“Wait,” says Claudia, her own eyes taking on the steely look of someone who knows how to stay cool in a crisis. She ducks into a stall, and before securing the door draws the red sweater up over her head and chucks it at me. It smells perfumed and adult-like, with a hint of the cucumber melon shampoo I always associate with my best friend.
“Give me the princesses,” Claudia sighs. “And then we'll breeze you into hair and make-up. Freshman—tell Ms. Kiehl that our girl is suffering from women's troubles, but make it sound like you weren't supposed to say that. Got it?”
Looking baffled but relieved, the freshmen releases the jamb of the bathroom door and flees down the hall. Claudia helps me wriggle out of my lamest item of clothing and into her sweater, pulling a tube of lip gloss from some improbable crevice moments after.
“I don't know why you don't burn this,” she says, once I've been given the two-minute makeover and she's been drawn into the primordial ooze of fashion. Grimacing down at Princess Jasmine and the others, she waves a manicured hand in my direction. “Go. Get into the Ivy League. See if I care.”
“This is love, Claudia.”
“Ya, ya bitch. Get a move on.”
I try to force Trace from my mind as I scamper off in the direction of the counselor's office. I don't think about New York, or my violin, or any fictional Brooklyn apartment. As my mind hones in on the task before me, I feel a familiar and pleasant thing: control. I feel like myself, or the 'myself' who used to ace tests and surprise no one. It's not the worst feeling.
“Ms. Prine!” Loren Kiehl says as I stride into Mr. Mahoney's office. Thankfully, my diabolical ex-lover is not present—Ms. Kiehl is sitting at Mr. Mahoney's desk and the man himself is in absentia. It's kind of weird to see beautiful Ms. Kiehl here, given all the dirty things I've done in this room. “It's so nice to meet you, finally,” she continues, taking what I hope is a pleased appraisal of my new get-up. “I've been moving around the county for the past few weeks, and I have to say: very few students have come as highly recommended as yourself. Have a seat, won't you?”
I do.
Her dark hair is gathered into a low, serious bun, and as she pulls a clicky pen from the cup on Eric's desk, I can't help noticing the Rolex watch on her wrist. Whatever Ms. Kiehl's day job is, she's doing well for herself.
“So. I can talk your ear off all day about my experiences at me old alma mater, but why don't you tell me why you'd like to attend Dartmouth?”
She looks up at me, expectant. My mouth is dry and my hands are clammy. Possible answers form on my tongue: because it's far. Because it's supposed to be good for me. Because I can't stay here.
“Because –” I search the walls for answers, the way Trace had done the evening prior. I had left him hanging. I had let him fall. “Because it's the best,” I finally stutter, feeling composure return. “And I deserve the best.”
Chapter Twelve
Melanie's in the kitchen when I get home, a plate of untouched zucchini loaf before her. My parents are pacing. They barely look up when I enter the room.
“Yes, he's still a minor. For another three months,” Melanie murmurs into her cell phone. She shoots me a weary half-smile, the kind of look doctors give the patient's family when all is very likely lost.
“We can't reach Trace,” my mother finally says. “His phone has been disconnected, and when the school called this afternoon with a truancy report, I went out to the garage and a lot of his things are gone.”
On the last word, her voice cracks. My father goes to soothe her. The look he shoots me is one of worry, but it's also stern, like he maybe knows I have something to do with this mess.
“We saw the TV, and the drums. Melanie's said this is all symptomatic of another experience he had, two years ago. He'd been keeping a lot of high-end objects hidden. Things he'd bought with...ill-gotten funds.”
“Joey, baby. Did you know anything about this?” My mom hardly ever calls me Joey.
I look into her eyes and want to confess everything I know, for an instant—but a moment later, I reconsider. Admitting I knew about the drugs and all the secrecy, wouldn't that be akin to admitting our secret? At the same time, my stomach twists with worry as I watch Melanie end her call, and place the iPhone on our kitchen table with a gesture that reads hopeless to me.
“Anything you can tell us would be helpful, sweetheart. We don't want him to get in trouble with the law,” the caseworker says. Her eyes search mine.
It's such a silly thing for a teenager to say, right? Part of me knows that. There's the pragmatic, Darmouth-bound, Mr. Mahoney's-mistress part who recognizes that 'love' isn't rolling hills and adventure, it's not clicking along a highway on a secret mission, it doesn't swell like an orchestra or make your heart race like percussion. It's supposed to look like my parents: methodical, kind, smart. Yet here in the kitchen, my Dad rubs my Mom's back. She nestles her head into the crook of his shoulder and neck, making her eyes flutter closed. It occurs to me that I've never seen them be this tender with one another before.
Next, it occurs to me that I'm a great big fucking idiot, and my pragmatisms are for shit.
I'm in love with the boy who taught me how to play through moods and believe in myself. The boy who made faces at me from behind the glass pane in English class. The boy who kissed the back of my neck gently, for all to see, in our school's hallway.
I'm in love with Trace Harter. Why couldn't I say it before?
“Please keep me posted,” I croak—but it's about all I can say, before what I'm certain will be a flood of tears falls down my face. I back out of the kitchen, leaving Melanie and my parents to continue their planning and pacing. It’s only when I've clawed my way back to my bedroom that I really let the rainfall.
I text Trace, feverishly, the second the door is slammed behind me. But they weren't lying—his number's been disconnected since this morning. Just before I let myself collapse on the bed in a heap of fury, another thought occurs. I jerk out my iPhone (unkindly, considering it never did anything to me), and the rumpled Mickey D's napkin that's been sitting on my desk for a few days. I punch in the unfamiliar numbers, scrawled angrily over the paper.
The phone rings twice. Three times. I pace. On the sixth ring, when I know I should give up hope, I reach for a few unmoored violin strings on my desk, and begin to twist these around my fingers. The metal cuts at the pointed edges, but pain doesn't stop me. Eight rings. Nine.
“Hello?” It takes a moment to metabolize that Gilmore's actually speaking to me; that it's not my imagination. “Whodafuck dis be?”
“Hank! Hi! Don't hang up!”
“Shit.”
“It's Joanna Prine! From school! It's...homework!” God, I'm an idiot—homework? Like I would ever ask Hank Gilmore anything about homework, ever? I wait for the inevitable click on the line, but I’m instead rewarded with a raspy cough. Another second goes by.
“What about homework...?”
“It's...” I look around my room, free hand digging hard into the old strings. Whatever. If I get tetanus, serves me right.
“It's...Trace's homework, actually. He left a Math book here, and I was going back through it for a project, and I know you guys are in class together. Is he with you?” This sounds unconvincing, even to me. I don't even know what math class Trace is in. “Statistics,” I finish, trying to sound unaffected and cool. “I just fucking hate statistics, and he's not around to help me.”
I can hear Hank thinking. I imagine him in some pawn shop from the inner city, one of the settings from The Wire. Claudia used to be so obsessed with that show. Focus, Jo...
“Tracy's here,” Gilmore says, his voice suddenly too careful. “But he stepped out for a second.”
“Could you get him? It's really important.”
“Hmm.”
“C'mon, Hank,” I say, hopefully omitting the desperate subtext: this is the very last card I have to play. Instead, I try to sound flirty. “Be a friend.”
We exchange b
reaths, as Hank decides. Downstairs, my mother lets out an odd wail, and I hear the hushed tones of Melanie and Dad going to comfort her. Then, finally, there's a flurry of activity on the line.
“TRACE!” Hank yells, “YOUR SISTER-WIFE IS ON THE PHONE!”
I rise to the edge of my seat, anxious to hear his voice. The words are already forming in my mouth (I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Come back, I'm so so sorry....) when many voices start to make noise at once. I hear Hank laughing, and someone muttering rapidly. I can't be sure the voice is Trace's, but there's something chillingly familiar to the low grunt that now consumes the phone:
“It's better this way, kiddo. You don't want no part of this.” The line clogs up with laughter again, in odd complement to the sinister caution. My heart leaps into my mouth. No sooner has the dial tone resumed than I try Gilmore again—but after three more fruitless tries and a volley of texts, I hear the rote tone of a machine: “You have been blocked.”
* * *
Gilmore's not in school on Friday—and ditto Trace, and ditto three or four other key players on the basketball team. The school's already buzzing with rumors. Skating past my locker, I hear freshman-dreadlock-girl waxing poetical to a few of her frisbee-throwing friends: “I heard a whole caravan of wastoids went down to Mexico. They're gonna buy a few kilos, if you can believe it.”
I want to throttle the hippie, but think better of it. She doesn't know anything. Nobody actually knows anything. Just you focus on your studies, my mother had said this morning. She and my father had stayed home from work, after electing to cancel their trip to the Minnesota conference. My dad had demonstrated a surprising shrewdness at today's breakfast table. After asking yet again if I'd heard from Trace, he'd peered at me over his glasses and said, “You know, Joanna—you're our daughter, first and foremost. Nobody would blame you.” In that moment, I thought maybe the old man knew more about his deranged pseudo-progeny (and their illicit love affair) than I'd previously given him credit for.
Claudia appears at my shoulder, her clacking high-heels preceding her.
“Any news?” she murmurs, the picture of subtlety.
“They issued a police report this morning.”
“That's promising!”
“It would be, if he wanted to be found, but he ran away, Claudia. I'm sure Trace has plenty of experience sneaking away from the cops.”
This assumption jangles acidically on my tongue, but I let it hang in space for a second. Trace isn't around to politically-correct me anymore. What's the point?
“You shouldn't be so hard on him, Jo,” Claudia says, opening the door to our English class and stepping aside so I can pass her. “And don't forget your parents. You should put on a brave face for their sakes, you know?”
I smile at her, half-hearted—but honestly, I've just about had it with the well-meant advice. All I want to do is list around the garage, where the room still smells like Trace. I want to snuggle up in his bed and rewind to three days ago, before everything went so wrong.
“Jo,” Claudia says, in the patient voice of someone repeating something for the third time. When I glance back at my best friend, she indicates someone in front of me with a tilt of her pretty head. I stop short. Right here in my English class, looking impossibly out of place in the sea of high schoolers, stands Loren Kiehl and Eric Mahoney.
“Joanna,” Loren says, beaming so wide all her white teeth show. She looks elegant again today, in a Michelle Obama-style jewel colored suit, with a funky wide skirt. Beside her, though I avoid making eye contact, Eric seems sallow. Also, deeply unimpressive.
“Can we have a word with you?” I'm suddenly aware of what must be the dark circles rimming my eyes, because Eric scrunches his nose at me in a familiar expression of concern. But before I can find some way to sneak out of—whatever this is—Claudia presses an index finger into the center of my back.
* * *
Outside the classroom, Eric and Loren continue to hover over me in a way that makes me feel incredibly short; Loren stands just a bit too close, and Eric puffs out his chest, as if attempting to look extra-professional. I can't tell from the body language whether Loren was actually able to piece together that the man I was yelling at that day in the hallway was the counselor. From her placid expression, though, I assume this is not the case.
“Jo, this is rather unconventional,” Kiehl starts. “But the pair of us wanted to be the first to let you know—you've been nominated for the Dooley scholarship. Based on our interview yesterday and what I've been able to glean from your application materials”—with a sweep of her lovely hand, Loren indicates Eric—“You're a shoe-in at this school. The Student Affairs Committee would like to formally invite you to the Dartmouth College campus for the weekend, to see if we have a good fit. We're hosting an Early Action Open House this Saturday and Sunday.”
Loren Kiehl smiles at me. After a beat, it occurs: I'm definitely supposed to smile back.
“Saturday and Sunday, as in tomorrow?”
“We're sorry for the late notice, and are definitely prepared to accommodate any rearranging of travel plans. Naturally, it's understood that immovable things might be in place.”
Like the hunt for my currently missing Foster Brother?
“She'll go,” Mr. Mahoney says, smugly. I watch a flicker of annoyance dance across Loren's face.
“You don't have to decide right now,” Kiehl reassures me, opening her elegant purse. She slips an embossed business card from a mirrored case, and hands this to me. “Call me a little later. We'll make arrangements.” She doesn't wait to gauge my reply, but instead turns on her heels, the picture of confidence. I'm left in the hallway with Eric, who also makes as if to leave, without looking at me once.
“Congratulations,” my old flame mutters, to a point in space just north of my head. A teensy part of me resists the urge to clap him on the back or shake his hand, offer something that's not quite a thank you and not quite a 'fuck you,' either—but more of me just wants to be alone with my morbid, clanging thoughts. So, I say nothing.
* * *
I only have to read my Dad's expression when I climb into the car, before the tiniest flicker of hope in my chest flames out. Old Earl just shakes his head, his eyes fixed to the center of the steering wheel.
“No newspaper today?” he asks me, starting up the engine. I start to explain that we've wrapped for the fall, but realize his thoughts are somewhere else entirely. Instead, I just say 'no.' I remember how a few months ago, Trace had suggested we call the Douglass rag, The North Star. This makes me smile.
“You know, Jo. I really thought we could make a difference to this kid,” my Dad says finally, after blocks have flicked by. “Is that the most presumptuous thing you ever heard?”
“Of course not, Dad. And hey! You did make a difference.”
My father looks older than he ever has. He nods, 'sure,' but I can tell he's indulging me.
“I know it's stupid, but I did think we would have a son someday. Your mom and me.” I bet he's thinking about a few days ago, on the basketball court. We'd been like a bonny little nuclear family—mom with her groceries, dad and kid shooting hoops. I squirm against my seatbelt.
“Listen. Dad. There's something I should tell you. I should have, a long time ago, but—”
I look out the passenger window, feeling my face grow hot with shame. “Umm. I had this thing. The past few months. With –”
“Oh, sweetheart. I know.” His fleshy, warm hand reaches for my dry, flaky one, and in that second I remember what it felt like to be the only object of my parent's affection. There was a time, not so way back when, that I used to have no secrets at all from my parents. I miss that.
“And don't worry. We shouldn't tell your mother just yet, but—I understand.”
“You do? Oh my God, you do?” Relief lifts my shoulders, but humiliation brings them back down again. What must it have been like for him? To keep a secret so huge from his wife? To know that his precious, do-gooder daughter i
s schtupping the foster kid...?
“Of course I do. I had a dream once too, you know. Music is way nobler than growing hydroponic marijuana.” My Dad laughs easily, for the first time in days—and slides our car into the driveway. I press my lips together.
“Indeed, daughter-o-mine: the jig is up. I know you and Trace have been prepping for a big Juilliard audition. We found his drums in the garage.”
“Oh.”
“I made a call. The audition's tomorrow, is that right?”
I swallow, hard. In my head, Loren Kiehl's card is burning a laser-hole through my backpack.
“I can get you on a train, but I can't leave your mother the way things are. The police say missing children are usually found within forty-eight hours of a report being filed, or not at all.”
When I look up, I realize Dad's been waiting for me to respond—but I'm still so floored that he hasn't managed to piece together the whole of my secret. His eyes are plaintive, full. He's a good man, my Dad. And besides, I tell myself. I’m eighteen years old...Adults keep some secrets from their parents, don't they?
“The train sounds good,” I choke. But my voice breaks on the last word, and I find myself wrapped up in one of my old man's old-school bear hugs. He rubs my back in soothing circles.
“What she doesn't know won't hurt her. I want you to follow your star.”
“I love you Dad.”
“You too, Beethoven.” We smile.
Chapter Thirteen
November 25th
My Dad wakes me at dawn, with a finger pressed to his lips. It feels like we're spies, sneaking through the silent hallway. In another room, I can hear my mother snoring. The kitchen table is covered with the detritus from last night's flurry of activity—the things detectives left behind, healthy snacks. My Dad pre-empts the question that follows:
A Family Affair: My Bad Boy Foster Brother Page 14
