Second Helpings_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [135]
“Come on, if it’s good enough for MTV, it’s good enough for us.”
“I still can’t believe that of all the resorts in the entire world, MTV chose Seaside Heights, New Jersey, as its summer HQ,” I said, shaking my head.
“It is the Home of Sunnin’ and Funnin’,” Marcus said, quoting the motto printed all over the boardwalk’s brochures.
“Easy for you to say,” I said. “You never had a toothless obese man in a wife-beater order a chocolate cone, then blow a burrito belch in your face.”
“This is true,” he replied.
“Millions of kids across the country are going to be sitting in front of their TV sets this summer thinking Seaside Heights is the coolest place on earth, wishing they could be here for all the sunnin’ and funnin’—”
“When all you’ve ever wanted to do is get out of here,” he said, completing my thought.
“Exactly.”
“There’s a lesson in there somewhere,” Marcus said, sliding into a smile.
It turned out that MTV wasn’t taping when we got there. If we had thought things through carefully, we would have figured this out before we got there. No way would Sara throw a party at her house when she could party in front of television cameras. She’s promised to be such a fixture at the MTV house that her lust for nationwide attention might even threaten to cut into her tanning time. Anyway, the beach house was surprisingly dark and quiet, though that didn’t stop dozens of TRL hopefuls from hanging around it anyway, hoping for a glimpse of Carson or Quddus.
“Oh, well,” Marcus said. “I guess tonight’s sunnin’ and funnin’ won’t be televised after all.”
Marcus beat me by 120 points in Skeeball, but I redeemed myself by thwacking the bejeesus out of the little varmints in Whack-a-Mole. We both humiliated ourselves on the Dance Dance Revolution by not being able to keep up with the disco choreography that went with K.C. & the Sunshine Band’s “That’s the Way I Like It.” We shared funnel cake and orangeade. We giggled at countless fortysomething broads wearing age-inappropriate clothing in flammable fabrics, and the hirsute Guidos who beer-goggle them. We even checked out how the Geek from Shoot the Geek was doing, though we refused to pay a dollar to launch paintball bazooka bombs at him, even if he was dressed like Osama Bin Laden. He was not as charismatic a geek as Pepe was two summers ago, but he had mastered Pepe’s most impressive somersault escape maneuver.
With Marcus’s help, I turned into what I thought I would never be when I slaved my sophomore summer away at Wally D’s Sweet Treat Shoppe: someone who came to the boards to have fun. So yes, there was a lesson in all this. Who needed MTV? All I needed was Marcus.
It made me think about all the other possible places in the world that Marcus could help make fun for me. Little did I know that on the sky ride, a cable car suspended high in the air that afforded a gorgeous view of the ocean and an escape from the crowds and the chaos down below, the amusement would be short-lived.
“Jessica,” he said, “I’ve been meaning to tell you something.”
“What?”
“I’m going away.”
“What?”
“I won’t be around here next year. I’m going away to school.”
I thought he was joking. He had to be joking. So I joked right back.
“Ringling Brothers reopened the clown college?”
“It’s a new liberal arts school, Gakkai College.”
“But you didn’t even take your SATs.”
“I know. That’s the beauty of it. It’s founded by a Buddhist sect and doesn’t require SATs or any other admissions tests. All I had to do was write an essay about egalitarian ideals in the modern world. I guess they decided I was their spiritual brother because they offered me a scholarship.”
“So where is this idyllic, intellectual haven?”
“Nuevo Viejo, California.”
California. Of course it sounded a little Let’s put on our Nikes, drink cyanide-flavored Kool-Aid, and do the Helter Skelter to me. California is the cult capital of the world.
Black waves crashed into the sand.
“Be happy for me, Jessica.”
“That’s . .