And then I realized why she was so familiar. She reminded me of me. That was my attitude, my voice, my exact thoughts. I had been so nervous that they got lost in the shuffle, but seeing them all in this girl made those qualities come rushing back.
I was a spy.
“I’ll stand if I want to,” I told her, squaring my shoulders and instantly feeling my posture fall back into place like an old friend. Oh, hi again, my body seemed to be saying. Thanks for finally getting your game face on. “You’re the one who can keep following the herd.”
She didn’t even blink. “I’m not a follower.”
“That’s funny, because you’re sitting behind me.” I picked an invisible piece of lint off my blazer.
“It all depends on perception,” she retorted.
“It all depends on who’s perceiving,” I shot back.
She finally grinned. “Well, it’s about time someone cool showed up.” She nodded at the seat across from her. “I’m Roux.”
“Roo?” I said. “As in Kan—?”
“If you say Kanga, I will throw this apple at your head.” She just set it down, though. “It’s R-O-U-X. My mom had a brief fling with the French language when I was born.”
“Maggie,” I replied, wishing my mother had had an affair with the French language, too. Next to Roux, Maggie sounded like some wide-hipped farmhand who thought the Moulin Rouge was a new type of makeup. “It’s my first day.”
Roux widened her eyes dramatically. “No!”
“I’m as thrilled as you are,” I replied.
The easiest way to talk to someone new is to say what you think they want you to say. It was even easier when that’s what you would have said anyway. Roux was making this a piece of cake.
“Junior?” she guessed, and I nodded. “Yeah, me too. You know you can go off-campus for lunch, right?”
I shrugged. “Why? You just told me not to be a follower.”
She grinned for real this time. “You’re a quick learner.”
“Roux,” I said, “you have no idea.”
Within fifteen minutes, I learned that she was left-handed, hated school, and wore her uniform inside out after fighting a three-month battle with the school board. “I’m still wearing it,” she pointed out. “I just like to toy with their heads.” Then she glanced up and down at my plain uniform. “What are you going to do with this unfortunate situation?”
She didn’t need to know that I had the accessorizing abilities of a paralyzed flea. “Keep it as is.” I shrugged. “I have bigger things to worry about.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Well, at least the boots are good.”
“The uniform’s scandalous enough,” I pointed out, motioning to the skirt. I would have killed for a pair of tights, especially now that the sun was slipping behind some clouds. “Did they buy these things on Canal Street?”
She snorted, but I saw her hand go protectively to her Balenciaga motorcycle bag. Knockoff, I thought. “They’ve all got a jones for the Lolita look,” she agreed. “And polyester.”
I drummed my unpolished fingernails on the table, realizing that a manicure was going to have to happen pretty soon. “So, where do you live?”
“Upper East Side. Worst side ever. One subway line for two million people. Germ central. You?”
“Soho,” I said, jerking a thumb over my shoulder like she didn’t know where it was. “It’s right on Prince.”
“Nice. Loft?”
I nodded.
“We’ve got this ridiculous prewar thing. It’s so ugly and old.” She wrinkled her nose. “My dad refuses to move, but he travels all the time, so it’s not like he’s even there to see the ‘classic crown moldings.’” She made finger quotes around the last words, then sighed. “I want a loft on Prince.”
I just nodded again, but inside I was doing cartwheels. This girl was so easy! Most people don’t start talking like this, which told me one thing: she was lonely. The fact that she had been sitting by herself only added to my suspicions.
I was pretty sure I had just made my first friend.
“So,” she said brightly, “who do you think is cute here?”
No time like the present.
“You know who I really want to meet?” I told her, leaning in like a conspirator and dropping my voice a little. “Jesse Oliver.”
Roux looked unimpressed. “Are you kidding me? You have a bad-boy thing?”
Honesty was definitely the best policy here. “I tend to thrive in exciting situations.”
She rolled her eyes. “Jesse’s the equivalent of beige housepaint that thinks it’s really neon pink.” She paused before adding, “But he is cute.”
The word “beige” made me sit up a little, but not as much as the word “cute.” “So you like him?” I asked. The last thing I needed was a rivalry with some faux-French, knockoff-bagged high school girl over a guy that I didn’t even want in the first place. That sort of thing was just not in my wheelhouse.
“Oh, God, no.” Roux waved away the idea with her hand. “I’ve known him since we were, like, four.”
Phew.
“So will you introduce me?” I asked. I knew I sounded a little eager, but one morning of high school had taught me the importance of getting this assignment over with as fast as possible. “He’s cute. He’s just my type.”
He was so not my type.
“Sure,” Roux said. “I don’t know where he is today, though. He ditches a lot.”
Excellent news! If my target ditched school, that meant I could, too! “Cool.” I shrugged. “Whenever. It’s cool.”
The sooner, the better.
Chapter 3
After a mind-numbing afternoon filled with a chemistry teacher who clearly knew nothing about chemicals and a US history class pop quiz that I aced even without reading the source material, I was ready to go home.
I followed the herd down the stairs toward the wrought-iron gates. I saw something taped to one of the spires: a plain white business card with the letter A directly in the middle. On the back was a drawing of a pagoda.
I grinned. I would know that card anywhere.
Angelo was in town.
Union Square was a sensory mess, so many people and stores and styles. It was like a spy’s fantasy. Even if I ran around screaming, “I’m a spy! I’m an international safecracker and your safety is in my hands, mwah-ha-ha!” everyone would probably ignore me. Or throw spare change, who knows?
The streets got calmer and the trees got closer together as I walked up Irving Place and passed a tea-and-coffee bar. Angelo liked espressos, so I stopped in and used my dad’s twenty-dollar bill to buy two doubles. If he didn’t like them anymore, more for me. I needed a caffeine kick, anyway. The first day of school had flattened me.
I knew where Angelo would be even before I saw him: on the northwest side of Gramercy Park, near my favorite birdhouse. (It’s shaped like a pagoda, which cracks me up. Like the birds can even appreciate architecture.) The heavy gate was locked, of course, and I set down one of the espressos so I could dig a paper clip out of my backpack. The lock looked old, but I knew it wasn’t. They changed the locks every January 1. The key alone costs $350, and a replacement is $1,000.
It’s so funny that anyone would pay that much for a key when you can get an entire box of paper clips for two dollars.
But when I went to jiggle the lock, I realized that it was already open. Not enough so that anyone else would notice, but I frowned and put my paper clip back. Breaking into things is half the fun, after all.
“You cheated,” was the first thing I said when I saw Angelo.
He turned and smiled at me, folding his copy of The Guardian newspaper. He had gotten grayer since the last time I had seen him, nearly a year ago during a stopover at DeGaulle in Paris. His eyes were a little bit crinklier, but he was as impeccably dressed as always. Dark suit, lavender tie, and pocket square.
Of course he had a pocket square. Some things never change.
“How am I supposed to p
ractice my skills when you leave the gate open?” I said, though I couldn’t help but smile. “Nice pocket square.”
“Thank you, my love,” he said, then stood and hugged me. “Oh, you’ve gone and grown up.”
“Pfft,” I said. “I’ve been a grown-up since I was, like, four. Here,” I added. “Double espressos.”
“Oh, lovely, darling, it’s perfect.” He sat back down on the bench and patted the seat next to him. “Come, sit, discuss world affairs with me.”
I plopped down. “The world is ending.” I sighed. “Have you heard? It’s terrible news.”
“The world is ending,” he said. “The New York Post reminds me every morning.”
“You read that?”
“It’s important to absorb the entire news spectrum.” He sipped at his espresso. “Aaah, Irving Place. Delicious. So, you and your family are back in New York and the world is ending. What else is happening?”
I fixed my eyes on him. He raised an eyebrow. “This is serious,” I told him. “You saw where you left your card, right? It was at a high school. I have to go to high school.”
His mouth quivered just a bit.
“Don’t laugh at me!” I cried.
“Not laughing, my love, just a slight inward chuckle.” He dabbed at his mouth with his handkerchief. “It sounds like a perfect assignment for you. Think of all those lockers with locks.”
I waved my hand. “Whatever. Master Locks are child’s play.” I fixed my eyes on him. “Angelo?”
“Yes, love?” He was still trying not to smile.
“It’s terrible. Terrible. You have to get me out of it. You’ve been part of the Collective for a billion years—”
“I’m slightly younger than that, darling, but I appreciate the sentiment.”
“—and you can tell them that it’s crazy.” I sipped my espresso and made sad puppy eyes at him over the rim of my paper cup.
Angelo looked at me and shook his head. “Well, first, I don’t have quite the influence over the Collective that you think I do, so I’m afraid that you are going about this the wrong way. Now, sit. Drink your coffee. Look at the beautiful fall leaves. Breathe.”
See what I mean? Yoda.
We sat in silence for a few minutes until I was almost done with my espresso. A bunch of kids my age were starting to stream past the park gates, completely oblivious to Angelo and me sitting mere feet away. Just hearing their laughter made my stomach feel hot, then cold.
“See those girls?” I said, motioning toward four girls giggling and walking past us. “I can’t do that.”
Angelo looked over his shoulder at them. “They look relatively harmless.”
“Ha! That’s because you’re not a teenage girl. They’re piranhas, Angelo. Really well-dressed piranhas with shiny hair, who wear their clothes inside out.”
Angelo’s eyes cut to me. “Was someone cruel to you today?”
“Well, no. But it could happen! I’ve seen it in the movies.”
“Maggie, my love.” Angelo smiled. “Have we finally discovered something that scares you?” He gasped dramatically. “And they said it wasn’t possible!”
“I’m not scared!” I scoffed. (I was lying, I was totally scared, but there was no way I was going to admit that to Angelo.) “Please. I was in Egypt when the government collapsed, okay? That was scary. This is just annoying and stupid. I’m annoyed that it’s stupid.”
I sat back and motioned to the girls, who were now screaming with laughter over someone’s cell phone. “See, they’re probably a group of friends, but one girl’s like the ringleader”—I thought briefly of Roux—“and another’s the weak-link follower, and then the other two basically work as crowd control and—”
Angelo put his hand on my arm. “Maggie,” he said. “Your job has always been to be a spy. And now you’re going to be a spy in a high school. That’s all it is. No more, no less. Now explain the assignment to me.”
I sat back and gave him the brief rundown about the Oliver family and their wayward father and son. “So basically, I have to befriend some guy.” I rolled my eyes. “He’s probably a douche.”
Angelo cleared his throat.
“Sorry. He’s probably a jerk.” I sighed again. “He can’t even steal a paperback book, Angelo. It’s ridiculous. And I have to do homework and write term papers and it’s going to be horrible.”
Angelo patted my back consolingly. “Well, darling, all I have to say is that you are a wonderful spy, the daughter of wonderful spies, so I’m quite confident that you will make a perfectly adequate high school student.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled. “Tell me that part where I’m a wonderful spy again.”
Angelo laughed and shook his head. “Maggie, you’ve been the same since the day I met you. Very smart and very dramatic.”
I smiled despite myself. “Hey, thanks for the boots,” I said, holding up one leg to show him my new footwear. “I knew you picked them out.”
“My pleasure,” he said. “I did some research on what girls your age wear. Which reminds me …” He reached into his valise and pulled out a plastic bag from Hudson News. “I brought you some reading material.”
Teen Vogue and Seventeen magazines were inside, the cover girls beaming up at me. “Spice Up Your Uniform!” screamed one of the headlines. I wondered if they suggested wearing your uniform inside out.
I looked up at Angelo. “You bought these for me?”
He shrugged a little. “A bit of an awkward experience, to be sure, but yes. Consider it a welcome-to-New York gift.”
“You knew I was going to high school, didn’t you.”
“Of course,” he said. “I thought you might be ready for the challenge.”
I put the magazines on my lap, feeling a little bad. All I had done since I had seen him was complain. “I’m sorry, Angelo. I’ll be fine. I’ll survive the cutthroat experience with minimal scarring. What’s happening with you? How long are you here?”
“Oh, who knows,” he said, using a tone that said he definitely knew. “I’m enjoying my little life, my neighborhood, my new knives.”
“Are you slicing and dicing food or people?”
“Food.” He frowned down at me. “Really, Maggie.”
“Just checking.” I grinned. “Any cool assignments lately?”
“Oh, here and there,” he said, maddeningly vague. “I enjoy a bit of retirement now and then.”
“Pfft,” I scoffed at him. “Retirement? This from the man whose idea of fun is outrunning diamond smugglers in Botswana?”
He frowned. “Your parents weren’t supposed to tell you about that.”
“They didn’t. I overheard.”
He raised a disapproving eyebrow at me and sighed. “That’s very uncouth, Maggie.”
I just grinned. “Careful when you throw those rocks from your glass house,” I teased him. “Seriously, Angelo. Why don’t you go work for the Collective in London? You’d be good at it. You’re all mysterious and calm.”
Angelo shifted a little and looked over my head at the birdhouse. “Quite a ridiculous pagoda for birds,” he murmured. “And I don’t know, my dear. We shall see what happens.”
I was about to ask more, but he cut me off with, “Now, darling, I have to be going, but don’t worry, I’ll be around as you need me.” He stood up and straightened his suit jacket. “And you are going to be a lovely student. Just remember what we say—it’s all make-believe.”
“Make them believe,” I replied. Angelo had been drilling that into my head for years. “Thanks for the magazines.”
“And thank you for the espresso. A fair trade, I’m sure.” He offered me his arm. “Walk an old man out?”
I rolled my eyes but took his arm anyway. “Back to the world of assumed identities and dark secrets,” I said as we passed through the gates.
“Just like everyone else,” he replied, then leaned over and kissed the top of my head. “Tell your wonderful parents hello.” And just like that, he slipped h
is arm from mine and went around the corner, disappearing once again.
After Angelo left, I circled the park once to see if there were any new locks that I hadn’t seen yet. They were still the same, though, simple and easy to access, and I knocked back the rest of my espresso, spilling a drop on my white shirt (of course), and headed home.
My mom called when I was two blocks away from the loft. At first I didn’t even realize it was my phone that was ringing. It was a new disposable cell that had some crazy German-dance-rave ringtone, and by the time I finally got it out of my bag, I was mortified.
“Where are you?”
“I went to see a friend,” I said. “A friend” is what we call Angelo over the phone. “He bought me magazines with teenage girls in them.”
“How nice.” She totally wasn’t paying attention. “How was school?”
“Wow,” I said, “how weird is that question coming out of your mouth?”
“It’s definitely odd,” she replied, “and you didn’t answer it.”
My jacket flapped a little in the breeze from the river, and I tried to button it with one hand. “Frustrating,” I told her. “I didn’t see him yet.”
“Really? Why not?”
“Because there are a thousand people at that school!” I exploded. “And apparently he ditches a lot, so if you want me to meet him, then I guess I’m going to have to start smoking really bad weed in some back alley with all the other delinquents, or whatever it is that he does!” I sighed and shoved my hair out of my face. Stupid bangs. “This is difficult, okay? It requires a little precision. I’m safecracking a person. I gotta figure out the code before I’m in.”
“Honey, we need to get this information as soon as possible—”
“I know!” I cried. “You think I don’t know that? I’m very aware that this whole thing is on me, thank you very much.”
“Margaret.”
“Sorry,” I said immediately. “Look, I can do this. I can do this better than anyone because I am a spy, okay? I am a great spy and—and something is licking me.”
There was a definite wetness on my calf and I glanced down to see a huge, shaggy golden retriever pushing his nose against my leg, then giving me a big doggie grin. I had seen this dog somewhere before, and I looked from the dog to his leash to his very cute owner.