“Where are we going?” I asked when I reached her.
“A secret spot,” she said, bobbing her head toward the end of the passageway. I glanced up, but saw only dirty brick and a set of Dumpsters.
“We aren’t going Dumpster diving, are we?” I glanced down at my fuzzy boots and tidy knee- length skirt. “ ’Cause I’m really not dressed for it.”
“Did you ever read Nancy Drew?” Scout suddenly asked.
I blinked as I tried to catch up with the segue. “Of course?”
“Pretend you’re Nancy,” she said. “We’re investigating, kind of.” She started into the alley, stepping over a wad of newspaper and avoiding a puddle of liquid of unidentifiable origin.
I pointed at it. “Are we investigating that?”
“Just keep moving,” she said, but with a snicker.
We walked through the narrow space until it dead-ended at the stone wall that bounded St. Sophia’s.
I frowned at the wall and the grass and gothic buildings that lay beyond it. “We walked around two buildings just to come back to St. Sophia’s?”
“Check your left, Einstein.”
I did as ordered, and had to blink back surprise. I’d expected to see more alley or bricks, or Dumpsters. But that’s not what was there. Instead, the alley gave way to a square of lush, green lawn filled with pillars—narrow pyramids of gray concrete that punctured the grass like a garden of thorns. They varied in height from three feet to five, like a strange gauntlet of stone.
We walked closer. “What is this?”
“It’s a memorial garden,” she said. “It used to be part of the convent grounds, but the city discovered the nuns didn’t actually own this part of the block. Those guys did,” she said, pointing at the building that sat behind the bank. “St. Sophia’s agreed to put in the stone wall, and the building agreed to keep this place as- is, provided that the St. Sophia’s folks promised not to raise a stink about losing it.”
“Huh,” I said, skimming my fingers across the top of one nubby pillar.
“It’s a great place to get lost,” she said, and as if on cue, disappeared between the columns.
It took a minute to find her in the forest of them. And when I reached her in the middle, she wasn’t alone.
Scout stood stiffly, lips apart, eyes wide, staring at the two boys who stood across from her. They were both in slacks and sweaters, a button-down shirt and tie beneath, an ensemble I assumed was the guy version of the private school uniform. The one on the right had big brown eyes, honey skin, and wavy dark hair curling over his forehead.
The one on the left had dark blond hair and blue eyes. No—not blue exactly, but a shade somewhere between blue and indigo and turquoise, like the color of a ridiculously bright spring sky. They glowed beneath his short hair, dark slashes of eyebrows, and the long lashes that fanned across those crazy eyes.
His eyebrows lifted with interest, but Scout’s voice pulled his gaze to her. I, on the other hand, had a little more trouble, and had to drag my gaze away from this boy in the garden.
“What are you doing here?” she asked them, suspicion in her gaze.
The boy with brown eyes shrugged innocently. “Just seeing a little of Chicago.”
“I guess that means I didn’t miss a meeting,” Scout said, her voice dry. “Don’t you have class?”
“There wasn’t a meeting,” he confirmed. “We’re on our lunch break, just like you are. We’re out for a casual stroll, enjoying this beautiful fall day.” He glanced at me and offered a grin. “I’m guessing you’re St. Sophia’s latest fashion victim? I’m Michael Garcia.”
“Lily Parker,” I said with a grin. So this was the boy Veronica talked about. Or more important, the boy Scout had avoided talking about. Given the warmth in his eyes as he stole glances at Scout, I made a prediction that Veronica wasn’t going to win that battle.
“Hello, Lily Parker,” Michael said, then bobbed his head toward blue eyes. “This is Jason Shepherd.”
“Live and in person,” Jason said with a smile, dimples arcing at each corner of his mouth. My heart beat a little bit faster; those dimples were killers. “It’s nice to meet you, Lily.”
“Ditto,” I said, offering back a smile. But not too much of a smile. No sense in playing my entire hand at once.
Jason hitched a thumb behind him. “We go to Montclare. It’s down the road. Kind of.”
“So I’ve heard,” I said, then looked at Scout, who’d crossed her arms over her chest, the universal sign of skepticism.
“Out for a casual stroll,” she repeated, apparently unwilling to let the point go. “A casual stroll that takes you to the garden next door to St. Sophia’s? Somehow, I’m just not buying that’s a coincidence.”
Michael arched an eyebrow and grinned back at her. “That’s because you’re much too suspicious.”
Scout snorted. “I have good reason to be suspicious, Garcia.”
Michael’s chocolate gaze intensified, and all that intensity was directed at the girl standing next to me.
This was getting pretty entertaining.
“You imagine you had a good reason,” he told her. “That’s not the same thing.”
I glanced at Jason, who seemed to be enjoying the mock debate as much as I was. “Should we leave them alone, do you think?”
“It’s not a bad idea,” he said, brows furrowed in mock concentration. “We could give them a little privacy, let them see where things can go.”
“That’s a very respectful idea,” I said, nodding gravely. “We should give them their space.”
Jason winked at me, as Scout—oblivious to our jokes at her expense—pushed forward. “I don’t understand why you’re arguing with me. You know you have no chance.”
Michael clutched at his chest dramatically. “You’re killing me, Scout. Really. There’s chest pain—a tightness.” He faked a groan.
Scout rolled her eyes, but you could see the twitch in her smile. “Call a doctor.”
“Come on, Green. Can’t a guy just get out and enjoy the weather? It’s a beautiful fall day in Chicago. My amigo Jason and I were thinking we should get out and enjoy it before the snow gets here.”
“Again, I seriously doubt, Garcia, if you’re all that concerned about the weather.”
“Okay,” Michael said, holding up his hands, “let’s pretend you’re right. Let’s say, hypothetically, that it’s no coincidence that our walk brought us next door to St. Sophia’s. Let’s say we had a personal interest in skipping lunch and showing up on your side of the river.”
Scout rolled her eyes and held up a finger. “Oh, bottle it up. I don’t have the time.”
“You should make time.”
“Guys, eleven o’clock,” Jason whispered.
Scout snorted at Michael. “I’m amused you think you’re important enough to—”
“Eleven o’clock,” Jason whispered again, this time fiercely. Scout and Michael suddenly quieted, and both glanced to where Jason had indicated. I resisted the urge to look, which would have made us all completely obvious, but couldn’t help it.
I gave it a couple of seconds, then stole a glance over my shoulder. There was a gap in the pillars through which we could see the street behind us, the one that ran parallel to Erie, but behind St. Sophia’s. A slim girl in jeans and a snug hoodie, the hood pulled over her head, stood on the sidewalk, her hands tucked into her pockets.
“Who is that?” I whispered.
“No—why is she here?” Jason asked, dimples fading, his gaze on the girl. While her face wasn’t visible, her hair was blond—the curly length of it spilling from her hood and across her shoulders. Veronica was the only Chicago blonde I knew, but that couldn’t be her. I didn’t think she’d be caught dead in jeans and a hoodie, especially not on a uniform day.
Besides, there was something different about this girl. Something unsettling. Something off. She was too still, as if frozen while the city moved around her.
“Is she looking
for trouble?” Michael asked. His voice was quiet, just above a whisper, and it carried a hint of concern. Like whether she was looking for trouble or not, he expected it.
“In the middle of the day?” Scout whispered. “And here? She’s blocks away from the nearest enclave. From her enclave.”
“What’s an enclave?” I quietly asked. Not so quietly that they couldn’t hear me, but they ignored me, anyway.
Jason nodded. “Blocks from hers, and much too close to ours.”
In the time it took me to glance at Jason and back at the girl again, she was gone. The sidewalk was as empty as if she’d never been there at all.
I looked back and forth from Scout to Michael to Jason. “Someone want to fill me in?” I was beginning to guess it was pointless for me to ask questions—as pointless as my trying to goad Scout into telling me where she’d gone last night—but I couldn’t stop asking them.
Scout sighed. “This was supposed to be a tour. Not a briefing. I’m exhausted.”
“We’re all tired,” Michael said. “It was a long summer.”
“Long summer for what?”
“You could say we’re part of a community improvement group,” Michael said.
It took me a minute to realize that I’d been added back into the conversation. But the answer wasn’t very satisfying—or informative. I crossed my arms over my chest. “Community improvement? Like, you clean up litter?”
“That’s actually not a bad analogy,” Jason said, his gaze still on the spot where the girl had been.
“I take it she was a litterbug?” I asked, hitching my thumb in that direction.
“In a manner of speaking, yes, she was,” Scout said, then put a hand on my arm and tugged. “All right, that’s enough fond reminiscing and conspiracy theories for the day. We need to get to class. Have fun at school.”
“MA is always fun,” Jason said. “Good luck at St. Sophia’s.”
I nodded as Scout pulled me out of the garden, but I risked a glance back at Michael and Jason. They stood side by side, Michael an inch or two taller, their gazes on us as we headed back to school.
“I have so many questions, I’m not sure where to start,” I said when we were out of their sight and hauling down the alley, “but let’s go for the good, gossipy stuff, first. You say you aren’t dating, but Michael obviously has a thing for you.”
Scout made a snort that sounded a little too dramatic to be honest. “I didn’t just say we aren’t dating. We are, in fact, not dating. It’s an objective, empirical, testable fact. I don’t date MA guys.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. While I didn’t doubt that she subscribed to that rule, there was more to her statement, more to her and Michael, than she was letting on. But I could pry that out of her later. “And your community service involvement?”
“You heard—we clean up litter.”
“Yeah, and I’m totally believing that, too.”
That was the last word out of either of us as we slipped through the gap between the buildings, then back onto the sidewalk, and finally back to St. Sophia’s. In the nick of time, too, as the bells atop the left tower began to ring just as we hit the front stairs. Thinking we needed to hurry, I nearly ran into Scout when she stopped short in front of the door.
“I know this is unsatisfying,” she said, “but you’re going to have to trust me on this one, too.”
I arched an eyebrow at her. “Will there come a day when you’ll trust me?”
Her expression fell. “Honestly, Lil, I hope it doesn’t come to that.”
Famous last words, those.
There were three more periods to get through—Brit lit, chemistry, and European history—before I completed my first day of classes at St. Sophia’s. Maybe it was a good thing I hadn’t had much of an appetite for lunch, because listening to teachers drone on about kinetic energy, Beowulf, and Thomas Aquinas on a full stomach surely would have put me into a food coma. It was dry enough on an empty stomach.
And wasn’t that strange? I loved facts, information, magazine tidbits. But when three, one- hour-long classes were strung together, the learning got a little dullsville.
My attention deficit issue notwithstanding, I made it through my first day of classes, with a lot of unanswered questions about my suitemate and her friends, a good two hours of homework, and a ravenous hunger to show for it.
And speaking of hunger, dinner was pretty much the same as breakfast—a rush to the front of the line so Scout and I weren’t stuck with “dirty rice,” which was apparently a combination of rice and everything that didn’t get eaten at lunch. I appreciated the school’s recycling, but “dirty rice” was a little too green for me. I mean that literally—there were green bits in there I couldn’t begin to identify.
On the other hand, it definitely reminded you to be prompt at meal times.
Since we were punctual and it was the first official day of school, the smiling foodies served a mix of Chicago favorites—Chicago-style “red-hot” hot dogs, deep-dish pizza, Italian beef sandwiches, and cheesecake from a place called Eli’s.
When we’d gotten food and taken seats, I focused on enjoying my tomato- and cheese-laden slice of Chicago’s finest so I wouldn’t pester Scout about our meeting with the boys, her “community improvement group,” or her midnight outing.
Veronica and her minions spared us a visit, which would have interrupted the ambience of eating pizza off a plastic tray, but they still spent a good chunk of the dinner hour sending us snarky looks from across the room.
“What’s with the grudge?” I asked Scout, spearing a chunk of gooey pizza with my fork.
Scout snuck a glance back at the pretty-girl table, then shrugged. “Veronica and I have been here, both of us, since we were twelve. We started on the same day. But she, I don’t know, took sides? She decided that to be queen of the brat pack, she needed enemies.”
“Very mature,” I said.
“It’s no skin off my back,” Scout said. “Normally, she stays on her side of the cafeteria, and I stay on mine.”
“Unless she’s in your suite, cavorting with Amie,” I pointed out.
“That is true.”
“So why this place?” I asked her. “Why did your parents put you here?”
“I’m from Chicago,” she said, “born and bred. My parents were trust fund babies—my great-grandfather invented a whirligig for electrical circuits, and my grandparents got the cash when he died. One trickle-down generation later, and my parents ended up with a pretty sweet lifestyle.”
“And they opted for boarding school?” I wondered aloud.
She paused contemplatively and pulled a chunk of bread from the roll in her hand. “It’s not that they don’t love me. I just think they weren’t entirely sure what to do with me. They grew up in boarding schools, too—when my grandparents got their money, they made some pretty rich friends. They thought boarding school was the best thing you could do for your kids, so they sent my parents, and my parents sent me. Anyway, they have their schedules—Monte Carlo this time of year, Palm Beach that time of year, et cetera, et cetera. Boarding school made it easier for them to travel, to meet their social commitments, such as they were.”
I couldn’t imagine a life so separate from my family—at least, not before the sabbatical. “Isn’t that . . . hard?” I asked her.
Scout blinked at the question. “I’ve been on my own for a long time. At this point, it just is, you know?” I didn’t, actually, but I nodded to be supportive.
“I mean, before St. Sophia’s, there was a private elementary school and a nanny I talked to more often than my parents. I was kind of a trust fund latchkey kid, I guess. Are you and your parents close?”
I nodded, and I had to fight back an unexpected wash of tears at the sudden sensation of aloneness. Of abandonment. My eyes ached with it, that threshold between crying and not, just before the dam breaks. “Yeah,” I said, willing the tears not to fall.
“I’m sorry,” Scout said. Her voice was
soft, quiet, compassionate.
I shrugged a shoulder. “I’ve known for a while that they were leaving. Some of those days I was fine, some days I was wicked pissed.” I shrugged. “I’m probably not supposed to be mad about it. I mean, it’s not like they went to Germany to get away from me or anything, but it still stings. It still feels like they left me here.”
“Well then,” Scout said, raising her cup of water, “I suppose you’d better thank your lucky stars that you found me. ’Cause I’m going to be on you like white on rice. I’m a hard friend to shake, Parker.”
I grinned through the melancholy and raised my own cup. “To new friendships,” I said, and we clinked our cups together.
When dinner was finished, we returned to our rooms to wash up and restock our bags with books and supplies before study hall. I also ditched the tights and switched out my fabulous—but surprisingly uncomfortable—boots for a pair of much more comfy flip- flops. My cell phone vibrated just as I’d slipped my left foot into the second, thick, emerald green flip- flop. I pulled it out of my bag, checked the caller ID, and smiled.
“What’s cooking in Germany?” I asked after I opened the phone and pressed it to my ear.
“Nothing at the moment,” my father answered, his voice tinny through four thousand miles of transmission wires. “It’s late over here. How was school?”
“It was school,” I confirmed, a tightness in my chest unclenching at the sound of my dad’s voice. I sat down on the edge of the bed and crossed one leg over the other. “Turns out, high school is high school pretty much anywhere you go.”
“Except for the uniforms?” he asked.
I smiled. “Except for the uniforms. How was your first day of sabbaticalizing, or whatever?”
“Pretty dull. Mom and I both had meetings with the folks who are funding our work. A lot of ground rules, research protocols, that kind of thing.”
I could practically hear the boredom in his voice. My dad wasn’t one for administrative details or planning. He was a big-picture guy, a thinker, a teacher. My mom was the organized one. She probably took notes at the meetings.
“I’m sure it’ll get better, Pops. They probably wanna make sure they aren’t handing gazillions of research dollars over to some crazy Americans.”