As we started walking back toward the partying crowds, I noticed a truck now parked at the entrance to Pinata Village. It was a food truck. Someone was handing out plates of food and bottles of water.
I should have rejoiced. Instead, I said, “Oh shit.”
“What’s wrong?” asked Chester.
I hadn’t thought it was possible, but a more fearsome threat than Thrope loomed.
I said, “Parents.”
I’m a vegetarian, but I still couldn’t resist.
I had to face those parental animals sometime. I might as well do it over some of their amazing chopped tortillas fried in eggs, oil, onion, garlic, and topped with Korean BBQ.
I went to the front counter of the Mexican Seoul food truck, to the side of the long line waiting for food. Selena Zavala-Kim saw me. She called to me, “What’ll it be, General I’m-Pretty-Peeved-With-You Navarro?”
There was no point acting affronted. I was too hungry to bother. “Those chilaquiles everyone’s eating look pretty good.”
Selena dished me a plate. “The tofu BBQ, sriracha on the side?”
“As always, thank you.”
She handed me a steaming-hot plate of meat-free chilaquiles and a bottle of sriracha from below her counter. I tried to step away, but she said, “Park your legs right there, young lady.” Then, while handing out plates to partygoers desperately in need of drunk food, she went into major mom mode. “Not happy with you, Victoria Navarro. Wanna know how we ended up here?” I shook my head but she continued on anyway. “We were supposed to cater the late-night after-party of a posh wedding, but the wedding got canceled. Not even at the last minute. During. Bride got cold feet during the sunset ceremony. Seriously! Standing there, barefoot on the beach, fanciest hotel in Laguna, she just dropped her bouquet and said, ’I don’t.’ It was hard to tell if her family was more infuriated or relieved. Her parents paid us, and we said of course we’d stay to feed their guests, but they said we should donate the food.”
“Nice of them,” I said between grateful bites.
“You’ve got sriracha dripping down your chin, honey. Here’s a napkin. So, Jon and I were planning to stay overnight in Orange County anyway. But then our phones started to go off with messages about a party happening to celebrate the last night at Happies. We had all this excess food, so we thought, why not bring taco’clock there as a surprise.”
“Great idea,” I exclaimed. Except for the surprise part. Parents should never, ever surprise like that.
“Agreed. We’re awesome that way. Then there was a bad accident on the 15; we sat in that mess for nearly two hours. We almost considered not coming at all, we were so tired. But Jon and I decided, ‘Of course we should help celebrate! I mean, last night at Happies! Let’s be there for our kids! Even when the little shits can’t be bothered to answer our many text messages.’” Her voice turned increasingly sardonic, her expression irritated. “So we make that long drive back from OC and stop home to pick up more water bottles from the basement, because we thought you guys would need the hydration, partying out here in the desert in the middle of the night.” Long pause, like she was waiting for me to admit guilt. When none came, she said, “How interesting, then, that all the cases of beer were missing.”
I swallowed. God, best chilaquiles of my life.
I confessed. “My idea. I’m to blame. We were going to replace all the cases in the morning.” The Z-K kids would catch plenty of flack from their parents for being in on the scheme, but I wanted Selena to know I was the prime instigator.
“It’s not about the beer being replaced, and you know it. If you think I would have authorized the beer supply going to the entire graduating class of minors at Rancho Soldado High, you’d be wrong.”
“Sorry,” I said. Was now a bad time to also ask for a side order of kimchi tacos, hold the kimchi, extra everything else? “Really, really sorry, Selena. It’s all my fault.”
A motorcycle rode by slowly, driven by Bandita, with Jake holding on to her from behind.
“Jake!” Selena called to him. “Get off that bike and get over here now.”
The motorcycle stopped, but Jake did not get off.
Zeke had also arrived at the same time, carrying a load of pizzas. To him, Selena said, “Help Daddy, please. I need to speak with your brother.”
Zeke dropped the pizzas onto the ground and called out, “Free for all!” The stragglers at the end of the Mexican Seoul line swarmed the pizzas, while Zeke stepped inside his parents’ food truck. Selena handed him her apron. He put it on and stepped into her place to serve food like a pro. I was so jealous of the guy who’d be lucky enough to win Zeke’s heart. He was the real star in the Z-K male progeny gene pool, not stupid handsome Jake with the hidden cameras and the slut tendencies.
I watched as Selena stormed over to Jake. “Do you understand the liability you’ve exposed us to?”
Jake said nothing.
Bandita stepped up to defend Jake like she’d known him for years instead of a few hours. “He was going to pay you back for the beer.”
Selena silenced her with a wave. “Please stay out of it. I don’t even know who you are.”
Jake finally spoke up. He told his mother, “It was all Vic’s idea. To borrow from your beer supply and replace it in the morning before you got home.”
Thanks, rat.
Selena already knew what Jake had just told her, but I wanted her to know that my own selfish interests notwithstanding, I’d been trying to help Jake, too. “It’s true. My stupid scheme. I wanted to help Jake get exposure for the Chug Bug.” I looked to Jake, foolishly wishing he’d jump in at any time to take some responsibility. He did not. “I’m so sorry, Selena. I didn’t really consider your liability when I proposed the idea. I’m an idiot.” Jake’s a bigger one, I didn’t add.
Selena looked to Jake. “Any apologies in there from you, too?”
Jake shrugged. “I just did it to help Vic. So she could be the big shot who got beer for the party.” He glared at me.
“Don’t lay it all on me!” I said to him. “You were equally complicit. You wanted to be the beer hero just as much. And reap the cash rewards.”
Bandita jumped in again. She told Selena, “He did! Show her the money, Jake. He has piles and piles of it!”
Jake took out the beer money box stored inside Bandita’s motorcycle trunk, and tossed it to Selena like it was a crayon box and not a cash box holding thousands of dollars.
Holy shit, Jake had stored away the money before leaving the beer truck! The Chug Bug might have been destroyed, but at least the ravine hadn’t also swallowed its profits. Phew! We could pay back Selena and Jon for the supply we’d illicitly “borrowed.”
Selena caught the metal box. I really wanted to know how much was in it, just to know how profitable my scheme had been, but the look of abject fury on Selena’s face held me back from asking. “If some drunk kids at this party had gotten into an accident, or worse, this could have cost us our business,” she said to Jake, holding up the box.
It seriously had never occurred to me that the Z-K parents and their business, their lifeline, could potentially be held accountable like that. I felt awful. To Selena, I said, “Sometimes my schemes are good…but not so well thought out. I’m so, so sorry.”
“Thank you,” Selena said to me, curt but at least acknowledging my apology.
“Can we talk about this later, Mom?” said Jake. “Privately.” The argument had become an accidental sideshow, with party people lingering around, listening, while slurping up chilaquiles and short-rib tacos. That might have been the end of it, except then he added, “It wasn’t that big a deal. Losing my Chug Bug was much worse.”
That did it. Selena threw the metal box back at him, hitting his arm, hard. “Keep it,” she spat. “You’ll need it to find your own place. No more living rent-free at Mommy and Daddy’s. We can’t be crutches to your arrested adolescence anymore.” Then, she started yelling at him in Spanish, which meant she was
not just pissed. She was hellfire mad. My Spanish is so-so, but the gist of it was: “You ungrateful little lothario. I’m glad your beer truck was destroyed because you’ll make a terrible businessman. You don’t care about anybody beside yourself. I love you, baby. But it’s time for you to be your own man. And you’d best leave soon, before I personally strangle you here and now in front of all these people and your latest conquest.”
Selena gave an excellent rant. And that was just the parts I understood.
Then she returned to the Mexican Seoul truck, and slammed the door behind her. She’d said her piece. She was done.
“You suck, Jake,” I said to him. “Your little brother is way more a man than you are, you know that?” I thought of Zeke, who tried to stand up for me earlier to the Happies biker gang, who kept trying to take responsibility for my messes, who had helped and encouraged me at every turn tonight. “And you’re a coward. Getting kicked out of your house is probably the best thing that could happen to you. You wanted to leave Rancho so bad? Go.”
“I suck?” Jake taunted me. “You’re the suck-up.”
“At least I take responsibility for my actions.” I looked to Bandita. “Please, take him. He’s all yours! And good luck.”
Good riddance.
Chester walked over to Jake, for what I assumed would be a last good-bye. But there was no tender hug. Instead, Chester pointed his index finger and shoved it into Jake’s chest with each of the choice words he had for Jake. “Don’t you ever say you wish my little sister didn’t exist. Only Lindsay and I get to say that, and that’s because we don’t mean it.”
“You’re a horrible mechanic,” Jake said to Chester, in a half-teasing tone of voice, like he was at least trying to salvage his friendship with Chester with mocking bro-banter.
“I was never trying to be a good one,” said indifferent Chester. “And that fedora you always wear for the chicks is stupid as shit.”
To prove Chester’s point, I lifted the fedora directly off Jake’s head, threw it to the ground, and stomped all over it.
The fedora-smashing was the last straw.
Jake stormed off to Bandita’s motorcycle, his new girl in tow.
Chester placed his arm around my shoulder. Navarros stick together. I said to him, “You’ve always been his wingman. I would have guessed you’d want to follow him. Don’t you want to fly free, see the world, carve out your fortune in the great beyond?”
Chester said, “Nope. I’m content here. And having ambition is overrated. Because then you have to live up to it. When you don’t have it, you can actually enjoy life for what it is. Simple.”
“That’s deep, Yoda.”
“Welcome, you are,” said Chester.
Jake had just settled onto the seat of Bandita’s motorcycle when Zeke ran over to him, pulling me along. “Apologize to her,” said Zeke to his big brother.
Jake stepped off the bike. “Don’t do this, little man,” he said to Zeke. “She’s not worth it.”
“She is!” said Zeke, who then shoved his brother so hard that Jake fell over. Serious wrestling ensued. Chester ran over and tried to pry them apart while Bandita and I regarded the tussle with satisfaction; she for Jake, me for Zeke. “I said, apologize to Vic!” Zeke repeated to Jake, pinning him to the ground, about to deliver a punch to the jaw. “Own up to your decisions like a man!”
To my shock, Jake gave in. I’m not sure if it was because he knew his little brother was big enough to beat the shit out of him now, or because he didn’t want to hurt his brother by continuing to try pummeling Zeke, or he just wanted to go already, and be done with this party, and with Rancho. “Sorry,” Jake mumbled in my direction, insincerely, not making eye contact with me.
I had no response. There was nothing to say. Everything about Jake as I’d known him was over.
Zeke let go and Jake stood up. Not acknowledging any of us, Jake hopped back onto the back of Bandita’s motorcycle, and the two of them rode off into the darkness.
I knew it would be a long time before Rancho Soldado saw Jake Zavala-Kim again. And that was probably for the best for him, and the security-cam privacy rights of Rancho’s nubile female population.
Chester said, “I need some quesadillas to smooth out all this emotional turbulence.” Chester deserted us to return to the Mexican Seoul line.
Once again left with Zeke, I turned to him. I should have been thankful, but I was annoyed. He could have really gotten hurt in that brawl. It was sweet of him, but I didn’t need him defending me. I could take care of myself. We both had so much pent-up energy and now I wanted to expend some on him. “What the fuck was that?” I asked him. “I had no idea you were so…” I was about to say “strong,” but before I could finish, Zeke grabbed me to him. His mouth moved dangerously close to mine, and I scrunched my lips like, What the hell? Then, really what the hell, because Zeke’s lips were on mine, moist and firm and electric, completely unscrunching mine with the hottest, most unexpected kiss of my eighteen years so far on earth.
I didn’t want the kiss to end, ever, but Zeke pulled back and said, “You had no idea I was so passionate?”
“Yeah,” I whispered, still in shock. “And straight?”
“I never said I was gay. You just assumed it.”
“You never corrected me!”
“I wanted you to figure it out for yourself. I didn’t think it would take you so long that I’d have to fucking show you!” I tugged him back to me, pressing my cheek against his broad chest and grabbing onto the chub on either side of his waist. This boy-man had so much deliciousness to cling to. I couldn’t wait to grab on to more, and more, and more. Fuck yeah!
Zeke placed his index finger beneath my chin and lifted my gaze to meet his. He smiled, his multicolored Mohawk like a beacon of encouragement over his kind brown eyes. Even his chunnel ears were suddenly appealing. I responded by standing on tippy-toes and placing my hands on his cheeks. His lips parted, and I lunged for them, the sweetest mouth mine had ever met. This time the kiss was alternately slow and fast, exploratory but eager. Fully heterosexual. Full of surprise and promise.
His hand barely grazed Esme, and I pulled back and smacked his cheek. An angry yet affectionate slap—not too hard, not too soft. Just right. “Last summer! You let me model bras for you because you knew I thought you were gay.”
Zeke half-smiled. “Your mistake,” he said. “My free show. It was awesome.” He bowed to my boobs. “Thank you, Ezra and Esme.”
Then he pulled me back to him for yet another delirious kiss.
“Dudes,” said a voice from behind us. Zeke and I separated and saw Jason Dunker, holding a pizza box. “No one touched the vegan pie.”
“So don’t eat it,” I advised the Dunk, thinking this was obvious.
“I bet Thrope’s hungry,” said the Dunk.
“It is the lowest carbs option,” I said, feeling generous.
“Shall I feed the prisoner?” the Dunk asked.
“Please do.”
The Dunk said, “Did you hear the message she wrote in pebbles in her jail cell?” Zeke and I shook our heads. The Dunk laughed. “Surrender Victoria.”
It was a good one, I had to give her that.
Zeke said, “I forgot to ask for mushrooms when I ordered the pizzas. Maybe add one on her slice.”
Somehow the raging party had not burned beyond control, and I’d kissed a cute boy, and pretty damn soon I was going to finally enjoy one of those special brownies. First, I had to get my bitches back. Chester was right. They were my heart.
I had no idea where Fletch and Slick were—yes, Fletch and Slick, because that’s who they’d always be to me, even if I pronounced their proper names to their faces in the future because I was such a courteous bitch.
I didn’t have much time left before Fletch would have to leave for the airport. The sun would start coming up around five thirty, but finally—finally!—the Happies party animals were slowing down from their park exploration. Most of them had set u
p camp in and around Pinata Village, settling onto blankets and portable lawn chairs, drinking wine coolers and watching the stars twinkle in the sky. The air had even calmed down. It was still warm, but not scorching, with a touch of rare, charmed humidity.
As I roamed the grounds, I felt supercharged. So much disaster had happened, so many of my worst fears realized. Yet I wouldn’t deny it. I threw a great fucking party!
And Zeke had a thing for me? I kissed Zeke! I totally had a thing for Zeke!
I was giddy and ready to right the wrongs.
Zeke had gone off with Jason Dunker to check on Thrope, but his phone had no charge left anyway, and I needed to find my girls right away. They could be wandering anywhere in the theme park. They could even have left by now, but I felt confident they wouldn’t while we were all sore. We were like an old threesome married unit that way. Never went to bed mad at each other. And one of us couldn’t possibly jet all the way to Africa while still mad at the other two. In-flight diarrhea would be preferable to that outcome.
I approached Mega-Joan for help, pointing to her megaphone. “May I?”
“Have at it,” said Mega-Joan, chomping down on a spicy pork taco. “I tell ya, we need to hire this food truck for our Las Vegas conventions. Incredible! I mean, if we can’t eat in the Happies restaurant, eating from a food truck in the Happies theme park is surprisingly just as good! Don’t tell Bev Happie I said, but better.”
I placed the megaphone at my mouth, feeling Mega-Joan’s power seep down into my vocal cords. No wonder she was so forceful. I needed to ask for one of these for Christmas. I announced into it, “Would Mercedes Zavala-Kim and Genesis Fletcher please report to the Mexican Seoul food truck in Pinata Village immediately? And if you are not Mercedes Zavala-Kim or Genesis Fletcher but you know where they are, please relay this message to them.”
I put the megaphone down, thought better of relinquishing so much vocal power too soon, and then picked it back up for one additional message. “And tell Genesis Fletcher that taco’clock really is a fucking thing!”