Chapter Twenty-Seven
Mom and I juggle the coffeepot in the kitchen the next morning, passing it nimbly back and forth without making eye contact.
“Have a day,” she says as she leaves.
It would be a funny mistake if she meant to say “Have a good day,” but with Mom, I never can tell what she really means, so I say nothing.
At school, Cam catches me after lunch, clasping me gently around the wrist as I walk past him in the hall. I stop at the touch and backtrack until I’m right in front of him.
“Yes?” I ask.
“What are we saying at the meeting?”
“We tell them about what we found,” I say evenly. “The fountain. The octopus. They’ll have to agree to come back to the history center tomorrow to figure out the rest.”
“And if they don’t?”
I bite my lip. I know what Cam’s really asking: If they don’t want to skip school, do the two of us go anyway?
I don’t like the idea of leaving school on our own. I don’t want the yearbook team to feel like Cam’s barging in and ripping the treasure hunt away from them. Still…I don’t know if I can wait a whole additional week before going back. Everything is at our fingertips right now.
“They will,” I say firmly. “We’ll all go tomorrow.”
Cam gives me a little salute. “Whatever you say, Captain.”
I make a face. He winks and walks off in the opposite direction.
I slink into the Bat Cave as soon as class gets out. Sunny rises from her chair the moment my foot touches the last step.
“You’re late.”
I check my phone. “It’s 4:01.”
“Exactly,” Sunny says. Her voice sounds strained and flustered. “We thought maybe the British interloper kidnapped you for some X-ray glasses or something.”
“Who, me?” Cam bounds down the stairs behind me. “Wow, Sunny—you’re getting almost too good with your National Treasure references. Trying to impress someone?”
Sunny rolls her eyes. “Shut up. I guess we’re all here, then.”
I take my usual place between Gabriel and Julia. Cam starts to pull another chair toward the group, but Sunny holds up a hand and stops him.
“Over there,” she says.
For the first time, I notice a chair sitting right in front of the projector screen.
I look at Sunny. “What’s going on?” I shift and see the heading on Julia’s notebook next to me.
Trial of Cam.
“What?” I say, standing. “Why are we holding a trial?”
“Relax,” Gabriel says. “It’s not like we’re charging Cam with a crime or anything.”
“Even though he stole our flyer,” Julia grumbles.
I look down at her, surprised. I didn’t realize that Julia of all people could sound so angry.
“We’re just trying to decide if we want to let Cam into the group,” Sunny says.
Her mouth is pinched in a way that tells me what her personal feelings on the question already are.
And with Julia pissed off too…we’re barely two minutes into the meeting, and already the history center plan seems like an uphill battle.
Cam goes and sits in the front chair without any protest. He slaps his hands over his knees and waits expectantly.
“Cam,” Gabriel says. He turns on the projector so the light shines directly into Cam’s face. “Why do you want to join Treasure Island Hoes?”
Cam stifles a laugh. “Is that…is that the official name of this group now?”
Gabriel shrugs. “Either that or Dorothy and Friends. I haven’t decided yet.”
“I see.” Cam interlocks his fingers. “Well—hoes or friends, either way—to the best of my knowledge, this is a group interested in treasure hunting. Which is a hobby I happen to enjoy. And, on the plus side, I look very, very sexy holding a shovel. Ivy can attest to this.”
I bury my face in my palm.
“He’s not taking this seriously.” Julia shakes her head. She points the end of her pen at Cam. “You’re not even taking this seriously.”
Cam raises his arms. “I’m sitting in a chair with a freaking spotlight in my face! I would say I’m taking this plenty seriously. I do bring a lot to the table, and if we could just get over this damn trial, Ivy and I can present our actual updates on the treasure hunt!”
Sunny freezes. Slowly, she turns to me. “What updates?”
I look up. “Oh. Um—” My voice retreats to the bottom of my throat. I pull out my laptop and plug it into the projector. Gilbert Baker’s mysterious drawing fills up the back wall, the woman’s boxy floral dress covering Cam’s face. He gets up from his trial chair and stands to one side of the screen.
“We found the clock, bear, snake, and octopus,” Cam says for me. He points at the clock on the screen. “That’s a fountain hidden near Coit Tower. And the bear, snake, and octopus are on a monument downtown near Union Square. Ivy found the fountain yesterday. I remembered seeing the monument.”
I notice he doesn’t tell the others we found and remembered both of those things while together.
Gabriel nods. “Okay. This is good. So it is a map, then.”
“It’s not,” I say. “The three landmarks don’t make any sense spatially. They’re not connected.”
“So let’s figure out all the others,” Sunny says. “Once we know what everything means, I’ll bet the picture will get clearer. I can research the woman with the dress. Julia, you can get the eagle and shield. Gabriel, can you do that gross floating head in the sink?”
“On it,” Gabriel says. He powers up his desktop computer.
“Okay, then that leaves the sad little naked ladies for Ivy.”
Cam raises his hand. “I can work with Ivy on the sad naked ladies.”
Somehow this entire conversation has gotten miles away from me.
“No.” Sunny points a finger at Cam. “You’re not officially in this group. Not yet, at least.”
He looks down, crestfallen.
“Come on, guys,” I say softly. “Cam gave us the key to the poem. He figured out the Golden Gate Bridge and the octopus. Plus, he and I were talking earlier, and we were thinking that tomorrow maybe we all could—”
“I vote no,” Julia says. She sets down her pen and looks at the rest of us. “I don’t think Cam should get to stay.”
“What?” Cam lifts his eyebrows.
Gabriel swivels away from his computer. “I also vote no.” He looks directly at Cam.
“The Friends of Dorothy Treasure Hunting Brigade—which I might have just renamed our group—is fabulous and gay, yes. But we’re also friends first and foremost. Cam, no offense, but you don’t really exude friend energy.
You’re a little too sneaky and self-obsessed. You don’t fit our vibe.”
I raise my hand and step forward. “Well, I vote yes. And I’m technically editor in chief of the Friends of Dorothy Treasure Hunting Brigade, so if there’s a tie, I’m breaking it.”
We all turn and look at Sunny. She stares reproachfully at Cam, then makes eye contact with me.
“Sorry,” she murmurs. She shakes her head slightly. “I just don’t think he deserves to be here.”
A ball of lead settles in the pit of my stomach. For some reason, it feels like I just got kicked out of the group too. Or at least a part of me.
Without a word, Cam picks up his messenger bag and heads back up the stairs. As I watch him take step after step, I start to feel like a circus act: the Elastic Woman, stretched from one group to another. I grab my own backpack and run after him.
“Cam, wait!”
By the time I reach the top of the stairs, he’s already at the far end of the hallway, leaning against the side exit.
I keep running until I’ve closed the distance between us.
I can see how flustered and hurt he looks now that I’m right in front of him.
His vulnerability makes my chest ache. I’m reminded of when we were kids, open to the world in a way you can never be again once you’ve been properly hurt.
It never occurred to me until now that Cam’s closed himself off too. That he’s been badly hurt too.
“We can still do this,” I say, breathless. “You and me. Tomorrow.”
Cam looks at me, confused. “What does that mean? Are you leaving your own team?”
I shrug. “I don’t know, Cam. I don’t know what’s going on. Maybe, if we figure this thing out, everyone will change their minds. And they’ll want you back in.”
His eyes flash with some expression I don’t fully recognize. His pupils dilate slightly.
“Is that what you want?” he asks me.
I nod. Cam opens his mouth to say something else, but before he gets the words out, we hear steps echoing across the linoleum floor. Sunny appears at the top of the stairwell.
“See you tomorrow, then,” Cam whispers. He ducks out of the side door.
I sigh and turn toward Sunny. We meet each other halfway down the hall.
“Don’t be pissed,” Sunny says once I reach her. “We work better as a team without him.”
“Do we?” I ask, my voice tinged with sharpness. I nod toward the stairwell. “The three of you already had your minds made up about him before the meeting even started. Am I right?”
Sunny levels her gaze at mine. “Yes, you’re right. But not just because of what Julia and Gabriel said downstairs.”
“Why, then?”
“Because of you,” Sunny says. “It’s obvious Cam likes you, or that you like him. It’s a power he has over you, Ivy. It’s going to cloud your thinking.”
Just as I am about to retort that Cam absolutely does not have any power over me and that he is definitely not clouding my thinking, my mind suddenly gets cloudy.
I think this is a trick phrase, really. It’s like telling a person that they’re blushing.
There’s no way to refute it, because the accusation itself seems to spark the action into existence.
Does Cam like me? I don’t want to let this question become real in my brain.
I want to leash it, to hold it directly in the conversation between me and Sunny.
I’ve followed that path before, picked up all the little what-if breadcrumbs.
But no, it doesn’t make sense. Two years ago, I basically threw my whole heart at Cam, and he—well—he taste-tested it and decided it wasn’t for him.
“Do you like him that way?” Sunny asks, clearly impatient for an answer.
There is no right way to respond to this question.
“I…can’t,” I say finally. I clear my throat. “I mean, I don’t.”
“Mm.” Sunny nods to herself. She hugs the tops of her arms rather than giving her usual formidable stance. Her thumb wags back and forth over her shirtsleeve, and I begin following the movement with my eyes like a clock’s pendulum.
“Well, I think he’s wrong for you,” she murmurs. She stares at the floor between us, then cuts her eyes up at me through her lashes. “And he’s not the only one who cares about you, you know.”
“Wait.” I step toward Sunny. “What does that mean?”
“What do you think it means?” Sunny says knowingly. She swallows, her cheeks going deeply red, then turns and flees back down the stairwell.