Loveless Summer - "Watching the Detectives"

George develops a scheme to solve Ben's problem; Megan nearly reveals Cynthia's secret

"Barbara Winters?" The man asked, another man standing a few feet behind him, appearing to survey their property."

"Yes?"

"I'm Detective Hunt of the Binghamton Police Department. This is my partner, Detective Reese."

"Oh... please, come in." As Barbara guided the two men into her home, her heart started racing. Could the Housers have called the police already? Was this how it all started? "Can I offer you anything? Coffee, soda..."

"No thanks, we just had lunch missus Winters."

"Oh, okay. So, uh, what can I do for you?"

"One of your co-workers had a bit of an episode today. Apparently he went after your boss with a paper cutter when he found out he was getting fired."

"Oh, thank god!"

"Ma'am?"

"Oh... uh... well, I was worried you were here to tell me something bad had happened to my kids, or something..." nice save, Barb, she thought to herself. "Is everyone okay?"

"Yeah, another one of your co-workers stopped him from doing any harm. Apparently he worked beneath you? One Mister Charles Long?"

"Oh, yes... I always knew he was a few sandwiches short of a picnic. I even told my higher-ups about it once."

"Yes, well, we figured we'd stop by and talk to you, see if you could tell us anything about his behavior."

"Certainly, officers."

It had been a tense few days since the band learned that Ben had been involved with a substitute teacher. Everyone was on edge, and their inability to reach George wasn't helping anything along. The last time anyone had seem him was at the Skylark Diner the night Ben announced his parents' schemes, and he'd even called his store's regional corporate headquarters to explain that he wouldn't be into work for a few days, or so Ben's co-worker, Rebecca, had explained. With their manager missing in action and the fate of the band hanging on a thread, emotions were running hot, and patience was wearing thin.

The police sitting in her living room were telling Barbara about a very serious problem, completely unrelated to the trials and tribulations of Superhype. She tried giving them her undivided attention, but it wasn't an easy thing to do. Over the course of the following half-hour, the detectives warned Barbara that Charles Long hadn't been apprehended yet, and that they were unsure of what he might do next. There seemed to be some genuine concern that he might attempt to contact her, or even approach her. But as threatening as this news was, she was only barely capable of processing the risk involved. Her mind was in too many places, too stressed to really comprehend the dangers posed by the man that she thought was nothing more than a dainty, pseudo-effeminate nerd with bad dental hygiene and a worse work ethic.

"Hello? Benjamin?"

"Hey, George! Where've you been? Where are you now?"

"I'm calling from Tijuana, Mexico."

"Mexico? What are you doing in Mexico?"

"It's a long story, but I need you to do me a favor, Benjamin."

"Uh... okay?"

"I need you to call Joseph Winters. Not Kyle, but his dad. I need you to say this exact phrase to him, okay? `George likes applesauce.'"

"What?"

"Call Joseph..."

"No, I heard you... Applesauce?"

"Trust me, Ben. Do that, and when you're done, I need you to send me an email with your girlfriend's home address, and in the subject line, write `hay-zoos.'"

"How do you spell that?"

"J-E-S-U-S."

"Uh, that's Jesus, not hay-zoos."

"No, that's how you spell hay-zoos."

"Uh... okay, if you say so. What's all this for?"

"My boy, I'm solving your problem for you!"

"Uh, Mister Winters?"

"Is this Ben?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, let me get Kyle for you..."

"No, uh, Mister Winters... uh..."

"What's up, Ben?"

"George likes applesauce."

"What?"

"I said George likes applesauce."

"um... okay?"

"I don't know, George called me a few minutes ago, and said he's in Tijuana, and he said I needed to call you and tell you that he likes applesauce. He didn't say what it meant."

"Oh! George, you clever dog!"

"Mister Winters?"

"I have to go, Ben. I have a phone call to make. I'm going to swing by your house and pick you up, okay?"

"Uh, I have to finish my homework, though."

"It won't take long."

Joe pulled his car up in front of the Houser residence, and a few moments later, Ben emerged, dodging through the light March snow with a small sprint and piling into the passenger seat of his best friend's father's Prius. As the car pulled away, Ben turned to Joe, with all of the world's confusion painted onto his face.

"Uh, Mister Winters... what's all this about?"

In the early nineties, about a year or so before Kyle was born, my band went on our first, and only, national tour. We played at a punk rock club in Los Angeles, owned by this Mexican guy named Jesus Santiago. One night, his daughter's boyfriend was roughing her up, and our drummer got involved and kicked the guy out of the club, so Jesus told us that if the band ever got into trouble, he'd try to help us out if he could. A few weeks later, our bass player got arrested in Nashville, and Jesus Santiago took care of it for us."

"I don't get it... how?"

"We don't know. We called him, told him what was going on, and twenty minutes later, our bass player was escorted out of the police station. So anyway, a month goes by, and Jesus calls George up, asking if some of his family could stay with him here in Binghamton, and from that, Jesus said he owed George another favor. I guess helping you out is that favor."

"Okay... but what's with the applesauce?"

"Oh, that! That's our code phrase. We came up with it because none of us really liked applesauce, not back then anyway. If Jose was going to help us out with something outside of our own band, we'd have the person being helped call another person and say that line, which was code that we needed to pick that person up and go somewhere for an hour. We had other codes too. If someone likes lima beans, that person needed to go somewhere. If someone likes yogurt, they need to meet someone. I can't remember them all, and I nearly forgot these ones."

"So... you wanted me out of the house? Is this Jose guy going to like, kill my parents or something?"

"Jesus, not Jose. And no, I don't think you get it. Jesus Santiago isn't a gangster or anything, he's a lawyer and a club owner."

"So why can't I be home?"

"I don't know, but if I know Jesus Santiago, this little substitute teacher problem of yours will be resolved the next time my phone rings."

Joe drove his Prius onto Front Street, heading north for around twenty minutes, eventually pulling into The Spot Diner, where he and Ben headed indoors, ordering some food and chatting about Joe's experiences on the road with his former punk rock band. After sitting in the diner for about thirty-three minutes, Joe's cell phone rang."

"See Ben? I told you this would get resolved," Joe explained as he pulled his phone out and answered it. "Hello?" Ben watched as Joe's facial expression went sour. "No, Barb, press the list button. The list button. It's in the middle of the remote. Yes, that one. Okay, now find the show you want. No, use the arrows. The arrows on the remote. No, don't get up, they're right on the remote. Okay, find Oprah...yeah, now press select. Select... okay? Oh, I'm with Ben. Yeah, George called him. I'm not sure. Yeah, I'll stop at Subway or something. Okay, love you too."

"So, should we order dessert or something, Mister Winters?"

Before Joe could answer, his phone rang again, prompting him to roll his eyes as he answered it. "Come on Barb, it's easy... oh, George! Uh huh. Uh huh. Uh huh." Joe stopped to laugh for a moment. "Really? So how long until he... uh huh. Yeah, I'll second that. Uh huh. I know, right? Uh huh. Well then, I'll see you in a few days then. Yeah, he's right next to me, I took him to the Spot. The Spot Diner. Uh huh. Yeah, tell Mister Santiago I said `viva la revolution!`" Joe started laughing for a moment, and George was laughing so hard that Ben could hear him through the receiver of Joe's cell phone, several feet away. "Okay. Yeah, have a safe flight. Yeah. And George... thanks."

"So, that was George? What's happening?"

"Everything's been taken care of, Benny."

"So what... I mean... how's this going to play out?"

"I need to take you home. Don't say anything about anything to your parents, and don't call the substitute teacher. Later tonight, some police will show up at your house, asking for you."

"What?!"

"Just relax, Ben. They'll ask you about this substitute teacher business. If they ask you if you've ever had sex with her or anything, you say no. Tell them you're just friends. Okay?"

"Wait... you want me to lie? to the cops?"

"No... well... no, you aren't lying to the police, because they..." Joe stopped for a moment, visibly struggling to come up with the right thing to say. "How do I put this... listen, just say no, okay?"

"If you say so."

After this, Joe drove Ben home, buying him a sub as he stopped to pick up dinner. When he got home, Ben rushed past his mom, who was preparing dinner, and went straight to his room, picking up his homework where he'd left off, his mind and his stomach buzzing with curiosity, confusion, and nervousness. On several occasions, he was tempted to pick up the phone and call Maria Bianchi, and at one point he'd even dialed her number into his phone, but each time he resisted the urge to do so. At 10:43 pm, a few minutes after his father had come home from the bar, there was a knock at the door, a knock that made Ben lightheaded and weak-stomached. Sure enough, two Binghamton Police detectives were standing in his living room when he made his way downstairs, after his mother frantically yelled for him.

"Ben? Dude, I didn't see you in school today, what's going on?"

"We need to have an emergency band meeting at the Skylark, Kyle. Can you pick up Cynthia?"

"Uh, sure. Hey, did my dad have something to do with this? He's been... you know... cryptic since last night."

"All will be explained. I'm gonna smoke a bowl, power-munch my cereal, and I'll be at the Skylark in an hour, okay?"

"Uh... if you say so."

After the bizarre phone call, Kyle sent a text message to Tara, explaining that he wouldn't be able to chat with her, and then called Mark, asking him to meet up at the diner. His next phone call was to Cynthia, who asked if her friend Megan could tag along. With this, Kyle headed downstairs, saying goodbye to his parents before hopping in his Civic and speeding off toward Cynthia's house, unsure of what Ben was going to report to the band about their current fiasco.

This wasn't the first time that Kyle had met Megan Anne Nesbitt, whom Cynthia affectionately referred to as "Megs." On a few occasions, Megan had come over while Cynthia and Kyle were working on new material in Cynthia's living room. She was a cute, short redhead with a slender figure and large breasts, and typically dressed in radically-fashionable clothes, which Kyle knew was the perfect recipe for Ben making offensive comments about her had they ever met; she was essentially the girl that Ben had described several times in the past to be his dream girl, aesthetically-speaking anyway. But while Megan had been to several Superhype shows in the past several months, she and Ben always managed to avoid meeting somehow, which made the meeting they were driving toward all the more nerve-racking. But with any luck, Kyle presumed, Ben would be so caught up with the Ms. Bianchi fiasco that he wouldn't have the mental capacity to make lewd comments about, or directly to, Megan. Just as his mind started carrying off toward what Ben might say about or to her, he found himself getting sucked into the conversation that Cynthia and Megan were having, a conversation that he had been entirely ignoring up to that point.

"So, Kyle, whose this Tara girl you're seeing?"

"Tara Janowitz. Why?"

"What do you see in her?"

"I dunno, I mean, we've known each other since elementary school. She's gorgeous, great personality... why?"

"Do you ever think you might be missing out on something better because you're dating her?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Megan!" Cynthia interrupted, to no avail.

"I'm just saying is all, you're in this crazy long-distance thing, but what if there's someone right here you're missing out on?"

"Right here?"

"Yeah, in Binghamton."

"Like who?"

"I dunno." Megan stopped talking to blow a big bubble through her gum, seemingly aimed at Kyle via his rear-view mirror. "I'm just saying is all."

"So, what, you're saying long-distance relationships are bad or something?"

"No. I dunno. I'm just saying, it seems weird to me that someone would date someone over the phone. Do you guys, like, mess around on webcam and stuff?"

"No!"

"Seriously Megan, can we talk about something else?" Cynthia asked, hoping that if Kyle noticed her cheeks turning red, he'd just assume it was from the cold.

"Oh, fine. I'm just messing around though."

For the next few minutes, the car's occupants shifted their attention to Ben's dilemma. Megan hadn't heard about it yet, not that she had met Ben in the first place, so she uncharacteristically bowed out of the conversation, probably realizing, or Cynthia had hoped, that she had come dangerously close to spilling the beans on Cynthia's secret crush on Kyle. Soon, they pulled into the parking lot of the Skylark Diner, greeting Mark as they took a seat at their usual booth in the furthest-western corner of the establishment. After ordering drinks and food, the group of teens waited, most of them anxiously, for Ben's arrival, who showed up about seven minutes later, marching proudly into the diner with an ear-to-ear smile on his face.

After taking a seat and ordering a soft drink, Ben explained to his friends how everything had happened, giving the newcomer, Megan, a very brief synopsis of the events that had led up to the past few days of chaos. Afterward, he went into the entire story of Kyle's dad, George Bellamy, and Jesus Santiago, which led him to the events of the previous evening, which was the part of the story everyone actually wanted to here. Ben explained that the Binghamton Police had sent two detectives to his home, but they didn't ask if he'd been involved with his teacher, as Joe Winters had led him to believe. Instead, the two police officers questioned him about his father's drunkenness, responding to reports filed by numerous unknown persons that he had made death threats against them while he was intoxicated. When Ben Senior came into the living room to see what was going on, drunk as usual and going into a tirade about Ben and Maria Bianchi having a relationship, they ended up establishing that he was, in fact, a drunk, and his rants about Ben's substitute teacher went completely unnoticed. After lecturing Ben Senior about making drunken threats and accusations, and threatening him with jail time if he didn't try to sober up, they dropped another major bombshell on the family: Ben Senior had an affair with a bartender at his favorite watering hole, prompting Maggie Houser to kick her husband out of the house.

Mark and Megan didn't understand why Ben was so enthusiastic about his father being kicked out of the house, but Kyle, being Ben's best friend, and Cynthia, having chatted with Ben about his father a few months earlier, both knew full well that this was indeed a very good thing. When Ben's father wasn't drunk, he was verbally abusive. He never hit his wife or his son, but he was demanding, demeaning, and ordered his family to do what he wanted, when and how he wanted it. So Ben's father leaving was one of the best things that their family could experience, in Ben's opinion anyway. What's more, this was good news for the band as well. With Ben Senior out of the picture, Maggie Houser wasn't sure who to believe, but out of her anger at her husband, she decided to side with her son. She was by no means going to champion his relationship with Maria Bianchi, but she was going to leave it alone. Just like that, Ben had won the lottery. His dad was out of the picture, he could keep seeing Maria, the band could get into the recording studio that upcoming weekend... everything seemed to have fixed itself. Of course, that's when Kyle pointed out that it didn't fix itself. The band's manager, George Bellamy, had pulled off a miracle.

Over the course of the next two hours, the group set their sights on their upcoming studio time, only a few days away. They occasionally joked around about Ben's relationship with Maria, of course, but for the most part, they stayed on subject. With their dramatic challenge behind them, it was time to get focused, zeroing in on the set list, and scheduling as much rehearsal time as they could in the next few days, in the hopes of delivering a better performance in the studio than they ever had on stage. As their night came to a close, the members of Superhype, relieved by the exit of their biggest threat to date, found themselves re-focused on their overall goals, and as Kyle dropped Megan off at her place, he felt a genuine sense of accomplishment in the band's triumph over Ben's catastrophe, not that he had anything to do with it. After waving goodbye to Megan, Kyle proceeded to drive Cynthia home, his mind wholly focused on the upcoming weekend.

"So, that stuff earlier..."

"I know, crazy right? I can't believe we ever doubted George!"

"No... I mean, the stuff Megan was saying."

"Oh, on our way over there? Yeah, what was that about?"

"She... she's crazy, right?"

"Totally. Why was she asking about Tara?"

"Um..." Cynthia stalled for a moment, trying to think of something to say, gazing out the window as Kyle's car zipped past a mini-mall. "She... well, she thinks you and me, should..."

"What? She thinks we should, like..."

"Yeah."

"What did you say about that?"

"Well, you know..."

"I mean, we're in a band, you know? Wouldn't something like that mess everything up?"

"Maybe... yeah, probably."

"I mean, she's never even met Tara, and she barely knows me. How does she think we'd be good together?" In the back of Kyle's mind, he wasn't really curious. He thought Megan may have been on to something, though even thinking such things made him feel hopelessly guilty.

"She, I dunno... she's crazy."

"Totally."

Cynthia smiled, partly in the hopes of indicating that she wasn't serious, even though she was, and partly because she'd recognized her chance to gauge what Kyle really felt about her, if he felt anything at all. "I mean, can you imagine that?"

"What?"

"Us being together?"

"Well, yeah..." Kyle stopped, realizing he almost said a few things he'd most surely regret. "I mean, you're gorgeous, and you have a great sense of style, and you're talented, and you have perfect taste in music, and... " Again, he had to stop himself, finding his words corning him. "But yeah, we're in a band, and I'm with someone, and..."

"I know... definitely." Cynthia knew at that moment she was going to cry when she got home. But why? The way he was phrasing it, it almost sounded as if they'd be together, if they weren't in a band, and if he weren't with someone. "I wouldn't want anything like that to come between us, or derail the band, or anything."

Wow Kyle , he thought to himself, she really doesn't look at you the way you look at her. "Yeah, Megan's crazy. And, like, we aren't even that compatible, right?"

Yep, definitely crying when I get home . "Nope, not at all."