After an order of apple juice accompanied by a slice of cherry chip cake, I decided to call James on his cell phone.
Case was sitting on the opposite bed, which was farthest from the window, eating his shrimp and salad. He seemed fairly content with himself, having dropped the subject of his words to Dad, but still hadn't said anything to me besides, "You'd better get the apple juice. Orange has too much acid". Disappointed that he wouldn't tell me, I wallowed in food for awhile before borrowing Krit's cell phone and calling James.
"Hello?" he answered, and immediately, all the sadness of Case's denial went away.
"James!" I cried back.
"Alanza? Hey, how are you doing?" There was a lot of background noise of people talking, some were even screaming. I heard a motor starting, then the sound of a gunning engine. "Wait. Hold on. Let me move." Slowly, the noise faded away and there was stillness in the background. I didn't ask about it, but kept a mental note nonetheless. "Sorry 'bout that. Are you in NYC yet?"
"Yeah, we pulled in 'bout two hours ago."
Case, listening only from my end, spoke, "More like three."
"Case says three," I told James.
"I'd listen to Case."
"Over me?"
"Well…"
"Thanks," I laughed, taking a sip of apple juice, which James must have heard.
"What's that?"
"What's what?"
"That slurping sound."
"Oh. Brunch."
"Brunch?" James echoed, confused as to what I was getting at.
"Yeah, the in between meal of lunch and breakfast. I managed to get some food on the plane, which would be breakfast, but it sucked, so now I'm having brunch."
"What happened to lunch?"
"It's coming."
There was a pause as I took a stab at the cake, swallowed, and then gulped down some more juice. James was the first to speak before I had a chance to.
"How's your dad?"
"Dad?"
Once again, Case interrupted. "Tell him that Zack's wallowing in his room because the hotel's too fancy. Zack prefers sleeping in a box."
"What was that?" James asked, apparently hearing Case's voice on the other end.
"Here," I said to James, then held the phone out the Case.
Smiling, but not taking the phone from my hand, Case called out in a voice louder than I would've preferred, "Zack's sulking in his room because the hotel is too nice for him because he likes sleeping in a box! I'll call you later!"
I then put the phone back to my ear. "Well?"
"Sounds charming," James replied.
"That'd be my dad."
"Haven't really had a chance to meet him, but at this point-after hearing Case-I may want to wait some more."
"You met him when I went into seizure city," I objected.
"That was different."
"How so?"
"He was freaked. I was freaked. Not really the time to hold out your hand and introduce yourself as his daughter's boyfriend and offer him some wine."
"He doesn't like wine."
James laughed. "Too fancy-right?"
"Uh-huh. He likes beer."
"Any specific kind so that I can get on his good side?"
"Nothing expensive," I replied, then changed the subject. "How have you been?"
"Pretty good. It's raining out, which creates more mud than needed, so now I'm just hoping that my car'll make it through."
"You can always walk."
"I'll sink."
"You will not."
"Yes, I-" James began, then stopped as someone began screaming his name in the background. I caught enough to figure out that James was supposed to be working.
"Hey, look, can you call me back?" he asked. "I don't know the phone number, but don't bother to give it to me. My boss is going to kill me if I don't get back to work. Talk to you later, Alanza. Love ya."
But, by the time I had echoed his statement, he had already hung up. I stared at the phone in confusion.
"Something wrong?" Case asked, readjusting himself on the bed as he stabbed viciously at a pitiful looking shrimp.
I shook my head because something was wrong, but I just wasn't sure what. "No, no, everything's fine."
He shrugged, examining his shrimp. "Ok."
A moment later, I realized what was wrong and had been nagging me ever since I called James. The people in the background, the motors, the screaming boss, it finally hit me that it had to have been a lie. His boss couldn't have been yelling at him because he wasn't allowed to take his cell phone to work. Then, who was telling him to get back to work, and why did James lie to me?
