Chapter 17: : Chapter 17

Day Two, 11:37 a.m.

I’m probably going to get into a fight with Lloyd when we get to Middleton. That bitch has had it coming for a long time, and I couldn’t be blamed for fucking him up. He never took the relationship I had with Courtney seriously. Even when we were together all the time, he’d still make little digs. Case in point: One night, when Lloyd, Court, me, B. J., Jocelyn, and a few other people were hanging out, Courtney decided she wanted to order food. And Lloyd was all, “Oh, Courtney, you always have to order food while we’re watching baseball.” Which may have been true. But it was the way he said it that pissed me off. It was like he was talking about food, but he basically was saying, “Jordan, I know Courtney better than you, and I could fuck her if I wanted to.”

Anyway, we’re in the car on our way to see my brother, Adam, and Lloyd at Middleton, and Courtney’s acting like it’s the night before Christmas. She’s practically taking her clothes off already. I’m not stupid. I know some of it is an act, something she’s probably doing to piss me off, but still. They hooked up. There has to be something there, or else she’s one hell of an actress.

So far, she’s asked me how her hair looks about five million times. She’s wearing a black flippy skirt and a black tank top. Her hair is in pigtails, which you think would be kind of silly, but on her looks really cute. I’ve hardly ever seen Courtney dressed like this. She usually isn’t so, uh…revealing.

“Does my hair look okay?” she asks again, flipping down the visor and checking herself out in the mirror.

“Yes,” I say through gritted teeth. “Your hair looks fine.”

“Sorry if I’m being annoying,” she says, pulling a lip gloss out of her bag and lining her lips. “I’m just nervous.”

“Understandable,” I say, watching her out of the corner of my eye. She has the best mouth. I stare straight ahead again, keeping my eyes on the road.

“I’m starving,” she announces. “Are we going to stop for breakfast or something?”

“Do you think that’s smart, with your stomach and everything?” The last thing I need is Courtney throwing up all over my car again. Not that I really cared yesterday. I actually liked taking care of her. But things are different now. Yesterday she was cute and vulnerable. She wrapped her legs around me in bed, and pulled me close to her during the night. Now she’s dressed like a tramp and thinking about having sex with Lloyd. So forgive me if I’m not rushing to hold her hair back. Let Lloyd do that shit if she’s so into him.

“I’m hungry.” She shrugs and pulls out the CD in the player and tosses it into the backseat. She pushes the button for the satellite radio and turns it to the country station.

“Feel free,” I say, rolling my eyes. My phone starts vibrating in my pocket, and I do my best to ignore it.

“Your phone’s ringing,” Courtney says helpfully.

“Thanks,” I say.

“You should answer it.” She starts humming along to the song on the radio, something about someone’s last days on earth and taking advantage of them. I’m about to go crazy listening to this country radio bullshit. Country is so depressing. There’s too many slow songs. Why am I putting up with this shit? It’s my car. I’m driving. I should be able to listen to whatever the fuck I want. Especially now that she’s banging Lloyd. Let him put up with her country music bullshit, and her throwing up.

“Fine,” I say. “I will.” I pull my phone out of my pocket and make a big show of answering it.

“Hello?” I say, sounding upbeat, and like I’m happy to be on the phone. I decide to pretend it’s my imaginary girlfriend. Fuck pretending to be nice.

“Yo,” B. J. says.

“What’s going on, honey?” I say, trying to glance at Courtney out of the corner of my eye without her noticing that that’s what I’m doing. She’s going through her bag, probably looking for more makeup, so she can make herself look good for Lloyd.

“Honey?” B. J. asks. “Jordy, I had no idea you felt that way about me. I have to warn you, though, I happen to be in a very committed relationship.”

“Yeah, I miss you, too.” Courtney starts flipping through the satellite radio stations. Good. I hope she’s rattled. I hope she realizes that if she weren’t hooking up with Lloyd, I would let her pick any song she wanted to listen to. And that I would not be pretending to talk to my fake girlfriend.

“I’m guessing I’m your fake girlfriend?” B. J. asks, sighing. It’s a miracle that he figured it out. He’s not usually the best with things that aren’t spelled out for him.

“Of course, sweetie,” I say. I try not to think about the fact that I’m talking to B. J. like we’re in love. B. J. is six-foot-four and 220 pounds. Not someone you want to think about being intimate with. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Courtney pull her iPod out of her bag and shove the headphones into her ears. I’m not buying it. I know she doesn’t have the thing on. No way she doesn’t want to hear me talk to my new girlfriend.

“Listen, I’m sorry to bother you when you’re obviously busy with, uh, important things,” B. J. says. He sounds sarcastic. “But you remember a few months ago, when we scored that pot for Brian Turner?”

“Sort of,” I say, wondering if it would be going too far to call B. J. “pookie” or “schmooper.” I want Courtney to be jealous, but I also don’t want her thinking I’m a pussy. Which is really fucked up, since, you know, I’m the one that broke up with her.

“We paid for that, right?”

“Yeah,” I say. A couple months ago we bought some pot for Brian Turner’s party. It was this long, drawn-out procedure, since the first guy we were supposed to get it from wasn’t where he was supposed to be, and then this guy named Gray Poplaski, who somehow ended up coming along even though he’s kind of a tool, said he knew this other guy who could probably get us some. Which annoyed me, because I don’t even like pot that much. Anyway, we finally met up with some very shady-looking guys and got it, but the whole experience was weird.

“Do you think anyone found out about that?” B. J. asks, sounding nervous.

“Found out about what?” I ask, trying to imagine why I would say that to my fake girlfriend. Maybe if she asked “Do you think anyone found out about that?” meaning, “Do you think anyone found out about us having sex in my parents’ bed?” or something. I hope Courtney is smart enough to infer that that’s what is probably going on. I wonder if it would be going too far to actually come out and say, “You mean about the doggie-style we had?”

“Found out about the pot we bought!” B. J. says, sounding exasperated. He’s been sounding exasperated with me a lot lately. Which, like I said before, really worries me. Because if B. J. thinks you can’t keep up, it probably means you’re in deep shit.

“Like who?”

“I don’t know,” he says, lowering his voice. “Like their posse.”

“Like whose posse?” I realize I probably won’t be able to keep up pretending that I’m talking to my fake girlfriend for long, so I fake a call waiting beep. “I have to go,” I say to B.J., a.k.a. my fake girlfriend (M.F.G.). “I have a beep.” I pretend to mess around with the phone for a minute. “Hello? Oh, hi, B. J.” I glance over at Courtney, hoping she now thinks that I was on the phone with my fake girlfriend until B. J. beeped in.

“Are you done?” B. J. asks, sounding annoyed.

“I think so.”

“Anyway, their posse,” B. J. says. “Could be after me.”

“Whose posse?” I repeat, hoping Courtney doesn’t notice that I appear to be having the same conversation with B. J. that I was just having with my fake girlfriend.

“Those thugs we bought it from!” B. J. says.

I’m starting to get a headache. “I’m starting to get a headache,” I say.

“Look, I think someone’s been following me,” B. J. says. “And the only thing I can think of is that it might have something to do with that pot we bought.”

“Someone’s following you?” I ask. “Where are you?” I merge onto the freeway, and try to fight myself through the traffic. I really should put my phone on speaker, but I obviously can’t, because then Court will know I’ve been talking to B. J. and not M.F.G. I have a headset in the glove compartment, but that would involve reaching over Courtney. Or asking her to pass it to me.

“I’m driving to the gym,” he says. “And there’s a car behind me, weaving in and out of traffic. I think I saw it yesterday, too.”

“You’re being paranoid.” A red Jetta on my left side veers into my lane, and I swerve to avoid hitting it. My cell phone drops to the floor. Shit. I grope around on the ground while trying to get my car back into its lane. This is extremely dangerous.

“—and shoots me or something,” B. J. is saying by the time I get the phone back to my ear.

“What?”

“What the fuck is going on over there? My shit is about to get BLOWN UP, and you’re playing some kind of fucking game!” he says.

“Hold on one second.” I put the phone into my lap. “Courtney,” I say sweetly. “Can you reach into the glove compartment and hand me my cell phone headset?”

She ignores me and pretends to be listening to her iPod.

“Court?” I say, raising my voice. From the depths of the cell phone in my lap, I can faintly hear B. J. saying “Hello? Are you there? Jooorrrddaannn!” I flip the cell phone over, to muffle B. J.’s voice.

“COURTNEY!”

“Someee hearts just get luucccky sometimesss,” she sings, her voice totally off-key. I’m in the midst of three lanes of high-speed traffic, have a friend on my cell phone who is obviously losing his mind, am faking phone calls, and am listening to my ex-girlfriend, who I’m still in love with, sing country songs. I really, really need to get off of this trip.

“Court.” I poke her. She ignores me. I poke her harder.

“WHAT?!” she screeches, pulling her earphones out of her ears. “What do you want?”

“Can you reach into the glove compartment and hand me my cell phone headset, please?” I ask.

From my cell phone comes the faint sound of B. J. screaming. I pick it up and reduce the volume. Courtney sighs and reaches into the glove compartment like it’s some huge imposition. She makes a big show of rummaging through the stuff until she locates the headset. Such a drama queen.

She hands it to me. “Thanks, honey,” I say, and give her a wink. She rolls her eyes and puts the earphones of her iPod back into her ears. Like she’s really listening to it.

“THIS SHIT IS FUCKED UP!” B. J. is screaming once I get the headset in.

“Sorry, I’m here,” I say.

“What were you doing?”

“I was getting my headset so I could talk to you,” I say. “Now, what’s going on?”

“I. Am. Being. Followed. Like I said before.”

“Are you sure?” I ask.

“Yes,” he says. “There is a car following me. It followed me yesterday, too. It’s those thugs from the drug deal, probably. Or maybe those fuckers we beat from Westhill.”

“Maybe you should call the police,” I say.

“I will not,” he replies indignantly. “I’m not afraid of a gang. Or some shitty football team. I’ll call my boys.”

“Okay,” I say uncertainly.

“Call ya back,” he says and then disconnects.

“What’s going on?” Courtney asks from the passenger seat. Oh, now she’s concerned.

“Nothing,” I say. “B. J. thinks he was being followed.”

She looks startled. “Oh,” she says. “Uh, by who?”

“Not sure.”

“What’s he going to do?”

“Call the police, I guess,” I say, shrugging. No way I’m telling her about the gang violence and the fact that we bought drugs. She’d flip out, especially since we were together at the time. A worried look crosses her face, but she doesn’t say anything.

“Can we PLEASE stop and get some food?” she asks five minutes later. “I’m starving.”

I want to make a snide comment about how she wants to eat so she’ll have energy for her and Lloyd’s impending sex-a-thon, but I don’t. I also want to point out that the schedule doesn’t call for this kind of stop, but whatever.

“Geez, Jordan,” she says. She pulls her lip gloss out of her bag and starts relining her lips. “Could you be a worse driver?”

I clutch the steering wheel and concentrate on not losing my temper. I’ve decided passive aggressive is my new tactic. But five minutes later, when Courtney looks at me pointedly as we come up on the next exit, I put on my signal and pull off the highway.