I stared at the screen. It felt like we were having two different conversations.
Charlie: What do you mean “??”
Long pause.
BM: I wasn’t talking about Bridget.
Charlie: Then who?
BM has signed off.
I cursed myself for denying Granddad’s flask fill-up. If that IM conversation had been any more confusing, I might as well have been drunk for it.
Mostly I was sick of going alone on this. It’d only been two days and I was already having trouble keeping track of the players.
I wrote a quick chart.
Bridget — Wants her flash drive back, which may not be hers; claims it was stolen out of the library 2nd period last Friday, when she may not have been there. Claims it has a college scholarship essay on it. Is probably lying about A) everything
BM — Wants flash drive, and is willing to pay $2,000 for it, which he thinks is a steal (!). Is under the impression I’ve been dealing with a girl other than Bridget.
Ryder — Wants me to forget about the flash drive.*
Maria Posey — Was at the library last Friday getting tutoring. Has a thing with Ryder? Wanted him to do a favor for her, but he said no. Hates the Other Maria for “stealing” her solos.
Other Maria — overdosed on LSD; has been hallucinating since Sunday night; no one seems to care
Danny — Bridget’s li’l stalker who may come in handy
Ellie / Ellie Plagiarist — Wants me to think Ellie is blackmailing Bridget
Car thief (Griffin?) — Wanted the cops to think I dosed Maria Salvador
*Best option so far
Everyone needed someone else to bounce ideas off of. Sherlock had Watson. Kirk had Spock. In Fast & the Furious, Brian O’Conner had Dominic Toretto. And like Granddad said, Ellie was smart.
I picked up the phone and dialed. Ellie answered on the third ring. The clock read 10:18.
“Two nights in a row?” was her greeting.
“Too late to call?”
“Never was before.”
She told me once she loved hearing my voice as the very last one before she fell asleep. She said her day wasn’t complete unless she’d told me about it.
Sometimes we’d kept our phones on even when we weren’t talking, even when we were trying to drift off. (“You still there?” / “Yeah, you?” / “Yeah.”) Not the wittiest banter in the world, but it was ours.
“Wasn’t sure if the rules had changed,” I said. “But here we are.”
“You can’t keep calling me,” she said.
“You’re the one who called me yesterday,” I pointed out.
“To explain why you couldn’t keep calling me.”
“And our date tomorrow? Is that to further explain?”
“It’s not a date. Think of it as a way for Jonathan to say goodbye.”
“And yet you haven’t hung up.”
“I—”
“Any idea why someone would want to frame you?” I said.
“Frame me? For what?”
I read her the note.
“I didn’t write that,” she said, sounding perplexed. “And I don’t know what it means.”
“Yeah. It’s a pretty good forgery, and it’s on your stationery, but you never call me ‘Dix.’” I’d spent part of the day mulling things over in my head, and wondering what Ellie was hiding from me, but in the end it didn’t make sense. Only Bridget called me that. Either she’d forged the note (but why?) or the person who had was close to Bridget and believed both my exes used the same nickname for me. Maybe I should thank the person; it’d given me a reason to call Ellie.
“Where’d you get it?” Ellie said.
“Doesn’t matter, anymore,” I said, crumpling the paper up.
“There was a sale at Pens ’n’ More at the mall last week. Anyone could’ve bought that stationery.”
“Okay. Good to know.”
“Now that you’ve cleared my name, is that all?”
“I don’t know. Are you done running hot and cold?”
“Are you done taking a bath in it?” she said.
“I saw Maria Salvador today,” I remarked, without missing a beat.
“I didn’t know you two were friends,” said Ellie. “Is she doing better?”
“I was visiting my granddad, and she was down the hall at the hospital. The nurse said no one’s visited her besides family.”
“I wasn’t sure they were letting anyone see her. Shit. Now I wish I’d gone, too.”
“She’s in pretty bad shape, muttering to herself, not making any sense, saying weird phrases like ‘In exile.’ She kept repeating that. And singing that song ‘Sugar, Sugar.’ It was really messed up.”
“That was in our medley of sixties harmonies for the qualifier in Pomona over New Year’s. Maybe it got stuck in her head?” Ellie wondered. “God. I feel so bad for her. Do they have any idea who dosed her yet?”
“Not that I know of. Any idea who the lady with the dog is?”
“You should signal when you make a weird turn like that.”
“My conversational segues have gotten rusty without our nightly calls,” I said. “You have no one to blame but yourself.”
“It’s not a who, it’s a what. The title of a Chekhov story.”
“What’s it about?”
“A young woman with a Pomeranian and this old dude she has an affair with. I probably misinterpreted it. I hope so, anyway.”
“Why’s that?”
“Just once I want to read about an old woman and a young man.”
“But that would be gross,” I teased.
“Uh-huh,” she said drily. “Why so curious about the chekhovs?”
“I’m following a tip. Do they meet in the library or something?” BM had acted like I should know about them simply because I was doing time there.
“There’s a section in the library that’s only available to students in the AP Chekhov class.”
“It’s restricted? Off-limits?”
She laughed. “It’s not dark magic, it’s just that the books are falling apart. They’re from the seventies. You have to prove you’re in the class before you can look at them. Not that anyone else would want to.”
“Got it,” I said, though I didn’t. “Can I say one more thing?”
“Sure.”
She was in a better mood now, so I took a risk and came clean. “Ryder’s been stealing test answers and selling them. That’s why he needed the window unlocked. I didn’t know before, but now that I do, I’m not helping him anymore. I just wanted you to know.”
Silence.
“Well … now I know.”
“So we’re cool with the Ryder thing?”
“I mean, I’m not thrilled, but yeah, we’re cool with the Ryder thing.”
One issue down, two to go: soccer and college. “And we’re still on for tomorrow night?”
“Seven. Jonathan and I expect you to wear a film-related costume. And it can’t be half-assed. Start sewing.”
Click.
I smiled at the dial tone and set the phone down. In my dreams I continued to hear her voice, all soft and teasing, like strings of possibility dangling from the ceiling. All I had to do was pull, and a trap door would open, and I could walk up the ladder and back into her arms.
THE OBVIOUS HIDING PLACE
ON WEDNESDAY MORNING, I TOOK THE BUS AGAIN AND IT was the same old thing, most of it involving the petty destruction of property. Freshman boys in hoodies drew on their seat backs with pen, digging in deep; freshman girls in hoodies made ironic friendship bracelets by piercing their seats with safety pins and tying embroidery floss in intricate patterns.
The driver bleated at us. The radio broadcast static. The potholes got revenge for decades of tyranny. The bus cut off commuters. It had been doing this for twenty years and would continue doing it for another twenty.
You never forgot you were on a bus. iPhones and headphones could block out a lot of things, but the bu
s was not one of them. You were always aware of the smell of green plastic and burned rubber, and the squeaky door handle rusting on its hinge as it slowly opened and closed to accept more mass onto the rolling amoeba.
The bus never took you where you really wanted to go. The bus never took you anywhere at all. What it did was take you in circles, from home to school and school to home. At least in your car, there was a chance you could escape the loop, veer off the track, head to Vegas. You’d never do it, but there was a chance.
For the first time since my sentence was handed out, I full-on hustled to the library. My hustling was all the more interesting considering I wasn’t scheduled to be there. I had to work fast before Mr. Minnow, the long-faced part-time librarian, arrived.
I was supposed to have familiarized myself with the library layout by now, as part of my punishment, so I could be a better font of information, but I still needed the crib sheet. I pulled out the laminated map and studied it. History. Literature. Science. Math. English. Spanish. And then, in tiny, smudged letters in the corner, nearest to Bridget’s supposed location at the time of the theft, the Chekhov section.
The “section” was nothing more than a small glass case in the back of the library, completely unobtrusive, not even remotely tempting. I figured it’d at least have a sign up saying “Do Not Touch! Part of living museum!” or something. There were about ten books, some duplicates, including plays and short-story anthologies by Chekhov, all under lock and key, like the high-end liquor aisle at Vons.
I darted back to the info desk and fumbled through the drawers, looking for the key. Mr. Minnow walked in and asked what I was doing. Librarians were among the first casualties of the budget wars, so he only came in three times a week. I think he subsidized his lack of pay by stealing truckloads of coffee and croissants from the teachers’ lounge; he always had two huge thermoses with him.
“Extra-credit project. I’m researching Chekhov,” I replied.
He squinted at me, scanning me like a bar code. “Okay, I’ll go with you.”
The last thing I needed was him standing over my shoulder, but I didn’t have a choice. He had a strung-together key chain in his pocket. He flicked through it and located the right one, then opened the cabinet.
I knelt down and quickly read the titles. I didn’t remember if “The Lady with the Dog” was a play, a novel, or a short story, so I grabbed a collection of selected shorts first, and opened to the table of contents.
The Confession
Surgery
A Cure for Drinking (might be useful)
In Spring
Three Years
In Exile
The Darling
The Kiss
“In Exile”? “The Kiss”? Maria Salvador hadn’t been speaking gibberish, or talking about herself when I’d seen her in the hospital. She’d been listing Chekhov titles. What was the connection?
“Gently, gently,” Mr. Minnow drawled, as I hurried through the next collection. And there it was …
“The Lady with the Dog.” I flipped through the pages, looking for highlighted words, underlined passages, anything to tell me why it was a clue. Nothing. I turned the book over, checked the front and back flaps, even the stamped pocket where library tickets used to go in the 1970s.
“What are you doing?” demanded Mr. Minnow.
I rotated the book in my hands, feeling it up like we were alone in the back of a car. The binding on the book was loose; the spine had shifted away from the pages, exposing a gap.
The gap was the exact shape and size of a flash drive.
But if the flash drive had been hidden there, it was gone now, just like Maria Salvador’s mind. Someone had beaten me to it.
Jane Thomas (a.k.a. Thomas’ English Muffin) sat at her computer in the journalism room, clicking through images for next week’s issue of the Palm Valley High Recorder. She was our cute British transplant who’d taken over the school newspaper and turned it into a must-read tabloid. She was Rupert Murdoch in a jean skirt and loafers, presumably minus the phone hacking. Our paper may have been respectable before, but it sure was boring. And actually it had never been respectable.
She jumped when I strolled in; the bell hadn’t rung yet and she clearly wasn’t expecting visitors. In fact, her hand clicked and shifted the mouse in such a way that if those sites weren’t blocked, I might’ve thought she was closing out of a porn site.
I pretended I hadn’t seen, and I reminded her who I was. I was on a mission, but I couldn’t ignore protocol. As fellow seniors, we could interact as long as there had been a previous introduction.
“Hi, Jane, we met through my dad, he writes a column for the Press and teaches over at Lambert College?”
She looked up. “Right. You’re a footballer. What’s on your mind?”
“We prefer beckhams.”
“And we prefer if you leave that sport to those who know how to play it. FYI, Becks is retired.”
“Beckham’s the only soccer player everyone knows.”
“Pelé was voted footballer of the century. Why not call yourself the pelés?”
I shrugged. “I just play the game, I don’t follow it.”
“You Americans think soccer is nothing but a sport for children.”
“You and I both know it’s the opposite,” I teased.
“Cheeky.”
“You don’t really say words like ‘cheeky.’”
“Guv’nor,” she said.
“You’re totally mocking. You just think that’s what I think you talk like.”
“And why would I bother putting on a show?”
“To distract me from the reason I’m here. Someone left a message in your paper yesterday and I can’t figure out who it’s from,” I said.
She gave me a lengthy once-over. “Lovelorn girl?”
“Not exactly. Well—maybe.” It was a good point. Maybe BM wasn’t a he. And playing the part of a thwarted lover might endear me to Jane. “Can you help me out?”
“What was the message?”
“‘To ChD, if you find it, don’t give it to her. I’ll pay more. IM 10 2nite.’”
Jane rolled her eyes. “Hmm, yes. Bartering for goods and services is extremely romantic.”
“So I jump online at the designated time and—”
“Pull a Craigslist Killer. We all do it.”
“I’m … pretty sure we don’t,” I said.
“It’s just an expression.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s not.”
She grinned. “Lifetime movie. Means you used false pretenses to get information from someone.”
“Can you help me out? Tell me who sent the message?”
“Absolutely not. Journalistic ethics.”
“I have a secret for you. I’d hardly call this place a hotbed of journalism,” I stage-whispered behind my hand. “And I’d hardly call the gossip pages solid reporting.”
“It gets the paper read,” she said matter-of-factly. “I don’t mind if people pick it up for the gossip; it means they might also read my exposé on the cafeteria contracts. Besides, if people know their identities will be leaked, they won’t use the service. I can’t tell you who placed the call.”
I straightened up. “You deserve better than this. Why not work for the Palm Valley Register? I’m sure my dad could put in a good word,” I said. “If you help out his one and only darling son, Charlie.” I clasped my hands together and did my best impersonation of a puppy dog with a bow around its neck.
“You being the darling in question?”
“I love your accent. It’s like you’re insulting me, but I barely notice.”
She folded her arms. “And what does my posture tell you?”
I sighed. “A sentry at the gate.”
I acted like I was about to leave, and she turned back to her computer. Then I slipped behind her desk and looked over her shoulder at the screen.
“What are you doing?” she cried, trying to cover the monitor with her hands.
She managed to X out of the site, but not before I’d seen a list of ID numbers scrolling by.
“You’re Bridget’s source, aren’t you?” I said.
“I have literally no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You’re the one who matches the ID numbers to the student names. Did you hack into the registration office, or did you get someone else to do your dirty work?”
Her face went red, but she stuck to her denials. “It’s not what you think.”
“So much for journalistic ethics,” I scoffed.
“I’m compiling a story for the paper about college. How many people applied to which schools, what percent are Ivy League, what percent are local, that sort of thing. I got permission from Principal Jeffries to use the information, so long as I keep all the names out. It’s part of their initiative to prove the impact of Fresh Start, and, by the way, it directly impacts your mother’s job security. No student names will be revealed.”
“How can you tell where people applied?” I asked.
“It’s all there in their student profile. Electronic receipts showing where transcripts, recommendation letters, and applications have been e-mailed.”
I felt ill.
Five minutes alone with that list and I could find out where Ellie had applied, once and for all. Had she sent materials to Lambert, or was she lying about that? Had she ever loved me, or was this her exit strategy from day one: string Charlie along, pretend you might stay together after high school, but always remember he’s not good enough to plan a real future with. If she had applied, there was still a good chance for us. If not … maybe I didn’t want to know.
“You’re good,” I said. “You and Bridget should go into business.”
Jane looked insulted. “I’m not profiting from it. It’s for an article.”
“Everything’s for sale,” I told her. “What’s the going rate to look at another student’s transcript file?”
“I’m going to forget you asked me that,” she said, and shut down her computer.
During third period, I was scheduled to meet with Palm Valley High’s guidance counselor to follow up on my plans for college. It was a pointless exercise and I treated it as such.
Ms. Gerard had pushed her desk to the wall and set up a cozy “we’re all friends here” couch and chair, with a snack-covered coffee table between us. I sat down across from her.
High and Dry Page 10
