by Amanda Ashby
“Of course it’s a big deal,” her mom corrected as she started to sift through the mail in her ever-efficient manner. “Your college applications need to show that you’re well rounded. Being in the school production would go a long way to helping you with that,” she continued, settling into her current favorite topic: How to Bug the Crap Out of Cassidy by Discussing Her College Future. All. The. Time. “I think you should consider it.”
“Thanks, but no thanks. Besides, school plays are lame.”
“Don’t be ridiculous—there’s nothing wrong with being in the school play. Tell her, Ben,” her mom directed as she finished sorting the mail into neat piles.
“Nope, I’m sitting this one out.” Cassidy’s dad held up his hands and shot her a sympathetic look. “I did drama only to pick up girls and have fun, not because I wanted to look well rounded. And speaking of girls, if I’m going to take the pair of you out tonight, I’d better go and make myself look presentable. What time’s the reservation for?”
“In half an hour,” her mom said, which was all the excuse Cassidy needed to retreat to her bedroom and try not to think how much nicer it would’ve been if it was just her and her dad sitting in front of the television eating pizza.
Cassidy was sure there must’ve been a time when Becca Carter had been normal, but unfortunately, she had no knowledge of it. Even when Cassidy was a kid, her mom had worked long hours in the office, and it was Cassidy’s dad who had done the school drop-offs, the PTA meetings, and the dance recitals (okay, there had been only the one before Cassidy realized that nothing was worth experiencing that horrendous stage fright).
At least back then they’d still had some semblance of being a family, but then her mom had left her job as CEO of a shoe company and had started working for the large manufacturing business that Cassidy’s great-grandfather set up, spending more and more time in the head office in Boston, until soon she was virtually living a separate life. From time to time there had been talk of Cassidy’s going East to spend her vacations, but her mom had always been too busy with work, so they’d settled for a few Skype calls and Thanksgiving.
And that’s how it had been for the last five years.
Until two months ago, when her mom had suddenly reappeared back on the West Coast, declaring that she was setting up a California branch and that, while she was at it, perhaps they should give the marriage another shot.
It had been a nightmare ever since.
Cassidy began to pace, trying to lose the unsettled feeling in the pit of her stomach. Normally, her bedroom, with its long wide windows, the wooden floors, and the muted apricot and pale green tones soothed her, but tonight it wasn’t working. It probably wasn’t helped by the fact she could hear her mom in the bedroom across the hall, giving her dad a play-by-play of some problem at work.
She clenched her fists. Her dad was going into the hospital tomorrow. Cassidy was pretty sure that he didn’t want to hear what Bill in sales had done. She didn’t want to hear it, either, and so she thrust her hand into the cavernous depths of her purse, searching for her MP3 player so she could block out her mom’s voice. After several moments of fruitlessly fishing around, she realized that perhaps Nash had a point about how much stuff she kept in there.
Finally, she turned the purse upside down so that the contents spilled out across her comforter, where she finally discovered the small player, the cord of her earphones tangled up in her hairbrush. Unraveling it didn’t take long, and she quickly stuck the earbuds into her ears and turned it on so that her mom’s nagging voice was washed away by the sound of Florence and the Machine.
The tension eased in her shoulders as she scooped everything back into her purse. Lip gloss, magazines, the snow globe of the Eiffel Tower that she’d bought for Nash last week at a thrift shop and had forgotten to give him, a large leather-bound book—
What? Cassidy stared at the book and blinked.
Since when did she have a large leather-bound book in her purse?
She felt the lines across her brow gather together as she picked it up. It weighed a ton, which explained why her purse had felt so heavy, but it didn’t go very far in explaining what it was doing in her bag. The tattoo on her arm prickled, and she unconsciously rubbed it before inspecting the book more closely.
The battered cover was cold and rough under her fingers, and the sensation sent an uneasy shiver racing up her arms. The title was long gone, and all Cassidy could see was the faint outline of where the words had once been embossed into the reddish-brown leather.
The coarse paper crackled under her touch as she opened it, but she hardly noticed as she stared at a black-ink diagram of circle upon circle, minute images or random words printed within each ring. She chewed her lip as she studied the images, but they were obviously meant to be understood only by a genius like Nash.
Cassidy let out a groan.
Of course. Nash. This was Nash’s book.
He had been reading something at the mall, and he had obviously gotten tired of carrying it. It wouldn’t be the first time he had slipped something into her bag. She rolled off the bed and put the book on her desk—no way was she lugging it to school in the morning. Instead, she reached for her cell phone to text him, but before she could finish her message, the hairs on her arms prickled and she was hit with a strong feeling that she was being watched.
An uncomfortable sensation made its way to her chest, causing her heart to pound in a rhythmic fashion as she cautiously moved over to the window and peered out.
The dark night was broken only by the dim glow of the neighborhood lights, but there was nothing unusual out there and so she drew back the white drapes in relief. She had obviously been listening to too many of Nash’s creepy stories of how Renaissance doctors used to go and dig up bodies from the cemetery.
“What are you doing?”
Cassidy jumped at the sound of her mom’s voice and she spun around in annoyance.
“Jeez, Mom, haven’t you heard of knocking?”
“I did knock,” her mom retorted as she glared at the earphones. Cassidy quickly yanked out the earbuds and let them dangle around her neck. “How many times have I asked you not to turn your music up so loud that you can’t hear me? I’m sure it’s damaging your ears.”
Cassidy bristled. “My ears are fine.”
“Well, I just wanted to check on you. We’re leaving in ten minutes. Are you going to get changed?”
“No.” Cassidy looked down at the pale cream dress she was wearing. She’d found it at her favorite vintage store last week, and while it had taken a while to decide whether to spend the twenty bucks on it, she was pleased she had. Not just because the Victorian neckline was cool and it looked good with her Dr. Martens, but because it obviously pissed off her mom. Now that’s what she called value for money.
“Fine.” Her mom merely shrugged as she walked into the room, her sharp gaze catching sight of the contents of Cassidy’s purse, still covering half of her bed. She looked at the items with distaste for a moment before holding up a thin book. “I’ve just found this for you. It’s an old copy of Romeo and Juliet.”
“I told you that I didn’t want to do it.” Cassidy only just resisted the urge to stamp her boot on the wooden floorboards. “I don’t want to think about my college application yet. I’m only sixteen.”
“Yes, and the choices that you make today will affect your future,” her mom retorted.
Cassidy raised her eyebrow at her. “Really, Mom? You want to talk about choices with me?” She folded her arms in front of her, and her mom had the good manners to blush, since, while Cassidy might struggle with making the most basic decisions, her mom suffered from no such affliction. Hence, her ability to dump her family for five years and live in Boston. And then, just as casually, to change her mind and move back as if no time at all had passed. Oh, yeah, her mom knew all about making choices.
“Okay, honey. I’m not here to fight with you. Besides, I’m sure your father would be plea
sed if you did it. It’s his favorite Shakespeare play.”
Just like sushi is his favorite food.
Cassidy didn’t bother to answer. Especially since she’d watched Baz Luhrmann’s version at least a dozen times when she’d gone through her Leo phase and her dad had never even blinked an eye at it. However, her mom seemed to take her silence as some kind of tacit agreement, and she carefully put the book down on the corner of the messy bed.
“All I’m asking is for you to consider it. And now, if you’re ready, it’s time to go. We don’t want to be late.” Then without another word she left the room, and Cassidy reluctantly followed her. It was going to be a long night.
FOUR
“You look like shit.” Nash glanced up from the book he had been studying, once again oblivious to the group of girls who were whispering and pointing at him.
“Gee, why don’t you tell me what you really think?” Cassidy dumped her purse on one of the many wooden tables dotted around the back lawn of Raiser Heights High and then joined him on the narrow bench seat. The school was a large redbrick box full of well-dressed, badly behaved, middle-class kids who looked pretty much like middle-class kids from every high school across the United States. Cassidy and Nash tried to avoid the school and the other students as much as they possibly could. Especially since it would be Halloween soon, and that just seemed to make everyone act more freakish than ever.
“You don’t pay me all that money to lie to you,” Nash protested before rubbing his chin. “Oh, wait, you don’t pay me at all.” Then he leaned forward and studied her face before pushing back a strand of her thick, dark red hair and shooting her a concerned look. “Tough night?”
“You could say that.” Cassidy sighed as she tried to remember a time when she had been just a normal person who hung out with her friend and talked about algebra tests—okay, so in Nash’s case, he preferred to talk about the Medicis and how they had proved that art and politics could exist side by side, but details schmetails. Her point was, since her mother had moved back in, she had not felt normal. “My mom dragged us all out for sushi.”
“Sushi? You and your dad—heathens that you are—hate sushi,” Nash reminded her in an unimpressed voice, since his own food tastes were slightly more highbrow than Cassidy’s.
“Thank you. Unfortunately, the sushi actually ended up being the high point in a truly craptacular night.”
“So I gather they didn’t change their mind about your tagging along today?”
She gave a frustrated shake of her head. It had been an ongoing argument for the last week, and despite her best efforts, neither of her parents would relent. She had tried again this morning, purposely waiting until her mom was in the shower before she made her dad a cup of tea—something that he claimed every Irishman needed before he could even consider opening his eyes. But if she had hoped that she might persuade him when her mom wasn’t around, she’d been wrong, and the party line was that it would be stupid for her to miss any school for a routine operation. Then he had pushed the tea aside and reminded her that he could only drink water before his operation.
“Oh, and if that’s not bad enough, she also wants me to audition for the school play.”
“She obviously doesn’t remember the dance recital disaster.” Nash widened his pale blue eyes in surprise.
“She thinks it will be good for my college applications,” Cassidy explained as she angrily traced her finger around some of the carved graffiti.
“Not if they see you act it won’t,” Nash retorted.
“Exactly,” Cassidy agreed in a dark voice. “Still, it was fun to see how pissed off she looked when dad put the tattoo on this morning.”
“I’ll bet.” Nash grinned in appreciation before he jumped up and shot her a dazzling smile. “Don’t move, I just need to see a man about a horse.”
“Not going anywhere,” Cassidy assured him as he sauntered over toward George Dennison, an eleventh-grade science geek with whom Nash liked to trade anecdotes from time to time. She watched Nash pause for a moment to dust off his black trousers, which were tucked into a pair of heavy boots, before adjusting his crumpled gray double-breasted shirt. She couldn’t help but admire how above high school Nash was.
Then she froze as she once again had the eeriest sensation that someone was watching her.
She quickly swiveled around. To the left of her was a group of juniors, but they were busy studying something on the iPad that one of them was holding up. She rubbed her eyes, reminding herself that staying up all night worrying about her dad obviously wasn’t good for curbing her paranoid tendencies.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a slight movement coming from the thick shrubbery that separated the parking lot from the front of the school yard. The hairs on the back of her arms prickled, and the tattoo on her arm felt warm against her skin. That was twice now. Did that mean it wasn’t merely a figment of her imagination? The leaves rustled again. She craned her neck, hoping to see something, anything to let her know that—
“Oh, please, I thought you were over that moron.” Nash reappeared, carrying an armful of books while wearing a look of disgust on his gorgeous face. “I mean, did he or did he not dump you faster than a bag of trash?”
“What?” Cassidy, who was still trying to figure out if there was someone hiding in the shrubbery, forced herself to turn back to where Nash was tapping the toe of his heavy black boot, looking anything but happy. “You do realize that I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” Cassidy said with a frown.
“Reuben, of course.” Nash nodded over to the group of juniors that Cassidy had been looking at moments earlier. Except this time she realized that it wasn’t just a group of preppy girls; there was actually one guy lounging in between them all, looking like the cat who’d just caught the biggest canary ever. Reuben. Why wasn’t she surprised?
His emo hair, which had once been surfer-dude blond, was now dyed pitch-black and was poking up in all directions, with what could only be described as glue.
“I promise that I didn’t even see him,” Cassidy said, while silently cursing herself for not realizing that her ex-boyfriend was in the vicinity. Shouldn’t she have some kind of radar for that? Like: scumbag fifteen paces to the right?
“Really? Because if I have to give you the talk again about what a morally bankrupt douche bag Reuben Salinger is, then I’ll do it.” Nash put down the books and folded his arms.
“You don’t.” Cassidy shook her head as the girls got to their feet and bounced toward the main entrance, with Reuben following at a more sedate saunter, too caught up in the moment even to notice that Cassidy was there. Which was fine by her. If she ever had to talk to her ex-boyfriend again, then it could only mean that every other male on the planet had been killed in some kind of freakish virus incident.
Not that she was really sure if she could even count him as an ex, since they had dated for only two weeks. Then she had been late to meet him at a party, which, for Reuben, was apparently code for “okay to shove your tongue down the nearest cheerleader’s throat.”
“Stop reliving it,” Nash commanded with uncanny insight, considering his complete lack of sexual desire. Then he mellowed. “So if you weren’t looking at Mr. Tosspot, then who were you looking at?”
Oh, just the imaginary, invisible thing that I thought was watching me, Cassidy considered saying, before deciding that Nash had enough worries about her without adding “delusional” to the list. Instead, she merely shrugged. “Just thinking. Anyway,” she added as she suddenly caught sight of the book that he’d put down on the wooden table, “looks like you’ve been busy.”
“I’ll say. George’s dad has a first edition of Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy. I mean, Cass, this is like crack to my people. Which is why, mia bella, I need to put this bambino in my locker.”
“Fine.” Cassidy was well used to Nash’s unnatural excitement about all things book-related. Then she remembered about one book in particul
ar. “Oh, and that reminds me. Nice one dumping that enormous thing in my purse yesterday. It weighed a ton.”
“Your purse always weighs a ton. Not to mention the fact that it defies the laws of quantum physics,” Nash countered before frowning. “But what enormous thing are you talking about?”
“A book. You know—big and leathery. Looks like it’s about a million years old. You were reading it yesterday afternoon at the mall.”
“No.” Nash shook his head, causing his shiny brown locks to flop around his chiseled face before he dumped his leather satchel next to George’s book and searched around for something, eventually pulling out a tattered brown leather book and waving it in her face. “This is what I was reading yesterday at the mall.”
“What?” Cassidy widened her eyes as confusion danced across her brow. “It wasn’t your book in my purse?”
“Of course not.” Nash looked at her like she had just asked him to pull off his ear and pickle it. “Are you insane? This treasure cost fifty bucks on eBay, and I’ve seen what the inside of your purse looks like. Why would you even think that?”
“Er, because of the large leather-bound book that I found in there last night,” Cassidy said as Nash put his book back into his leather satchel and held out his hand. Next thing she knew, she was being hauled to her feet as Nash nodded toward the school entrance.
“Okay, I’m intrigued,” he said as he glided down the corridor. Cassidy never got sick of watching how people just seemed to melt out of his way. “How did it get there?”
“I’ve got no idea,” Cassidy said as someone’s backpack hit her arm. She paused for a moment and rubbed it before they finally reached his locker. “I mean, up until a second ago, I thought it was yours.”
“So what’s it like? And when you say old, how old, exactly?” Nash’s clever eyes shone with excitement as he deposited the Boethius in his locker before carefully selecting a book to get him through “the monotony that is Mrs. Miller’s Health class.” He tucked his selection into his satchel and raised his eyebrows as the second bell rang out. “Well, I’m waiting. Details, please?”
