“You make it sound like I’ll piss her off.”
Dad looked at Mom, and they both nodded.
“I think that’s exactly what I meant,” Dad said.
I was smiling inside but didn’t need to encourage my parents. I simply nodded and ate my breakfast.
◊◊◊
When I parked my Jeep in the student parking lot, I took a moment to collect myself. My parents were crazy if they thought I wouldn’t talk to Pam. I was about to get out of my car when my phone rang. It was Frank Ingram, my PR agent. It must be the crack of dawn in LA. I wondered what would have gotten him up this early.
“Frank.”
“David, I wanted to catch you before you got your day started. I worked with Range Sports, and we have a couple of video packets that we’ll be releasing later today. I wanted you to be aware in case you had any press requests.”
“Can you send them to me?” I asked.
“Of course. If you do get any calls from the media, be sure to call me first, so we’re on the same page.”
“Why don’t you put together some talking points for me?” I suggested.
He laughed.
“I thought I was going to get to teach you about that,” Frank said. “I should’ve known you would already know about our dirty little secret.”
“Hey, before you go, there’s something you need to know,” I said, and then told him about Pam.
“I’ll be out on a flight later today,” Frank said, which made me nervous. “Don’t talk to anyone in the media until I get there.”
“Don’t you think you’re overreacting? High school kids have accidents all the time.”
“David, this is what you pay me for. You should’ve called me last night when you found out. This is the sort of situation that can cause you serious trouble if it isn’t handled correctly. All it’ll take is some bad press to snowball into a complete mess,” he said.
“I was planning to talk to Pam this morning and get this straightened out. I’m sure her dad’s rape charge is just him being a drama queen.”
“The problem is you have to take it deadly serious! Regular people have their lives ruined over something just like this. Let’s nip this in the bud before it gets out of hand.”
When I finally hung up, I was late for class and missed my chance to talk to Pam.
◊◊◊
I forwarded the videos to Brook, Halle, and Zoe. I probably should have viewed the videos first, but I was in a hurry to get to PE. Coach Diamond seemed to be harder on football players when they were late than he was on anyone else. He explained that we were supposed to show leadership. It was just as well that I hadn’t done my full run this morning, because I got sent out to run for the full hour. I vowed not to get pissed and instead to look at the bright side. At least I was able to get my run in today.
My next class was AP Trig. Zoe gave me a weak smile, which I didn’t understand until Alan went into full bulldog mode.
“Does your mom know you almost died this weekend?”
“Yes, she was there.”
“And she let you come to school?”
“Yes, Alan. My mom thinks school is a good thing and that I should attend every now and then.”
“Does she know about you riding motorcycles?”
Mom did. What I didn’t understand was how Alan knew. Then I looked over at Zoe, and she turned her head away from me. Okay, that would explain how he found out about the wingboard. The only place I had the video for the motocross was in my cloud storage account. Then it came to me. Frank had asked for all my social media, picture and video storage passwords. I suddenly wondered what all was on the videos I sent the girls.
Alan was irritated, but I ignored him as I brought them up and played them. Of course, I hadn’t noticed that Pam Lowden, my teacher, had entered the room.
“David, if you’re watching videos, do you want to share with the class?”
“No, ma’am,” I said.
“Up front,” Ms. Lowden ordered.
I began to play it for her. It started out showing me play football and baseball.
“That’s you, right?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I think the whole class should see this. Is this for one of your ads?” Ms. Lowden asked.
“I’m not sure what they’ll use it for. I haven’t seen all of it yet.”
It was just raw footage without any music or voice-overs. It showed me getting creamed on the football field a few times. Then there was footage of me as I was beaned in a baseball game. The next scene showed me as I made one of my colossal motocross jumps. Someone had video of Cassidy as she kicked my ass at the dojo. The next scene showed the jet water board as it broke. I winced when I saw that one. That was followed by the wingboard incident. I felt a little bit like I might throw up when it showed me finally landing.
The video switched to a more positive note. There was a clip from my music video as I ran. Then it showed me hit a home run, followed by a long pass for a touchdown. We switched to winter sports, showing me on a snowboard as I cut through virgin snow, and racing on a snowmobile. The next-to-last scene was of the four stooges, the young wolves, as I drove them off. The final scene was of me as Stryker from my upcoming movie. I hadn’t seen it with all the CGI added. It was damned cool as I looked out over a burning town with both of my guns drawn. It was so frickin’ cold there was steam coming off of my head, and there was smoke coming out of the barrels of the guns.
“Was that really you? That wasn’t a stunt double?” Ms. Lowden asked.
“I saw him fall out of the sky,” Zoe said.
Of course, they showed me dry-heaving. Needless to say, we didn’t get much math done today.
◊◊◊
By lunchtime, the Lincoln High Gossip Network was in full swing. I’d forgotten to order lunch for my college test prep class, so I was in the lunch line. Alan was stuck to me like glue. Some days I missed Jeff like crazy. When Alan was like this, I was afraid I’d punch him. Then the lunchroom suddenly became quiet. I turned around to see why and saw Billy, our local police officer, was behind me.
“Can you come with me?” he asked.
“What did you do now?” Alan asked.
I ignored him and left with Billy. I didn’t want to feed the masses any more gossip than was necessary, so I figured it would be better to talk to Billy in the hall. When I stepped out of the lunchroom, there was a detective standing in the hallway, waiting for us. I assumed he was a detective because he was older and in a well-worn suit.
“Thanks, Billy, I can take it from here,” the detective said. “David, I’d like for you to come to the station and we have a talk.”
“How can I help you?” I asked.
“You tell me,” the detective said.
Cute. If he had something on me, he wouldn’t be so pleasant or playing any games. I decided to jerk his chain a little bit.
“I can’t just leave the campus. We have to go to the office to sign me out,” I said, and started in that direction.
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” the detective said.
“Am I under arrest?” I asked.
“No.”
“Then I’m not getting into more trouble just to help you somehow.”
I loved our school secretaries. They made him show them ID and sign me out. I now knew he was Detective Christopher Kitchens. While he did that, I sent a text to my mom and dad to let them know I was being taken to the police station for questioning.
When we arrived at the police station, I said ‘hi’ to everyone there. They all knew me because they worked security at the games. The detective put me into an interrogation room and left me to stew. I knew the drill from the last time I’d gotten into trouble. They had made me sweat for a half hour and then started the interrogation. Since I wasn’t arrested this time, they hadn’t taken my cell phone. I called my mom.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“In an interrogation room.”
“We’re almost there. I’ve called Tom and put him on standby in case we need him,” she said. “Okay, we’re here.”