Not Now, Not Ever

by Lily Anderson

  “It’s a question in the Melee,” Simone said, warily looking at the camper on her team who had incorrectly answered the question to begin with.

  “Yes!” Leigh said. “And isn’t that strange? Who would consider classical music to be on par with English lit and psychology and science? Shouldn’t we have, you know, a math section?”

  For the first time, I let myself look at Brandon. His head had lifted at the mention of a math section, hesitantly interested. The skin under his eyes looked shadowy and unrested. I wondered if the stress of the Melee was keeping him up at night, staring at his ceiling and running through equations.

  “According to an article the Eugene Register-Guard did about Camp Onward, there was a math section of the Melee until last year. And then it disappeared,” Leigh said, wiggling her fingers mysteriously in the air. “When Wendell Cheeseman took over as the camp director. Which is weird. Why would a history professor care whether or not we know who Antonio Salieri is?”

  She looked around, waiting for more of a reaction, but was met with mostly confusion. Except for Kate, who had started shredding her napkin.

  “Last week,” Leigh continued, undeterred by the silence, “someone with motive and means and a heart as cold as ice broke into every occupied dorm in the residence hall and stole all of the binders, most of the food, and some of my fanciest tampons.”

  Meg put her head in hands. “This is how I get fired.”

  “But who?” Leigh asked, waving a fist in the air. “Was it a camper who wanted to win at all costs? A counselor with a score to settle? An administrator with a filthy secret?”

  Her hand froze in the air.

  “The second one?” guessed Victor Onobanjo.

  “All three!” Leigh cried. “Last night, a counselor and a camper were seen colluding in Mudders Meadow. Kate Brant and Faulkner.”

  That elicited gasps. Kate’s hands flew to her mouth. “No!”

  “Yes!” Leigh said triumphantly. She swung around to look at Faulkner, who was sitting, blank faced, with Team Four. “Faulkner, whose cocaptain was suddenly sent home from camp with no explanation. Faulkner, who happened to be put in charge of the classical music section of the binder. Faulkner, who has no first name!”

  “Ben was sent home for abandoning his post,” Cornell said. “He was sleeping in Fort Farm.”

  “With his girlfriend,” Hari added.

  “But if you all knew that,” Leigh said, slightly miffed at being interrupted, “then why did Cheeseman show up and throw out two of the counselors days before the end of camp?”

  “Can we go back to the part where Faulkner doesn’t have a first name?” asked Meuy, adjusting her glasses.

  Peter the MIT counselor shook his head. “Everyone has a first name.”

  “Yes, but Faulkner is a mononym. A single word to hide behind. But she was too clever by half. She had to sign her crime.” Leigh had started to pace toward the Team Four table. “Isn’t that right, Rowan Oak?”

  Faulkner scowled at her in return. “It isn’t a crime to change my name. Rowan Oak was the name of William Faulkner’s estate. Which would you rather be called?”

  Leigh tapped her chin, thoughtfully. “I don’t know. Maybe I’d want to be called by my full name. Rowan. Oak. Cheeseman.”

  “Whoa,” I said.

  “Took the word right out of my mouth,” Hari said, his jaw agape.

  “But Rayevich is so exclusive that faculty members’ families don’t get special consideration for admission. They don’t even get a discount on tuition! So, Rowan Faulkner was accepted to Rayevich College two years ago on a full scholarship as a winner of the Tarrasch Melee,” Leigh said, her face wild. “And this year, a Kate Brant was also granted a position at camp. Of course, according to the Internet, Kate Brant of Coos County, Oregon, doesn’t exist.” Leigh narrowed her eyes at Kate. “But Katerina ‘Katie’ Cheeseman is well known as a piano prodigy. A homeschooled piano prodigy. And who would know more about classic music than someone who’s been studying it since the age of two?”

  “Whoa!” Galen shouted.

  “Damn,” Jams said.

  “Ben and Trixie are going to be pissed they missed this,” Meg said to Brandon, who nodded numbly.

  “Admit it, Katie Cheeseman,” Leigh said darkly. “You had your father and your sister break into the dorms and steal all of the binders. You weren’t keeping up. You had the lowest percent-correct on the team. You wanted Perla gone because she has the highest IQ on our team!”

  “No,” Kate spat back, getting to her feet. “I wanted her gone because she snores and she’s mean!”

  Perla looked affronted. “I do not snore!”

  “Yes,” Meg groaned, “that’s what we should take issue with here.”

  “Dr. Benita and Dr. Mendoza have already been informed as to the Cheeseman family’s deception,” Leigh said, dusting off her hands. “No Cheeseman will be allowed to remain in any part of the competition. Enjoy the rest of your breakfasts.” She threw her crooked grin all around the room. “Except for Rowan and Katie, who should probably get the fuck out.”

  37

  The dining hall emptied in stunned silence. I might not have believed Leigh’s speech myself, but as we all stepped out into the quad, Wendell Cheeseman was spotted carrying polka-dot luggage out of the residence hall and disappearing toward the east parking lot.

  “Now who will ring the buzzer at the skirmish?” Perla asked.

  “That’s your takeaway from this?” Galen asked. “We’re down a teammate! Your roommate!”

  Perla shrugged. “She did have the lowest percent-correct on the team. She was really only good for the classical music section and, considering it was made for her, she wasn’t even that great at it. Should I mourn?”

  I cleared my throat. “You guys are actually down two teammates.”

  The group turned to face me. Possibly in shock. Possibly blinded by the sun.

  “Beast Mode?” Hunter said softly.

  “It’s a long story,” I said. “But my ride is on its way.”

  Galen gaped at me. “But you’re so close to winning the Cheese … the counselors’ endowment! You just have to win one more event.”

  “It’ll have to be someone else. Maybe someone that Faulkner didn’t help cheat.” I checked over my shoulder. The minutes were dwindling down to seconds. “Okay, quick hugs. No time to be sad. You guys need to go to your skirmish.”

  I hugged down the line of Meg, Hunter, Jams, and Galen. Hari shook my hand. Leigh squeezed me extra hard.

  “That was some impressive detecting,” I whispered in her ear. “I’m gonna miss you.”

  “Then come visit. It’s only a twelve-hour train ride.” She swatted my arm and breathed a laugh, although her eyes were wet. “Leave me your address. If I find any of your stolen stuff, I’ll mail it back to you.”

  “Will do,” I said.

  I looked at Brandon and swallowed.

  “Let’s start walking to the theater,” Meg announced. “Slowly. We have a new seating chart without Ever and Kate. We might need the extra time.”

  “Subtle, Margaret,” Brandon snorted.

  “You’re welcome, rabbits,” she whispered.

  “Elliot Lawrence Gabaroche!”

  My blood froze in my veins. There was no way. This couldn’t be happening. I’d prepared for the worst, but this was the worst times a Bosch painting of the worst.

  “Is that…?” Brandon asked vaguely.

  “Yeah,” I said, unable to hold back the quiver of panic in my voice. “Those are my parents. All of them.”

  I’d known that this was a possibility from the second my train pulled out of the station the night I’d run away, but it was different seeing the fury of my family in person rather than in my imagination.

  My mom wasn’t in uniform, thank God, but she was a blazing fury. Six foot tall, solidly built, hair pressed and rolled away from her round face. The polar opposite of thin, pale Beth, who was keeping stride and was
equally pissed. And my father and Aunt Bobbie bringing up the rear.

  I supposed I should be thankful that they hadn’t brought Grandmother Lawrence with them. The last thing I needed was Colonel Shirley Lawrence strutting around in her ancient dress blues, threatening to whup me and Isaiah for not waiting at attention when they got there.

  I turned back to Brandon and grabbed his hand. “I don’t want to leave you like this,” I said as fast as I could. “I don’t want to leave you at all. And I’m so sorry for how everything happened. Because I really do like you. More than I thought I could like someone and this is the absolute worst way to tell you that because if I kiss you in front of that angry mob we will both die. So please know that you made me believe in the Disney of it all and that I will never forget you and you’d better go win a scholarship and use it to major in math, you freaking sexy nerd.”

  “Ever,” he said, his eyes wild and pleading. “Elliot. I can’t—”

  “You have to,” I said, shoving him toward the retreating team. I turned toward my family again, aware that if I watched him leave I’d lose my confidence. I’d come this far. It was time to finish this.

  Fear is the mind killer.

  I stepped forward, keeping my face impassive, which was hard when a mob of adults was waiting to tear me apart.

  “Where is your luggage?” Mom asked. “We are leaving right now.”

  “I cannot believe you did this to us,” Beth said. “We were all in a panic. And you couldn’t return a single phone call?”

  “I swear to God, I will sue this school from one side of that river to the other,” Dad said.

  “Mom, Dad, Beth, Aunt Bobbie,” I said, nodding to each of them in turn. “I need to talk to you about Isaiah.”

  “You don’t get to dictate a single term—” Dad started, his voice like a grizzly’s rumble.

  “I’m not trying to get out of being in trouble,” I interrupted. “I know I messed up—”

  “You ran away,” Beth said shrilly.

  “I know,” I said. “And I’m sorry. I won’t try to explain to you why, because it probably doesn’t matter.”

  “You’re goddamn right,” Mom said. “It doesn’t matter. You scared the hell out of all of us. You lied and you played us against each other—”

  “Yes,” I said, swallowing hard. God, the force of their disappointment was enough to peel back a layer of my skin. I pictured my spine filling with steel to keep me standing upright when I so wanted to lie down and cry again. “But I need to talk to you about Isaiah.”

  “Where is he?” Aunt Bobbie asked, looking into the distance as though she could make him appear.

  “He’s about to win a scholarship to one of the best colleges in the country,” I said. “And I think you should let him come here.”

  Aunt Bobbie tucked her chin back, looking at me like I’d lost all of my damn mind. She raised an imperious eyebrow at me. “Elliot, my son will be lucky if I let him cross the street when I get him back home, much less come back to the school he ran away to.”

  “Just think about why he came here,” I said. “Please think about who Isaiah is. Picture him at BMT and then picture him here. He isn’t Sid. Please don’t make him outrun himself all the way into enlisting. It’s not what’s right for him.”

  “Elliot,” Mom said. “That’s enough.”

  I didn’t take my eyes off of my aunt. I pointed the way my team had walked off. “And if you go watch the last round of the Melee, you can see how much he belongs here. He made friends here because he was with other genius kids. He belongs with people as smart as him. That’s why you guys moved off base, isn’t it? So that he could go to a good school and actually do something with his IQ instead of just talking about it? He’s doing something with it now. Don’t make him disappoint you because you wanted something from him he couldn’t do.” My throat convulsed. I balled my hands into fists. “We didn’t come here to disappoint you. We came here even though we knew you’d be disappointed. Please see the difference.”

  38

  I held Starship Troopers over my head, reading the yellowing pages while nursing a coconut water ice pop that Beth insisted on buying because they were low-sugar. They were also low-taste, but when it was over a hundred and ten degrees, the only thing to do was lie down on the floor of the kitchen and eat Popsicles, waiting for autumn or death. Whichever came first.

  Upstairs, something bumped against a wall. A door slammed.

  “Ethan!” I shouted. “What’d you break?”

  A pause.

  “Nothing!” he called.

  A lie, for sure, but he was almost ten and there was a chance that he was finally mature enough to put whatever he’d broken back together before I figured out what it was. And if not, we had hours before Dad and Beth were home from work, and lots of superglue.

  But not so much wood glue. Hm. That could be a problem. Especially since I no longer had the right to drive my car. It was now parked at Beth’s parents’ house, waiting for me to prove that I was a responsible member of society again.

  If Ethan broke a bone or I went into anaphylactic shock, our parents were willing to just pay the ambulance bill rather than let me have my car keys.

  It had been a week since I’d flown home from Eugene. Thinking about my mom and Beth sitting together at our dining room table was still a little surreal. I had always assumed that they wouldn’t be in the same room until I graduated from high school. Who knew all it took was one giant betrayal of trust to bring them together? After all of my privileges had been revoked—car, phone, computer, TV, friends—Mom and Beth had split a cocktail shaker of Dad’s chocolate martinis and stayed up until the wee hours giggling together. I wasn’t sure if I or Dad had been more unsettled by this.

  Aunt Bobbie had stayed behind in Eugene to watch Isaiah compete in the last skirmish. She’d never turned down a chance to watch her son show off how much smarter he was than other people and she wasn’t going to start now. When Team Three had advanced to the final round of the Melee, Bobbie had sprung for a hotel room and had stayed to watch Isaiah win his scholarship. She swore that none of the Lawrences could argue with free tuition to one of the top schools in the country, even if it meant that her baby wouldn’t be joining up.

  I wasn’t sure if that logic would fly at the next family holiday, but I also got the impression that Bobbie and Mom had made some sort of pact to never tell Grandmother Lawrence about anything that had happened in Eugene. I was positive that it had taken a lot of blackmail to get Isaiah’s scholarship locked down in spite of him being in violation of the age requirement.

  Luckily, the dean of Rayevich and the principal from the Messina were terrified of news coming out about Cheeseman rigging prior Melees. It would bankrupt the camp to have to refund every student who’d come through for the last two years.

  The doorbell rang.

  “I got it!” Ethan screeched, his feet flying down the stairs so fast that there was a chance he was somersaulting.

  “You’ll be sorry if it’s a kidnapper!” I called.

  “You’ll be sorry!” he called back. “You’ll be grounded if I get kidnapped!”

  “I’m already grounded!” I closed Starship Troopers and got to my feet. I took a moment to pluck the hem of my shorts back to a more ladylike position. “If you don’t get kidnapped, remind me to teach you about double jeopardy.”

  I waddled out of the kitchen and through the living room and nearly dropped my Popsicle when I spotted the tall, slouching figure standing on the front porch. His hair was covering most of his face as he looked down at Ethan.

  “She’s not allowed to have friends over right now,” Ethan was saying, barely containing his joy at being allowed to turn away a teenager. “She’s grounded.”

  I swept forward and shoved Ethan back with one arm. “Go up to my room,” I hissed at him, one eye on the vision on the porch. “Under my mattress there’s a sock with fifty bucks in it. It’s yours if you never, ever tell Dad and Bet
h that this happened.”

  Ethan considered this, his lips pursed into a duck’s bill of thought. “Fifty bucks and your Greedo.”

  “Ugh. Go, booger,” I said, shooing him away. I shouted at his back as he scurried back up the stairs, “But this never happened!”

  “What never happened?” he called back.

  I turned back. Brandon was still there. Standing on my porch. In a gray T-shirt and blue jeans and the same Chuck Taylors. Smiling. Real.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi.” I wanted to reach out and touch him and didn’t know how or where to start. “You’re in California. How?”

  He gestured behind him. “Wave to Ben and Trixie. Or don’t. They don’t care.”

  I peered over his shoulder and saw a small red SUV parked across the street from my house, covered in Spider-Man bumper stickers.

  “They drove you to California?” I gaped.

  He winced a shrug. “Crumbs felt bad for ruining my first date, so she told my parents that she was driving me up to Washington to visit our sisters. I don’t know where she went, but Ben and Trixie were coming down here to find a new apartment, so I tagged along.”

  I laughed. “You’re Bunburying.”

  “I learned from the best.”

  “I’m sorry,” I blurted, moving out of the way of the doorway. “Come in. It’s a million degrees out here.”

  He stepped up into the house, setting a black backpack at the foot of the stairs. I threw my Popsicle into the yard before I closed the door behind us.

  I watched him taking in the meticulously organized throw pillows, the collection of pictures of Ethan and me as babies, the decorative candles that had never been lit.

  “It’s a little catalogy, I know,” I said, perching on the edge of the long sofa. “Beth’s a real estate agent and stages houses for a living, so it can be kind of sterile looking sometimes, but I swear we live here and we’re normal and you can put your shoes on the couch.”