When we reached the bottom, I stepped off and said, “Well . . . have a nice day.”
“At StroBisCo, every day is perfect,” she said as the doors closed slowly on her cyborg eyes.
A shiver moved across my shoulders as I left the building. The glass shrine to money was modernistic, sunny, and crisp, which made its concealed rooms and hidden agendas just as creepy as BabyLand. It felt good to be back on the train, headed to the Loop for my final appointment. One more transfer, and I got off at Washington and Wells, cutting through the people and pigeons of Daley Plaza, headed for the great, hulking Picasso. The steel masterpiece dominated the courtyard across from City Hall, which houses the Chicago Police Department headquarters. The area teemed with secretaries and clerks. The guy seated on a bench wearing a short-sleeved dress shirt and ho-hum tie eating peanut butter from a jar was indistinguishable from a zillion other mid-level, middle-aged bureaucrats. His face was as featureless as a marshmallow. Each time I met him and went away, I forgot what he looked like—in other words, the perfect Outfit mole. I’d called his cube in the records division of police HQ that morning and said, “J. Edgar Hoover wore women’s underwear.” A short pause was followed by a monotone voice asking what I needed. I told him, and I listened to typing fingers access the archive. After a little mouth breathing, he said, “Picasso, noon, peanut butter,” and the line went dead.
I sat next to him now, and he didn’t acknowledge me. His gaze was fixed on the statue, and the spoon never ceased in its continuous round trip from jar to mouth as I asked about Ice Cream Cohen. He told me what I already knew and added nothing about Mister Kreamy Kone. Although it was a dead end, I brought up Weston Skarlov. “I couldn’t find anything,” he murmured, “but it sounds Russian.”
“So?”
He turned to me with eyes like raisins in a bowl of tapioca pudding. Cunning pinpoints of light glittered at their centers. “The Russian mob has operated in Chicago for decades,” he said evenly. “Small-time drugs and gambling, not even worth absorbing into the Outfit. They paid a street tax and we tolerated them. Recently, though, with waves of new immigrants, they’ve grown and begun to encroach on our turf. Word is they have a new boss with an old-fashioned appetite for violence as a way of doing business. Necks are being slit and skulls cracked, Capone style, except the Russians are the ones imitating Scarface Al. We’re at the beginning of a war that is not going to end gently.” He closed the jar, licked the spoon, put it in his breast pocket, and stood. “Like I said, Weston Skarlov sounds Russian. For what it’s worth,” he muttered, walking away. I watched him turn invisible in the crowd, realizing that with all I’d learned that afternoon, there was only one fact that mattered.
Cohen to Kone, to Juan Kone.
I whispered it over and over, realizing with sick wonder that the monster who took my family had a name.
16
THE NEXT DAY, I STOOD SILENTLY AROUND A corner learning the once-and-for-all lesson that a person’s incredible good looks do nothing to dampen her insecurity.
I heard it before I saw it, listening to Heather argue with herself.
“I haven’t attended school for so long, I don’t know anything,” she said, as I paused outside the front door of the bakery, followed by a beat of silence, and then, “Plus, it’s Chicago . . . I don’t know anyone.” It was after the next beat that I realized how little she understood Fep Prep and my place in it when she said, “Yeah, of course I know Sara Jane. But she’s so cute and confident. I’m sure she has, like, a million friends. I’ll be a total hanger-on.” Dead air, and then, “Yeah, I know it’s shallow, but who doesn’t want to be popular? Did it ever occur to you that some people just need it more than others?”
Heather’s anxiety made me like her even more.
It wasn’t that I thought she was pretending to be nervous about school when we’d spoken on the bakery roof. But the way she looked, her natural gorgeousness, seemed as if it should endow her with the confidence of an Amazon. Now I saw that assumption was incorrect. She was as prone to insecurity as anyone else, and maybe more so, since she’d been constantly judged by how she looked. I was growing attached to her, maybe too quickly, maybe even dangerously (for her), but I couldn’t help it; the weird, rough times we’d both endured, combined with her blue eyes, felt like the welcome appearance of not just a family member but a friend. I politely knocked and jangled inside, and was enveloped in the perfume of warmly baking pastries. For the past months, the place held only buried secrets, bittersweet memories, and stale air, but now it smelled like my childhood and I swallowed thickly, seeing Annabelle on one side of the counter and Heather on the other; she’d been talking to her mom, who’d answered silently with her hands. Heather said, “SJ . . . you’re early.”
“Security’s strict about being on time,” I said absently, looking at Annabelle and sniffing the air. “Rum cake . . . blackberry muffins . . . what else?” She grinned widely, doing her best Uncle-Buddy-in-drag impression, and moved her hands enthusiastically.
Heather said, “Biscotti alle . . .”
“Mandorle,” I said, nodding. “Almond cookies. My dad loved . . . loves them.” I swallowed again, ridding myself of feelings, and said, “Where’s Uncle Jack?”
“At the hotel. He’s having a bad day,” Heather said. “The drug he’s on, Remembra, has terrible side effects, which wouldn’t be so frustrating if the shit actually worked.” Annabelle reprimanded her, but Heather shrugged it off. “It’s the truth. He loses more memory every day and all that stuff does is make him puke.” She looked at me with a smirk. “When it comes to how drugs should work, I’m an expert.”
Minutes later, as we stood on a crowded train, I said, “Sorry about your grandpa.”
Heather lifted her shoulders. “What you witnessed back there was a Richards family tradition of talking around the truth.” She looked at me with a sad smile. “He’s boozing again. I found him last night, facedown over that story you gave him with a half-drunk bottle of whiskey at his side, and helped him to bed. He’s done that over the years, quit and started and quit again. We thought Alzheimer’s had put an end to it, but apparently not. I didn’t tell my mom. She has enough on her plate with him.”
I wanted to be encouraging and also ask if Uncle Jack had made progress translating the pages, but there wasn’t a delicate way to do either. The probability that the old man would make no progress at all, combined with the rapidly approaching sit-down with Lucky, made my stomach churn. And then the train eased to a halt as the speaker announced Diversey Avenue. I scanned the street below for little ice cream trucks but instead spotted Max as he left Bump ‘N’ Grind. Heather and I would run into him if we continued our current pace, and I just didn’t have the spine for it after the disastrous phone call the day before. I owed him credible explanations for my behavior and, as he’d said, for kicking him aside, but all I had was love, and it wasn’t enough. I stopped Heather and said, “Hang on.”
“What’s the matter?”
I nodded at Max waiting for the light to change. “That’s my boyfriend.”
“Don’t sound so thrilled,” she said, with a teasing smile that sparkled. “Seriously, are you guys fighting or something?”
“It’s complicated. Part family stuff and part, well, another guy. Not as in I’ve cheated, but more like I made him think that I almost cheated. It’s hard to explain.”
“Uh-oh. How’d he find out?”
“I told him.” I sighed. When she responded with a you-are-an-idiot look, I explained how I only flirted with the guy now and then, but that I’d used him as excuse to make Max jealous after being away all summer, and now I was trapped in my lie.
Heather lifted an eyebrow. “Back up. You and this guy . . . what’s his name?”
I didn’t see any danger in a morsel of truth. “Tyler.”
“Tyler likes you? He’s into you?”
“Yeah, I think so. Anyway, he’s way more into me than I am him.”
“Do you
like him back? Even a little bit?”
I paused, biting my lip, assessing my feelings. “A little, I guess,” I said, washed with guilt at my own words. “But mainly because we have things in common, like, from a family-business standpoint.”
“They have a bakery?”
“A big one.”
“And you haven’t been with him? Honestly?”
“Been with . . . ? No, of course not,” I said, unable to suppress a blush. “I mean, even Max and I haven’t done that.”
“Who’s holding back? You or him?”
“Us. We’ve talked about it, how nothing should happen until we’re both ready, and that for now the most important thing is just being together. Or, it was the most important thing until yesterday, when I was a total idiot on the phone. Oh . . . ugh,” I said, covering my face with a hand. “God. I tried to tell him for the first time that I loved him and even managed to screw that up.”
Heather lit a cigarette and said quietly, “Do you?”
I sighed and nodded. “Yeah, I do. But I’m ruining it because I won’t . . . answer certain questions.”
“You must have a good reason.”
“Absolutely.”
“Then don’t. If he can’t respect your privacy, maybe he’s not the person for you.”
“No, he is,” I said. “Sometimes I think I’m not the person for him. Like, I can’t give him all that he wants.”
“What a guy wants . . . the eternal mystery that keeps cheesy lady magazines alive.” She snorted. “I’ve dated more than my fair share for a high school senior and frankly, since the incident with that producer perv and my dad’s crappy reaction to it, I can tell you exactly what most guys want . . . a centerfold, or a trophy, or—ick—a mommy.” She held my gaze and said, “Which one does Max want?”
“None of them. Just me . . . the real me.”
“If that’s true, you’re lucky and he’s rare.” Her voice softened as she added, “Okay, so tell me. Why are you holding back?”
“Everything going on with my dad, my family.” I shrugged. “Just protecting myself, I guess. I love Max but need to keep my distance. The fact that he wants to get closer is threatening sometimes.”
“I know how you feel,” she said, a shadow crossing her flawless face. “Like I said, love junkie when it came to the adoration of millions of fans, but if a guy I actually knew felt that way toward me, I rejected it completely. Actually, I became turned off to the entire subject.”
“Of love?”
“No, silly.” She smiled. “Guys.”
“Wait. You’re . . . ?”
She held up a slim hand. “I hate labels . . . and hating labels is very L.A. So all I can say is that, based on personal experience, I’m in a phase where men turn me off,” she said, lifting the corners of her mouth demurely. “It’s a little complicated.”
“Complicated is the word of the day,” I said. “Like my thing with Tyler . . . really, it’s not even a thing. It’s just sort of there, you know?”
Heather nodded, lifting the nub of cigarette, staring at tendrils of smoke and then flicking it away. “The Brazilian martial arts thing I told you about, capoeira? It teaches you to kick some serious ass with punches, leg sweeps, and head-butts, set to a rhythm that you have to absorb, like, into your entire being in order to master it. Mind-body, remember? I was taught physical and mental control in order to prepare for the ultimate question: what will it be like to leave drugs behind forever?”
“Because it’s a battle,” I said, seeing the logic.
“Exactly. So when you leave Tyler behind, how does it feel?”
I thought for a moment, the truth blooming warmly in my chest. “It’s no battle at all. I only want to get back to Max.”
“Why?”
“Because . . . because, like I said, he wants me for only me.”
“Then that’s the answer, SJ. Don’t allow Tyler or anyone to come between you and Max. And when you’re ready, let him get closer,” she said, squeezing my shoulder. A bump of family love went through me and I wanted to tell her that everything would work out for her too; that kicking an addiction to mass adoration would reward her with her own Max, or Maxine. Before I could speak, she pointed at Diversey Avenue and said, “Coast is clear.” A few minutes later, we climbed the front steps of Fep Prep. Heather took a deep breath, and my identity shifted once more, flip-flopping from the lead in a gritty urban crime flick to an extra in a shampoo commercial.
The morning bell that summoned students to homeroom rang like trumpets heralding the arrival of a princess; as I accompanied Heather down a hallway, all that was missing was a red carpet and klieg lights. Time and space took on a slow-motion quality. Sunlight streamed through tall windows while her golden hair rippled like windblown corn silk. The tickle of a smile crossed her lips, blue eyes flashed with just a pulse of carnality tempered by shyness, and her lean, curvaceous body cut through a sea of gaping kids as gracefully as a schooner. I felt myself fade into the background as the new reality of “the Heather Richards who was the original Becky!” was projected into the student body’s collective psyche. They liked it, wanted more, and Heather gave it to them. We stopped at her locker, and she bent to fix a sandal strap, showing the perfect hint of a lacy thong. The crowd gasped appreciatively, and she stood up, whispering how nervous she was on her first day, and how she really, really wanted people to like her. I wished her good luck and we promised to meet in the cafeteria at noon. She wove away looking tentatively at room numbers, and I turned and nearly knocked Gina to the floor.
“How do you know her?” she said, her eyes flicking from me to Heather.
“Oh. She’s my cousin.”
Gina narrowed her gaze. “I didn’t know you had a cousin. Especially one who looks like that.”
“Neither did I.”
“She was the original Becky on Two Cool for School. Do you have any idea how valuable that information is?” She smiled accusingly. “Are you holding out on me?”
“No, I’m doing this weird thing called it’s none of your business!”
“Don’t split hairs. What else can you tell me about her?”
“You know I don’t gossip, Gina, especially about my own cousin,” I said. “If you have questions, ask her yourself.”
“That’s not how I work, but no worries . . . I’ll know everything about her before the last bell,” she said with a nose wrinkle. “Aren’t you lucky, having her at Fep Prep. Your stock is going to skyrocket.”
“What stock?”
Gina smiled with dimples. “Your popularity stock, silly.”
I watched her walk away, silently scoffing at the notion, and then noon rolled around and I entered the cafeteria, realizing how wrong I’d been. First, there had been nothing to worry about in regard to Heather’s first-day comfort level. She sat at the center of a table packed three kids deep buzzing like honeybees at a hive. Second, as I made my way there, uber-popular Walter J. Thurber moved hair from his eyes and said, “Hey, SJ,” and then two Fep Prep cheerleaders waved, saying, “Hi, SJ!” in chipmunk unison, and then another kid who I’d never even seen before said . . . and on and on. I waded to the table, hearing Heather’s giggle tinkling like wind chimes in a summer breeze. When she spotted me, her face opened in a warm smile and she asked Ken and Kendra White to move over and make room for me.
Ken and Kendra, who existed with invisible quotation marks over their heads as “the Most Popular Fraternal Twins at Fep Prep and Possibly in the World.”
It would’ve been easy to dismiss Ken as a doe-eyed muscle-head if he wasn’t also really smart, or simply a hunky blond mathlete if he didn’t also have a sense of humor and dance well. But he was all of those things, and tall. And the same held true for Kendra, a raven-haired knockout and cheerleader (easy to categorize!) who won the National Teen Science Poetry award for her haiku on quantum physics and performed charity work for the blind (busted the stereotype). Heather was wedged between them with the twins jostling for he
r attention, and all I could do was stare, thinking, Holy crap . . . it’s Two Cool for School in real life . . . except Becky’s the good guy!
Everyone liked Ken and Kendra or wanted to be liked by them, but when I sat behind the duo each day in silent study hall, I came to despise them. My first reason was texting, which they never ceased doing, their thumbs a constant tapping blur. For some people, it doesn’t matter who they’re texting, if anyone—it’s the act that matters. But that wasn’t my issue with Ken and Kendra. It was what they texted, back and forth to each other. I squinted at their screens and read how everyone was an idiot, or an asshole, or a loser, or fat, or stupid as hell, or slutty, and the people they referred to were the ones looking at them with stars in their eyes as they beamed their “we’re perfect but humble” smiles. There are few things I have less patience for than hypocrisy, unless it’s my second reason for disliking Ken and Kendra, which was their pure, poisonous contempt for humanity.
That’s why their competitive preening toward Heather caught me off guard.
Rarely separated, always conspiring, they were going nose-to-nose over Heather.
Even from where I stood, I could see hearts in their eyes for her, and daggers for each other. A competition had begun between Ken and Kendra for Heather’s attention. The two people whom the Fep Prep masses admired, who secretly hated everyone, looked like they would kill each other to be her BFF, or GF, or some whole new BFFGF-I-HEART-U combination. Whatever situation was blooming between the trio, it was, to paraphrase Heather, not easily labeled. The three of them were staring at me now as Ken patted a seat between him and Heather, saying, “Hey-o, SJ! Park it!” while Kendra slid her butt a bit and said, “Sit here, SJ! Plenty of room!”
Flicker & Burn: A Cold Fury Novel Page 17
