“I don’t”—I wince when she starts to wrap—“care about it,” I finish.
“Oh, you will,” she says confidently.
“Really, it’s not that important to me.” Maybe it was the highlight of her life. Maybe she peaked in high school. But that wasn’t going to be me.
“It’s not being on the list that’s important,” she says as she finishes the wrap. “It’s the friends you make for life.”
I sincerely doubt I’ll be friends with the likes of Olivia Thayne and Chloe Batista.
“I’ll tell the others I met you,” she adds.
For a second, I’m not sure I heard her right. “What others?”
“The other hotties.” She lets out a soft laugh. “I know it sounds crazy to call ourselves that when some are in their forties, but once a hottie always a hottie, we say.”
“There’s a club?” Which would be, whoa, another thing I don’t want to be in.
She just smiles. “Celebrating the thirtieth year, too. We have an email loop, meet when we can, even attend weddings and …” She shakes her head. “A few heartbreaking funerals.”
“Do I have to be in this club?”
“You are in this club.” She puts the final piece of tape on the big white lump of gauze that used to be my middle finger. Without looking at me, she stands and begins to put her supplies away. “Like it or not.” I hear her sigh deeply.
“Not,” I say quickly.
“When you’re ready, you can contact me.” This time her look is quite serious, all humor absent from her eyes and replaced by something that looks a little … sad. “I won’t be able to answer everything, of course, but over the years, we’ve learned a few things.”
Like how to be weird. I stand and nod my thanks, so ready to get out of there. “Am I done? Do I have to see a doctor or get a note or something?”
“Keep that covered for a day or two and treat it gently, and the nail will heal. Get a pass for whatever class you’re missing at the front desk.”
“Okay, thanks.” As I reach for the doorknob, her hand lands on my back, and I jump.
“And, Kenzie?”
I don’t move, bracing myself for a parting shot about my wonderful, unforgettable, dead brother. “Yes?”
“Don’t be afraid.…”
I turn to meet her eyes as she passes me in the doorway. “Of what?”
“Most of us have been lucky. But …” She lifts a shoulder. “Beware.”
Did she say “beware” or “be aware”? The text message dances in my brain.
Caveat viator, Quinte.
Traveler beware. I try to act as casual as possible. “What are you talking about?”
Her smile is tight. “Just call me if you need …”
“What?”
She keeps her mouth sealed and that fake smile in place, her lips pressed so tight it looks like she’s fighting to keep from saying anything else. Before I can ask again, she continues into the hall, disappearing around the corner.
I stand for a moment, trying to replay and understand the conversation. Why would I call her? What would I need? Something about Conner … or the list? Or this injury? Unable to decipher what she meant, I go back to the main office and head out.
“Excuse me! Kenzie!”
I turn, ready to face Nurse Fedder again, but it’s the lady at the front desk, waving a pass I need to take to my physics teacher.
“Thanks,” I say, taking the slip of paper.
“And he’s here for you.”
I glance in the waiting area, sucking in a breath at the sight of Levi Sterling on the couch, legs propped on a coffee table, my books and handbag next to him.
“I stopped into Zeller’s room and got your stuff,” he says, like it’s the most normal thing in the world for him to have done. “And, no, I didn’t go through your wallet.” He’s trying for a joke, but the humor isn’t there. Can’t be easy knowing everyone assumes the worst of you.
“Thanks,” I say.
He stands, looking at my hand. “Nice.”
Of course, I give him the finger. “This one’s for you.”
“I’m sorry,” he says softly, and damn it, I believe him.
“ ’Sokay.” I reach for my books and bag. The move is awkward with my newly bandaged finger, so he scoops up the textbooks for me. “Thanks,” I say again, willing myself not to blush when his hand brushes mine.
Good God, Kenzie. Not only is he out of your league and dangerous—he just smashed your hand in your locker.
Beware.
I shake the nurse’s weird warning out of my head. “I’m late for class, so I better go.”
“I’ll see you Sunday night, then.”
I feel a frown form. “Sunday night?” Was there something going on that I didn’t remember?
“For tutoring.”
“At night?”
He laughs at my incredulous tone. “Yeah, at night.” As I start to shake my head, he holds out his hand to stop my argument. “I talked to Mr. Zeller, and he thinks it’s a great idea and the only way I’m going to pass the test next Monday.”
I forgot Zeller also teaches Math for Morons. “I can’t, sor—”
“He said he’d give you extra credit.”
“I don’t need it.”
He leans his shoulder into mine. “Liar.”
“I’m not lying. I have a—”
“You have an eighty-nine. I saw his grade book.”
I blow out a breath. “I have a ninety-eight, so maybe your issue with word problems is the reading, not the math.” I smile, a little smug with my clever banter.
But the smile fades as I read the expression in his eyes. “Yeah,” he says softly, looking away. “Maybe.”
He gives me a nod and takes a step in the other direction, leaving me with a sensation of … Crap. Why did I say that to him? Maybe he really does need help to pass and I’m the one who’ll keep him from robbing a bank or being a garbage man. He’s two steps away from me now, and my face grows warm as I try to remember all the reasons to say no. Juvie, motorcycle, trouble, bedroom eyes … nothing is actually making enough sense to use as an actual excuse.
“Saturday afternoon would be better,” I say quickly, bringing him to a stop. At least I won’t have to see him at night.
“I can’t, I have someone—something else.”
Someone else. We both know he was right the first time.
“Meet at Starbucks across from the Giant Eagle?” he suggests. “Sunday at eight.”
That’s close enough to my house that I can walk. “For an hour,” I say.
“That’d be good, Mack. Thanks.” He gives me the faintest hint of a wink, or maybe I imagined that. Either way, I don’t know what I just got myself into, but I’m not as scared of him as I should be.
CHAPTER V
When Molly drops me off at home after school, the driveway is empty and so is the garage. I feel guilty for having a silent minicelebration, but my alone time is rare, even though it’s just Mom and me in the house. She works as a legal assistant right in Vienna, and her boss is usually pretty cool about letting her leave around four, so I don’t often get to enjoy being a latchkey kid.
Before Dad moved out last year, she’d sometimes coerce him into coming home from work early if she had to work late. The thought of their separation weighs on me as I yank open the mailbox at the end of the driveway. Dad still spends an awful lot of time here, fixing things and even sleeping on the couch if it gets too late. They don’t really want to be apart, but any love they had somehow got swallowed up in grief after Conner died. Dad wants to leave this house and the memories—he has to, I think. But Mom feels that’s being disloyal to the son she raised here.
I just want to be a family again.
Of course, that can never happen. Our family will always have a hole in it. If only Conner hadn’t died. If only he hadn’t gone into that Pharm-Aid basement storeroom. If only he hadn’t reached into that crevice for my necklace. If only I ha
dn’t dropped it. If only he hadn’t been such a damn good brother who cared because I was crying. If only. If only. If freaking only!
My throat closes as I yank the bills and brochures from the box, barely looking at what I’m holding. I hate when I fall into the “if only” spiral. Pulling myself out, I round the house to unlock the side door.
I toss the mail onto the kitchen table and dip down so my overloaded backpack thumps on the top of it all, practically knocking the spice rack over in the process. Of course, I’m carrying a library’s worth of textbooks. Bet none of the other list girls lugged home Calc, Latin, and AP US History books.
Before I take another step, I turn around and lock the door so as not to experience the wrath of Mom when she comes home. An unlocked door is somewhere between undercooked burgers and a slippery bathtub on the “tempting fate” scale that directs my mother’s every move and thought.
I snag a can of Pringles from the pantry and a Coke from the fridge and head up the narrow stairs to my room, already considering how I can convince Mom to let me go to the football game. I’m pretty sure “the cutest guy in school asked me” isn’t going to fly. In a few minutes, I’ve got Pandora playing some Mumford tunes and I log on to Facebook.
Holy cow. One hundred and four new friend requests.
I zip through the list of people who couldn’t have cared less about following my woefully infrequent posts yesterday. I accept them all. Just like I replied to the texts from people I didn’t ever consider friends but who now want to hang out sometime. Why not? They’ll forget about me when this list business dies down.
I also check Instagram, where I see hashtags like #hottielist and #topten and, oh my God, #kenziesummerallfifth have been created and used by many of the Vienna High students who thought it was perfectly okay to take random pictures of ten girls at school today.
I blink at the shot of me talking to Josh Collier in the parking lot. Someone took my picture? I don’t have any recollection of that, no awareness at all that my picture was being taken. If I had, maybe I would have at least tried to wipe the wondrous look of teenage rapture off my face as I stare up at him like he’s Zeus dropped down to Vienna High to break some hearts.
Which he kind of is. And he’s never so much as thrown me a wayward smile, yet today I got sidelined in the parking lot, touched on the shoulder, and asked on a date.
That right there is the power of the list. It just gets attention, and some of it I don’t want.
Like Levi Sterling. I can’t help but compare Josh to the other boy who stole a lot of my thoughts today. Could they be any more different? At least on the surface, Josh seems so bright and harmless and golden. And Levi is dark and scary and sexy. All I know about either one of these guys comes from rumors and distant observation, so of course I turn to a reliable source of teen information: Facebook.
Since they’re both in the group of 104 new friends, I go creeping. I’m pretty good at this, I have to say. I know how to sift through friends and family and find pictures and tags that tell me all about a person. And I’m not limited to the Vienna High crowd, either. I’ve learned how to stalk people who study classics at Columbia, even the professors who should be more private but aren’t. I’m always picking up little tips I think will help me on my application.
Stalking Levi and Josh should be more fun than that, especially because we’re Facebook friends now, so I can really dig beyond friend lists and pictures and see their posts. Except Levi rarely posts. His pictures are a couple of years old, and not very plentiful. Not a single picture of his family or his house. No activities, party pictures, or goofy shots. Guess he wasn’t allowed to post while he was in juvie.
Josh, on the other hand, posts kind of stupid sayings almost daily, like “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people”—does he think he made that up?—and tons of pictures of him in football, basketball, and lacrosse uniforms and, of course, having fun with his legions of friends.
So, suddenly this popular boy is interested in an unremarkable Latin club geek like me? I know why, of course, but I’m not sure if I like it. Why wasn’t I good enough to talk to before this list came out? Did he need the approval of “votes,” or is he just simply seeing me for the first time? Should I give him the benefit of the doubt? Why not? What’s the harm in it?
Still curious, I find an album called “Christmas” on Josh’s page and dive in, ready to see his family. No siblings, it seems, and no pictures of his parents. Just more friends and an older man named Rex Collier, who I assume is his grandfather, with all that white hair.
I click through a few more photos, hearing the kitchen door open just as Pandora jumps to a commercial. I know I should call out to Mom, but I don’t want my solitude to end yet. And I really don’t want to deal with the discussion we’re going to have when I ask if I can go to the game.
Forget the fact that most kids my age wouldn’t even ask—they’d just go. But most kids didn’t bury their brother, so I’m different that way.
I spend more time clicking through Josh’s pictures, looking at one of him standing next to the brand-new sixty-thousand-dollar Audi he got for his sixteenth birthday. Someone has money in that family.
That reminds me of my old Accord, and I get off Facebook with a hard keystroke. I should call Dad and find out what the damage is going to be, but I don’t really want to know. Shutting off the music, I hear Mom in the kitchen and wait for her to call me. I know she won’t come up here; she never does.
I glance at my hand, which doesn’t really hurt anymore, but the injury will probably send her into a tizzy. How did it happen? Who did this to you? Why weren’t you more careful? Was the door rusty? Do you need a tetanus shot?
My throat closes and the weight presses down on my chest, familiar and unwelcome. The suffocation of Kenzie Summerall is about to begin, and it’s already making me freakishly tired.
It’s quiet downstairs, so I close my eyes, wondering why Mom hasn’t hollered up here yet. Bad day at the law firm? Sometimes the legal secretaries in the office make her nuts with all their gossiping, and I get the brunt of it in the form of a lousy mood. More often than not, though, she’s just anxious to hear about my day and make sure I survived it. Literally.
I’d already decided not to tell her about the Hottie List. My parents didn’t grow up in Vienna and don’t know anything about this particular high school tradition, and frankly, there’s no reason to tell. She’d just find something to worry about. Oh, Kenzie, what if all that publicity brings some pedophile after you?
I fall back onto my bed and feel my body drifting into the softness of an afternoon nap, but in the distance, I think I hear the door again. Did she go out? Leave something in the car? I wait for what feels like an eternity, but the exhaustion of the day seems to be pressing down on me.
Images of Levi Sterling and Josh Collier collide in my head, all dark and light like the embodiments of evil and good. My brain’s playing tricks on me, giving them animal faces.
Hac urget lupus, hac canis.
The Latin words float through my head and I have to dig a little harder than usual for the literal translation. But it comes to me: On this side a wolf presses, on that a dog. I know that means trouble on either side, but isn’t a dog a bit safer than a wolf? Levi is definitely the wolf. But he’s also the one that makes me a little … a lot weak inside.
I let out a yawn so giant it cracks my jaw and makes my whole body shudder, slipping me even deeper into nothingness. I’m so unbelievably tired. I have to sleep. I have to …
Next to me, my phone rings, close enough to my ear to jar me awake. Wow, this being-popular business is exhausting. I turn my head, which feels like the most I can possibly do, and read the screen.
Mom.
Mom is calling. Wait? What? How can that be? She probably locked herself out while taking out the trash or something. That’s so like her, the overlocker. I reach for the phone, vaguely aware that my afternoon nap left me with a headache and … the sc
ent of rotten eggs. Gross. What is that smell?
I grab the phone. “Hi.”
“Honey, I’m so sorry to be this late.”
I blink myself awake, which is no mean feat. “What do you mean?”
“Mr. Hoyt had a deposition and made me stay until the client left. I know you’ve been home alone for, what, an hour? Everything okay?”
“Didn’t I just …” My voice trails off as every hair on my arms and neck rises slowly. “You’re not … home yet?”
“Where are you, Kenzie?” she asks sharply.
“In my room.” I roll over on the bed, aware that my heart is jackhammering my ribs. “I fell asleep.”
After I heard you come home.
“Are you sick? Do you have a fever?”
I never, never cop to anything that makes her worry, but … didn’t I hear someone downstairs?
I know I locked the door. I remember putting my bag down, turning the latch, dropping the mail … or did I? My brain is like a blanket of sleepy fog.
“Kenzie? Are you all right?” Her voice rises in a familiar note of grade one panic. Not anywhere near her potential of DEFCON 5 (saved for left turns, no matter how far away the oncoming car is), but she is now alarmed.
Of course, that just means she is now breathing.
“I’m fine, Mom, just sleepy.” But I’m staring at my open door, half expecting an ax murderer to jump into the room. I know I heard something.
I squeeze my eyes shut, as adept at stopping my own fears as I am at sidestepping hers. I must have totally imagined that noise.
“Did you sleep last night? You didn’t tell me you had a bad night. Anything going on at school?”
Oh, here we go. “It’s a nap, Mom, not a coma.”
I hear her sigh at my sarcasm. “I’ll be home in less than half an hour.”
“ ’Kay.” Then I remember the football game. “Oh, Mom, did you have any plans for tonight?”
“Just burgers and fries, honey. I thought we could watch a movie.”
My eyes shutter heavily. She’s lonely, I know, and when Dad doesn’t come over, I’m all she’s got. Whose fault is that? Mine. “Oh, okay.”
They All Fall Down Page 4
