“I know how important this is to you,” I said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Look around and make sure it’s all here.”
Art pulled away from the wall and looked around slowly. He picked up a few things, smelled them—I shuddered at that—and then put them down again. After a few minutes, he said, “It’s all here. The real stuff this time.”
I let myself take a breath. Then I tensed again. “It’s too easy,” I said. “She has to have done something else.”
Art kept looking around. “Look, don’t touch anything. Let me double check all the wires.”
“She wouldn’t use wires. It would be something else.” Something creative. And really bad. I wasn’t so much afraid of being blown to bits as I was of being blown out of my clothes. And then having pictures taken of me for the school yearbook. Or the national press.
“What about your parents?” asked Art.
“They’re both busy today,” I said. At least, I thought they were. My parents were always busy.
But then the doorbell rang. Who could it be? I ended up looking at my cell phone and realizing that there were a bunch of messages from Trudy. Maybe she had decided to forgive me and was excited to tell me so she had come over here to find me. I went upstairs and opened the door eagerly, but it wasn’t Trudy outside.
In fact, all I saw at first were camera flashes. Then I was blind and stumbling for a minute or two. When I could see again, my head was pounding like crazy and my mouth tasted like I had just eaten a pile of very dry, iron-filled dirt. And also, my eyes stung. But I saw this guy in a suit standing in front of me holding a giant check like the ones they do for that magazine sale. Or whatever it is. With the host who wears a toupee.
This wasn’t him, but all I could think was that maybe the camera flashes had acted like lightning and I had turned out lucky, after all.
“Mr. Robert Chiltern?” he asked.
“I don’t understand. What’s this for?” I asked, waving a hand at the check. If I looked at it closely, I could see that it had a name written on it. It took me a few seconds to puzzle out that it was my name.
“This is for the proof that you sent in about your experiments on luck. We’re from Excel Pharmaceutical and we’ve been looking for a way to change luck for twenty years. The whole world has been looking, in fact. And now you found it while doing a science fair project for your school. You have won our hundred thousand dollar prize.”
One hundred thousand dollars for Art’s project? That didn’t seem like a fair prize at all, considering the implications of what he had found out. It was all confusing because they thought it was my project, which was obviously Laura’s hand in things.
Laura. She had given Art his lab back, but not before she had made it completely useless by sending all the information to Excel Pharmaceutical, her family’s company. This was the last piece of the puzzle. Now it made sense. While Art and I had spent the last day running around looking for the physical laboratory, Laura had been stealing everything that mattered about it virtually.
“I didn’t enter any contest,” I said, without much hope that it would help. “I don’t want your prize and you can leave right now.”
“Of course you did.” Another camera flashed in my face. “It’s right here. Your entry. Your signature.”
I looked down and saw that it was my signature. Maybe faked, but maybe not. Laura could have gotten it if she’d waved something at me in student government that I had to sign. I couldn’t even remember it happening, but that didn’t mean it didn’t.
“I don’t want it,” I said. “Take back the money. I just want control over the information from the experiment.”
“Oh, that’s impossible. When you entered the contest, you contracted with us that your results are now ours, and that you would be willing to answer questions and do promotions for the contest.”
Art came out behind me. “What’s going on?” he said.
“Something about a contest and Excel Pharmaceutical. The Chevely’s company.”
He stared at the cameras and at the check.
“And before you think that I had anything to do with this—” I started.
“But Rob—if they have all the results, it hardly matters. They can synthesize everything in their own labs.” Art looked gray.
“It’s yours,” I said out loud. “No one should be able to take that away from you. No one, no matter how big the company or how much luck the people who own it have.”
“It looks like they already have,” said Art glumly.
Soon after, Trudy showed up. She ran over to me and threw her arms around me like I’d just been released from some hostage situation. Then she started crying and kissing me at the same time. Hey, I wasn’t about to stop her. I was glad that whatever had happened, we were together again.
The cameraman looked like he’d just died and gone to heaven. He was snapping shots all over the place.
“You’re OK,” Trudy got out, when she was finally making words with her mouth instead of incoherent sobs.
“Of course I’m OK.” What in the world had she thought? And when she found out the truth, would she still be this glad to see me?
“You, too, Art?” she said, glancing up at him.
“Yeah, I’m good.”
“What happened?”
“You’ve been missing for two days. Your parents are terrified. The police are trying to find you. And they all think that I had something to do with it,” said Trudy.
It was the wrong thing for her to say in front of the publicity team here. Someone had quickly gotten out a tape recorder and turned it on, holding it up to Trudy.
“It’s just a mistake,” I said. “Art and I were just out having fun all night. Boys’ night and all that. We skipped school, but no big deal. We were celebrating. Because of the Excel contest.” I did not want to bring up Laura at a time like this.
“Having fun?” said Trudy. “Rob, do you know what happened to me while you were gone? Do you know where I’ve just come from?”
This was the part where she stopped forgiving me. “Uh—” I said.
Then a reporter stepped forward. “Do you have something to say about this, Mr. Chiltern?” he asked. “Is having your girlfriend arrested part of a publicity campaign?”
Arrested? I gaped at Trudy. “You were arrested?” I asked. And she wasn’t hitting me instead of hugging and kissing me?
“For stealing Art’s lab and for having something to do with you and him disappearing. They handcuffed me and brought me to the station. They were going to put me in jail,” said Trudy tearfully.
“What happened? I mean, how did you get out?”
“I—” Trudy started to say.
But at that moment, the police showed up, sirens blaring. I guess that was my answer, right there.
Chapter 15: Trudy
Rob argued with the police as it grew darker, saying they couldn’t go inside his house for proof that the stolen lab equipment was safe until they had permission from his parents. More reporters and cameramen showed up. The police threatened to re-arrest me, but Rob told them that would happen over his dead body (which was great for the cameras, which flashed all over the place). Finally, the police backed off.
I should have been reassured that things were just going to get better now, but Rob didn’t look good. His face was pasty and he looked like he was sweating. He looked like someone who had lost all his luck. Which made me think that he and Art had already found the equipment and that somehow Rob had gotten into the bacteria in the petri dishes. I really hoped it wasn’t because of me being so mad at him. You don’t try to get rid of all your luck because you’re depressed about a fight with your girlfriend, do you?
“Laura Chevely brought the equipment here, didn’t she?” I asked. She had to have planned all of this. And our fight was her fault, too.
“You don’t have to worry about it,” Rob said. “I’ll handle Laura, and all of this.”
The reporters, cameram
en and police wouldn’t leave, so they were still there when Rob’s parents arrived a little later. “Robert!” Rob’s mom called out. She rushed over to him and somehow she ended up colliding with me.
I landed in the roses to the side of the house.
Mrs. Chiltern looked down at me and said, “Those are my grandmother’s roses. They were planted the day she was born and have grown untouched ever since.”
Well, who was the unlucky one now, then?
Rob helped me out and then I picked thorns out of my clothes as the Chilterns fussed over Rob.
“Why didn’t you come home last night?” Mr. Chiltern asked Rob. “Why didn’t you answer your phone or leave us any message at all? We called the police. We thought something dreadful had happened to you.”
“It’s complicated, Dad. Can we talk about it later?” Rob nodded toward the listening crowd.
His father wasn’t going to be easily shushed, though. “You scared your mother half to death. She was sure you’d been hurt. She didn’t know if she would ever see you again.”
“I’m sorry, Dad,” said Rob. He sounded sorry, but not just about what his dad thought he should be.
“And you, Arthur. What did you have to do with this? Your parents are upset, too.”
“You talked to them?” asked Art. His ears turned a little red. Art never talked about his parents. Ever.
“I had to. They needed to know you were missing.”
“They’re not coming here, are they?” asked Art.
“I told them that I would make sure you were safe. I gave them my word,” said Mr. Chiltern.
I tried to remind myself that Mr. Chiltern wasn’t all bad. He thought he was taking care of Rob and Art. He thought he was saving Rob from me. He just had all the facts wrong, because he was too blind to see them properly.
“But you know how they are,” said Art. “You know they’ll come and make a show of this.”
“If they make a show of things, that’s to your benefit. They know how to make the news media pay attention.”
Art rolled his eyes.
I saw some photos of his parents later, and understood a little why he hadn’t wanted them to come. They were both retired fashion models who had gone into the business themselves—super conscious of looks and all the things Art didn’t care about. The funny thing was seeing that he looked so much like his father on the outside, though they were nothing alike as soon as either opened their mouths.
“We weren’t missing!” said Rob, his voice gone hoarse after so many iterations of the same. “Dad, we just stayed up late and didn’t come home. For one night. I don’t see why it worried you so much. We’re in high school. Can’t we do some crazy stuff without you assuming the worst and having my girlfriend arrested?”
“Uh—” I said. That wasn’t his parents’ fault as much as Laura’s, though they didn’t help any. And they seemed to enjoy it, since it proved they were right about me all along. Funny thing is, even when I was trying to defend them, his parents wouldn’t let me get a word in.
The police came forward and asked if they could search the premises, to make sure that everything was there, unstolen. The Chilterns waved them inside and I felt relieved. When they found Art’s lab equipment intact, everything would be fine. There would be no more reason to hold me under arrest because there had been no theft. My luck wasn’t too bad, after all.
Mr. Chiltern went on: “Rob, you didn’t answer your phones or any text messages. You left no note. What were we supposed to think? You’re the prominent son of an old luck family. There are a lot of people who would like to hurt us through you. You’ve known that all your life. You know the pressure and the kind of attention that we get.”
“But isn’t my luck supposed to protect me from all that?” asked Rob, his voice hot and tight.
“Yes, but—the people who work against us have good luck, too,” spluttered Mr. Chiltern. “And you can never tell whose luck is going to win out in situations like that.”
It made me think about how self-centered I had been. All those times when Rob had talked about his parents, all those times I had met them and spent time with them, I had thought about how bad they made me feel. But for Rob it was so much worse. They were his parents, the people who were supposed to love him the most, without any conditions. But he was never good enough for them. He had to date a certain person and do certain things, or they withheld their approval.
My parents, though it hurt my feelings the way I could never help them with my luck, had always loved me. Luck or no luck, I knew they would do anything for me. I felt horrible that I had kept away from them for so long, that I had kept Rob from meeting them for fear of a couple of awkward moments. Rob deserved to know my parents. He deserved to see what really good parents were like, even if they weren’t his.
“It sounds to me like you don’t trust my luck,” said Rob.
What was he getting at? It was like he was baiting his dad, but I didn’t see why or about what.
“It’s not about trusting you or your luck, Rob. It’s about not trusting other sorts of people.” His eyes glanced over me.
Thanks a lot. But it wasn’t as if I didn’t know how he felt about me already.
“Well, I don’t want the pressure or the attention. Not anymore,” said Rob, glaring at his dad.
“And what about the theft in Arthur’s dorm room?” asked Mrs. Chiltern, since the other point of attacking Rob hadn’t worked, I guess.
Rob’s jaw set and I thought how lonely he looked, standing by his parents. He looked out at the cameras and spoke to them more than to anyone else. “There was no theft. And I can explain that, if you give me a chance. And I do not understand why you thought Trudy had anything to do with it.”
I put a hand on his arm and suddenly, Rob was himself again. My Rob, kind and gentle, but also fierce and good.
Mrs. Chiltern stared at me. “She has always been leeching off of you and your luck, Rob. I think it was perfectly natural for me to assume that she was involved in this, as well.”
“Leeching off me? There is nothing farther from the truth than that,” said Rob. “Mom, Trudy has so much more luck—”
I stopped him because it wasn’t true, not anymore. “Don’t bother, Rob. They’re not worth your breath,” I said, holding tightly to his arm.
But Mrs. Chiltern wasn’t finished. “Well, look at her,” said Mrs. Chiltern. “Who is she? Some nobody from nowhere and she thinks she can just waltz into St. James because of a newfangled test no one with real luck would rely on?”
“Mom, you can’t—”
“You have to see it from our perspective, Rob,” said his dad, who was far more aware of the cameras than his mother seemed to be. He had turned just the right way to be caught by them, with his face lit up by the automatic porch lights that had just come on. “You stopped dating a perfectly suitable young woman with no real explanation and started up with her, just a few days after she arrived here.”
“And you think that means that she doesn’t have luck?” asked Rob. “I would think it would prove the opposite.”
No! I didn’t want him to think that. My luck wasn’t why we were together. I didn’t have any more luck now than I had when we’d fought, but somehow we were getting back together. So that proved it, right?
“Rob, all she wants from you is what you bring her in family prestige. You think she would really be your girlfriend if you weren’t Rob Chiltern? If you had less luck than a Chiltern is known to have?”
I winced at that, but it wasn’t true. I would love Rob no matter what.
“Trudy is not interested in my luck!” said Rob.
“Of course she is, dear. She may have a little bit of her own luck, but she doesn’t trust it. That’s why she wants to have your luck to back her up,” said Mrs. Chiltern.
“Stop talking like that about Trudy,” said Rob in a low tone. I could see a twitch in his jaw. Even I was a little afraid of what would happen next. Rob wasn’t like Art. Ar
t might get mad, but it only lasted a moment. With Rob, he felt things deeply and he didn’t let go. It was one of the reasons I loved him so much. I knew he couldn’t just stop feeling what he felt for me, just like that.
“Rob, it’s OK. I don’t care what they think,” I whispered to him. I could see the cameras flashing as I got closer to him, but I didn’t care about them right now.
“She deserves better than that from you,” said Rob. “She always has, and you haven’t given it to her, not once.”
“Well, if she does have luck, that doesn’t mean that she’s the same as us,” said Mrs. Chiltern. She seemed less certain now. The cameras flashed for her too, and she put up a hand to shield her eyes.
“Dad?” said Rob.
“Well, Rob, we’ve tried to protect you, but it’s time you knew that it’s only what everyone thinks about the two of you. Everyone at your school, and everyone here at home, around town. They think you deserve better and that she is using you for as long as she can. When she finds someone better, she will give you up and start moving up the ladder of luck until she gets to the top.”
“I will not—” I sputtered.
“To the top? She’s already there, and she doesn’t need any help to stay there,” said Rob.
I remembered when a substitute teacher had humiliated a girl in front of the whole class and Rob saw it. Rob looked just like this, then. And he had been completely in control of himself, but that hadn’t meant that he pulled his punches. Rob told the jerk exactly what he thought of him, and then he went home and wrote a letter about it to the administration. The substitute teacher never came back. The school had talked about it for days afterward, some people saying that Rob had done it as a stunt, because it was in the middle of the election for Student Body President. But it had nothing to do with that. It’s just the way Rob was.
“I know that you think you love her,” said Mr. Chiltern. “But sometimes you are too kind for your own good. For once, I think you have to think what is right for yourself, and not what is honorable for her. You need to be selfish sometimes in your life, Rob, and this is one of those times.”
An Ideal Boyfriend Page 13
