He opened the olives. “You mean with Ivy?”
“I mean . . .” I looked around the camper again, then out the narrow door. The ocean was behind us, with many other vehicles in between. The only real view was the back of another RV, which had been in its spot long enough to have scrub and vines tangled around it. “There have clearly been some changes since I saw you last night.”
“There have indeed.” He grinned, then sat back, swishing his wine around his glass. “Okay. So the biggest news is that Clyde’s going out on tour, in conjunction with the film’s release early next year.”
“I thought that wasn’t definite.”
“Oh, no. It’s definite.” He took a sip of his wine, closing his eyes. “What’s not clear is what kind of support he’ll need in terms of getting the work ready, dealing with the press, handling the publicity. Which is where I come in.”
“You?” I said. “What about Ivy?”
“Well, there’s the rub.” He helped himself to a nut, then an olive. “My feeling was that, by the time this would all be happening, she’d be done with the film and have little need for me. But apparently, she felt differently.”
I thought back to what she’d said when she arrived at the Washroom. “Feeling differently” was clearly an understatement. “So she threw you out?”
“Not initially,” he replied. “When I first told her I wanted to go ahead and give my month’s notice to pursue other opportunities, she was just really pissed. Said I was screwing her over, abandoning her. You know, her typical rant. But then when it came out those opportunities involved Clyde . . . that’s when she went ballistic.”
I watched him help himself to another olive. Drinks and snacks, so civilized, even in this most uncivilized of places. “Why, though?”
He shrugged. “Oh, she thinks I used her to get access to him. That I always intended the job with her to be a conduit to something bigger.”
I couldn’t help but notice how casual he was about all this. The one time I’d gotten fired—from a retail job at a dollar store in a now-defunct strip mall—I’d been totally freaked. “But that’s not true. I mean, how could you have even have known Clyde would come around?”
He smiled. “I didn’t. It was just a good hunch.”
I looked at him, confused. “Wait. So you—you did sort of plan on this?”
“This?” He looked around the camper. “No. In my mind, it did not end like this. But I told you, Emaline: I’m driven. I don’t settle. If I see something better within reach, I go for it.”
“Even if it gets you fired?”
“Risk is part of ambition,” he replied. “If living here is what I have to do, I’ll take it, if the next step is my working for, and with, Clyde. I don’t need a mansion, or Ivy for that matter, to make my play for the Best Job Ever. In fact, this might turn out to be the best thing that could have happened to me.”
Now, I was really lost. “How do you figure?”
“You said it yourself,” he replied. “He’s Clyde Conaway. Which do you think he’d respect more: me living in that house, or this one?”
Something wasn’t right here. It was like the smell of the bleach, obvious and nebulous at the same time, one thing covering another. “I think Clyde would see if you were trying to be something you’re not.”
“Maybe. Or maybe not.” He smiled, then picked up the bottle, refilling both our glasses. “Regardless, the Best Summer Ever is about to become Better Than Ever. No more Ivy to deal with. We have to drink to that.”
He held out his cup, and, slowly, I did the same. But as we pressed them together, I felt that same hesitancy, a bad feeling I could not name or shake. It stayed with me even after we left Lucky Number Seven (as I knew it would now forever be called) to return the bikes and get my car. Theo locked the camper, put his backpack on, then began pedaling back toward the pier, and I followed. Maybe it was the wine, or the freedom, but this time he was moving fast, as if lighter, and within very little time he’d sped out pretty far ahead of me. I waited for him to notice this and slow down, maybe even turn back. When it became clear he wasn’t going to, I just pedaled faster, suddenly aware that the last thing I wanted was to be left behind.
17
IN THE DREAM, I was back in Theo’s camper. Now, though, it was vast, huge, and I was looking for the door and unable to find it. As I searched, growing ever more frantic, the smell of bleach grew stronger and stronger, until I was coughing too hard to even see. When I woke up, I was gasping for air.
“Emaline?” Still fuzzy from sleep, I could barely make out my bedroom door opening in the morning light. Then my dad, a mask covering his own mouth, was beside my bed, pulling the covers back. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
“It’s the middle of the night,” I said, still coughing. “Where else would I be?”
“It’s seven a.m.” He eased me into a sitting position, then off the bed. “And when I checked around five thirty, you weren’t here. Come on.”
It was a good thing I was still half-asleep, not to mention coughing too hard to be expected to explain, because I was busted. I’d planned to make it home by curfew, only to fall asleep listening to music in the camper with Theo. Too much wine and olives, not enough of anything else. At any rate, when I’d finally woken up, I didn’t want to leave the campground alone, waiting instead until it was light. Which had been, well, about an hour earlier. Whoops.