I pulled the giant thing out of my bag and started clicking away and didn’t realize my powerful flash was on until Raf jerked his head my way, blinking. There was a moment where the entire crowd seemed to hold their breath, and that’s when Raf lost his grip. He fell fast and hard to the ground with a sickening thud.
I gasped.
My flash. My flash killed Rafael Amador.
I turned to Mack, speechless.
“He would’ve fallen anyway,” Mack said.
The guards rushed over to him. One of them spoke into a walkie-talkie, and I got a glimpse of Raf’s left hand, which was hanging limply at a disturbing angle. I felt a twinge of guilt. But then his finger twitched and I realized he was at least alive.
“That doesn’t look right,” Mack said.
Raf didn’t seem to be bothered by the pain. In fact, he was smiling. Maybe he was in shock.
“Do you think anyone else noticed the flash?” I asked.
“Um, yeah,” Mack said.
I followed Mack’s gaze over to where Giselle was giving me the stink eye.
“He would’ve fallen anyway,” I said loudly.
“Keep telling yourself that,” Giselle said.
The paramedics arrived on the scene. One looked at his wrist while the other checked out his eyes with a flashlight, saying something about a concussion. By the time they carted Raf away, the excitement began to die down, although everyone was talking about it for the rest of the day. They all said how epic the stunt was.
But I couldn’t help thinking Rafael Amador had some sort of death wish, and maybe I shouldn’t embed myself anywhere near him.
That night my mom made creamed tuna on toast. It was one of her go-to dinners, but I noticed she’d switched out our regular tuna for the store brand. I don’t know why I noticed. It was still creamed tuna on toast.
Michael cut his toast into perfect little squares and arranged them in a row so he could eat them from left to right.
“How is the journalism program going?” my dad asked.
“It’s okay,” I said.
“It better be more than okay,” my dad said with a smile. “You’re this family’s great hope.”
I ruffled Michael’s hair. “I want to go on record that I think Michael is going to make more money than all of us put together.”
My mom smiled.
I stabbed my fork in my toast. “A weird thing happened today, though. This boy—”
“What’s his name?” my dad interrupted.
“Rafael Amador.”
“Is he cute?”
“Too gorgeous for his own good.”
“Does he like you back?”
“No—that’s not my point. He’s one of the spoiled rich kids, and he was trying to convince me his life is harder than it looks, but I totally didn’t agree, and then today, during a field trip, he decides to scale the pillar of a national monument. I took some pictures and it distracted him and he fell and broke his wrist. Why would someone do that?”
My mom frowned. “You broke a boy’s wrist?”
“No. He totally would’ve fallen anyway. The monument is superhigh and he had no climbing gear, and that’s not the point. The point is, why would someone who has everything do something like that?”
My parents met my question with blank expressions.
“Why were you taking pictures?” my mom asked.
“It’s this story I’m working on. An exposé on all the stuff the rich DI kids get away with.”
“DI?”
“Diplomatic immunity. It’s a big thing at Chiswick. The DI kids basically run the school. So I figured, like any good reporter, I would expose the corruption.”
“It doesn’t sound like the best way to make friends,” my dad said.
I looked at him, confused. “I’m not there to make friends.”
“I remember high school as the perfect time to make friends.”
I shook my head. Same world. Different planets.
Right before bed, I called Charlotte and told her what had happened at the national monument.
“It’s perfect,” she said.
“What are you talking about?”
“Offer to help him. To write his notes and share yours and stuff. Tell him it will make you feel better about making him fall.”
“He would’ve fallen anyway.”
She ignored me. “It will give you an in.”
I shook my head. “Do I still want to have an in? Raf seems a little crazy. What with scaling monuments and all.”
“Do you think that’s what Nellie Bly said when she saw Blackwell’s Island? I can’t go in there, because they seem a little crazy? C’mon, Pipe. What would Nellie say?”
I sighed. “She’d say, Get your crazy on, girlfriend.”
12
When Raf showed up at school the next day, his left arm in a sling and a brace, he was immediately surrounded by admirers. Giselle was next to him, holding his books.
I wasn’t going to be able to get near him now, so I went in the opposite direction, to my locker. Just as I raised my hand to turn the dial, Raf’s voice came from behind me.
“Hey, Pip! Remember that one time you flashed me?”
I turned around and faced his grin.
“It’s one of my favorite stories,” he said. “I was climbing a national monument, set to make history, and this girl with the biggest camera I’ve ever seen sets her flash to ‘stun.’ And then I fell and broke my wrist.”
“Shouldn’t you be in jail right now for, like, desecration of a national monument? Or wait. Don’t tell me. Diplomatic immunity.”
He Euro-shrugged.
“Can I just ask you something?” I said.
“As long as it’s not on the record.”
“Why did you do it?”
He frowned. “Same reason Mallory climbed Everest. Because it was there.”
I shook my head but then remembered Charlotte’s idea. “I’d like to make it up to you.”
“Hmm. I’m intrigued.”
“Since the argument could be made that my actions triggered events leading up to the breaking of your wrist, I’ll help you with your notes and homework and typing and stuff.”
He put a finger on his chin thoughtfully. “Pip repays me and I get to try to knock that chip off her shoulder. I’m in.”
“I don’t have a chip on my shoulder.”
“Oh, you have a chip the size of Alaska there. You’ll see.”
By the end of the week, Raf had switched around his schedule so that our similar classes were taken at the same time, all in the name of sharing notes. I didn’t think it was that easy to change classes, but of course, because he’s Rafael Amador, he got exactly what he wanted.
Our English teacher, Professor Wing, let us shuffle seats so that Raf and I were sitting close to each other. Raf even went as far as to push our desks together. Una glanced back at us, and I felt the train tracks running right between my desk and Raf’s.
I turned my attention to Professor Wing. I was pretty sure he wanted to be an actor, because he loved to do dramatic readings during class. He would stand front and center, and before reading, he would close his eyes and take a deep breath in through his nose. To assume the character.
I dreaded these readings, not because he wasn’t any good. (He really was.) But because after he finished, I couldn’t help the urge to clap, even though no one clapped. So there was always this really long awkward pause.
Today, he was doing a dramatic reading of the beginning of Moby-Dick.
He took in a deep breath and cleared his throat. “‘Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore . . .’”
It was really loud, too, I guess to reach the audience members seated in the mezzanine.
“‘. . . I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating
the circulation.’”
At the word “spleen,” he motioned toward his belly.
Raf leaned over. “That’s not where his spleen is. Do you want to tell him, or shall I?”
“Don’t you dare interrupt him. If you do, it’ll go on forever,” I whispered.
Raf sat back. Then leaned over again. “I’ve never felt the need to drive off my spleen. Have you?”
Professor Wing’s gaze flitted in our direction, so I started scribbling notes.
“No,” I whispered out of the side of my mouth. “I always thought my spleen was something necessary for survival.”
“Actually, you can live very happily without your spleen. It’s not one of the vital organs.”
This made me turn. “How do you know?”
“I learned it at the kung fu marathon at the Tower. Ninjas are always going for the spleen.” He made a slight karate chop motion. “Inflict the most damage. Keep your opponent alive.”
There was a hiccup in Professor Wing’s reading, and this time he narrowed his eyes at us before continuing on.
Raf sat back upright. Then he leaned over again and opened his mouth, but before he could get any words out, I cut him off. “My notes aren’t going to be any good if you keep talking to me. Which means your notes aren’t going to be very good.”
He gave a short nod and turned his attention back to Professor Wing. “‘. . . cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of sight of land. Look at the crowds of water-gazers there.’”
At this, he gazed upward and to the left. So the rest of us turned to follow his gaze. He was staring at an old metal fan.
Raf sighed. “And we fall for it every time.”
After class, my phone beeped with a text. It was from Charlotte.
How’s the story coming? Is there any THERE there?
I frowned. So far all I had new to report was how Raf smelled when you sat by him for an entire hour.
He smelled really good, by the way.
“Who’s it from?” Raf said from behind me. He’d been peeking over my shoulder.
“A friend,” I said, clicking the screen dark. Charlotte really should’ve known better than to text something about the story where the subject of that story might be able to read it.
“What friend?”
“Her name’s Charlotte. She goes to my old school. She wants to be a journalist too.”
We started down the cement sidewalk that bisected the campus. I was sure I would appreciate the outdoor parts of this school come spring, but right now it was freezing.
“I’ve been in the news, as you know.” He tilted his head, as if waiting for reassurance.
“I’ve heard,” I said.
“Why do you want to pursue such a demeaning profession?”
My mouth dropped open in annoyance. “It’s not demeaning. Journalism changed the face of war during Vietnam. It brought down a corrupt president. It keeps politicians in check.”
“It thrives on intrusive pictures of celebrities.”
“Sure, some magazines do, but there’s a difference between investigative journalism and tabloid fodder.”
He nodded, considering my words, and then opened his mouth as if he were about to divulge some big life lesson, but right then Giselle strode by, using her perfect long legs and short skirt to make a statement to the world on just how perfect legs can be. She put her arm around Raf’s neck and pressed her cheek against his. “Good-bye, lover. See you at Mass?”
Raf smiled good-naturedly, making no effort to disentangle himself, and for the first time, I realized they weren’t just close friends. They were a couple. Was this new? Why hadn’t I realized that before?
She’d called him “lover.”
“Bright and early,” Raf said, answering her question.
Okay, Raf and Giselle were together. So what? That made it easier to stick to my task and not get caught up in emotions, even though the two of them seemed completely wrong for each other. It was better for the story. It would go under the part subtitled “Revolving Door of Hookups.”
It was perfect. Just perfect. Yay.
Giselle kissed him on the cheek and walked away, not once acknowledging me. Even better.
I squinted up at Rafael, all the while not thinking about how Giselle had called him “lover.” Who used that term, anyway? What was she, some middle-aged housewife? “So, Mass. As in church? You guys go to church?”
He nodded solemnly. “We never miss Saturday-morning Mass. Father Mannion expects us.”
I’d never been very religious. I guess you could say I was raised believing there was a God, but he probably didn’t care how I spent my Sundays. But this was an opening. A chance to see Raf outside school.
“You go to Mass, yes?” Raf said.
“Yes. Lots of times. All the time.”
He cocked a skeptical eyebrow at me.
“They still hold Mass on Sundays, right? Not Saturdays?”
The corner of his mouth quirked up in this cute way, and I reminded myself he was with Giselle. For some reason, it was throwing me, the fact that they were together, and then it was throwing me that their togetherness was throwing me, and to keep myself from asking Raf about it, I did that thing where I overcompensated with what I lovingly referred to as “word vomit.”
“Back in the day, I was totally close to my pastor. Father. Preacher man. But not in an inappropriate way. You know. Not in the way that makes the news nowadays.” Whoa. Get off that track. “I was one of the first altar girls in our community. And don’t get me started about . . .” My mind went blank. What was something Catholic? “Confession. Confessing, telling all my sins . . . paying for them. Making payments on them. Working out payment plans.” What was the word I was looking for?? “Retribution!”
“Are you thinking of repentance?”
“Yes! That.”
Raf just watched me as if he were thoroughly entertained and hoping the word vomit would continue. When I finally shut up, he said, “You’ve never been to Mass.”
“No. Never. Not once. Not even on Christmas Eve. But I saw one on television.” I frowned. “Okay, that’s a lie. But I’ve seen the pope on television. He drives that Ford Focus, right?”
Raf tugged on a clump of my hair. “Come to Mass tomorrow, Pip. I promise it will be unforgettable.”
An invitation. An official one. Granted, it was Saturday-morning Mass, and not one of their legendary parties, but it was something. And what better place to procure an invite to one of their legendary parties than during an ancient religious ceremony?
I wondered if this was how Christiane Amanpour felt when she closed in on one of the Taliban.
13
The next morning, at the ass crack of dawn, I stood in front of my mirror assessing the situation. What does one wear to Mass? I’d opted for a black skirt, black tights, black mary-jane pumps, and a black T-shirt with a black cardigan over it. I looked so severe. But church was a serious thing, wasn’t it? Eternal salvation was not to be taken lightly.
Michael stopped by my room. “Today’s Saturday. Are we going to Costco?”
He and I liked to go to the warehouse stores to get the free food samples on the weekends.
“Not today, bud,” I said.
“But it’s Saturday.”
“I know. I can’t go today, though.”
He paused for a moment and looked like he wasn’t sure what to do next.
“I’ll go next week. Why don’t you go get your list of swears and go over them with Mom and Dad.”
He nodded and walked away. I was glad the change in routine hadn’t caused a storm.
On my way out of the house, I passed my mom and dad, who were in the kitchen having their morning cup of coffee.
“Off to a funeral?” my dad said, taking in my appearance.
“Nope. Mass.” I grabbed my car key off the hook by the door.
“Sounds great,” my mom said. “Except you know we’re not Catholic, right?”
I blew them a kiss, and just before I went out the door, I glanced at a stack of small, rectangular papers peeking out of an envelope on a small table. The top of the papers read, “Food Coupon.”
Food stamps.
I left before I could process the discovery. Maybe they were for someone else. Some other family. Maybe they were free samples from the government. Maybe food elves had left them in the middle of the night.
By the time I got to Saint Ann’s, I was resigned to the fact that no, the food stamps weren’t meant for anyone else.
Except us.
Were we really in such dire straits?
Maybe I would ask my mom when I got home.
Maybe I wouldn’t.
The cathedral was down the street from Chiswick, but the traffic was unexpected. I was five minutes late. The heavy wooden doors squeaked as I entered, making everyone already seated turn to stare at the person who’d dared show up late to Mass.
Ugh. I waved my hand in an apologetic way and quickly scanned the crowd for Raf and Giselle. When I finally saw the backs of their heads, I sighed. They were dead center in the front row. A girl with red hair was next to Giselle. It was probably Katie.
All at once, the congregation opened hymnals and stood to sing, following the music leader, who had to be at least a hundred and ten. I walked as quietly as I could up the aisle, but my blasted mary janes echoed off the stone walls with each step.
Heads turned as I passed by. Basically the only way I could’ve attracted more attention would be if I were a bride walking down the aisle.
Once I was seated, Raf leaned over and said, “Quite the entrance there, Pip. Wasn’t the marching band available to accompany you?”
“Shut up,” I said.
The singing ended and everyone sat down to listen to the sermon.
Father Mannion, bespectacled and wrinkled, droned on and on about the evils that tempt us as teenagers, and after twenty minutes of his monotone, I started to drift. My last thought before dozing was wondering if research for my story was really worth enduring Mass.
A sharp elbow in my arm woke me.
“You were snoring,” Raf said.
“I don’t snore,” I muttered.
Katie leaned over. “You have the most delicate snore,” she said with a grin.