When Adrienne brought out the book, I looked around for Tashi, but she didn’t show. No one but her, Kasey, and me knew that the book was actually kept at Tashi’s house; so how had Adrienne gotten hold of it?
I held my tongue, wanting to give things a chance to play out before attracting attention to myself.
Nobody asked how Emily was doing, but everybody knew she’d had to leave school. Nobody let on that anything was wrong. But we all knew something was.
In spite of the weirdness, Adrienne was eager, excited as she made the opening announcements.
“You guys, I have wonderful news!” she said. “As of today, we’ll have twenty-two members…which means…we can graduate!”
Then the door opened and Paige escorted in the new member, presenting her to me like a 1950s housewife bringing out the Thanksgiving turkey:
Zoe.
As she took the oath, she was so eager, so guileless, I wondered how I could have ever been threatened by her. Everything about her shouted Love me love me love me!
“Anyone have anything to say before we wrap up?” Adrienne asked.
“Um,” Monika said, her hand half raised. “Where’s Tashi?”
Adrienne and Lydia exchanged a troubled glance, and I felt the breath catch in my lungs.
“All right,” Lydia said. “Here’s the thing. Tashi was starting to feel like the club was too much for her.”
There was a room-wide intake of air, the first half of a gasp.
“So…she quit.”
The silence was peppered with offended whispers; I distinctly heard Kendra say, “But Aralt gives us strength!”
“Listen,” Lydia said. “It’s not a big deal. It’s a shame, but it’s her choice. It doesn’t affect our graduation. And of course we wish her the best…right?”
A reluctant chorus of agreement rumbled up in answer.
“All right, everyone,” Adrienne said, her usually chipper mood downcast. “Stay sunny.”
Afterward, I went home and got ready for my final Young Visionaries interview. My hand was no less tender, so I put some aloe on it, to help Aralt along. When Mom asked what happened, I told her I’d burned it doing my hair.
“Ah, vanity,” she said. “It can be a dangerous thing.”
Yeah, whatever.
The judges stood when I came into the room.
I handed over an envelope containing my four new photos—the prints of me and Megan and two from the football game—Pepper Laird in midleap, all vivid color against the black night sky. You could see shards of wet grass flying off her shoes, a bead of sweat about to drip from her knee. And Carter, looking like a cross between a movie star and a preacher at a revival meeting, golden and tall and surrounded by a halo of light.
The judges murmured over the photos.
“Very nice,” the bow-tie man said. “I’ve been consistently impressed by your work.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“There’s a degree of…maturity,” said one of the women, Mrs. Liu. “Your choices are quite unexpected, from a person your age.”
“The only thing…” The other man’s brow furrowed as he held up the photo of Carter. “The eyes bother me in this picture. They’re almost…empty.”
I sat back.
Farrin held up the Pepper picture. “You could do sports photography,” she said. “The more I look at this, the more I like it.”
“Are you thinking about exploring digital?” Mrs. Liu asked.
Even though I wasn’t fully committed to Aralt, there was still that thread of trust inside me, that I could come up with the right answer. I waited for him to feed me my lines.
But nothing came. Like a trapeze artist who looks down and sees that they forgot to put up the net, the words flashed in my head: You’re on your own.
“Alexis?” Farrin prompted.
I couldn’t stall any longer. “Yes. Digital is good,” I said. “Actually, I just got one. A digital camera. I’ve played with it a little.”
Four pairs of squinting eyes watched me.
Think, Alexis. Think. Hold it together.
“Digital is more like…um, instant gratification,” I said. “But it’s definitely fun. I’m glad I learned on film, but…I can see why people like digital.”
“Why are you glad you learned on film?”
“Um,” I said. “Well, because…”
And then I totally blanked. I couldn’t remember the question, or the answer, or what I wanted to say, or what I’d already said.
“Alexis?” Farrin asked.
“Digital,” I said. “Um. When you shoot film, you have to, like, budget. And you learn to…choose.”
“To edit?” Farrin prompted.
“Yes,” I said. “As you go. Like, be disciplined.”
There was a long, horrible pause.
“Well, it’s been a pleasure,” Mrs. Liu said, not beaming quite as brightly as she had at the beginning of the interview.
The others said their good-byes, mostly without eye contact.
“Alexis,” Farrin said, “on your way out, would you mind sending Jared Elkins back?”
“Okay,” I said. “Thank you all.”
“You’re welcome,” Farrin said. And then she coughed.
Our eyes met. Hers were wide and shocked, and I imagine mine were the same.
Aralt’s girls didn’t get sick.
They didn’t completely space out during important interviews, either.
I hurried back to the lobby. Jared waited on the bench, studying one of his new prints. I paused to look over his shoulder.
It showed a young girl on a swing, her hair streaming behind her and her feet pointed forward in the perfect expression of action and innocence. But behind her lay a wasteland—some kind of junkyard. The whole image was colored in the muted, hopeless tones of waste and destruction.
“Like it?” he asked.
I nodded without looking up. The joy and freedom of the little girl starkly contrasted with the horror behind her. In a single moment, the picture made you happy and afraid and desolately lonely. It kind of blew my mind a little.
“How’d it go?” he asked.
“Fine.” Then I remembered myself. “They asked me to send you back.”
“Okay, thanks,” he said, sliding the book out from under my gaze.
I swallowed hard. “Good luck.”
“Thanks.” He reached a hand out and shook mine decisively. “May the best man or woman win.”
“Yes,” I said, my breath catching in my throat.
He gave me a slight wave as he disappeared down the hall. When he was gone, the lobby seemed thick with an almost dead stillness.
Would the best man or woman win?
How would I live with myself if the answer was no?
The next morning, I avoided the Sunshine Club altogether and went to the library, where I got a head start on the day’s shelving. But I couldn’t hide out at lunch. I set my lunch box down at the very end of the table.
I thought about saving a chair for Carter, but he was nowhere in sight. Whatever was going on with us—with Aralt—was loosening my hold on Carter, too. Which was partially fine—but I didn’t want us getting so loose that we fell apart.
Megan slammed her tray down and took the chair to my right. She bent over her food like she wanted to be ignored, but the way she was breathing—through her nose, as fast and hard as if she’d just run a marathon, made that impossible.
“Um…are you okay?” I asked.
She didn’t look up, just kept slurping soup off her spoon. “Fine.”
All right, then.
Kasey ended up in the seat next to mine. A low buzz came from the other end of the table, and I looked down to see Adrienne glaring in our direction.
I elbowed Kasey. “Is Adrienne looking at us?”
“It’s me,” Megan said, dropping her spoon. “She’s looking at me.”
Adrienne started to get up, but the girls around her pulled her back to her se
at.
Kasey leaned closer to me and whispered so quietly I could barely hear her. “Swttzz.”
What? Sweaters? Megan was wearing a pale yellow, scoop-necked sweater with three-quarter sleeves cuffed by a delicate ruffle of sheer ivory ribbon.
And so was Adrienne.
Megan’s tractor-trailer breath hadn’t gotten any softer.
“Whoa, take it easy,” I said, like she was a horse. “There’s nothing to be upset about.”
Megan’s eyes shot daggers at me. “I told her last night I was going to wear this today.”
Adrienne escaped her handlers and stalked to our end of the table, carrying a small carton of skim milk. “And I said, no, that’s what I’m going to wear, you should find something else!”
“I said it first!” Megan said.
“Well, I planned it first,” Adrienne growled.
Before I could stop her, Megan drew back her bowl and doused Adrienne with soup. Then Adrienne pounded her skim milk into Megan’s shoulder.
The carton imploded. Milk went everywhere.
In a split second, they were all over each other.
“Girl fight!” someone called, and in no time a gleeful crowd had encircled us.
But this was no stereotypical slapping-and-squealing catfight.
Megan landed a hard punch on Adrienne’s left cheek. Adrienne grabbed Megan’s hair and whipped her face down, missing the rigid edge of a chair by about a centimeter. With a free hand, Adrienne grabbed a lunch tray and smacked Megan with it in the back of the head, hard enough that Megan reeled. Adrienne pinned her arm behind her back and began to twist it.
Then I saw Megan’s hand dart out and grab a metal knife from a nearby table.
They were literally trying to kill each other.
“Stop!” I said. “Megan!”
“Get her!” Kasey said, and we dove into the fray. Another group of girls went in after Adrienne.
“I’m trying!” I dodged kicks and clawing fingernails to wrap my fingers around the hem of Megan’s sweater. I took a stiletto heel to the shin and limped backward, hauling her with me.
The school security guard converged on us. “Break it up, girls! Break it up!” he yelled, trying to push between them, tweeting his eardrum-piercing whistle as hard as he could.
Megan tore a path through the crowd, dragging me behind her out the side door of the cafeteria.
A couple of teachers held on to Adrienne, who spat and sputtered like an angry alley cat.
Outside, Megan pulled away from me and sprinted toward the staff parking lot, half of which was taken up by portable classrooms.
I walked the line of portables until I heard muffled coughing coming from a set of back stairs. I found Megan on the steps, head bent between her legs. When she heard me, she jumped to her feet. For a moment, it seemed like she was going to charge me, but then she backed down. “Oh, Lex,” she said. “It’s just you.”
She was drenched in milk, and her face wore four fingernails’-worth of fresh red gashes. Her sweater was ripped and stained, and her nose was bloody. When she spat, a splotch of pink liquid stained the sidewalk.
She tried to wipe the dark tearstains off her skin with the sides of her hands. “I’m not being unsunny, I swear,” she said. “I’m just kind of in pain.”
I let out a shaky breath. “Are you okay?”
“Uh-huh,” she said, lowering herself back to the stairs. She lifted a hand to her abdomen. “She got in a few serious kicks, though. Might have broken a rib. No big deal, though.”
“It’s a huge deal! You just got in a fight,” I said. “Over a sweater. You could be in major trouble. Not to mention that you could have really gotten hurt.”
She gave me a so what look. “I’m not turning myself in,” she said matter-of-factly. “I can’t go to the office looking like this.”
I heard footsteps approaching. We both tensed, but it was just Kasey, clutching a handful of napkins for Megan.
“I don’t even know what happened,” Megan said, blotting her cheek. “I got so mad all of a sudden. I mean, I did tell her I was going to wear this sweater today…Whatever. I guess I should go home.”
“You have to go back in,” Kasey said. “They know it was you.”
“Never mind that,” I said. “She needs to get out of here. And it’s probably best to keep her away from Adrienne for a while.”
I hoped Aralt was still looking out for us enough that this incident would be overlooked.
“I guess,” Megan said, looking skeptical. “I’m not even mad anymore. It’s just a sweater, you know?”
Yeah, I knew. We all knew. And that was what worried me. Even the most fashion-obsessed Sunshine Club member would know that making that kind of scene in public was way worse than wearing the same sweater as somebody else.
We weren’t supposed to fight. Just like we weren’t supposed to cough. Or flip out and burn ourselves. Or completely lose it in the middle of an important interview.
Kasey went back for our bags while I herded Megan in the direction of her car, keeping an eye out—mostly for Adrienne, but also for faculty members.
Someone stepped into our path about thirty feet ahead, and I made an abrupt left. But the sounds of running footsteps followed us, and I turned, prepared to be busted.
It was Carter. “Lex? What are you doing?”
He hurried to catch up with us.
“I heard something about a fight—was that you? Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m fine—it was Megan and Adrienne.”
For the first time, he turned to Megan, who looked like she’d been through a cage match. Her face was stained black, like she’d smudged a gallon of mascara on her cheeks. She gave him a red-toothed smile.
He grabbed me by the sleeve and half-pulled me across the hall, out of her earshot.
“We have to talk about this,” he said, casting a freaked-out glance at Megan. “About a lot of things. Seriously. Like, a real talk. Can I come to your house after school?”
“No,” I said. “I’ll meet you at the park.”
“Lex,” Megan called, “can you hurry? I’m getting blood in my eye.”
Carter backed away, a horrified look on his face, and I kept walking with Megan out to the parking lot.
The campus police officer watched us drive away without batting an eye.
I sat in the grass, watching for Carter, and got to my feet when I saw him coming down the path, watching as he headed for the footbridge that crossed the murky drainage ditch.
“Hi,” he said, enfolding me in a half-hug. Every impulse in my body longed to turn the half-hug into a kiss, but Carter held back, so I did, too.
We ended up sitting about two feet apart, facing the brook, not each other.
“How’d your interview go last night?” he asked.
“Great,” I lied.
“Now, please tell me what’s going on.”
I shook my head. “It’s compli—”
“Yeah, I get that it’s complicated, Lex. But some people consider me highly capable of complex thought.” He leaned closer. “I want to help you.”
“It’s nothing like that,” I said, picking up a pine needle and twisting it. “I don’t need help.”
Carter leaned away again. Birds sang and insects buzzed, and the wind bullied its way through the leaves. In the past, sitting in silence like this would have been completely comfortable. Now it felt like something was missing.
“Megan’s okay?” he asked, the tiniest bite to his voice.
“Yes. Fine,” I said. The pine needle, nearly shredded, fell from my fingers.
Carter picked it up. “I saw Zoe at your lunch table. I didn’t know you guys converted her.”
“We didn’t convert her,” I said. “That’s not how it works.”
“Lex, I really don’t care. If Zoe wants to be a Sunshine Girl, that’s her decision.” He paused. “I just think…if there’s something else going on…I mean, people are getting hurt—the fight to
day—and there are these weird rumors about Emily…The whole thing is either dangerous or insanely stupid. Or both.”
It wasn’t that I totally disagreed with him. In fact, we were pretty much in complete agreement.
But when he calls the Sunshine Club stupid, he’s calling me stupid.
The thought pissed me off. “Okay,” I said. “Whatever you say.”
He grabbed my hand. “Lex, look at me.”
I looked at him.
“Is it drugs?”
That made me snort. “Drugs? Oh, please.”
“This isn’t funny,” he said. “I have no idea why you’re laughing.”
“Because,” I said. “It’s a club. If you think it’s dumb, then fine. Think that. But you can’t just insult me and expect me to dump my sister and all of my friends because you said so.”
“No,” he said. “Not because I said so. Because something is happening. Under normal circumstances, you wouldn’t go within ten feet of those girls.” He drove his fist lightly into the grass. “I know you don’t see it that way—but maybe that’s because you can’t.”
But I could see. I could and I did, and all I had to do was tell him, and he’d stop thinking I was brainwashed, and I could stop pretending everything was great. But then what would happen? He’d insist that we go to the authorities. Call Agent Hasan. Get Kasey shipped off to who knows where.
“You know, that girl Tashi—she doesn’t go to All Saints. I asked my friend Dave, and he said—”
“Are you kidding?” I asked. “I can’t believe you’re checking up on my friends.”
This wasn’t going right. We were supposed to reconcile, forgive each other, admit we belonged together—not fight.
Joining the Sunshine Club was a huge mistake.
The words came into my head like a line in a script—Aralt’s irresistible whisper, back when I needed it most.
No. No. No. I couldn’t.
But—it wasn’t like I would embrace the whole thing. Only the parts I needed. Just enough to keep Carter from freaking out.
“I don’t even know why I bothered trying.” Carter shook his head and started brushing off his pants. He was mad. He was going to leave me there.
This one time, and then I’d stop. I’d never do it again.
I turned to him, putting my hand flat against his chest to keep him from standing up. “Joining the Sunshine Club was a huge mistake.”