The Best Night of Your (Pathetic) Life by Tara Altebrando Page B

went up to the bell. Patrick reached for the rope that hung from the ringer and he rang it three times while I filmed him and then sent the video in to the Yeti for 50 points. Which meant we were at 893. The others all headed for the car, then, but I felt the whole thing was sort of anticlimactic, with only Patrick doing the ringing, so I went for the bell and rang it myself, loud, wanting more than ever to be
noticed
.
    By Steve Paglia.
    By Carson.
    By Mullin.
    Anyone!
    “Jesus, Mary,” Winter said, jolting on her walk back to the car. “A little warning would have been nice.”
    I said, “Oh, you’re one to talk.”
    When she looked at me funny, I said, “What’s going on with you and Carson?”
    She blinked three times fast. “It’s complicated, Mary.” Then she took off toward the car and to the sanctuary Dez and Patrick would provide.
    “All right!” Dez declared. “Mohonk awaits!”
    So we got back on the highway and settled in for the twenty-minute drive with Dez softly singing “The Rose”—“
I say love/it is a flower/and you its only seed.
”
    “Those can’t be the words,” Winter said, sounding almost annoyed.
    “That’s what it says.” Dez held up the sheet music.
    Winter just shook her head, and I put my sunglasses on and sank back into my seat and told my skin to calm the ef down. I thought I should probably forget about Carson and Winter and just tally all our points—double-check everything to be sure going to Mohonk wasn’t a huge mistake—but I thought for sure I wouldn’t be able to read through thetears forming in my eyes. Because this wasn’t how it was all supposed to go, or how it was all supposed to end, and I wondered, Was this what it was going to feel like when we all had to say good-bye come fall?, and then wondered about good-byes in general, and how anyone ever survived them at all.

6
     
    MOHONK MOUNTAIN HOUSE LOOKED LIKE IT belonged somewhere else entirely, like in the Swiss Alps or the hills of Germany, with all those balconies and turreted towers, and all those rich people lurking behind the hundreds of windows. We parked in the visitors’ lot and went to get day passes in the admissions office after a quick fight about whether it was possible to “break in” to Mohonk, and whether we should try. Then we headed out toward the gardens. It was sort of hard to believe that Mohonk was so close to Oyster Point, where people like Barbone lived, and to the Oyster Hut, where locals flocked for fried seafood and French fries and a salad bar loaded up with Kraft dressing. Not that the restaurant didn’t have its charms, but I couldn’t help but think my parents could learn a thing or two from Mohonk, where the menu posted by the information desk boasted things like frisée salads and truffles and Cornish hens.
    “We should split up,” I said as we headed into the shrub maze. “If you find the clue, shout out that you got it and we’ll all meet back out here.”
    So we all headed off down different hedge paths, and Isoon hit a dead end. When I turned back around and went out to where I’d come from, I picked another path to head down and, that quickly, I was totally turned around and lost. But this path led to another two, so I picked one of those and figured I’d run into somebody—and hopefully the clue—eventually.
    I was only wandering for a second before I heard Dez calling out, “I got it,” and I felt sort of sad that it was already time to leave the maze. I’d often daydreamed about being wealthy enough to vacation at Mohonk and I wanted to get lost in a daydream today, maybe one about Carson, and how it was all going to shake down tonight, or in the next few days, that it really
was
me he wanted. How the whole Winter thing was a misunderstanding.
    “Focus,”
I said to myself, and I methodically started to take notes of turns I was making. It seemed to take forever for me to find my way out, and the others were calling out—“Mary! Hurry