The Fixer

by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

  No wonder Anna had been freaking out—and thank God that jerk whose phone I’d confiscated hadn’t e-mailed the pictures of her to anyone. I didn’t even want to think about the kind of media storm it might have kicked up if he had.

  “Believe what you want,” I told Emilia. “I’m not a miracle worker. I’m not a problem solver. Whatever’s going on with your brother—”

  “Asher,” she supplied.

  “I can’t help you,” I said firmly.

  “I’ll pay you.” Emilia clearly wasn’t acquainted with the word no—but the two of them were about to get downright cozy.

  “I don’t want your money.” I pushed past her—successfully this time—and she amended her offer.

  “I’ll owe you.”

  I wondered who or what I had offended in a previous life to end up in this position: sister of famed fixer Ivy Kendrick, endorsed as a miracle worker by the vice president’s daughter.

  “Sorry, Emilia,” I said, almost meaning it. “You’ve got the wrong girl.”

  CHAPTER 12

  About five minutes into my first class of the day, it became clear that Emilia Rhodes was not the only person who was operating under the impression that I was a chip off the sisterly block. Anna Hayden might not have told the entire school that I was the person to go to if you had a problem, but she’d whispered it in the right ears.

  In a school the size of Hardwicke, word got around.

  In English, one of my classmates attempted to retain my services to handle “rumor management” in a nasty breakup. In physics, I got a request that—as far as I could tell—had something to do with a show-choir rivalry.

  I dearly hoped to never so much as think the words show choir again.

  By lunchtime, I was nearing the end of my patience.

  “Hypothetically speaking, should I be concerned that you look like you might throw that meatball sub at someone?” Vivvie popped up beside me.

  I glanced over at her. “If I was going to throw something, it would be the bread pudding. Hypothetically.”

  “Don’t throw the bread pudding,” Vivvie objected vehemently. “It’s got a butter rum sauce!”

  She sounded so horrified at the idea that I managed half a grin.

  “Here at Hardwicke, we take our baked goods very seriously,” Vivvie informed me pertly. She hesitated just for a second. “Are you looking for someone to sit with?”

  Across the room, Emilia met my eyes, then slid her gaze to an empty seat at her table, across from Maya and next to Di. Clearly that was an invitation.

  I turned back to Vivvie. “I assumed I was sitting with you.”

  Vivvie broke into a smile the way other people broke into song and dance. It lit up her entire face.

  “Where do you normally sit?” I asked her. The day before, when she’d been playing official guide, we’d grabbed a seat in the corner, but a girl like Vivvie had to have friends, as alien as that concept felt to me.

  Vivvie’s eyes went Bambi wide, the smile freezing on her face. “Well,” she hedged, “sometimes I eat in the art room? And sometimes I just find a place outside?” She said every sentence like it was a question—and like she fully expected me to reconsider sitting with her.

  “Outside works for me,” I said. There were too many people in the cafeteria, and I truly did not want to know which of the onlookers would turn out to be my next wannabe “client.”

  Vivvie practically bounced with relief and began to lead the way. “I know you’re probably wondering, about the whole ‘sometimes I eat in the art room’ thing.”

  “You’re an artist?” I guessed.

  Vivvie nibbled on her bottom lip and shook her head. “Not so much. I mostly draw stick figures.” She paused. “They’re not very good ones,” she confessed.

  Open book, thy name is Vivvie. “I get eating lunch alone,” I told her. “You don’t have to explain.”

  “It’s no big deal,” Vivvie assured me, in a way that told me that for her, it was. “It’s just . . . Hardwicke is a small school. At least half of us have been here since preschool. I know everyone, but my best friend moved away a couple of months ago. We were kind of a pair. There are people I could sit with. I just . . . I don’t want to bother anyone.” She offered me another tentative smile. “I’m kind of an acquired taste.”

  Something in the way she said those words made me think they weren’t hers. “Says who?” I asked darkly.

  Vivvie came to a halt in the courtyard, her eyes going round.

  “What?” I said. She didn’t reply, so I turned to follow her gaze to the Hardwicke chapel. Or, more specifically, to the chapel’s roof. There was a single octagonal window at the base of the steeple. Standing just in front of that window—thirty feet off the ground—was a boy. His toes were even with the very edge of the roof.

  There was no one else outside. Just me and Vivvie and the boy on the roof. I stepped past Vivvie, wondering what he was doing up there. Wondering if he was going to jump.

  “Go get someone,” I told Vivvie.

  The boy held his hands out to either side.

  “What are you going to do?” Vivvie asked me.

  I took a step toward the chapel. “I don’t know.”

  The door to the chapel roof was propped open and marked with a sign that read DO NOT ENTER. I stepped through it. One more ladder, and I was on the roof.

  The boy was still standing at the edge. I could only see the back of his head. He had auburn hair—a deep, rich red that girls would have killed for, but that looked strange, somehow, on a boy. Now that I was up here, standing just a few feet away from him, I wasn’t sure what to do.

  “Top of the morning to you,” the boy said without turning around. I took a step forward. He lifted one foot off the roof and held it out—nothing but air and the ground below.

  “It’s not morning,” I replied, inching my way out toward him. The roof was steeper the farther out I went.

  The boy glanced back. “I’m not Irish,” he said, a hint of a smile dancing around the corners of his lips. “In case you were wondering.”

  I was wondering what this guy was doing on the roof of the chapel—because suddenly, I was certain that he wasn’t here to jump.

  “It’s the red hair that makes people think I might be,” the boy continued. “And my habit of saying things like top of the morning. And the fact that I took up Irish folk dancing for two weeks when I was fourteen.” He sighed. “It was a beautiful two weeks. Kathleen and I were very happy.”

  “Kathleen?” I asked.

  “Girlfriend number seventeen,” the boy replied. “Before Sophie and after Sarah.”

  “You’d had seventeen girlfriends by the time you were fourteen?” I asked.

  “The ladies,” he replied with a shrug. “They love me. It’s because I’m so charming.”

  “You’re balancing on one leg on the roof of a chapel. You’re not charming. You’re an idiot.”

  “Tell me what you really think,” he said, grinning.

  “I think you should come away from the edge of the roof before a teacher sees you,” I told him.

  The boy peeked over the edge of the roof. “Too late, fair lady. That ship has sailed and sailed again.”

  I rolled my eyes and started back toward the door. I’d thought he needed help—but clearly, what he really needed was a swift kick. Given that we’d met all of two minutes ago, I didn’t feel particularly obligated to be the one who delivered it. He could do the hokey pokey up here for all I cared.

  As I hit the top of the stairs, he fell in beside me, that stupid grin still on his face.

  “You’re new,” he said.

  I didn’t reply. I’d made it to the door of the chapel when he spoke again, more quietly this time. “I was just enjoying the view.”

  I turned back toward him, ready to smack the smile off his face, only to discover that he wasn’t smiling anymore. Seriousness didn’t fit with his features.

  “The view?” I asked, still ann
oyed with myself that I’d misread the situation so badly.

  “The view,” he replied. “The higher up you go, the smaller they get.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  He held his hands out to each side, the same way he had on the edge of the roof. “Everyone.”

  The second I stepped outside, I realized that the boy hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d said the “get down before a teacher sees you” ship had sailed and sailed again. I wasn’t sure if Vivvie had actually gone for help, or if someone else had caught sight of the boy, but there were two teachers in the courtyard now, along with a handful of students—including Emilia Rhodes, who had a distinctly pained expression on her face.

  “Did you haul him down?” Vivvie asked me in a whisper. “You forcibly hauled him down, didn’t you?”

  “Ms. Kendrick!” A teacher broke through the crowd to reach me. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Care to explain what you were doing in there?” The teacher narrowed his eyes at me. Behind him, Vivvie began to gesture emphatically. She was freakishly skilled at charades. Following the gist, I glanced up at the roof. From where we were standing, you could see the edge of the roof, but you couldn’t see farther back, where I’d been standing.

  “It’s a chapel,” I said, turning back to the teacher. “What do you think I was doing in there?”

  The teacher was flummoxed.

  I shrugged. “When you have to pray, you have to pray.” The teacher opened his mouth to reply, and I cut him off. “The Hardwicke chapel is open to students of all religious beliefs and affiliations,” I said. “Isn’t it?”

  “Errr . . . yes,” the teacher replied. “Of course.” The man adjusted his tie, then zeroed in on a different target. “Mr. Rhodes!” he boomed.

  The boy from the roof smiled charmingly. “Mr. Collins! Just the man I wanted to see.”

  “Did you also hope to see Headmaster Raleigh?” the teacher countered. “Because if you did, you’re in luck.”

  “I’m always in luck,” the boy—whose last name was apparently Rhodes—replied. “I think I got some really good shots up there.” As I processed the fact that this must be Emilia’s brother, the boy in question held up a camera, which he had most decidedly not been holding on the roof.

  “You’re telling me you were up on the roof of the chapel taking pictures?” the teacher asked skeptically.

  I gave the boy—Asher—a look. This was never going to work.

  Asher met my eyes, and his own sparkled. I could practically hear him thinking, challenge accepted.

  “I was digesting what you said in your lecture on perspective in photography,” he told the teacher. “You told us to think outside the box.” He tilted his head to the side. “I feel so . . . edified . . .”

  I snorted. Audibly.

  “Asher, do you think I’m stupid?” Mr. Collins scowled at him.

  “Not at all,” Asher replied. “Do you think I’m edified?” He grinned. Beside me, Vivvie grinned. The smile was catching.

  Mr. Collins shook his head. “Stay off the roof,” he ordered. Then he paused. “Stay off all the roofs.”

  The fact that he felt he had to make that clarification told me a great deal about Asher Rhodes.

  “Sir, yes, sir,” Asher replied. And then, to my shock, Mr. Collins left it at that. The other teacher didn’t say a word to Asher. It was like someone had just flashed the words nothing to see here on a neon sign. The crowd dissipated, and Asher met my eyes and arched a brow.

  “What just happened here?” I asked Vivvie, bewildered.

  Vivvie shrugged.

  “People like me,” Asher informed me helpfully. “I’m very likable.”

  “No, you aren’t.”

  Asher grinned like I’d just professed my love for him. He lifted the camera up and snapped a picture of me. “Give it a couple of days,” he told me ominously. “You’ll see.”

  CHAPTER 13

  It didn’t take long for word to get around that I’d taken on Emilia’s case. Forget the fact that I had not taken on Emilia’s case. And the fact that random high school juniors didn’t just declare themselves in business and start “taking cases.” To the Hardwicke student body, the fact that I’d been with Asher and he’d managed to evade trouble was evidence enough that I was embracing my fixer title.

  Like it or not, I wasn’t a random high school junior. I was Tess Kendrick. And between Anna Hayden and Emilia Rhodes, people were starting to think that meant something.

  It was just my luck that Asher was in my World Issues class. He greeted our classmates by name and accepted a wide variety of high fives on his way to the seat next to mine. He blessed me with a goofy, beatific smile.

  Kill me now.

  “Congratulations,” Dr. Clark called out at the front of the room, clapping her hands together. “As a reward for being my last and favorite class of the day, you get to turn in your internet censorship essays!”

  A round of groans went around the room. Once we’d handed in our assignment, she turned on a flat-screen television at the front of the room—to CNN.

  “Prepare wisely,” Dr. Clark said.

  Prepare for what? I wondered.

  “Debates,” Vivvie told me helpfully.

  “We are at the mercy of the daytime cable news channel gods,” Asher elaborated, twirling a pencil in his fingers like a miniature baton. “Whatever issue the pundits are discussing, we’re discussing.”

  All around the room, people were taking furious notes. I had no idea what the people on the screen were talking about. Five minutes in, I stopped even trying to decipher it, until the show cut one of its hosts off midsentence.

  “Breaking news,” the television declared. A wave of unease went through the room as the news feed cut to a man in a military uniform, issuing a statement. All eyes in the room went immediately to me.

  No. Not to me, I realized. To Vivvie.

  It took me a moment to process the fact that the caption under the man’s name listed his rank (major), his position (White House physician), and his last name.

  Bharani.

  “It is with great sadness,” the man on-screen said, “that I inform you that Chief Justice Theodore Marquette died on the table a little over an hour ago. This was our second attempt to fix a blockage in the justice’s heart, and there were unforeseen complications with surgery.”

  Beside me, Vivvie was sitting very, very still. Asher stiffened. The rest of the room broke into murmurs.

  On the screen, Major Bharani continued. “This country has lost a great man today. We ask that you respect his family’s privacy in this time of grief.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Justice Marquette’s death was big news at Hardwicke. From what I could gather, the still-absent Henry Marquette was well liked—and he’d lost his father the year before. Add to that the number of Hardwicke parents who were politicians, journalists, lobbyists, or otherwise entangled with the Powers That Be in Washington, and a dead Supreme Court justice wasn’t just news. It was a game changer.

  It was personal.

  “Tea?” The question snapped me from my thoughts. Ivy poured herself a cup as she waited for a reply.

  “No,” I bit back. “Thank you.”

  Ivy took a sip of her tea, her eyes never leaving mine. “We could order something else if you’d like.”

  Somehow, my sister had taken my I don’t want your cookies speech the day before to mean I would prefer to go out for afternoon tea.

  “I’m fine,” I told her through gritted teeth. All around us, women chatted with each other over delicate pastries. I could practically taste the gentility in the tea room air.

  Ivy picked up a delicate silver spoon and stirred her tea contemplatively. “Scone?” she asked.

  I just stared at her. “What are we doing here?”

  “I’m eating a scone,” Ivy replied. “When I figure out what you’re doing, I’ll let you know.”

  I got the feeling th
at I could hurl obscenities at her, and she’d just keep on sipping her tea.

  “What do you want?” After the day I’d had, I was too mentally frayed to beat around the bush.

  “I want you to give DC a chance.” Ivy waited for those words to sink in before continuing. “I won’t ask you to give me one. I’m not sure I deserve it. But you do, Tessie. You deserve to have a life here.”

  “I had a life,” I told her sharply. “I was . . .” Happy? I couldn’t make my lips form the word. “I was fine.”

  “When I left you there,” Ivy said, “three years ago, when I left you with Gramps, I thought I was doing the right thing. For you.”

  Then why did you invite me to live with you in the first place? I refused to say the words out loud. When I was thirteen, I’d tried to ask her why. I’d called, and she hadn’t answered. I’d called again and again, and she hadn’t answered. A month later, she’d called to wish me a happy birthday, like nothing was wrong.

  After that, I stopped calling her, and I stopped asking why.

  Across from me, Ivy began applying clotted cream to her scone. “What do you want, Tess?”

  “Not tea and crumpets,” I muttered. “That’s for damn sure.”

  An older lady at the table next to us shot me a dirty look. I stared down at the lace tablecloth.

  “I didn’t ask you what you don’t want,” Ivy informed me. “I asked what you do want. Don’t think of this as a heart-to-heart. Think of it as a negotiation. I want you to give this arrangement a chance.” Ivy’s voice never changed—not in volume, not in tone. “Tell me what you want, and I’ll see what I can do.”

  I wanted to go home. I wanted Gramps to come home. But even the great Ivy Kendrick couldn’t turn back the clock. She couldn’t make him well.

  “Have you heard from the doctors?” My voice sounded dull to my own ears.

  “I got an update this morning.” Ivy set her tea down. “He’s got some cognitive impairment, disorientation, mood swings.”

  I thought of Gramps yelling, demanding to know what I’d done with his wife.