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“Yeah . . .”
“Tanner looks wasted.”
“Yeah.” This time she was more positive.
“What were you guys doing? Smells kinda like weed.”
“Uh . . . no. That’s not . . . Penske had some whiskey or something. . . brown stuff.”
“Carmen Proffitt, are you drunk?” Bailey asked, purposely adding a smile to her voice when she felt worried and anxious.
“No.” Carmen gave her her full attention. There was something odd in her expression.
“What’s wrong?” Bailey asked, her heart jumping. Her friend’s demeanor sent little darts of fear through her bloodstream.
Though Carmen was looking at Bailey, it was clear she was seeing something else.
“Something happened,” Bailey said, as serious as a heart attack.
Carmen didn’t respond immediately. Her skin was ashen, and she looked like she’d had a good fright.
“What?” Bailey pressed.
She glanced back at Tanner and the guys, then around the campsite a little wildly. “I saw something . . . ,” she whispered softly.
“What?”
“Tanner was with . . . he wasn’t the only one. They were all kind of . . . with each other.”
Bailey had a bad feeling growing in her gut. “You saw Tanner . . . ?”
“I saw them.” Her voice was so soft, Bailey had to strain to hear. “They didn’t know I was there . . .”
“Who?”
“The guys . . . some of the guys . . . and the girls . . . They were smoking dope and drinking and . . .” She glanced up wildly. “I wasn’t supposed to be there. I just sort of crept up, and they saw me—”
“Carmen.”
The staccato rebuke of her name made Carmen jump and Bailey’s head jerk around. It was Amanda. She stood legs apart, eyes flashing, as if ready for battle.
“Amanda?” Carmen gulped.
A tense moment ensued, then Amanda’s angry expression dissolved into a big smile, and she laughed and grabbed Carmen’s arm. “Just joking. You looked so . . . I don’t know . . . weird. Come on, let’s get something to eat.”
Bailey started to follow them, but she already had a plate of food, and she wasn’t sure what had just happened anyway. It wasn’t like Amanda to appropriate any one of the Firsts the way she had Carmen. Had Amanda purposely stopped Carmen from talking? Well, no matter. As soon as she had her friend alone, Bailey intended to find out just exactly what had spooked Carmen so much.
Chapter 5
It was twilight, and everybody was packing up and getting ready to leave. Delta was on one foot and the other, while Coach Sutton, Counselor Billings, and Freddie, along with Mr. Timmons, Ms. Reade, and do-gooders Rhonda and Trent, were collecting everything. Amanda, Bailey, and Carmen were taking down the tents and had rejected Delta’s offer of help, Amanda saying curtly that they had it handled.
So now Delta was standing to one side, kind of by Ellie, who’d also made overtures of help, only to be denied. Neither of them had tried to join the do-gooders in aiding the chaperones. They knew in advance that they would be cheerfully told no. The head of the do-gooders, Rhonda, was in her own way an autocrat.
So that left Delta and Ellie, who’d never liked each other much, as the outsiders. Delta, because their leader, Amanda, had stolen her boyfriend and was somehow persona non grata now, and Ellie because of her “better than thou” attitude that drove them all to distraction. Though Delta suspected Ellie’s attitude came from being passed over by the Five Firsts, it nevertheless got under her skin, and it left Delta standing near Ellie in uncomfortable silence. She suspected Ellie would drop her posturing in a nanosecond if she were invited into their group, but maybe not. Maybe Ellie’s disinterest was real.
The Five Firsts . . . McCrae’s barely hidden disdain might be correct and it really was over. It was a childish construct that didn’t really matter to anyone anymore, and maybe even was laughed at by a few.
