name was Colin. He looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t figure out how. Still, Ellie decides to answer Nadia’s question with the simple truth: “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know who his friends are?”

  “Correct.”

  “So, technically speaking, this camping trip could be an invitation to a sausage fest?”

  “It could. But it’s not.”

  “And you know this how?”

  “I defer to answer number one.”

  Nadia has to think. She says, “You trust him?”

  “I do.”

  “Holy shit! You need a better answer than that. I mean, seriously better. Because the Ellie I know, the one who scored 2200 on the SAT and has colleges flying her to see them, that Ellie wouldn’t waste two seconds on this guy. Sure, he has great abs. Amazing abs, actually. I’d date those abs. But the Ellie I know doesn’t date body parts, unless it’s the brain. And Mr. Frisbee didn’t get those ripples reading science books. So, tell me, whoever you are sitting across from me drinking that tea, W. T. F.?”

  Ellie looks at the tattooed barista. Rumor has it he has a law degree from Loma Linda and passed the bar two years ago. Was married, divorced, maybe has a kid in another state, and flew helicopters in Iraq. Yet here he is, leaning out the drive-thru window, putting on a show for the girls at the register. Rumor also has it he’s starting up a band.

  Ellie says, “Newton’s first law.”

  “What?”

  “Newton’s first law.”

  “Newton? Is he the guy that says stupid shit will happen because people are stupid?”

  “That’s Murphy—in a vaguely inaccurate Wikipedia-ish sort of way. Newton was a seventeenth-century physicist.”

  “Can I get an answer that doesn’t involve science?”

  “Not my fault you dropped physics.”

  “Fine. Be like that. Here’s my last question. What’s up with Cusey?”

  “That’s him making fun of my thing for John Cusack.”

  “Oooh, I like him already.” Nadia sits back in her chair, studies Ellie from a distance. Then she nods at the tattooed barista. “Buy me another cup of whatever. And an almond scone, but make sure he nukes it. He always does a little dance when he nukes stuff.”

  “I know it well.”

  “Oh, and leave your phone. Before passing judgment, I need to see those abs again.”

  Ellie leaves her phone. When she returns, Nadia is waiting, her face dangerously unreadable. The phone is screen down on the table.

  “Well?” Ellie asks.

  “Sir Isaac Newton discovered gravity.”

  “You googled him?”

  “I did.”

  “So,” Ellie says, sinking into her chair, trying to read that face and not liking what she doesn’t see, “how shall I proceed?”

  “You don’t proceed.”

  “Okay.” And feels a wave of something she hopes is relief.

  “Because,” Nadia says, looking at Ellie’s phone, “I proceeded for you.”

  “What does that mean?”

  The phone dings.

  After the ding fades, “Oh, shit. Nadia, you didn’t. Please tell me you didn’t!”

  Nadia smiles.

  Ellie snatches up her phone. Heart thumping, she stares at the screen.

  ELLIE

  Absofreakinglutely. Bring your Frisbee. Let’s play.

  CEO

  Yeefreakingha! Frisbee is packed and good to go.

  Ellie says, “Want to know where I went this weekend?” and dives right. She catches the soccer ball three feet off the ground in her outstretched goalie-gloved hands, lands hard on the grass in front of the goal, which after twenty minutes of this abuse is more mud than grass. She leaps to her feet, rolls the ball to Nadia, who stops it with a cleated foot.

  Nadia, with a dozen soccer balls scattered around her, says, “Of course I do. Where did you go this weekend?” She kicks the ball hard and low to Ellie’s left.

  Ellie dives, makes the saving catch, rolls the ball to Nadia. “I flew to LA, got picked up by Jenny, and she gave me a tour of the Pepperdine campus.”

  “Pepperdine is on your short list?”

  “No. But it’s on my father’s. The helpful people in Malibu said if I ever wanted to see the campus, just give them a call. So I called.”

  “Your parents were okay with you going alone?”

  “My dad is in Seattle presenting at an oncology conference. Mom is driving my sister everywhere as usual. Then she has to prep for a case. They told me to make the right choices.”

  “Lucky you.”

  “The stars appear to be aligning.”

  “Who’s Jenny?” Nadia tees up another penalty kick.

  “Jenny from admissions. She’s perky and blond and looks remarkably like someone I cropped out of a stock photo. And future Nadia was very helpful, by the way.”

  “That was nice of me. What did future Nadia do?” Nadia drills a shot at Ellie’s torso. She catches the ball, stumbles backward a step from the impact, fires an overarm pass to Nadia, who executes a perfect chest trap.

  Ellie says, “You tweeted a couple pictures on my account with #lovin’ the pdine and #go waves!, which you of course retweeted to everyone. Then you posted a selfie of me and Jenny in front of the Odell McConnell Law Center on my Instagram and Facebook, which you promptly liked and shared with everyone.”

  “You hate selfies.”

  “True. Almost as much as any movie with Seann William Scott. But my mom appreciated it. She says your Facebook page is better than mine, by the way.”

  “That’s because your Facebook page is a John Cusack stalker site that you clutter up with quotes from old movies that no one watches. So where did I get the bogus pictures I have
n’t seen yet?” Nadia jukes left, then chips a high kick toward the upper-right corner. Ellie barely makes the save, finger-tipping the ball so it sails over the goal by inches.

  “I finished photoshopping them later tonight, then handed them to you on a flash drive tomorrow morning, when you gave me a ride to the airport.”

  “Future Nadia gave you a ride to the airport?”

  “Wasn’t that nice of her?”

  “Too nice. Why?”

  “Because my mother would wonder why I’m taking a huge backpack to Pepperdine.”

  “Oh, right. So…like, what time did I give you this ride?”

  A whistle blows in the background. A female voice calls out, “Five more minutes, everyone. Then corner kicks before sprints. Monica! Stop dribbling and cross the ball!”

  Ellie says, “My flight left at eight fifteen. You picked me up at five fifty. And for once you weren’t late.”

  “Five fifty? In the A freaking M? Future Nadia is a better friend than I thought.”

  “She felt guilty because it’s her freaking fault that I’m in this mess.”

  “As she recalls, you thanked her on Monday.”

  “I doubted that.”

  Nadia places the ball on the penalty mark. “How did you pay for the ticket without your mom knowing?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Who did?”

  Ellie pretends to throw a Frisbee.

  “Seriously?”

  “The man has resources.”

  Nadia grins. “You got that right.”

  Coach yells, “Nadia! I don’t see any balls in the net! Less talking, more scoring!”

  Nadia backs up, points to the goal. “Sorry, Els. This one is going in.”

  “Nope. It wants to be with all its loser friends.” Ellie nods behind the goal to a dozen soccer balls scattered like oversize marbles in the grass. She goes into a crouch, hands forward, fingers spread and curved just a little. Her eyes focused like twin lasers on Nadia’s right foot.

  Nadia says, “Don’t forget to pee right after you get off the plane.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I hear they sell condoms in the restrooms at Fresno.”

  Nadia runs and kicks.

  Ellie dives right, punches the ball into tomorrow.

  She watches the gray pavement rush toward them, then turn into a gray blur. Ellie waits for that breathless moment when gravity overcomes lift and the landing gear reassuringly thumps. After the brakes engage and the plane slows to a survivable speed, she finally exhales. The man next to her, who hogged the armrest without remorse, pulls out his phone. She does the same. A text is waiting.

  CEO

  U there yet?

  ELLIE

  Almost to the gate.

  I hope your plane landed better than this one.

  She smiles at the bizarre image of Ceo holding a crashed plane, stubbed out like a cigarette, in the palm of his hand.

  ELLIE

  That IS my plane!

  Where are you?

  CEO

  Almost there. We’ll see you soon.

  Not I’ll see you soon.

  We’ll.

  Making sure she remembers that he isn’t alone.

  As if that wasn’t one of three concerns occupying her thoughts as she sipped V8 juice at twenty-eight thousand feet and hoped that the more-than-occasional turbulence was not a metaphor for events to follow. First on the list was how her parents would react after the inescapable discovery that she didn’t go to Pepperdine. That she went camping in Yosemite instead and used a variety of elaborate deceptions to make it possible, including the duplicitous corruption (the words her father would most likely use) of her best friend, Nadia. The fact that it was with a guy, and even worse, a guy that they didn’t know, will be a force multiplier with an X potential that will lead to a highly predictable outcome. An outcome that has been in the wings but whose time has definitely come.

  Second on the list was how the reunion with Ceo would play out at the airport. She wasn’t sure where her emotions would land on a scale ranging from extreme disappointment that he ignored her for so long to her heart racing just like it did when they almost kissed at the beach in June. Being stuck in almost for so long, then moving on, then being pulled back in has a pain potential she’d rather not assign a value.

  Last on the list, but not far behind number two, is the we’ll in this equation. Who are they, and which side of the equation will she be on? Of all the variables, the friend question is the most knowable. Because now she has a clue.

  Ellie studies the picture as the plane taxies to the gate. Ceo, prominent in the foreground, looks as good as ever. His hair is a little longer than she remembers, and maybe a little blonder. There’s a Quick-Stop convenience store in the far distance. The middle distance is where she spends her time. A green SUV has a hose sticking out of the tank. Leaning back against the SUV is a guy in a black T-shirt and jeans, facing them, arms folded across his chest. His hair is short, black or dark brown, and he looks like he’s about their age, with heavy features that make him appear closer to eighteen than seventeen. By using the pumps for reference, she can tell that he’s big, definitely an inch or possibly two over six feet, and that his chest is nearly as wide as the pumps. His arms make the gas hose look like a piece of twine. She zooms in on his face. It’s darkened by shadows and badly pixelated, so the details are sketchy. It is longish and narrow, a sharp contrast to the rest of him. The eyes are black smudges, so no help there. The only point of absolute clarity are his lips. Shaped like a smile, but not amused. Closer to bored, like here we go again. Her photography instincts tell her that there is more to read if she wants to take the time. Which she doesn’t. The overall effect is unsettling, and she pockets her phone.

  As the plane rolls to a stop and the door opens she considers the final unknown. Who took the picture? If the big guy by the pumps is part of the group, and because of his age she thinks he is, logic would indicate that to balance the equation the gender of the photographer must be female. Maybe the big guy’s girlfriend? But balance is relative and easily lost. And logic, she reminds herself, went out the window when Ceo sent his text three days ago.

  Ellie makes her way through the terminal, stops to admire the faux forest-theme decor along the way. By the time she reaches baggage claim the conveyor belt for her flight is turning and scattered with luggage. Her backpack isn’t among them. She searches the room, and Ceo isn’t there.

  Her phone dings.

  NADIA

  Frisbee update ☺

  ELLIE

  No F in sight.

  NADIA

  You land in LA in ten minutes.

  ELLIE

  Am I crazy?

  ☺

  She searches for Ceo again, comes up empty. The crowd is thinning, and so are the bags. Ellie resigns herself to counting the seconds per revolution of the conveyor belt while weighing the pros and cons of her backpack being lost. She determines the results are equivalent to a coin flip.

  Her phone dings again. Nadia is enjoying this way too much.

  CEO

  What’s up?

  ELLIE

  I’m watching luggage go round and round.

  CEO

  Sounds like fun.

  ELLIE

  For the luggage. RU close?

  Very.

  How very?

  Is that your backpack making babies with a green duffel?

  Ellie looks up, sees a green Adidas duffel bag on top of her pack. She spins, searches the faces of the remaining passengers. Finds him leaning against the wall under the Men’s Restroom sign. How long has he been there? Nadia would laugh at the symbolism of this location. Ceo waves; his face spreads into a smile.

  Well, she thinks as he pushes off and starts walking her way, one of the variables is solved.

  X = racing heart.

  He wraps his arms around her, and all the pieces are there. Lean and rippled under his T-shirt. Familiar scents o
f herbal shampoo, coconut, plus the undertones of emerging sweat.

  But.

  There’s a distance in his embrace. A subtle but certain gap. The pieces are here, she thinks, but they aren’t fitting.

  Ceo releases her and steps back. Sweeps her with those too-green eyes. “Your hair’s shorter.”

  “Soccer season. It’s my warrior look.”

  “I like it.”

  Then his gaze shifts beyond her and starts tracking right to left. She turns in time to see a woman in a ridiculously tight blue dress stop at the exit and give Ceo an over-the-shoulder glance before walking out the door. Ellie, keenly aware of her own khaki trail shorts, wool socks, and Gore-Tex trekking shoes, says, “You like that warrior look better.”

  “Nah,” Ceo says, “she wouldn’t last a mile in those heels.”

  His bemused expression reminds her of what it was like at the theater arts workshop, the constant flirting from the other girls, their incredulous looks when he asked her in front of them to be his partner for the final project. But that lighter-than-air moment turned into a chain of unanswered texts, bruised pride—and a spur-of-the-moment haircut. She wants to ask, Do you have actual relationships, or do women just orbit you like planets around the sun? Yet here she is, standing in front of him at the Fresno airport.

  Ceo says, “You ready to be a happy camper?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. I’ll get your pack. Then it’s time to meet the guys.”

  As he heads for the conveyor belt Ellie says, “Excuse me. Did you say ‘guys’?”

  She spots them in an idling SUV twenty feet from the door. There are two, sitting in the front seat. Recognizes the driver as the big guy from Ceo’s text, the one that was pumping gas. Ellie takes out her phone and thumbs a text to Nadia.

  ELLIE

  When is next flight to SF?

  Ceo, out the door, a few seconds behind her says, “What’s wrong?”

  “That.” Ellie pushes send, points to the green SUV parked in the handicapped zone.

  “You don’t like the ride? It’s a classic.”

  “I don’t like the balance.”

  “What balance?”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Yes.”

  “Three parts testosterone, one part estrogen.”

  “Oh, that balance.”

  “Yeah, that balance.”

  NADIA