by Robin Benway
“Do you tell Jesse and Roux everything?” my mom asked.
“No,” I admitted.
“And why is that?”
I rolled my eyes, knowing what she was getting at. “Because I want to protect them in case someone wants to get information from them,” I sing-songed.
“Exactly.”
“So you and Dad are trying to protect me?”
“Your interrogation skills are really weak,” my dad said, tossing a dishrag at me. “You get information when you need it. Here, dry these dishes.”
“Were you and Mom drug smugglers or arms dealers with Dominic or something?” I shot back, ignoring the dish towel. “You’re both orphans. Do you have a secret past?”
My parents looked at each other, but I could tell they were amused, not concerned. “You’re our secret past,” my mom pointed out. “Our little safecracker that could.”
I rested my chin on my fists, thinking about that. “You’re so lucky,” I said. “You were both spies from the beginning. You didn’t have to compromise anything.”
“There’s always compromise,” my mom said. “We compromise all the time. For example, I don’t like onions.”
“And I don’t like hearing about how much your mother doesn’t like onions.” My dad winked at both of us.
“But did you ever want to leave the Collective?” I asked them, now drawing figure eights on the countertop. “Ever?”
There was a pause before my mom spoke up. “We were going to leave after we had you,” my mom said. “We didn’t think it was the best way to raise a child.”
“Are you serious?” I asked, now sitting up straight. “Because of me?”
My dad nodded. “But when you were three, you opened that Master Lock that had been lying on the floor. We were amazed. I mean, our jaws dropped. You had this gift from the very beginning, and you were so talented. You are so talented,” he amended. “If you were a gifted ballerina or sculptress or mathematician, we would’ve done everything we could have to foster your talent. It just so happened that your gift is in locks and safes. So we decided to stay.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “So if it wasn’t for me, you would have left?”
“No. We stayed for you.” My mom covered my hand with hers. “Would you really have been happy living a normal life? Going to school, to playdates, living in the same place?”
I squirmed on my barstool. It was like she knew how I had been feeling for the past year, living as a normal teenager instead of a spy. It was hard to admit even to myself, but I felt an itch that I couldn’t scratch, a need that wouldn’t go away.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But I’m glad I don’t know. I like our life, if that makes sense. It’s been fun.”
“Except for when Colton tried to kill you,” my dad muttered.
“Well, yeah, that wasn’t fun, but we won,” I told him. “Everything always works out, right? I mean, if you two could meet in Paris as teenagers, anything’s possible, right?”
My parents both paused before bursting out in laughter.
“Thank you so much, Maggie,” my mom said. “Really, thank you.”
“You are so young,” my dad added. “So very, very young.”
“I’m seventeen!” I protested. “I’m practically an old woman!”
My parents fell over in further hysterics.
“Well, this has been illuminating,” I huffed, hopping off my stool and going toward my bedroom. “Your onions are burning, by the way.”
But when I looked back, I saw my parents kissing over the countertop as the onions smoked around them.
Chapter 10
The next morning was Tuesday, which meant yet another day of SAT prep class with Roux. I half considered blowing it off, but then I remembered it was the last one of the session. And also, if I didn’t go, my parents would ask why I wasn’t going, and I’d have to explain that things were weird between me and Roux, then they’d want to talk and I didn’t really feel like talking.
I wish there was a way for my parents to know what was wrong without me having to tell them. That would make my life so much easier.
I dragged myself over to the Main Building at NYU, where the classes were being held, and settled myself toward the back of the classroom, a few minutes late and cranky with lack of sleep. I had spent yet another night holed up in my room, working on the lock that Angelo had given me, still no closer to solving it, while I waited for Roux to call me so we could talk.
The phone never rang. The lock never opened. I went to bed and never slept.
Roux was in the middle of the room, a few rows in front of me, her head bent over her travel chess set. Her cheeks were flushed, and I could tell she was actively not looking at me, her hands balled into fists in her lap.
The teacher (some teacher’s assistant that was clearly in it for the summer cash) blathered on at the front of the room about analogies. “Up is to down as light is to … ?” he droned. No one responded, even though it was one of the easiest questions imaginable: half of us were surreptitiously tapping away on our phones under the desks and the other half was too shy to answer.
Well, except for me. I was too annoyed. Like, what difference did this really make? Would taking the SAT have any effect on my life, or anyone else’s? What does it even matter if someone’s good at analogies? How on earth did this become the basis by which intelligence was measured? This, I decided, was why the world’s economy was crumbling. Because of stupid standardized tests!
Like I said, I hadn’t had much sleep.
“Um, Roux? Roux Green?” The TA was consulting a seating chart as he glanced up at Roux. He pronounced her name like “row,” which nearly made me wince. Her head was still down, no doubt planning her next well-strategized move, and I wasn’t talking about chess, either.
“You clearly took Spanish in high school,” she said, not bothering to look up.
“Excuse me?”
“It’s pronounced Roo. Not Row. Anyone with fifteen minutes of French lessons could have told you that. Guess you missed that question on your SAT.” She still hadn’t looked up.
The TA looked flustered as I bit the inside of my cheek and tried not to laugh. I could do a lot of things well, but no one shook up a room like Roux. “Do you have an answer for our question? Maybe you could text someone for the answer?”
Bad move, TA guy, I thought. Bad, bad move.
“I’m not texting, I’m playing chess. A knight on the rim is grim, as you know.” I had heard Angelo say that several times before about their games, but I had no idea what it meant.
“And as light is to dark,” Roux continued. “A chipmunk could have answered that. Those student loans must be pretty hefty for you to take this crap job, huh? Maybe if you had done better on your SATs you could’ve gotten a scholarship.”
This was the old Roux I had first met last year: the one that struck like a cobra in order to keep people from hurting her first. Several other kids were staring at her, goggle-eyed, and one girl leaned over to her friend and whispered into her ear. The second girl glanced at Roux and giggled.
I know I wasn’t the best at being a teenager, but I knew that giggle was a mean one. They were gossiping, and I saw the tips of Roux’s ears go red.
“She’s just cranky because people are being mean to her on Facebook,” another girl chimed in, and I could feel my chest getting tight. “Aren’t they? Poor Rouxsie. Nobody loves her. Not even Mommy and Daddy.”
It was like the air went out of the room, and in the absence of sound, Roux swept her bag up into her arms and stormed out, the desk chair squeaking on the floor and cutting through the tension in the room. I didn’t know who those girls were—I was pretty sure they didn’t go to our school, either—but they knew Roux.
And that was definitely not a good thing.
“Roux!” I called, grabbing my own bag and running after her. “Roux, c’mon!”
She was way ahead of me, though, not running but not w
alking, and I had to race to catch up to her. “Stop!” I told her. “Would you just stop already!”
“Leave me alone!” she cried, whirling around, her hair flying like a veil around her head as she spun. “You already made it clear that things are changing, okay? Don’t try and act like they’re not.”
“Roux, things are changing but it doesn’t mean—”
“That we can’t still be friends? Is that what you were going to say? Face it, Maggie, you and Jesse and me, we’re all on borrowed time here. You’re not going to stop being a spy for anyone. This is who you are.”
“I can be more than just … than just that,” I said. “I can be more than one thing at the same time. Everyone is.”
“Really? So you think you’re going to graduate and go to college and never once track down a bad guy for the rest of your life?” Roux looked doubtful. “C’mon. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard in a long time, and I’ve heard some really, really stupid stuff lately.”
I wondered what the Facebook post had said about her.
“Look, Maggie.” Roux took a deep breath and let it out slowly, pinching the bridge of her nose, and I realized that she was trying hard not to cry. “Before you got here, I was alone, and if you leave, that’s what I’ll be again.”
“Roux—” I started to protest, but she cut me off.
“I’m not saying that to make you feel guilty or whatever, but it’s true, and you know that.” Her phone chimed and she glanced at the screen, her face falling. “Another Facebook update,” she muttered. “Great.”
“Roux, things are changing but it doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing,” I told her, trying to distract her from the screen. “It’s not like I’m going to leave tomorrow and never see you or Jesse again.
“I’m late for tae kwon do,” she said. “I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
And before I could say anything, she had slipped out the door and disappeared into the crowds outside.
“Crap,” I muttered, running my hand through my hair. There was no way I was going to go back into that classroom and I didn’t want to go home, so I walked up the street to Dean & Deluca, settled myself at a window table, pulled that wretched lock out of my bag, and did what I do best.
I got to work.
Several hours later, I had made a teeny-tiny bit of progress on the lock, almost managing to open the third keyhole before my grasp slipped and it clicked shut. I sat up and sighed, frustrated and somewhat bleary-eyed, and that’s when I saw Angelo’s card taped to the window outside. I saw what looked like a pen-and-ink drawing on the back, etched along the embossed A.
I seriously don’t even know how he manages to be so sneaky.
When I got my stuff together, went outside, and plucked the card off the window, I saw a sketch of a stone castle with arched windows and crumbling turrets, surrounded by water and trees.
Belvedere Castle at Central Park.
“Great,” I muttered to myself, then started hiking toward the 6 train at Astor Place.
If you ever go to Belvedere Castle, here’s a good tip for you: it has a lot of stairs. Do some calf-building exercises beforehand or find an amazing Sherpa to carry you.
I hoped Angelo had a good reason for bringing me here, other than just his love of architecture and old stones. Surely we could have found some old stones closer to downtown.
It took me a few minutes to find him and when I did, my breath caught in my throat. I wasn’t sure if it was a good reason, but it was definitely something.
He sat at a small wooden table, a chessboard open in front of him and the pieces strategically arranged. His brow was furrowed like it always was whenever he was deep in thought, but his eyes looked calm and passive. “Ah, careful, careful,” he said as his opponent started to move her knight. “Remember, darling: a knight on the rim is grim.”
His opponent, however, was anything but passive.
“Why do you keep saying that?” Roux demanded as I crept closer, her back to me. “You always say that, Angelo, and I have no idea what you’re saying and you’re driving me crazy but at the same time, I also want to be you and it’s infuriating. Ugh.” She hadn’t let go of the knight yet, her index finger balanced on top. “Is this what trash talking is in chess? A lot of platitudes about knights and grimness?”
“Why, hello there!” Angelo replied cheerfully, looking up at me, and Roux spun around in her seat, eyes red and swollen. It sort of hurt to look at her. “Imagine meeting you here, Maggie, in this castle of all places.”
I held up his card between my fingers. “Yes. Imagine that.”
Roux whirled back to look at Angelo. “You’re a liar,” she accused. “You said you wanted to play chess!”
“And yet here we are, playing chess,” he replied smoothly. “I would hardly call that a lie.” His voice never changed tone or texture, which I knew must have been driving Roux up a wall.
“But you didn’t say she was going to be here, too!”
“She?” I said, coming around to stand next to the table. “You know my name. I’m standing right here.”
Roux pushed her sunglasses up her nose and started to gather her bag. “Well, this was great fun. I must be going.”
Angelo put a hand on her arm and she instantly softened. The two of them, I suddenly realized, were more alike than different. Headstrong, independent … and often alone. I wondered what they had talked about before I showed up.
“Listen, my love,” Angelo said. “You and Maggie are the best of friends. You have shared many adventures together. You are privy to a great many of our secrets. Friendship doesn’t care about geography.”
Roux crossed her arms and glared at the chessboard.
“Now sit.” Angelo beckoned me over and stood up, giving his seat to me. “I’m going to go buy some water and be back in five minutes. You two should talk.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Roux huffed.
“Really? I find that hard to imagine. You always seem able to chatter about something. Little magpie, you are.” Angelo tapped her on the head as he walked away, leaving Roux and me in a heavy, leaded silence.
“Sooo,” I said, picking up one of Angelo’s pawns. “So.”
“Yeah. So. And put that down, you’re screwing with the game.”
I set it down, then picked up the queen just to annoy her.
“I know what you’re doing,” she said, glaring at me with narrowed eyes. “I invented this game.”
“Chess? You’re older than you look.”
Roux opened her mouth, closed it, sat back and crossed her arms, tapped her foot three times, then opened her mouth again. “I meant manipulation,” she said. “And maybe I overreacted, okay? I know that must come as a complete surprise to you, seeing as how I never overreact about anything at all, ever.”
I rolled the queen across my palm, wiggling my eyebrows at her as she started to get infuriated.
“What are you—? Stop that, put it—! Oh my God, you have no respect for a classic game of mental warfare, do you? This is just disrespectful!”
I set the queen down in the wrong square, then smiled as Roux snapped it back into place. “Roux,” I said. “You can’t just end our friendship because something might happen to it. I won’t let you, because that’s what friends do.”
Roux let out a long, low sigh, then took her index finger and knocked over the king piece. We both giggled. “I hate that guy,” she said. “He just stands there and doesn’t do anything while the queen hustles all over the board. Useless.” When I didn’t say anything, she kept talking. “I feel really bad. Ask Angelo. I told him everything.”
I looked to where Angelo was standing near a soda vendor, checking his phone. “You did?”
Roux nodded. “I didn’t have anyone else to talk to.”
Ouch. That hurt.
“It’s just weird to not know things about your life,” she continued, not noticing my wince. “Like, friends share everything, right? At least we do. And we d
id all that safecracking together—”
I couldn’t help myself. “We?”
“You know what I mean. And now it’s like you’re about to do something cool again and I’m going to be left out.” She shrugged her shoulders and looked really small. “I hate being left out. It sucks.”
“It does suck,” I agreed, thinking of all the places I had lived, the homes I had had, all the friendships I could never make.
“So you’ll tell me?”
I had to laugh. “No. But if it makes you feel better, I didn’t tell Jesse, either. And he wants to know just as bad as you do.” That last part wasn’t entirely true, but what Roux didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.
“Well, good, because if you tell that buffoon and not me, I will wreak havoc.” She sat back in her seat, looking a little smug. “And I can wreak havoc like nobody’s business.”
“Very aware, thanks,” I replied. “And Roux? It’s not that I don’t want to tell you. Angelo’s the only person I can talk to about this, too. I know what it’s like to feel alone.”
“Angelo missed his calling. He should have become a therapist.”
“For all we know, he is.”
Roux giggled at that. “So can you tell me just one thing about the case?”
“Depends on what the thing is.”
Roux leaned across the table, her face very serious. “Do I get to punch anyone in the face this time?”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “I’ll let you know.”
Roux grinned, and it felt so nice to have my friend back.
Chapter 11
I watched them play chess for a while, then Roux had to go to a massage appointment. “This tension needs to leave my body!” she declared while gathering her bag. “I think I’m getting a seaweed wrap, too. Toxins, begone!” She waved her arm like a sorceress summoning a spell. “Angelo, don’t touch that board or this whole game will be invalid and I’ll win by default.”
Angelo held up his hands in mock surrender. “I wouldn’t dream of it, my dear.”
She pointed at him warningly, then reached out and hugged his waist. “Thanks,” I heard her whisper, and he smiled and patted her shoulder.
