The main difference between where I was and real prison, as far as I could tell, based on what I’d learned as a faithful viewer of Court TV, was that they let me keep my watch and they didn’t give me an orange jumpsuit. Which meant that by using the second hand to time my pulse, I could come up with a really good record of the rate at which I was freezing to death sitting there in my bikini. I calculated that if it kept up at the same pace, I would die in forty minutes.
Then the air conditioner came on. This was so not Visa.
It was probably all for the best, since even if I did make it out alive, my father would kill me. It’s one thing to occasionally find yourself in the middle of other people’s difficulties like I sometimes do (but never on purpose. And, in case it comes up, I really was not responsible for the altercation-slash-riot in the food court at the mall that time. I even got the GOLDEN CHOPSTICK CERTIFICATE OF APPRECIATION ENTITLING THE BEARER TO ONE FREE EGG ROLL EVERY MONTH for my help. Plus, it was two years ago), but that’s nothing compared to destroying a wedding. That is someone’s cherished memory! And weddings are expensive. Who knew what a place like the Venetian charged for a five-tiered cake?
There were other questions too, like: Would they give me an installment plan to pay it off? Or would my father just cut up my body and sell the different pieces for scientific research? Could you get a lot of money for that?
My only hope was that my father would somehow have had one of his epiphanies. He’s a professor of anthropology and a genius—a certified one; he was given one of those Macarthur genius grants and everything. I don’t know about all geniuses, but when my dad gets an idea, he becomes totally absorbed in it and forgets about real life around him. (Which is another reason it’s so great to have Sherri!. When I was twelve, my dad decided to do a book on ritual worship, so we spent a year traveling around Europe looking for all the pieces of St. Catherine’s body. Which was cool, but my dad completely forgot that I might have to go to school. I had a lot of making up to do when we got back. Sherri! would totally not let that happen.) Maybe, if something had triggered an especially super idea, my dad would be too distracted to notice what had happened. If he could forget about a whole year of school, certainly he could miss one little decimated wedding—
The door slamming open to reveal my father pretty much crushed those bold girlish dreams. I wish I could say that he strolled or sauntered or skipped into my cell, but I’m pretty sure the right word here is stalked. Or maybe marched.
If I thought things were grim before, I was wrong. You haven’t seen grim until you’ve seen a six-foot-six sunburned man dressed like a British tourist in India at the turn of the last century stalk-march toward you, stop, and say, “Do you know what you have done this time, Jasmine?”
I took the “this time” to be a bad sign, suggesting he was not only aware of what had just happened, but was also, in fact, remembering that time in the food court. Or the other time at the circus. Or—
I swallowed hard. “I saved a cat’s life.”
“Bah,” he said. “That cat was in no danger.”
“Really?” I asked. This was good news. “Then why did the little boy say—”
“Be quiet!”
Yes, he was definitely remembering the food court.
“The hotel has asked us to leave,” he said, leaning over me. “You, Sherri!, and I. As well as your uncle and his family.”
I probably should have seen that coming, but hadn’t. And if I felt bad before, now I felt awful. I wasn’t just destroying my vacation, I was destroying everyone’s. “I’m so sorry,” I said. I stared at the table. “I didn’t mean to ruin anything.”
“Why must you always surround yourself with mayhem, Jasmine? Why can’t you just interact in a normal manner with others?”
I braced for the “like your cousin, Alyson,” that usually came after statements like that, but fortunately he didn’t say it. Or maybe unfortunately. Because he didn’t say anything, just gave a long sigh and stared at me with this sad look on his face that told me I’d let him down again. He ran his hand through his hair and said, “Do you have any idea what it is like to watch your only daughter be escorted away by Security?” His voice was soft and kind of sad.
I decided it wasn’t the right time to point out that, whatever else I’d done, teen pregnancy wasn’t on the list, and I didn’t have a daughter. I said, “I’m sorry, Dad. I don’t know why these things always happen to me.”
“Happen to you?” he exploded, suggesting maybe I should have mentioned the absence-of-a-teen-pregnancy thing. “Blast all, they don’t just happen to you. How can running into a wedding just happen?” He hit the table in front of me, making me and it jump. “No, Jasmine, you’ve got to stop pretending to be a passive participant in all this. You are not a child anymore and have got to start taking responsibility. How can you be trusted to drive a car if you can’t be trusted to not ruin a wedding?” This is the kind of logic that makes sense to geniuses. “As of today,” he said ominously, “be prepared to pay the price for your actions.”
“Are you going to sell my body parts to science?”
“This is not a joke.”
“Who would joke about something like that?” The way he was looking at me, it was fully possible.
“You will leave here and apologize to your uncle Andrew and your aunt Liz. Then to your cousin and that girl she has with her. Then to the couple whose wedding you ruined. When you have finished doing that, you will return to our suite where you will pack your bags. The hotel has kindly agreed to let us all stay tonight, provided you do not leave your room. When we get home, you will be grounded for the foreseeable future except to go to school.”
Weighed against apologizing to the Evil Henched Ones, having my body cut up and sold to science didn’t sound so bad. Really.
I had forgotten how cold I was while basking in the heat of my father’s anger, but as soon as I tried to stand up and found that my knees were frozen in place, I remembered. I’d just pried myself off the chair when there was a commotion outside the door and Sherri! ran in, holding a robe out toward me.
Bless you, Sherri!, I wanted to say.
Then I wanted to shout it when she smiled and said, “It’s all taken care of. Everything is fine. We can stay in the hotel.”
How totally MasterCard is my stepmother?
My dad and I were staring at her and she said, “Wait, here he is,” and held out her arm like a game show hostess.
A man wearing a double-breasted gray suit came in. He was handsome in a high-end-men’s-catalog kind of way, with a square jaw and brown hair graying at the temples. He had slight crinkles around his eyes and his face was tan except for a triangular patch around his hair-line. He walked with a spring in his step, like an acrobat or a long-distance runner, and even though he was featuring white socks with black shoes, a definite fashion no-no, I decided I would give him the benefit of the doubt if he was there to free me.
He had a nice voice as he said, “Hello, Dr. Callihan. I am L. A. Curtis, the head of security for the resort.” Then he looked at me and said, “This, I presume, is Jasmine.”
I nodded. “Yes, sir.” I couldn’t help thinking he looked more like someone who should be welcoming guests to Fantasy Island than a security chief. “I am very sorry, sir, for everything that—”
He put up his hand and gave me a smile that almost blinded me, it was so white. “Stop, young lady. In fact, the Venetian Hotel would like to apologize to you and your family for any inconvenience.”
Had I passed into a parallel universe? I looked around quickly. L. A. Curtis was wearing white socks with black shoes, which was suspect, but everything else—father steaming; Sherri! beaming; me cold—was just as I expected. Finally I managed to stammer, “Are you sure?”
Mr. Curtis laughed like I’d said the funniest thing in the world. “Yes. We would like you to continue your visit with us. And the hotel would be delighted if you would allow us to cover the cost of your rooms.”
This was really weird. “Um, thank you.”
My father’s eyes sort of goggled and he started to say, “That won’t be necessary, we—” but Mr. Curtis cut him off with the words: “We would also like to extend the use of one of our limos to you at any time.”
Oh, hello. Hotel limo? I was definitely in a parallel universe. Or one of those Candid Camera shows. That was it. And you know what? Who cared! They were giving me my own limo!
Of course a limo wouldn’t really be any good to me if I were grounded. I said, “Does this mean I’m not in trouble?”
“There will be no record of what happened today at the pool. You have been fully exonerated.”
Everything in my brain at this point said: Jasmine, do not speak. Keep quiet. Pretend your two lips are but one. Do what Helen Keller would do.
But I couldn’t stop myself. I said, “Why?”
Mr. Curtis and my dad both gave me the same look. And let me tell you, it was not a look that said, “What a delight it is to have such an inquisitive daughter, let’s join hands in merry revelry!”
To clarify, and because I was not yet completely gagging on the foot I’d inserted into my mouth, I went, “I just mean, what happened to change everything?”
My dad continued with The Look, but Mr. Curtis flashed me another smile and said, “These things are complicated, Miss Callihan. Let’s just say—”
At that moment there was a knock at the door, and when it opened, who should muscle in but the Fabinator, the large gentleman with the small bathing suit and the gun.
Which he was still wearing. As I could clearly see beneath the turquoise mesh muscle shirt he’d slipped on.
Oh, yes. He went there.
“They want see the girl,” he said, demonstrating an admirable command of short words.
L. A. Curtis gave what looked to me like his first genuine smile as a little boy appeared behind the Fabinator. He was the boy from the pool. Not the cute one who wouldn’t take his shirt off, the little one. The one who had told me to run.
Demon child, you might call him. In light-up Spider-Man sneakers. And with a runny nose. Definitely sinister.
Standing next to him was the most perfect-looking woman I had ever seen besides Sherri! She was medium height with long blonde hair, wearing a black-and-orange silk wrap over her bathing suit. The only thing not quite perfect about her was that she had a black smudge shaped like a lightning bolt on the toenail polish of her left big toe. Honestly, that was the ONLY imperfection.
L. A. Curtis cleared his throat and said, “Miss Callihan, I’d like you to meet Fred and his mother, Ms. Bristol.”
The perfect woman was Fiona Bristol! The yogi-slash-kindergarten teacher-slash-model-slash-scandal-haver. She must have been my savior. Why why why couldn’t the Evil Henches have talked louder so I would have known what Ms. Bristol’s scandal was?
Ms. Bristol pushed her son forward and said, “Fred, don’t you have something to share with the lady?”
Fred took a step toward me and then said to the floor, “I’m sorry I got you in trouble.” At least, I think that’s what he said. He talked like someone angling for top prize in a “Don’t Move Your Lips or Else Alien Ants Will Crawl into Your Mouth and Eat Your Brain” contest.
I understood, though. Parents. I said, “You didn’t do anything wrong. Is your cat okay?”
Only then did he look up at me. I’d read in some of Sherri!’s Buddhism books about people with old souls, but I’d never really gotten what they meant until I saw Fred’s face. He had cheeks and stuff like a little boy, but his eyes looked like they’d seen way more than most eight-year-olds. He nodded. “He’s fine. We found him in some bushes.”
“What’s his name?”
“Mean And Dangerous Joe. We call him Mad Joe for short.”
“That’s a good name for him,” I said, meaning it.
“He’s a watch cat,” Fred informed me, wiping his nose on the back of his hand.
His mom decided to cut in here. She said, “Sweetheart, we use Kleenex for that,” and then smiled at me apologetically. “I’m sorry, he’s got a mild case of the sniffles. I wanted to thank you also for chasing after Mad Joe. He’s been a bit spooked lately, and I don’t know what we would do if something happened to him.” She put her hand on Fred’s shoulder when she said that and he didn’t even try to shrug it off. He was one unhappy kid.
“I’m glad everything has worked out all right.”
Then there was one of those silences where everyone studies the carpeting like they’ve never seen such a remarkable substance before—carpeting! Wonder of wonders! It’s like hair! For the floor!—until L. A. Curtis stepped in to rescue us. Turning to Ms. Bristol, he said, “Why don’t you two go back up to your suite while I finish up with the Callihans?”
My father stood up as they left, then turned to Mr. Curtis and said, “We’ll be going as well. Thank you for your help.”
“Before we leave, I was wondering—” I started to say, but my dad put on a weird smile and went, “Wouldn’t you rather stop asking questions, Jasmine, and go enjoy yourself?”
Only the way he said it, it wasn’t a question. It was more like a threat. Slash order. So I agreed.
Then there was another round of handshaking all around and a good deal of bonhomie (if that means goodwill between my father and L. A. Curtis) and we moved to the door. I couldn’t get rid of the feeling, though, that despite him being very nice, none of this was Mr. L. A. Curtis’s idea of a fun afternoon. In fact, I got the nagging sense that his version of an ideal world was one with fewer Jasmine Callihans in it. And I thought I knew why.
As I went by him to leave, I said, “I’m really sorry you had to be called away from fishing because of me. I hope you can go again tomorrow.” I kept going, but he put a hand on my wrist to stop me.
He looked at me quizzically. “What a strange thing to say. What made you think that?”
“Well, I noticed—”
“Jasmine,” my father’s voice said behind me, “we are going. Now.” And he grabbed my arm. For a minute I thought my dad and Mr. Curtis were going to play Stretch Armstrong with me, but Mr. Curtis let go, and my dad dragged me behind him.
While we were riding up to our adjoining suites in the elevator, Sherri! said, “Jas, were you just guessing that he was on a boat?”
“No. His face was tan except for one corner of his forehead like he’d been out in the sun wearing a cap at an angle, he had a groove on his thumb where he’d been pressing it against something for a long time, and I guessed that something was a fishing line when I saw his cufflinks were fishing hooks. He was pretty nattily dressed, but he was wearing white socks with a gray suit and black shoes, which made me think he’d gotten dressed quickly to come to work. I bet Thursday is a quiet day at a casino, so it would be a good day for him to take off.”
Sherri! said, “I think it’s so cool how you can do that. I only noticed that he’d recently had his teeth done at BriteSmile. What about Ms. Bristol? Did you notice anything about her?”
Which made my dad growl and go, “Don’t encourage her.” Then he growled at me. “How many times have I asked you not to play your little detective games in public?”
“Eleven?”
More growling. “I’m serious, Jasmine. They are both disconcerting and troublesome. You embarrass people, and they don’t like that. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you what happened that time at the aquarium.”
Okay, that was five years ago. More than a quarter of my life ago. I was sure my father would not want to be held responsible for things he’d done a quarter of a lifetime ago. I was going to point this out, but he kept right on talking, saying, “I really thought that if nothing else, what happened today would have taught you to mind your own business.”
To which I said reasonably, “Actually, Dad, according to child labor laws, it’s illegal for me to have my own business, at least in California.”
My father sighed. He gave me the same sort of sad look I’d gotten a strong dose of earlier, the one that prophesied for me a lifetime of holding cells and clammy bikinis and being a huge disappointment to him. Part of me was mad at how unfair that was—because it was not like I had been not minding my own business. Did I summon the cat? No, I did not. And did I end up being THANKED and getting a limo? Yes, I did—but a bigger part of me just wanted it to stop. I decided at that moment that for the rest of our trip, I would be a Model Daughter, the kind you read about in Hallmark cards and see on TV ads (not the ones about how bad drugs are, the other ones). There would be no more “happenings” for me. Not so much as a thought about Ms. Bristol or why Fred seemed so sad or how important you had to be to get to keep a bodyguard with a gun at the pool, not to mention a “watch cat.” I would take my dad and Mr. Curtis’s advice and mind my own business and enjoy my vacation and not get into any trouble. With a limo at my disposal, how hard could that be?
Oh, yes. I actually thought that.