Devilish (9 page)

“We’ve come to examine a bas-relief that’s on special display at the university,” he said. “A very fascinating piece from Byzantium. It strikes me that you might be interested in seeing it yourself. You seem quite a well-educated young woman. I speak as an experienced educator. I know a good student when I see one.”

This guy clearly had no intention of letting me go. He had a bad case of the chats-too-much.

“I guess,” I said.

“Incidentally, the lamb was quite excellent. Please tell your mother that we were extremely satisfied. We would certainly recommend The Pink Peppercorn. Wouldn’t we, Claris?”

Claris looked deep into the Brown bookstore window, obviously not too interested in meeting a short high school student whose mom worked in a restaurant. “It was good,” she said. But she didn’t mean it. She said it the same way you say something like, “The cable’s gone out.”

Her eyes met mine in the window. They glowed white as they reflected off the lettering of a Brown sweatshirt. I turned back to Mr. Fields, who was beaming like an idiot.

“What brings you out today, Jane?” he asked. “Just taking in this fine afternoon?”

“I’m getting coffee.”

“As are we. Perhaps we could get a cup together?”

“The dog has been in the car for a long time,” Claris said, wheeling around. “We should get the dog.”

“Yes,” he said. I could tell he was annoyed, but he buried it. “That is a good point. Our dog has been in the car perhaps a bit too long. He’s not fond of the car. He sometimes enacts canine rituals on the seats as a form of retaliation. But there’s time enough for a quick cup, I think.”

He smiled his small-toothed smile, and Claris openly rolled her eyes and turned the other way, this time looking into the slow-moving single lane of traffic in the road.

“Let’s just get it to go,” she said. “There’s a Starbucks here.”

An almost-visible ripple of discomfort passed between them. I hate adults who have stupid fights in front of strangers.

“I’ve got to go anyway,” I said. “I’m meeting a friend.”

“Ah!” he said. “We won’t keep you any longer, Jane. Maybe some other time, if fate throws us together. We are spending some time in this area, so this is quite possible.”

He bowed, and then he and Claris continued on their way. I hurried in the opposite direction, just in case he had a change of heart and just had to tell me something else.

“Wonderful,” I said to myself. “Now I’m going to see this guy everywhere. I’m the luckiest girl I know. How much better can my life get?”

Pasquale’s was deeper into the Brown campus than we usually went. It took me a while to find it, since it was half hidden under a photocopy shop, with only a small blackboard and a clump of smokers outside identifying it. Edith Piaf was warbling in French over the stereo. There was an array of vegan cookies on display that looked disturbingly like dog biscuits. For entertainment, there was a shelf full of yellowing books and some Jurassic board games that you could tell were missing pieces without even looking in the box. A girl in a massive, checked head scarf was sobbing her eyes out at a table in the corner. Another girl walked in behind me carrying a tomato sauce jar half full of water. The jar had no lid.

This kind of thing isn’t so unusual around Brown, which is filled with the Ivy League’s most entertaining misfits. They liked to hang out in places like this.

Allison was sitting primly to one side, two mismatched mugs in front of her. She was sipping from one very cautiously. She waved me over with a manicured hand,
wrapped in an adorable pair of green-and-white-striped fingerless gloves. These went right up to her elbow, where they met the sleeve of a tight white angora sweater.

“I got you a drink already,” she said, pushing something steamy and vaguely minty in my direction. This movement sent our rickety table wobbling, and some hot brown liquid lurched out, dripping off the table and immediately onto my lap. “It’s a soy something. If there’s anything else you want, I’ll get it for you.”

She waved her hand at the counter, but then, realizing how unappealing the offerings were, withdrew it.

“I just wanted to go somewhere different to talk,” she explained. “Somewhere private.”

She rubbed at the back of her left hand and smiled weakly.

“Okay,” I said. “What’s up?”

“All the things that I’ve been getting recently,” she said. “They haven’t been from my aunt. But you probably guessed that. You’re smarter than me. I can’t lie very well.”

“I thought it was strange,” I said. “But why were you lying? Where’s it from?”

She pressed her lips together, and they wobbled a bit.

“I got an … offer. That’s all. I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t think you would like it.”

“A credit card offer?” I asked.

“Not exactly,” she said. “It’s sort of a scholarship.”

“There are no scholarships for getting your hair colored, Al. There are no scholarships for sweaters.”

“No, listen,” she said. “This is a special scholarship. They give me money for things I need—money for clothes, money to get my hair done, to go out. They believe in investing in image. They say it builds self-confidence and brings out your potential.”

“They? Who is they?”

“Just people,” she said, shifting the table nervously. “Rich people who like to invest in the people they feel have potential but need some help.”

I leaned back in my chair just to the point where the back started to give, then came down with a thump, shaking the table again and sending soy milk foam everywhere.

“This sounds a little weird to me, Al,” I said. “Where did you meet these people?”

“They came to school. And they liked me. And it’s working, Jane. I feel good for once. I look good. I feel confident. Like the other day in class. Before, I would have just panicked when Sister Charles asked me something. But I didn’t. I remembered what was in the book, and I gave the right answer. This is what I’m really like, Jane. I’m not stupid or ugly.”

“Of course you’re not,” I said. “You never were.”

“Yes, Jane. I was a freak. That’s why I got left at the prom. Because I was ugly and weird. That’s why I got nervous and puked all over that freshman. That’s why every part of my life has been a failure.”

Her hands were shaking a bit now. She gripped the cup in front of her.

“That’s why you’re my only friend.”

I drew back at that.

“I don’t mean
that
,” she said, grabbing my hand. “You know I love you. I just mean you’re the only real friend I’ve ever had. No one else has ever seen anything in me. But these people do.”

“What’s it called?” I said.

“They’re called the Margarita Society. Not the drink. Margarita’s an old name. They’re not very public, just a bunch of private investors.”

Everything about this stank.

“I wanted to talk to you about something else,” she said. “And you aren’t going to like it, but just hear me out.”

“Okay …”

“I want us to do something like we used to do, you know, before?”

“Before?”

“You know, before. With Elton.”

This had taken a very unexpected turn. A lump suddenly developed in my throat. I felt like I’d swallowed a cork.

“I want us all to go Boston, like we used to,” she said. “All three of us.”

I took a long drink from my lukewarm, soy mint whatever.

“What for?” I finally brought myself to ask.

“Don’t you think it’s time we all tried to be friends
again?” she asked. “It’s been six months, and I just thought … It would be nice, wouldn’t it?”

Suddenly, all those things that Brother Frank had been saying to me, about things changing, about this year really mattering, they took on a heavy significance I could barely place. I sat there for a moment and chewed on my nails, my worst and oldest deep-thinking habit.

“I know this is hard, Jane,” she said, “but please? It’ll be great, I promise. We’ll be like we used to be. It would mean a lot to me. After all, he was my friend too.”

This was a low blow, but she was right. I couldn’t stop them from being friends.

“You can go,” I said. “I won’t be mad.”

“It’s not the same. It was better when it was all three of us. I promise it will be okay. We’ll go tomorrow. We have the day off. You got the note, right?”

She examined her cell phone.

“I have to go in a minute,” she said. “Just say yes? For me? Consider this the biggest favor you’ve ever done for me.”

My best friend’s time was getting precious.

“Yes,” I finally said. “Okay. Sure. For you.”

“Train station,” she said excitedly. “Ten o’clock.”

“Where are you going?” I asked. “Maybe we could do something tonight?”

“No, I have a … dinner. For the society. They make me go to a lot of dinners. But tomorrow!”

I sat there thinking for a moment after she had gone. If
there were scholarship givers running around St. T.’s, I was fairly certain that Brother Frank would have known about them and would have told me. Unless that’s what it was he was talking about … Maybe he was trying to warn me that there were rich strangers in our midst who wanted to pay for me to get a better hair color and to go to Harvard and get a pony.

No. People like this did not exist. Did they? Clearly, they did. And was that all Al had ever needed? A new sweater, some highlights?

There was that Fields guy. He said he was an educator, but he hadn’t been anywhere near our school, and he never asked me about my studies. Nor did he hand me any large wads of cash. He asked about menus and historical things. He had asked me for coffee, but his partner had declined.

Had I been up for one of those scholarships and had I lost it? Had Claris just rejected me on the spot? That thought burned a bit. In all fairness to everyone, if the scholarship fairy was in town, then it should be flying through my window.

No. None of this added up. So there was only one thing to do—follow Ally to this dinner and find out what this was about. There was no need to feel weird or bad, I told myself as I bolted out of my seat and scanned the street. I had to make sure my best friend in the world wasn’t getting herself into some kind of trouble.

Ally was just at the corner, getting ready to cross. I
was half a block behind her. We walked down several baretreed streets, past cars that were still dinged and porches propped up by wooden beams. We were just on the opposite side of the university, in an area I knew well but hadn’t come to in months. House after familiar house.

We reached a corner that I hoped Ally didn’t turn, but she did. This street was narrow, so it would be hard to hide myself. I didn’t need to look to see where she was going, though. I already knew. She was going to the third house on the left. And when she knocked on the door, Elton answered it.

I felt my breath go shallow.

Okay. So she was meeting Elton. That made sense. She’d just asked me about him. And they were old friends. They were allowed. I thought about walking over to tell them both that there was no need to be so secretive. I had agreed to go to Boston already.

But my gut was telling me that there was a bit more to come. I had known from the moment she mentioned it. I thought about turning around to prevent myself from seeing what I suddenly knew I was about to see but couldn’t. I had to watch it. I had to see it happen.

It was just a brief kiss as he was ushering her inside, but it said everything. It was comfortable, familiar. Definitely not the first time. It was the kind of kiss you have after there have been many more serious kisses, and now you can toss them around to say hello.

Nothing feels like betrayal. Nothing. It comes with
an icy shock that stuns your whole spirit, physically rattles you. My knees started to give, so I leaned against a nearby car for support. I set the car alarm off. I didn’t care. I knew it wouldn’t draw their attention, even though I wished it had. For a moment, I thought I was going to be sick but forced the feeling down.

I needed to be somewhere else. Not standing here. I had to move. But I couldn’t go home either. Anywhere else. A refuge where I could sit and think.

That’s when I remembered the card. I almost tore my bag looking for it, but it was there, crushed down at the bottom with some paper crumbs and change—the little lilac card that told me where Lanalee Tremone lived. Just holding it, smelling the rose scent, reassured me. Lanalee was a girl of the world, and if anyone could help me, she could.

Lanalee didn’t live far—not in distance. She lived far in the sense of income range and taste. Her house was one of the grand old Victorians that dot the city. It was maroon and massive, with a circular glass-roofed sunroom attached to the side.

As I stood there on the porch, I felt the last reserve of the pure adrenaline that had pumped through me all the way here leave my body in one gasp—gone, like a ghost deciding the haunting was over. What was left was cold air and a horrible, hollow feeling the likes of which I’d never experienced. I gave the massive pineapple door knocker a few bangs, and a moment later, Lanalee was in front of me.

People always look different out of their uniforms. Lanalee looked a lot older, a lot more graceful. She was wearing a very tight and thin red T-shirt with a black lightning bolt on the shoulder and a slim black skirt. Her legs were bare except for a heavy pair of ringed tube socks, which slumped around her little green-bean-thin ankles at two different heights.

“Hey, Jane,” she said cheerfully. “What’s up?”

I said nothing. I just stood there shivering on the doorstep.

“Something’s wrong,” she said. “Come on in.”

She pulled me inside, slipping and staggering along in her stocking feet, leading me through to a massive living room—or rather a series of linked living rooms and dining rooms and sitting rooms that were connected by a few wide archways, making one massive room. The room had much too much furniture in it, and all of it was random, large, and from totally different historical periods. Our house was full of totally random pieces of furniture as well, but the effect was different. The Tremones said, “We give money to museums from time to time.” Ours said, “We baby-proofed once and never upgraded.”