He raised an eyebrow at me. “Well, looks like I need a favor.”
I don’t know why I felt my heart flutter a little, but it did.
Not that it meant anything.
7
THERE IS NOTHING MORE AWFUL, more cringe-worthy or more makes-you-wish-you-were-suddenly-invisible than having your dad pick you up in a police car. It might be worse if he picked you up in, say, a hearse with a fresh coffin in the back. Maybe. But a police car is pretty much at the top of the list when it comes to the worst possible ways to take a guy home. A hearse might have a creepy-cool vibe. A police car? Creepy-uncool vibe. I warned Eli ahead of time.
“We’ll have to sit in the back,” I said. “We’ll look like criminals.” I glanced out the window, expecting Dad to pull in at any moment.
“It won’t be the first time,” he said. I must have looked shocked, because he laughed. “Kidding.”
Dad arrived and I introduced him to Eli, who was extremely polite, but I saw Dad smirk when I slid into the backseat. As we pulled out of the front of the parking lot, I noticed Reva’s car turning into the back. I didn’t say anything, though.
At first, the drive was uncomfortably quiet. Dad asked Eli some questions about how to get to his house, but that was all. The police scanner buzzed and crackled, and we could hear the dispatcher’s voice reciting numbers and codes in her calm, stoic voice. After one of these announcements, though, Dad perked up.
“Huh,” he said.
“What is it?” I wondered if there was any chance he would drag us on a high-speed chase, but I knew he would never go over the speed limit with two “civilian minors” in the car.
“Sounds like they’ve discovered another mural.” He turned right at the next light. “Mind if we take a look?”
I glanced at Eli, who nodded. “Okay,” I said, even though it was definitely not okay. What if there were kids there? Worse, what if this time they were kids we knew? I closed my eyes and willed Dad to change his mind and drive us straight to Eli’s house. No such luck. I slid down in the seat a little and hoped Eli didn’t notice me turning red with embarrassment.
We slowed down in front of a tuxedo rental place with a huge going-out-of-business banner draped across the front. I didn’t see the gorilla at first, but then Dad turned the corner, and there it was, four feet high and just like the others. “They call this a monkey suit” was painted above the gorilla’s head. I laughed out loud. Eli grinned.
There was already another police car there, and Dad pulled up alongside it and talked to the officer behind the wheel. The other officer frowned at us, but when he recognized me, he smiled and waved.
“I hope you don’t do this to all Kate’s boyfriends,” he remarked to my dad. I was horrified. I looked over at Eli, who was just gazing out the window, smiling.
“He’s not—” I began to say, but Dad interrupted and asked the officer about the gorilla.
“The owner just discovered it,” the officer said. “It must have been done last night, but no one parks on this side, so he didn’t see it this morning. Same as the others.”
Dad nodded. “That’s what? Three now?”
“Yeah. The school, the bank and now this. We found some spray-paint cans in the Dumpster out back. We’ll check ’em for prints, but if this guy is clever, he wiped ’em clean.”
“I’m guessing he’s clever,” Dad said, “but check anyway. Thanks, George.”
I made a mental note to myself that George was to be avoided at all costs in the future.
We pulled away from the store. “It’s just the darndest thing,” Dad said. I wasn’t sure if he was talking to us or just talking out loud.
“What’s that, Dad?”
“Well, we got a report last night that one of these gorillas was spotted in Oklahoma. They e-mailed us a picture and it’s the exact same thing. But that’s hundreds of miles away. There’s no way the same person could have done both within the same day, but they’re absolutely identical.”
“Sounds like it’s more than one person,” I said.
Eli was rummaging through his backpack, not really paying attention to us. I hoped he wasn’t trying to avoid talking to me. I hoped even more that he didn’t think I had told my dad we were dating. I knew my face was still red and I was kind of glad Eli wasn’t looking at me.
“It just doesn’t make sense,” Dad continued. “Why would one person focus the graffiti on three buildings in Cleary while another paints them in different towns and different states?” He sighed. “Are the kids talking about this at school?”
I glanced at Eli, horrified that Dad was breaking our don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy in front of him. “We have a deal, remember?”
“Sorry, Kate,” he said. “You, too, Eli. Forget I mentioned it.”
“No problem, Mr. Morgan,” Eli said, zippering his backpack. I don’t think he even knew what my dad was apologizing for. “Turn here. I’m the third one on the left.”
We pulled into the driveway of a two-story brick colonial. It was your basic ordinary house, with bright blue shutters and a topiary on the front porch shaped like three balls sitting on top of one another. It wasn’t the kind of place I thought Eli would live in, but what did I expect? Something painted black with a big red anarchy sign splashed across the garage?
“Thanks for the ride,” Eli said as he got out. “See you tomorrow, Kate.”
“Bye,” I said, hoping he didn’t think I was completely idiotic.
I watched him as he walked up to the front door. He reached into his front pocket and retrieved a key. Dad pulled away, and I turned my head so I could watch Eli go into his house.
“Nice boy,” Dad said.
“Yeah.”
“How long have you known him?”
“Since sophomore year. We had English together.”
“He seems nice.”
“You said that.”
If Dad was waiting for me to confess that I had a hidden crush on Eli, he was going to be waiting a long time. I did not discuss boys with my parents. Ever.
“I think I did pretty well on my history paper,” I said, trying to keep my voice nonchalant. I wanted to talk about anything but Eli.
Dad smiled. “I guess that means you like him.”
“Huh?”
“You always talk about school so you won’t have to talk about the boys you like.”
He made it sound like I had a hundred crushes, like I was always swooning over some guy.
“He has a girlfriend,” I said.
“Okay.”
“He’s off-limits.”
“Right.” Dad nodded like he understood, but I knew he didn’t. I tried changing the subject again.
“So do you think the gorilla graffiti will make another appearance?” I asked.
Dad sighed. “Yes. Our guy’s smart. And he’s talented, and he seems to enjoy it. We’ll catch him, I think. Just need some more time.”
I gazed out the window as we passed trees and houses and made our way to the main road. “What does it all mean?” I murmured.
“What’s that?”
“I wonder what they mean, the gorillas. What’s the message? What’s the point?”
“No point,” Dad said. “Just some prankster having fun. Don’t read too much into it, Kate.”
I hoped that Eli didn’t read too much into George’s little comment or think that I drove around with my dad all the time, checking out crime scenes. I didn’t know what he thought of me, exactly, but I was pretty sure that he was not looking at me as potential girlfriend material.
Mom was waiting for us when we got home. She wanted to have an early dinner because she had to get back to work to deal with some cake-related emergency.
“Honestly, Sam should be handling this,” she said after we sat down. She was still wearing her white apron. Little blotches of blue icing were smeared across it.
“Did you tell him that?” Dad asked, his mouth half-full of pot roast.
“How do yo
u tell your boss that you don’t want to do your job?”
“You just said it wasn’t your job.”
“It shouldn’t be, but I handle all the cakes, so technically it is.” Mom sighed. “We have limits for a reason. It’s just not possible to fill this order.”
I poked at a mushy carrot with my fork. Sometimes I liked to hear my parents discuss work, particularly if they were talking about coworkers they didn’t like. I didn’t think adults talked about other people the same way my friends and I did in the cafeteria, but gossip seemed to cross generations.
“And how was your day, Kate?” Mom asked.
“Fine.”
“We took one of Kate’s, uh, friends home.” Dad cleared his throat and I glanced up to see him give Mom one of those meaningful parental looks they thought I never noticed.
“He’s just someone I work with,” I said. “That’s it.”
Mom nodded. “And what is his name?” Her smile was a little too wide, like she thought it was all very cute that I liked a guy.
I stabbed at an overdone potato chunk, mashing it in half. “Eli. His name is Eli. And I don’t want to talk about him.”
“I see.” I knew my parents were exchanging their look again, but I ignored them, and the conversation turned to their weekend plan to buy a new sofa.
After dinner, I did my homework and put all my laundry in a pile to take downstairs. Then I checked my e-mail, which I hadn’t done in a week. I usually only got spam in my inbox because everyone I knew called my cell phone.
I was deleting the tenth mortgage offer in a long list of junk mail when I saw it: a message from Eli. I checked the date and time. He had sent it an hour earlier. The subject header read Thanks. My stomach did a little flip.
Hey, Kate—Just wanted to thank you again for the ride home. I owe you one. See you later. Eli.
I read the message five times, then called Lan and read it to her five times.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“I think he sent you a thank-you message,” she said, yawning.
“But it could be more than that, right? I mean, he thanked me when he got out of the car. He didn’t have to send an e-mail.”
Lan didn’t answer. I thought she was considering the possibility, but her breathing began to slow down.
“Lan?”
“Huh? Sorry, must have dozed off.”
“I’m that boring?”
She laughed. “No. I was up late last night working on another paper. Nothing motivates me more than a deadline.”
“Well, get some sleep. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
After we hung up I read the message one more time. It was probably nothing, I decided. He was just being polite.
I turned my attention to downloading the pictures I had taken at Tiffany’s invitation ceremony. Overall, I was pleased with them. I liked crowd shots because they weren’t posed. No one looked at the camera. No one even noticed it. Everyone wore their natural expressions. I could see some people smirking while others looked truly excited and filled with anticipation. My favorite picture out of the bunch was one with Tiffany herself. She was holding the bullhorn, her mouth half-open, surrounded by the camera crew and half the student body. She looked perfect, except for one flaw—her tiara had tipped to the side. It was like no matter how precisely she had planned her special moment, it just couldn’t be perfect. There was something I liked about that idea.
After I finished saving my pictures I took my laundry downstairs, said good-night to my dad and got ready for bed. The stars on my ceiling glowed and I tried to remember which constellation was Gemini, then gave up and searched for Orion.
I couldn’t sleep. I wondered what Eli saw in Reva. Was it her cool confidence? She seemed so much older to me, like she was a twenty-five-year-old woman trapped in a sixteen-year-old’s body. Did Eli like her maturity? They had been together for over a year. Was it possible they would break up soon or would they stay together until graduation? It shouldn’t have mattered to me, but it did.
I dreamed that night that I was in a dark tattoo parlor. Reva was there, holding a tattoo gun and smiling. “You shouldn’t be here,” she said, laughing.
“I want that one,” I said, pointing to a picture on the wall. I couldn’t really see it, but I knew I wanted it.
Reva shrugged. “Whatever.”
I sat down in a chair and waited. Reva pushed the needle into my shoulder, but I didn’t feel any pain. When she pulled away, I looked in a mirror. There, at the top of my arm, was a single gorilla.
“It’s never coming off,” Reva warned.
I stared at my arm. “I don’t want it to.”
8
RED STREAMERS HUNG FROM the gray cafeteria ceiling, draped in between metallic pink hearts. I took a few pictures as several freshmen boys tried to jump up and pull the dangling hearts down, but the boys were too short and didn’t even come close. Some people applauded their efforts while others booed, attracting the attention of one of the vice principals. The boys scurried away before they could get in trouble.
It was Monday, and Valentine’s Day was less than a week away. Lan and I were eating lunch with Eden Alder, who was trying to sort through a stack of “Heart Grams,” her big fundraiser for the newspaper. She sold little heart-shaped ads, and people could write a few sentences to someone. The message would appear in a special section of the paper. Most of the messages were anonymous, but a lot of people bought them for their friends. Lan and I always got one for each other with a simple message, like “You Rock,” or something.
“I just cannot believe how many ads people bought for Tiffany,” Eden said as she flipped through a stack of paper slips, looking for mean or gross messages. There were always a few, and her job was to weed them out before the paper was published. She had missed an insult the year before, and Principal Carter had gone ballistic.
Lan rolled her eyes. “How many?”
“So far, twenty-seven. And I’m not done counting. We’re going to have to add an extra page.”
Eden had been invited to the party so she could write about it for the paper, but when she found out that her loyal assistant, Austin, didn’t get an invitation, she angrily confronted Tiffany. Eden said that if Austin wasn’t at the party, she wasn’t coming and, if she wasn’t there, Tiffany could forget about having a feature article in the Cleary Chronicle. Tiffany backed down, and Austin received his invitation the next day. I wished that I had the clout to do that so I could demand that Lan be invited. Of course, I still didn’t know why I had been invited in the first place.
“Twenty-seven? Is that some kind of record?” I asked.
“I think so. Trent usually gets a dozen, and he’s always had the most.”
“What do the ads say?” Lan asked.
“They’re stupid. ‘You’re the best,’ ‘You’re so cool,’ that kind of thing.”
“So lies, basically,” Lan muttered. Eden didn’t seem to have heard her, but Eden was good at staying neutral, as long as it was a topic that didn’t affect the paper.
I looked across the room at Trent’s table and spotted Eli. Reva was sitting next to him, one hand running up and down his arm in a slow caress. I sighed. It didn’t look like they had broken up, after all. I had selfishly hoped that their fight on Tuesday would be the end of them as a couple.
“Who are you looking at?” Lan asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “I mean, no one.”
Lan smiled. “Okay.”
“Later,” I whispered, shooting a glance at Eden. She seemed too immersed in her stack of Heart Grams to notice, though.
“I still have to turn in my Valentine’s message,” I said to Eden.
“No, I’ve got it.”
I was confused. “I paid for it, but I haven’t turned in the slip yet.”
Eden looked up, a red pen poised in her hand. “The ad for Lan, right? I saw it this morning.”
I frowned. “I haven’t turned it in yet.”
Eden s
hrugged. “I guess someone else bought her a Love Gram, then,” she mumbled as she returned to reading her papers.
I looked at Lan. We usually knew ahead of time if someone was buying us an ad. Sometimes a group would go in and buy a message for someone to cheer them up, especially if one of our friends was immersed in the aftermath of a breakup, which happened a lot. I had a theory that guys purposely dumped their girlfriends just before Valentine’s Day so they wouldn’t have to buy them expensive chocolate or neon teddy bears or cheap, sparkly jewelry. A lot of couples seemed to fall apart around February 12, only to get back together a week later.
The lunch bell rang and we stood up and headed for the doors.
“Who do you think bought me a Love Gram?” Lan asked.
“Could be anybody,” I replied, but I suspected that Brady was making his first move.
As we were squeezing ourselves out of the narrow cafeteria doorway, I felt a tap on my shoulder. Actually, it was more like a sharp poke, and at first I thought it was just part of the cattle mentality: someone from the back of the herd needed desperately to get to the front so they could use the bathroom before class started. I shifted to the side to let whoever it was get through before they were trampled or had an embarrassing accident.
“Ahem. Kate?”
I was out in the hallway now. Lan had already turned the corner on her way to fourth period English. It was still crowded, but at least I could no longer feel someone’s breath on my neck. I turned around. Tiffany was standing there, causing a traffic jam just outside the cafeteria doorway. People maneuvered around her like ants trying to crawl around a rock. If it had been anyone else, the departing crowd would have shoved her aside with an annoyed grunt.
“Yes?” I wasn’t sure if she was speaking to me, but she was just rooted there with Monica and Mallory close behind.
“First of all, I’m so glad that you can make it to my party,” Tiffany began. I couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic or not. I glanced at Monica and Mallory. They weren’t smirking or laughing, so I thought maybe Tiffany was being serious.
“And it’s so nice of your dad to help out with security and all.” Tiffany began to twirl a strand of her shiny auburn hair. I was aware that people were looking at us. They were probably wondering what Tiffany had to say to me that was so important. Was she uninviting me to the party?
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