Casey Barnes Eponymous (21 page)

She thought about Ben and smiled.
 
But it was short-lived because Yull
chose that moment to enter her room uninvited.
 
“What happened last night?”

She placed her laptop beside her, stood, and stretched.
 
“I got a long and refreshing night’s
sleep.
 
Did you, dear brother?”

Yull walked over to the closet, and looked inside.
 

“She left before dawn,” Casey said.

“Did she now?
 
Funny
that I didn’t hear her given that I heard the two of you, loud and clear, when
you took off in the middle of the night.”
 

She stared at him.
 
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Oh but I bet you don’t.”

The house phone rang.
 
“Who’s calling at this hour?” Yull asked suspiciously.
 
She shrugged.
  

“Casey,” Tricia bellowed from the hall.
 
She opened it.
 
Her mother was standing in the hall with
the phone in hand.
 

“Yes, mother?”

“Mrs. Robinson is on the phone.
 
She says that in the middle of the night
an un-marked package containing
brownies
was
deposited on their doorstep.
 
Do you
know anything about this?”
 

Behind Casey, Yull sank onto the bed with a groan.
 
Casey shook her head.
 
“Absolutely not.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.
 
Now if you’ll
excuse me, I was getting assistance from my dear brother on wardrobe choices
for the second day of talent show auditions.
 
Talent show, the extra-curricular
activity that I slaved over
brownies
for
the other day.”

“Who’s the advisor for talent show, Yull?
 
I’m calling to verify that this supposed
bake sale took place.”

Casey turned and mouthed, ‘Fuck you.’

Yull closed his eyes.
 
“I can’t remember.”
 

Tricia glowered at her and stomped away.
 
As soon as she was gone Yull got up and
closed the door behind her.
 
“How
idiotic can you be?
 
All this time I
thought it was an act.”

“We didn’t mean to…
what
did you
think was an act?”

“You acting stupid and doing badly in school.
 
I thought it was just a reaction to, you
know…” He bit his lip.

“Having a brother who’s perfect?
 
Um, no Yull.
 
Doing badly in school is something I’m
able to achieve on my own merits, thank you very much.”

Yull sighed.
 
“You
could do better if you tried.”

She glanced at the time on her alarm clock.
 
“Lookey there.
 
The time has come for Yull to get out of
Casey’s room before he gets shot.
 
Did you have any idea it was that time, Yull?”
 
She pushed him in the direction of the
door.
 

That day at school, several odd and interesting things
occurred.
 

1. Bizarrity Número Uno
.
 
Ben showed up at Casey’s locker after
second period.
 
Casey had never seen
him at that time of day before.
 
Not
even a once.
 
He loitered.
 
Casey A) straightened up, B) smiled
because she was happy to see him, and, C) got embarrassed about having
smiled.
 

“Any word from Leigh?” he asked.

“She emailed me to say she’s okay, but she didn’t say where she
is.
 
And she didn’t respond to the
email I sent her back.”
 

“At least she’s alive,” he said.
 
She waited for him to say something
about the night before.
 
He
didn’t.
 

“I guess I’ll see you in Spanish class,” she said and turned
back to her locker.
 

But instead of leaving Ben moved closer.
 
“It was fun last night.”
 
Then he walked away.

2.
Bizarrity Número Dos
.
 
There was still no word from Leigh as of
fourth, aka library, period.
 
Casey checked
her email no less than four times.
 
She even called Mrs. Robinson’s candle store from the library phone when
Mr. Cole was in the bathroom.
 
“This
is Casey.
 
Casey Barnes.”
 

Mrs. Robinson sighed.
 
“I recognize your voice, Casey.”
 

“Splendid.
 
I was
wondering if you’ve had any word from Leigh?”
 

“She called me yesterday.
 
But other than that, nothing.”
 

Casey frowned.
 
“I’m
sorry to hear that.”
 

“Are you?” Mrs. Robinson asked.
 
Casey didn’t respond.
 
“There was a strange package left on our
doorstep last night,” Mrs. Robinson added, “You wouldn’t happen to know
anything about that, would you?”
 

“Why, no,” Casey said, “But I wouldn’t eat anything given to
you by strangers, Mrs. R.
 
For all
you know it could be the devilish handiwork of a competing candle store
proprietor and contain arsenic.”
  

“I don’t think so,” Mrs. Robinson said dryly, “And of course we
weren’t planning on eating them.
 
Even if I do have my suspicions about who delivered it.”

Mr. Cole re-entered the library.
 

“Gotta go,” Casey said and hung up the phone.
 

But that wasn’t the full extent of the second strange
thing.
 
The full extent of the
second strange thing was that, as Casey obsessed over where Leigh could be and
whether or not she and Ben would kiss later that day and Mr. Cole wrote a note
that said
ONLY STAFF, MEANING FULL-TIME UNION MEMBERS, CAN
USE THE LANDLINE.
 
NO
EXCEPTIONS,
Sukh walked into the library with a big smile on his
face and said, “Congratulations.”
 
Casey
narrowed her eyes.
 
Had Ben told him
about the night before?

“Por quoi ‘Congratulations,’ Master Sukh?”

Sukh was surprised.
 
“You mean you do not know?”
 
Casey’s
mouth fell open.
 
The talent show
audition callback list.
 
She was so
distracted with thoughts of Ben and Leigh that she actually forgot to check it.
 
And Sukh said ‘congratulations.’
 

“You mean we didn’t get cut?” she whispered.
 

Sukh shook his head.
 
“We’re on the list!
 
I think
we should play our new song.”
 

“We absolutely should play our new song!
 
I’ll see you after school,
bass-meister.”
 
Sukh saluted Casey
and departed the library.
 
Casey got
off her stool and waved her arms in the air Rocky Balboa style.
 

“Cut that out,” Mr. Cole growled.

3.
The third, fourth perhaps?,
crazy thing.
 
A second
after Casey ceased jumping up and down, Ms. Vernon, the French teacher talent
show advisor whom Casey
might
have
offended the day before, entered the library.

Ms. Vernon was in her late twenties.
 
She was skinny and had a chic if
somewhat austere gamine haircut that she accompanied with tight black
clothing.
 
In addition to talent
show committee, she was also advisor for the Amnesty International Club (and,
of course, thought Yull should be knighted).
 
Leigh had her for French the previous
year and said she often inter-cut grammar lessons with discussion of atrocity
in Africa and vignettes about the Impressionists.
 
The Impressionists got equal airtime as
African dictators.
 
“I just got off
the phone with your mother,” Ms. Vernon said.
 

“Is that so?” Casey asked.
 

“She said the other night you made brownies for
what you told her was some sort of bake sale to benefit talent show.”
 
Ms. Vernon tilted her head to the
side.
 
“I knew nothing about this.”
 

“Really?”

“Furthermore,” Ms. Vernon continued, “she said
Leigh Robinson has run away from home and that both Mrs. Robinson and she
suspect you’ve been helping her.
 
And she said a mysterious package of brownies was dropped on the
doorstep of the Robinson family home last night.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Casey observed Mr.
Cole listening with interest.
 
She
turned back to Ms. Vernon.
 
“First
of all, there was a bake sale to benefit talent show.”

“There was
not--
” Ms.
Vernon began.
 

“There
was.
 
But it was a grassroots bake
sale and it happened after school hours in the quad.”
 

“A grassroots bake sale?” Ms. Vernon snapped, “To
make money for what?”
 

“New light gels.
 
The ones from last year got stolen.”
 

“That’s not true.”

“Is too.”
 
It wasn’t.
 

Ms. Vernon glared.
 
“As I had no knowledge of this ‘bake
sale’ I told your mother it never existed.”
 

“I would’ve thought an education professional who
quotes Sartre would’ve been a bit more open-minded,” Casey said.
 
From behind her Casey heard Mr. Cole
snort and go back to his paperwork.

“Watch it, Barnes,” Ms. Vernon snarled.
 
Casey thew her hands in the air in an
I’m-innocent
gesture.
 
Ms. Vernon turned and marched out of the library.

“Hate the French,” Mr. Cole grumbled.
 

“She’s from Boston,” Casey said.

And then there was Spanish class, which was
cloaked in an air of weirdness from the start because Ben had been
absent
at lunch, a period he shared with Casey, a fact there
was no way he was not conscious of, especially on that of all days.
 
He entered class right before the bell
and shot her a tight look.
 
At the
front of the room, Señor Griffin began to blabber about reflexive verbs.

Casey scribbled a note.
 
Where were you at lunch?
 
After a moment he passed it
back.
 
Had to
study.
 
She felt
odd.
 
Couldn’t he at least elaborate
on what it was he was studying?
 
She
wrote.
 
Did you hear
about talent show auditions?
 
Ben
responded.
 
 
Saw Sukh in hall.
 
He told me we’re playing our new song.
 

A wave of understanding broke.
 
Ben was pissed that they were going to
play “Maxine French is a Bitch” at talent show auditions.
 
He had thought--mistakenly, of course--that
after engaging in a session of tongue hockey with his front woman, he would be
in a position to influence whether or not Pop Wire played their divisive new
single.

Señor Griffin chose that moment to ask Casey a question.
 
“Yo no sé,” she responded in a tone that
suggested that Señor Griffin attempting to get useful information out of her
that day would be as futile as assigning a summer reading list.