And Then I Found Out the Truth (3 page)

The answering machine picked up, and a moment later Patience’s voice sliced through the room.

Charity, I know you’re screening this call, and I find it inexcusable that a grown woman, however emotionally immature, is incapable of mustering the simple courtesy to speak to her own flesh and blood —

“As if there’s anything but Ketel One flowing through her veins,” said Charley.

— and instead cowers behind a mechanical device. What was Temperance thinking? The deplorable example you’re setting for Cordelia —

“Deplorable,” I agreed, and Charley shot me a look. I shrugged.

—
I shudder to think. Now, Cordelia is expected for dinner on Thursday evening. Every child needs exposure to a wholesome family environment —

“Wholesome?” said Charley. “Has she ever met her kids?”

—
and we have a responsibility to provide that for her. You are expected as well. Dinner will begin at half past seven, and I expect you to arrive on time and in appropriate attire. As a reminder, appropriate does not — not! — include midriff-baring garments, garments that sparkle, overalls, or anything made of pleather. And don’t bother to call with an excuse — I will not believe for a second time that you have a previous engagement with your macramé instructor.

Patience hung up with a brusque click, and Charley turned to me. “We certainly have our work cut out for us. It won’t be easy to find midriff-baring sequined pleather overalls on such short notice. We might have to get them custom-made.”

“I have ze perfect tailor!” announced a disembodied voice.

I shrieked, Charley jumped, and Rafe lunged for a weapon.

In a distant corner of the loft, an old sofa sat facing the windows. Now a head appeared above the sofa’s back.

Charley let out a long, slow breath. “Dieter, what are you doing here?” she demanded.

“I vas attempting ze nap,” Dieter answered, as if napping in other people’s homes when they were completely unaware of your presence was the most natural thing in the world. “Zere is construction in my flat. But vith all ze talking and ze television, it is no better here. And zen, vith ze angry voman on ze phone, I give up.”

“You know this man?” Rafe asked Charley, still brandishing the spatula he’d grabbed from the kitchen counter.

It’s sort of hard to describe what, exactly, Charley does, since she’s done so many things, but most recently she’d been starring in and coproducing Dieter’s independent film. “Dieter’s a director,” Charley explained as she introduced him to Rafe. “His creative vision is absolutely revolutionary.”

“I prefer
cinéaste
,” Dieter said. “Ze term director, it is so bourgeois.” He was examining his reflection in the window, patting his spiky blond hair into just the right state of careful disarray and adjusting the drape of his scarf.

“And he has a key?” asked Rafe.

“But of course I have ze key,” Dieter said.

“From when we were shooting up on the roof,” Charley added, though she probably didn’t even realize Rafe’s initial alarm was rapidly giving way to jealousy.

Meanwhile, now that my pulse had returned to normal, I was worrying about what Dieter might have overheard. I’d thought only six people on this continent knew T.K. was alive: Charley, Rafe, Natalie, Quinn, the psychic I’d consulted, and me. But it looked like we might be up to seven. “Dieter, were you listening to everything this whole time?” I asked.

“Not everyzing,” he said. “I vas dozing. But I zink you are vight to ask ze mother in Buenos Aires about ze ship captain. Zat is ze logical place to begin.”

We had to ply him with leftovers, which led to a lengthy discussion of Austrian schnitzel versus German schnitzel and a dog he’d once had named Spaetzle, who had a penchant for Dadaist cinema, but Dieter ultimately seemed to recognize the importance of not sharing what he’d learned with anyone outside of the room. And though we didn’t have any brilliant ideas about how best to deploy a cineaste, he was also eager to help.

“Zere must be a vay to harness ze power of visual media to furzer zis effort,” he said, simultaneously stroking his goatee and furrowing his brow.

“We’ll let you know if we think of anything,” Charley told him. “But until then, not a word to anyone. And I still want my key back.”

At school the next morning, it seemed like more people than usual were standing in little clumps out front before the bell rang, speaking in low, secretive voices, and then they were doing the same thing in the hallways between class periods and in the cafeteria.

“What’s with everyone?” I asked Natalie at lunch.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Haven’t you noticed the secretive whispering?”

Natalie’s normally exceptionally perceptive, but now she looked around the cafeteria and then blankly back at me, like she didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. “It’s high school, Delia. What do you expect?”

She was totally oblivious, but she had a good excuse: A guy she’d met at one of those science fairs Charley had been threatening to send me to had texted her. She tried to pretend it wasn’t a big deal, but as soon as I asked for the details it was like a dam broke. She couldn’t stop gushing.

It was nice to hear Natalie obsessing about something other than what type of graduate degree she should pursue after college or which tech start-ups had the most family-friendly employment policies. For once she actually sounded like a regular, non-genius person. But after a half hour of gushing, my attention started to wander, and that’s when I noticed the poster on a wall nearby: Prescott’s annual Homecoming weekend was less than two weeks away.

West Palo Alto High had Homecoming, too, every fall. There’d be a football game against North Sunnyvale, with a tailgate party before and a dance in the courtyard after. I’d gone last year with friends, but it wasn’t like I’d had a date. I’d never had a date of any sort back home.

But now I had Quinn, and that changed everything. Immediately, I started wondering if he’d ask me to the dance and, if so, what I should wear. I’d need to tell Charley — she’d want to make sure we found just the right outfit, and that meant shoes, too —

Natalie snapped her fingers in front of my face. “If you’re thinking Quinn Riley is Homecoming King material, you are deeply, deeply confused,” she said with a dismissive nod at the poster. “He’s not exactly the school spirit type.”

There was a segment of the student population Natalie had labeled the Apathy Alliance, because they weren’t interested in much of anything except, as she put it, “acting bored and spending their parents’ money.” She’d explained this on my first day at Prescott, citing Patience’s kids, Gwyneth and Grey, as charter members. And I had to admit, in their case, it was pretty accurate. Personally, I called them the Ennui Twins, which was still a lot kinder than what Charley called them.

Of course, Natalie had also identified Quinn as the Alliance’s de facto leader. And though Quinn did have a certain following among Alliance types — hence the minions — Natalie didn’t know him the way I did. She’d never seen him rehearsing
Romeo and Juliet
or teaching his little brother and sister how to surf. Besides, anybody who kissed the way Quinn kissed me couldn’t be apathetic. He might even be into the whole Homecoming thing.

Anyhow, Natalie eventually agreed to disagree on that topic so she could get back to gushing. Then the bell rang, and I spent the next two class periods trying to figure out an incredibly subtle way to bring up Homecoming when I saw Quinn in drama. But once class arrived, I was thwarted by Mr. Dudley, our drama teacher.

Usually Mr. Dudley waits until the final latecomer has straggled into the auditorium before he begins class. He perches on the edge of the stage with his leather portfolio open before him, pretending to be thinking deep, artistic thoughts or studying a script, but everyone knows he’s really either texting his agent or admiring his latest headshots. He does happen to be unbelievably good-looking, but he also talks a lot about “channeling the Muse” with a phony British accent.

Today, however, he started class in a crazily punctual manner. We were due for new assignments, and I’d been hoping he’d pair me with Quinn again in more
Romeo and Juliet.
Instead he callously handed me Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking rant, the one where she’s having nightmares about not being able to get the blood off her hands. He assigned monologues to the other juniors in the class, too.

So that was already sort of odd, though it’s not like Mr. Dudley’s mind functions in the most predictable way. But then, after essentially sentencing the juniors to solitary confinement, he cast all of the seniors, including Quinn and Gwyneth (who only takes drama because she’s in love with Mr. Dudley and not because she’s particularly interested in self-expression), in a scene from
The Crucible.

They spent the entire period reading lines in a big group on the stage while the rest of us had to rehearse on our own in different parts of the auditorium. I ended up sitting alone in the last row of seats, mumbling “out, damned spot” to myself for the better part of an hour.

And then I was thwarted again, because Quinn was in a huge rush after class. There was barely time to say hi, much less delicately steer the conversation toward approaching school events.

“Sorry, I’ve got to run,” he said, shoving the photocopied pages of his
Crucible
scene into his backpack. “I have that family thing, remember?”

I’d completely forgotten but now I asked, “What kind of family thing?”

“My dad’s leaving tomorrow on a business trip so he and Fiona are insisting on quality time,” he said as I followed him out of the auditorium. “We’re going to an old James Bond movie at the Ziegfeld and then Bea and Oliver somehow got them to agree to Chuck E. Cheese for dinner. Kids under twelve get free refills on soda — we’re going to have to pry them off the ceiling.”

Fiona is Quinn’s stepmother, and Bea and Oliver are his half siblings. As small kids go, they’re pretty cute, but I was less concerned about their sugar and caffeine intake than I was about the alarm bells that had started blaring in my head when Quinn said Hunter was leaving town. “Where’s your dad going?” I asked, trying my best to act like this was a normal sort of question.

“Who knows?” he said, holding the heavy door at the main entrance open for me. “I think it was somewhere that begins with an A. Argentina maybe? Hunter travels so much I never really pay attention anymore. It could be Abu Dhabi. Hey — I’d better hurry. I’ll try to give you a call later.”

And then he was off, without a kiss but just a shoulder squeeze to me and a passing hello to Charley, who was outside on the steps, waiting to escort me home.

“Everything okay?” asked Charley. I must have looked a bit disconcerted. After all, one of our suspects was potentially on his way to South America, and it didn’t help that it was the suspect I’d been hoping was on our list entirely by mistake.

“Sure,” I said, trying to sound convincing, but mostly I was doing some quick rationalizing in my head.

If Hunter was going to Argentina, I’d have to tell Charley, and Rafe, too, so he could warn T.K. But first I needed to confirm that Argentina really was Hunter’s destination. I mean, there was no reason to get everyone all worked up if it turned out he was actually going to Albania or Algeria or some other A-named place.

At least, that’s what I told myself, and it felt like it made sense at the time.

“Well, I have a fabulous idea for an after-school activity,” said Charley. Charley has a lot of ideas, and she almost always thinks they’re fabulous. “You, my dear niece, are tragically lacking in accessories, and I have been tragically remiss in not doing something about it sooner. I’m thinking Barney’s as a warm-up, then there are a bunch of little boutiques in Nolita we should check out, and after Nolita we can hit a couple of those stands on Canal Street before finishing with dim sum in Chinatown. And then we have nine more seasons of
90210
waiting for us at home. How does that sound?”

It wasn’t like I’d be able to talk to Quinn about Hunter’s exact destination until later. If all went well, by the time we got back to the loft Quinn would be home from Chuck E. Cheese and could tell me Hunter was actually going to Alsace-Lorraine and Charley would be on such a post-shopping high she wouldn’t even notice if her
90210
boxed sets went quietly missing. “That sounds perfect,” I said.

“Then there’s not a second to spare,” said Charley. “We only have three hours and twenty-four minutes before stores start closing on us.” She began hustling me down the steps.

At which point we almost crashed into Patience.

Four

Patience’s normal walking pace was like a track star’s idea of a sprint, but today she was moving so quickly her crisp Armani suit was a pin-striped blur, and the click-clack of her Blahniks on the stone steps sounded like machine-gun fire. Regardless, every blond highlight remained obediently in place.

“Ack!” cried Charley, leaping out of the way. I darted behind Charley — if I was lucky, Patience wouldn’t even see me there.

But Patience didn’t break stride. In fact, she didn’t seem to notice us at all as she raced past and into the building.

Charley looked at me and I looked at her. “Okay,” she said. “Even for Patty, that was bizarre.”

I had to agree. I mean, it wasn’t like Patience was the warmest and fuzziest person. If anything, she was pretty high on the cold and bristly list. And moments like this reminded me all over again that there must be some incredibly freakish mutations at work in the Truesdale DNA — that was the only way to reconcile T.K., Patience, and Charley showing up on the same branch of the family tree.

But Patience not stopping for three seconds to lower her Chanel sunglasses, icily acknowledge our presence, and say something about how Charley’s batik silk jumpsuit and Sergio Rossi platform boots would be utterly inappropriate in any remotely civilized venue, much less on the Prescott campus?