Are You Questioning MY Sanity?
"Sorry," was the first thing that popped out of my mouth. My body was going all out to surprise me today.
"No, that's okay," he said firmly. "I want to know if you are okay. What's wrong?"
I plead the fifth. "Yeah, I guess I'm…" The words wouldn't come. "I – I'm alright."
"You sure?" He looked at me skeptically.
Do I look like I'm okay? "Yeah." No, I didn't think so.
But anyway, moving on. "I, um, need to talk to you about something." He nodded slowly, and I took that as permission to continue. "I, uh," my gaze rested on that nasty pink carpet again. "A friend of mine just called, as you probably figured out. And, he's, um, coming. Here. Today." I glanced up to gauge his reaction.
One eyebrow shot up, but he said nothing. Was he waiting for me to explain? I couldn't tell by his reaction. And I certainly couldn't explain.
"Okay….And?" He was still standing there, still waiting for an explanation, no matter how hard I wished him away. An explanation. Oh, man.
"They can stay in my room? They won't be any trouble, they'll just be here, wherever we go, for a while. They'll stay with me. Please?" That made sense, right?
"They?" Oh, oops.
"Jeremy and Kim."
"Kim?"
"His sister."
"Kim?" Hadn't I just said that? I honestly hadn't thought that there would be a problem with her being a girl. She was like a little sister to me.
"She's like a little sister to me." My mouth figured that I might as well tell him that, too.
"Where will they sleep?" Ah ha! See, I'd already thought that one out.
"In my room."
"All of you?" Now let's not get perverted here, Mike.
"She can get the bed. Me an' Jeremy'll sleep on the floor." I mean, Jeremy and I. Yeah.
"They can't come with us on tour, you know."
"Why not?!"
"We can't just tote around extra friends whenever we want to. You know it doesn't work like that."
"But this is different!" Couldn't he understand? It wasn't that hard of a concept.
"How?"
"They, they don't…. They don't have anywhere else to go."
He gave me a look that I couldn't quite interpret, but nodded. "Fine, whatever. But they're your problem, got it?" He frowned and looked me over. "And it seems to me like you've got enough of those, but…" he trailed off and I took that as the end of the conversation. I started to lean away from the wall, still not trusting my balance. "What happened?" I lifted my gaze from the magnetic pull of the pink carpet, startled. "What happened, just now? Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I just…I dunno. I guess something I ate, or…something." Real convincing, Ashley, seeing as how I'd had a pop tart and a bagel for breakfast this morning, on the ride over to, to wherever we were.
He snorted, but apparently accepted my excuse. We moved toward our left, down the hall, and I made it to the lobby where the others were standing without falling over again. That was a relief.
Mike motioned us toward a glass door that led outside. "Let's go, guys. We'll go back to the hotel 'til three, okay."
"Wow, we get lunch today!" Trevor said sarcastically. My stomach turned involuntarily at the mention of lunch, but my mind was on something else.
"What's at three?" I asked, feeling stupid.
The look Dan gave me didn't make me feel any more intelligent. "We've got a photo shoot with, uh, some magazine."
"Tiger Beat," Mike supplied.
At three? I wondered what time it would be when I picked Jeremy and Kim up from the airport.
"Hey, Mike?" I asked after we had climbed into the van. He turned around from his spot in the passenger seat to look at me. "Can I borrow your laptop for a second?"
He nodded at me knowingly and dug it out from his briefcase. "Thanks," I said as he handed it to me. I settled myself back in the seat and became aware of Eric's questioning gaze. I didn't feel like answering his questions at the moment, so I decided to ignore him.
"What are you doing?" asked Trevor's voice from the back seat. Well, so much for that idea.
"Turning on the computer," I replied shortly.
He waited for a moment, obviously hoping that I would elaborate. "Why?" he asked when it became obvious that I wasn't planning to.
"So I can look at something," I growled.
"What?" Could he not take a hint?
"Airplane tickets." He waited a beat.
"Why?"
"'Cause…" I answered vaguely. That answer always worked for Mom whenever she didn't want to answer something. Or, rather, her phrase was "because I said so." But somehow I didn't think that it would fit this situation quite as well.
The computer beeped pleasantly to let me know it was booting up, effectively distracting Trevor for a precious second. Then he inhaled, preparing to fire yet another question at me, but never got the chance.
"Hey, Mike?" I asked quickly. "Um, how do I connect this to the Internet?" I seemed to have forgotten that important detail.
"Here," he said, handing me his cell phone and a couple of wires. "Plug this in, to here-" he pointed "-and here."
"Woah! You can do that? With a cell phone?" I didn't know that the technology had been invented already.
"Yup." Apparently I was behind times. Jeeze.
I plugged the phone into the computer like he'd shown me, then clicked on the connection icon, and the familiar dialing sound began. When I'd been connected, I opened Internet Explorer and searched for airline tickets. I quickly entered in the information. From Redding to New York. Which airport? Um, I guess JFK I decided, typing quickly. Okay…I've got a flight from Redding to San Francisco to Las Vegas to New York. Departure at Redding 12:28 PM, arrival at JFK 12:05 AM. Wow, that was a long time! I was gonna have to pick him up at midnight?! I looked at the price and winced again. Eight hundred and forty-six dollars. Oooh, man. Scrolling down, I saw other flights with even higher prices. Ack! Sighing, I pulled out my wallet and credit card and booked the first flight, reserving the two seats under the name of Jeremy Austin. In the comments/requests box, I left instructions for the tickets and information to be given to Jeremy at the front desk. Since Redding was a small airport, he didn't have to worry about what airline desk to go to. He'd have to wait for a while, but all of the other flights had been even later, so we didn't really have much of a choice. Better than the alternative, I figured.
Trevor cleared his throat as I waited for my order confirmation. I thought of replying with some original phrase, like "curiosity killed the cat," but decided to wait him out instead. It didn't take long.
"Why'd you do that?" Aargh!
"'Cause I felt like it."
"Just answer the question." I could hear the frustration building in his voice.
"I did. And try 'please' next time." He wasn't getting it out of me that easily.
"Fine. Please tell me why you ordered airline tickets."
"I missed my dog, so I decided to fly him out." And if you believe that, here are the keys to my condo on Mars. See you in a couple light years.
"Your dog takes up two seats?" I could hear the sarcasm dripping from his voice.
"It's an extra-large traveling cage." Uh-huh.
"Your dog's name is Jeremy Austin?" Are we a snoop or what?
"Are we a snoop or what?" Oops! Did I say that?
"You know it." Ok, great. Thank you, mouth, but let me know next time you're going to say something to surprise me. I was glad that Trevor took it good-naturedly.
His teasing grin slowly faded. "Who is he?"
Dammit, that was classified. Err, not really, but…yeah.
"A friend of mine."
"The friend who was on the phone this morning?"
"Weren't you supposed to be paying attention to the interview?"
"I think I did better than you." Ok, so he had a point. I grumbled something unintelligible in reply, but he seemed satisfied.
"What'd he call about?" I guess he took my earlier reply as a yes.
"Airplane tickets." Maybe I could work this around in a nice little circle.
"What does his dad have to do with airplane tickets?" Confusion flickered across my face as I tried to remember exactly what had been said. Did the boy have psychic powers? If he did, they wouldn't be of much use to him soon, because his brains would be splattered all over my fist. You laugh now, but….
"His dad? Uh, wouldn't…pay…for the tickets." Oh, yeah. Smooth, Ashley.
"Uh-huh." Apparently, Trevor was equally unconvinced. But, mercifully, he let the subject drop.
Kind of.
"So…your friend is coming…here? Two of them? Tonight? At midnight? Are you nuts?"
The answer? A resounding "YES!"
