Thursday, May 12th, Evening: Olivia

I’m driving like a madwoman. I’m sweating and on the verge oftears.

Coach made me stay late to make up the ten minutes from lunch and the fifteen minutes I was late the other morning.

I called Wes to tell him I would be getting back after four and I could hear the disappointment in his voice as he said it was okay—a very different tone than the teasing one earlier in the texts about Locke and Leo.

And it’s not okay. They’ve done everything I’ve asked of them and all Wes needed was for me to be on time today.

I screech up in front of my house and barely put the car in park before I’m jumping out. With my hand outstretched, I pass off Wes’s phone to him and take mine back.

“I’m so sorry,” I say.

He barely looks at me. “It’s fine. But I need to go.”

My face crumples and I lie down in the grass as his car races away. I can feel the tears leaking out of the corners of my eyes.

Picking up my phone, I send Sophie a quick text.

ME:It’s my fault he’s late. Coach made me stay late. I’m so sorry.

A quick scroll through my messages shows me Mia and Bailey are perturbed that I’m not answering them as to where I ran off to. My fingers hover over the screen as I try to decide how to reply. But I don’t. I can’t. I mean, what am I supposed to say that isn’t another lie?

It takes a while for Sophie to text me back, but when she does all I get is: ok

Ugh. Why am I screwing up every single thing?

“Are you dead?”

I lift my head to see Charlie walking down my driveway. My head flops back down and I say, “I wish.”

“I heard a little about it.” He drops down on the grass next to me.

“How mad is Wes?” I ask, unable to hide the catch in my voice.

“Nothing he won’t get over. You know how he is.”

There’s a big lump in my throat. “He’s too nice for us.”

“Whatever. So why are you out here wallowing in self-pity? What else happened?”

“Everything.”

Charlie is pulling out blades of grass and throwing them at me, but they blow away in the breeze before they land. “When Wes got back from the club, he said he ran into Locke.”

I close my eyes and pray for the earth to open up and swallow me whole.

“He didn’t say much else about it, but I can read Wes like a book and there’s more to that. Any idea what it is?” Charlie asks.

Now I kind of wish the earth would swallow Charlie up so this conversation would end. “No idea.”

“Okay. Good talk. Better get a shower, because you’re driving me to the party. We’re leaving in an hour and a half.”

As Charlie scrolls through his phone in the passenger seat on the way to the scavenger hunt, I let my mind wander to Leo. I’ve texted him a couple of times to see how he finished the day, but I haven’t heard back. Hopefully he’ll be there with the Evil Joes and I can figure out how to talk to him without Charlie having a fit.

I still have a pit in my stomach over making Wes late, though. It doesn’t seem to be going away, even after seeing pics of them at Sophie’s party where all looks well.

We get to the park and there’s already a big group of people here. The moms hosting have a check-in table set up near some picnic tables, so we head that direction.

Bailey suddenly pulls me aside. “You disappeared again! And you haven’t responded to a single one of my texts. What’s going on? We saw you talking to one of those golf guys.”

I think about what to say, an excuse on the tip of my tongue. But I’m tired of lying to her. And while I still can’t bring myself to admit that my graduation is on the line, I can tell her part of it.

“I’ve been helping with the golf tournament. Coach Cantu, who taught my off-campus class, is in charge and I’m making up a few of the classes I missed by working it.”

Mia walks up just then.

“Where have you been?” she asks.

Bailey repeats my explanation and they both look at me, confused.

“That’s what you’ve been doing all week?” Mia does not look convinced.

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“But you said you were working at your grandmother’s shop,” Bailey says. “Why would you lie?”

And this is where it gets hard because technically, Sophie is the one who lied for me, but I’m not dragging her into any more of this than I have to.

“I was embarrassed. I’m sorry.”

I can tell they aren’t quite buying it.

The moms call everyone over, so I’m spared—for the moment—having to answer any more questions. Bailey and Mia are a little frosty to me, which is no less than I deserve. Looking around, I notice the Evil Joes have arrived, but I don’t see Leo anywhere. Why isn’t he with them? The last thing we talked about was him meeting me here.

“Okay, everyone! It’s time to play!” one of the moms yells. “We’re going to draw names for teams. Each team has a captain, and captains are in charge of taking the pictures and videos and uploading them to the team’s Instagram account. This is how we’ll monitor if you’ve completed the challenges and also give your competitors a glimpse as to where they stand. You will have one hour!”

The moms start pulling names out of a big jar and I take a second to try to call Leo again. It goes to voice mail. I’m instantly worried something bad has happened, but the Evil Joes wouldn’t be here if he were laid up in a hospital somewhere, would they?

I hear my name called and I turn around.

It’s Mia.

“You’re on the green team,” she says. I walk to the table and one of the moms hands me a bright green bandanna. It reminds me of Leo’s golf clubs.

She points me in the direction of the green-bandannas group. I’m on a team with four other people: Archer (one of the seniors this party is for), Judd, Danlee, and a guy named Mason. I wish one of the golfers was on the team, but I haven’t seen any of them here yet. At least I’m not stuck with the Evil Joes.

“Okay, group huddle,” Archer says, motioning us to come in close. He holds out a piece of paper. “Here’s the list. We need someone to keep us on track and someone to drive.”

“I’ll drive,” Judd offers, and we all veto him.

Danlee says, “I’ll drive.” No objections.

“I’ll keep up with the list.” I need a distraction.

The moms get our attention once more. “You cannot speed or break any laws. You must respect others’ property. If you need a stranger to help with a challenge, that stranger can only be used once!” She then gives us the go-ahead to start and we race to Danlee’s car. Once we’re in and on the road, I skim the list.

1. Charlie’s Angels pose with two strangers and a team member

2. A team sitting with a family/group enjoying their yummy meal

3. Entire team’s reflection in something other than a mirror

4. Entire team doing a handstand

5. Entire team at a fire station (+1 if in front of or inside of a fire truck)

6. Entire team with a stranger wearing a concert T-shirt (+1 if the stranger is playing air guitar)

7. Entire team playing Twister—without a mat

8. Two members pose in the front window of a store as mannequins. ASK FOR PERMISSION FIRST!

9. A human pyramid involving at least one stranger

10. Find a stranger wearing a T-shirt with the logo of a team member’s future college and take a pic with stranger and team member

11. Two team members challenge a pair of strangers to a three-legged race—must run at least fifteen feet and use your bandannas to join the legs

12. Entire team going down a slide (+1 if the slide is a spiral slide)

13. A team member inside a restaurant kitchen washing the dishes

14. Interview a stranger outside the movie theater about the movie they just saw—must ask the name of the movie and at least two questions (+1 if they give you their ticket stub)

15. Team playing one round of Duck, Duck, Goose at the Duck Pond

16. One teammate dances in front of a stranger, and the stranger scores them on a scale of 1–10

17. Team saying the Pledge of Allegiance in front of an American flag

18. Do exactly what a sign says (any sign will work)

19. Reenactment of any scene from a Will Ferrell movie

20. Get advice from a stranger

“Who came up with this?” I mumble.

“Where am I going?” Danlee asks.

I direct her to the park everyone calls the Duck Pond not far from here. There are several things we can knock out if we can find an open grassy area.

She pulls into the parking lot next to the park and we jump out.

Skimming the list again, I say, “Okay, let’s start with Duck, Duck, Goose!”

Mason will video and Judd has volunteered to be the one to start the game, so Archer, Danlee, and I sit in a tight circle on the grass.

Judd walks very slowly around us, patting us each on the head as he says, “Duck.”

“You know this isn’t a real game,” Archer says. “Say goose already.”

But Judd is Judd and the game continues. Finally he pats me on the head and yells, “Goose!”

I jump up, ready to tag him and move on to the next item, but he is running for his life. Finally, Danlee grabs his leg when he passes her and holds him for me so I can tag him.

Another team arrives and I see Charlie and Mary Jo were both picked for the red team. We are never going to hear the end of this.

We knock out the handstand task and the slide one quickly, then look for a willing stranger to dance in front of.

“I’ve got this one!” Judd says.

He picks this mom who’s pushing her little girl in a stroller. But Charlie runs up to her at the same time.

Charlie and Judd lean in and talk to her for a second and she nods, agreeing to whatever they’ve just asked her. She clearly doesn’t know them.

Judd pulls out his phone and we hear music playing. Oh my God, it’s “SexyBack” by Justin Timberlake. And they are both dancing to it. In front of this poor mother.

Again, this challenge needed about ten seconds of dancing and then her score, but Judd and Charlie are in a full-on dance-off.

The red team is on one side and we’re on the other, each cheering for our teammate. Charlie is the clear winner, but I stay loyal to the greens. Even when Judd’s on his third round of the Sprinkler.

Now the little girl is dancing in her stroller and clapping for the guys. The dance-off is being filmed by both sides and I can imagine the moms laughing when it’s uploaded.

This song is longer than I remember.

I think Charlie and Judd agree, because they finally call it quits about halfway through. Both are gasping for breath.

The mom claps for both, then leans down to chat with her daughter, who can’t be older than three.

“Who was the best one?” she asks the little girl.

The girl’s eyes get big and her gaze bounces from one boy to the other. She finally points to Charlie and yells, “Him! Him! He rolled on the ground!”

The red team cheers and everyone is hugging everyone else until it’s Mary Jo and Charlie’s turn. They don’t hug but they do high-five, which is REMARKABLE for them.

We run through several more tasks that can be done at this park, including Danlee and me challenging two middle schoolers to a three-legged race. Mary Jo and her teammate Destiny join in, but Danlee and I smoke them and it feels good.

By the time we’ve left the park, we’ve got almost half of the list done, but we’ve also burned up about half of our time.

We head to one of the busier streets to find a restaurant for the “doing the dishes” and “eating with a family” challenges. Judd and Archer head inside with Danlee and Mason so they can film it. I stay behind, outside the building, and try Leo one more time.

He finally answers on the fourth ring.

“Yeah?” he says, his voice flat.

“Oh my God, are you okay? I’ve been worried to death! I thought you were coming to this party!”

He’s quiet for what feels like forever, then he finally responds, “It’s not a good time.”

I pace around in a tight circle while I talk. “Do you want me to come over? Or pick you up so we can go somewhere to talk?”

“No. No, that’s where I went wrong this week. I’m here for the tournament and nothing else. I’ve had Mae and the girls driving me nuts and then I got distracted with you,” he says. I flinch at the tone of his voice. “And for what? Now it might not even matter. None of it may matter.”

I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach. “Where is this coming from? Did something happen?”

“Look, it’s been a pretty shitty day. Tomorrow doesn’t seem like it’s going to be any better. And I’m tired. Really tired. I need to go.”

The line goes dead just as my group comes running out of the restaurant, laughing hysterically. They’re already rehashing what happened inside, but I can’t hear them. I feel like I’m underwater and everything is muted. We get through the rest of the challenges with zero help from me. Danlee asks a couple of times if I’m okay and I wave her off. I can’t even talk.

And then, replaying the conversation with Leo, I start to get mad. Really mad. I don’t know what happened, but I don’t deserve that.

We get back to the park just as the hour is up. My team turns in our sheet and we relax on one of the picnic tables while we wait for all the other teams to get back and for the moms to tally up the scores.

I toss my phone from side to side, thinking of all the things I want to text him. But I don’t.

The party rolls on around me. Other teams are arriving and everyone is exchanging funny stories of things they had to do.

But I’m stuck in that conversation with Leo.

Finally a group that includes Lily shows up and I sprint to where she is.

“Hey, Lily,” I call out. Lily is the only one from the golf course I’ve seen here so far. “Did something happen with Leo Perez at the match this afternoon?”

She grimaces. “It’s bad,” she says. “Really bad.”

I step closer. “What happened?”

“He may be kicked out of the tournament.”

Kicked out! He’s close to winning it!

“Why?” I croak out. I feel the tears gather in my eyes.

“He had just finished the last hole and from what I heard had his best game ever. But then he called an official over. I could tell something was really wrong. He and the official talked for a few minutes, then Leo started pulling all his clubs out, laying them on the grass.”

“But what does that mean?” I ask.

“He had too many clubs in his bag. You’re only allowed fourteen, but he had one extra.”

My stomach drops. Does this have something to do with the club he left leaned up against that table? The one I went and put back in his bag?

“That’s a rule?” I shriek. “That’s insane.”

Lily shrugs. “He knows it’s a rule, though. He told the officials he rearranged his bag and left one club out after putting a new one in. He said he left it on the check-in table for a family friend to pick up and take home. He said he has no idea how it made it back into his bag.”

I screwed it up. It’s my fault. It’s all my fault.

“You said he may get kicked out. What do you mean?”

Lily lets out a slow breath. “He called it to the officials’ attention. He didn’t have to. In fact, he probably would have gotten away with it, since he was basically done for the day. He told them he doesn’t know how it got in his bag. Normally, they would disqualify him immediately, but they’re talking it over and will let him know in the morning.”

“Why would he tell on himself like that? That’s so dumb.” Then I’m shaking my head. It’s not dumb. It’s honorable. And that’s who Leo is. I’ve heard enough. I’m sick to my stomach at what I’ve done. If I’d read that whole rule book, I would have known that was a rule. A big one. But I didn’t. And it may cost him the tournament. And a place on the LSU team, along with all that scholarship money.

Because I thought golf was stupid and it didn’t warrant any of my time or attention.

I find Charlie hanging out with Bianca. The moms have set food out and Charlie and Bianca are sitting down, eating.

“Hey,” I say, leaning down so only Charlie will hear me. “I need to go. Can you catch a ride home?”

“Are you okay?” he asks because it is obvious I am not.

“Yes, just need to go.”

The tears are in full force by the time I get home. Sophie is in Minden at her party, so I can’t call her with this right now, especially since she’s probably still mad at me, too. And as much as I want to call Leo back, I don’t even know how to begin to tell him what I did.

He’s never going to forgive me.

And I don’t blame him.