Keaton School 01: Escape Theory (9 page)

Devon released her crushing grip on her notebook. “So you never found out who the test was for?”
^†

Cleo took a deep breath and leaned back. “Is this session about me or Hutch?”

“About you, of course,” Devon said, trying to recover from her misstep. “I just want to understand why you’re the only one that got in trouble. How did they know you were shoplifting?”

Cleo shrugged. “Manager claims he saw me in the overhead mirror. We had a little chat in his office and he let me off with a
warning. Said he wouldn’t press charges but was going to tell the school. I told him I was troubled, bullied, unsure of my sexuality … you know the type of caring adult. Anything to help the troubled youth. So then Wyler sent me to you. Required therapy. And
voilà
, here I am.”

Devon folded her hands in her lap.

Cleo tugged at her Burberry boots. “You’d think for $500 bucks these things could at least guarantee no blisters, huh?” She didn’t seem to be interested whether Devon answered her or not. She was killing time here because she had to. Devon was background music to her; the piano player in a mall you might walk past, but would never consider an actual musician.

“Do you think you’re troubled? I mean, if you said that to the pharmacy manager, do you think there’s an element of truth to it?” Devon asked.

Cleo lifted her gaze from her boots. “How much training have you actually had?” Devon hated this question. Mainly because her own answer made her cringe.
Not very much
. “Does it matter?” she finally asked.

“Yes, because, we’re not exactly BFF,
n’est-ce pas
? I started here last year, we’ve never been roommates, never taken a weekend away together, never laughed over a crush on a hot guy, so, remind me … why the hell would I tell
you
anything?”

“You don’t have to tell me anything. You’re just required to be here for five sessions. What we talk about is up to you,” Devon said.

Cleo shrugged. Her face softened the slightest bit.
“Tres bien.”

Devon placed her notebook and pen on the floor. Maybe that would be less threatening. Just keep Cleo talking; that was the bare minimum she could accomplish. “So, what do you want to talk about?

“I wanna know who that pregnancy test was for,” Cleo responded immediately. “Hutch and Isla broke up this summer. Maybe that changed and they hooked up again. If not, there’s a mystery lady we don’t know about. A black widow so to speak. A
femme fatale
who will do anything to protect her secret. All I know is: Some girl who’s too scared to get her own test is walking around wondering if she’s pregnant with a dead guy’s baby. Don’t you want to know who that could be? I’d kill to know who it is.” Cleo was leaning forward now, drawing Devon into her gossip circle once again—eyes wide enough so that Devon could see the smoky blue color behind the layer of black eyeliner.

Devon could only nod. Her heart raced. A secret pregnant girl on campus? Not Isla. Hutch had written her off. Did Matt know? No, because if he did know Hutch was sleeping with someone else, why would he mention Hutch’s plan to take Devon to prom? And then there was Hutch himself. When Devon saw him that first day of school he hadn’t acted like someone who was hiding a terrible secret or hanging out with a girl on the side. She hadn’t even gotten the “memo” about Isla. But, Devon had to admit, he also didn’t act like someone who was about to commit suicide the next day either. Happy, flirty, planning ahead. Devon couldn’t shake the thought:
A black widow
. Hutch may be gone, but this girl was still out there, if what Cleo was saying were true.

“Come on, where’s your imagination?” Cleo demanded. “Golden Boy kills himself out of the blue. Something drove him to it. And maybe our mystery lady knows. Or maybe she’s the reason he did it. Think about it. Hutch knocked somebody up. That’s gotta weigh pretty heavy on the conscious don’t you think? A good guy like Hutch?” She raised an eyebrow at Devon.

“Why’d you call him a Golden Boy?” Devon wondered out loud, forgetting the peer counseling setting. The question had nothing to do with her shoplifting, or helping Cleo become a better person.

“Hey, I’m just the messenger. Hutch was born like that. Lap of luxury. Never had to work at anything, except making sure his smile was as perfect as it could be. Our parents belong to the same golf club in San Fran. All of this drama kind of just goes with the territory.”

“What do you mean: the territory? Was there a suicide before in Hutch’s family?”

“No. Nothing as scandalous as all that. It’s just rich people, you know. Embezzlement, drug problems, alcoholism, secret children.… It tends to happen in the higher tax brackets because they think the world revolves around them. Ponzi schemes? Those have nothing to do with investing; it’s all an ego trip. A massive pissing contest between a few über-wealthy guys with other people’s money. And suicide? It’s pretty much the most selfish thing a person can do. Hey, everyone pay attention to me, I’m dead. Only, joke’s on them because they’re still dead whether anyone cares or not.”

Devon swallowed. “Wow, I guess I never thought of it that way. Then again, that’s not my tax bracket, so to speak.”

“That’s just the world as I’ve seen it thus far. Who knows? I could change my mind about it all tomorrow. Not likely. But, I could.”

“So, if suicide is selfish, are you saying that Hutch was selfish too? Wasn’t he just buying a pregnancy test for someone? That doesn’t seem like the act of a selfish person.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Clew frowned. “Did I crush your vision of the Golden Boy?”

“No, it’s not … I didn’t have some vision of Golden.…” Devon stammered.

“Wow, Devon, you little minx. Here I was thinking you were the Good Grade Girl, but you got a chocolaty chewy center, don’t you?” Cleo’s eyes lit up.

“What? I don’t have a chocolaty chewy anything,” Devon fought back.

“Puh-lease. You have a hard-on for Hutch, don’t you?” Cleo turned her voice into a small whine and pretended to be Devon. “ ‘He’s not selfish. He was doing a good thing up until he accidentally took too many Oxy pills.’ ” She folded her arms and sat back in her chair. Her voice dropped back to normal. “Do you want to think this through a little bit more before you come down on the side of the defense?”

“I don’t have a hard-on for Hutch,” Devon began.

“You totally do! You’ve got a serious case of
amour fou
. Shit, why am I the one in the hot seat?”

“Seriously, I don’t … wait, what’s
amour
 … forget it.” Devon took a deep breath. She couldn’t lose control of the session like this. “Whatever Hutch was going through, and clearly none of us really knew, it was something painful. And even in death, I think he deserves our compassion and respect. Is that so difficult to imagine, or does that make me self-centered too?” Devon stared Cleo down, hoping Cleo wouldn’t notice that she was walking an uncertain tightrope of authority.

Cleo turned to the window. The slightest blush appeared on her porcelain cheeks. Her hair fell to her face from behind her ears, but she didn’t put it back in its place. Finally she sighed.

“Whatever. Just make sure you’re looking at what’s really there, not what you want to see. Otherwise you’ll be disappointed.”

“Noted. Thanks. I think our time is up for the day, so for next week—”

“Save it. See you next week,
counselor
.” Cleo said the word with disdain dripping from her tongue. She pushed her way out of the room and slammed the door.
^‡

Devon exhaled deeply. It wasn’t personal; she knew that. Cleo just didn’t like being required to be here. Who would? Devon reached for her notebook and pen on the ground, but only found the notebook. She got on all fours on the thin carpet and looked under Cleo’s chair. The pen hadn’t rolled under there.

All at once, she smiled. First lesson of doing sessions with a kleptomaniac: Expect something to be stolen. It’s not like Cleo could go far; they were all stuck on the same mountain. She’d calmly and politely ask for her pen back at their next session, even though she kind of wanted to sneak into Cleo’s room and steal it back. But starting a stealing war with a klepto probably wasn’t a good move. Klepto lesson number two.

As Devon tucked her notebook into her backpack, she couldn’t shake the thought:
Hutch got someone pregnant
. And Cleo was right. Sure, Devon could run to his defense. But who she defending, exactly?

D
INNER WAS WRAPPING UP
. Plates and glasses clanged from the back of kitchen. A tray of limp Sloppy Joes and mushy peas waited at the end of the serving line for the last stragglers of the evening. Devon grabbed a Sloppy Joe but left the peas alone. A Keaton rule: If something looked bad, it tasted worse. After all, Presley had just been reminded of that the tough way.

As Devon moved to the salad bar, she spotted Mr. Robins at a table chatting away with Ms. Ascher, the French teacher and girls soccer coach. Devon kept her head down. Hopefully Mr. Robins wouldn’t feel the need to chat. Jicama. Cherry tomatoes. Romaine lettuce from the student vegetable garden. That always made her smile. Leave it to California boarding schools to not only have students willingly eat their vegetables, but grow them too.

“Devon?” Mr. Robins called.

Shit
. “Oh, Mr. Robins, hey. Didn’t see you there.” Devon poured dressing on her salad. He stood and strode toward her.
Keep moving
.

“How are the sessions going?” he asked. Funny: For the first time, Devon noticed that he wasn’t actually as tall as she had thought. He probably wasn’t taller than five feet nine inches. She wondered if he had a girlfriend somewhere or if he was just a thirty something single guy stuck on this hill with a group of hormonal teenagers. What adult would choose that lifestyle?

“Um, great. We’re still meeting tomorrow to discuss everything, right?” Devon looked around. Most of the tables nearby were empty, but still, she didn’t want to talk about this stuff in such a public place.

“Right, right. Tomorrow’s still on. Just wanted to see how you were holding up.”

“It’s great. I’m great. I’ll fill you in at our meeting.”

With that, Devon made a beeline for the back of the Dining Hall. No quicker way to get flagged as a narc than to talk about this therapy stuff in the middle of freaking dinner. She put her tray down at an unoccupied table two tables away from the Corner Table—the preferred home base of freshman troublemakers. The kids who sat here were out of the teacher’s sightline so they could throw food, make towers with cups, or spit balls to stick to the ceiling. True to form, a few freshman boys were shooting sunflower seeds at each other through their straws. Two girls sat with them, clearly bored.

Devon almost smiled to herself. She remembered those days when tentative friendships were formed—not with roommates or classmates, but accidentally, during the in-between times on campus. After dinners, lounging on lawns before study hours, late nights in the kitchen.…

“No, I’m telling you. That stuff is totally easy to OD on,” a freshman boy with spiky blond hair was telling his friends. “My uncle lived in the building next to Heath Ledger’s place. He said accidental overdoses happen more often than you would think.”

“Whatever,” one of the girls with a fishtail braid said back. “I heard he was taking Oxy like every day. Total addict.” Devon’s ears perked up.

“I heard he wrote a suicide note in blood,” another boy said.

“That’s totally not true. I heard he made a YouTube video right before,” said Fishtail.

Nice: a game of one-upsmanship about how Hutch killed himself. But not surprising. Every freshman aspired to be a Keaton expert.

“Makes you miss a home-cooked meal, huh?” a voice said behind Devon.

Maya
. She dropped her tray at Devon’s table. Maya was a fellow junior: half Vietnamese and with her almond shaped eyes and petite frame Devon always thought she looked like a really pretty doll. Devon could easily imagine her in a pink tutu, spinning to music in a little girl’s jewelry box.

“I’m sure there are jails with more edible food.” Devon scooped up her Sloppy Joe; most of it plopped back down onto her plate as she took her first bite. Maya had a big glass of iced tea, jammed with ice, and a plate with a few cucumber slices and carrot sticks.

“Not hungry?” Devon asked.

“I had a big lunch.” Maya took a polite sip of her drink. Her jet-black hair was twisted and clipped on the top of her head, every hair in place. “I heard you were talking to folks about Hutch. Like grief counseling or something?”

“Yeah, just helping out where I can,” Devon replied, trying not to stare at the pink powder dusting across Maya’s cheekbones. Devon had never seen Maya without full make-up, even during sports. The rumor was that Maya woke up at 5
A.M.
every day so she would have enough time to get it all together before 8
A.M.
classes. She apparently had her own airbrush machine to keep her foundation perfectly applied. Devon wouldn’t know where to start with and airbrush.

“That’s cool of you. Hutch was one of the good guys. It’s.…” Maya picked up a cucumber slice and put it back on her plate. She bit her lip. “It just sucks, what happened.”

“How much does dinner blow?” Presley slammed her tray on the table next to Devon. “What’d I miss?”

Maya blinked several times. “I was just leaving. I’ve got a pack of Ramen in my room that is way better than this.” She pulled a lipstick tube out of her pocket and expertly applied a bright coral color to her lips, then blotted on her paper napkin and tossed it on top of her plate—sealing her scant meal with a kiss. “Later.”

Devon had always noticed that Maya didn’t so much walk as she sashayed—even when dumping her dinner tray.
She dresses like she’s going to a board meeting
. Button down shirts, knee-length skirts, ballet flats; Maya was the queen of Grace and Proper. She looked like a foreigner in the country of Lazy and Comfy, a sea of sweats, flip-flops and ripped jeans. But maybe that was envy talking. Lipstick blotting and sashaying were not things that came either easily or gracefully to Devon.