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Lucky for me, I had some time to collect myself. So. Much. Time.
Heres the thing you need to know about surveillance: its boring. Sure, sometimes we blow stuff up and jump off buildings and/or moving trains, but most of the time we just hang around waiting for something to happen (a fact that almost never makes it into the movies), so I might have felt pretty silly if I were a normal girl and not a highly trained secret-agent-type person as I sat on that park bench, trying to act normal when, by definition, Im anything but.
17:35 hours (thats five thirty-five P. M. ): The Operative moved into position.
18:00 hours: The Operative was wishing shed brought something to eat because she couldnt leave her post to go buy a candy bar, much less use the bathroom.
18:30 hours: The Operative realized its almost impossible to look pretty and/or seductive if you SERIOUSLY have to go pee.
My homework for that night consisted of fifty pages of The Art of War, which needed translating into Arabic, a credit card—slash-fingerprint modifier that need perfecting for Dr. Fibs, and Madame Dabney had been dropping big pop-quiz hints at the end of C&A. Yet, there I was, rubbing my swelling ankle and thinking that I really should be getting CoveOps extra credit for this.
I looked at my watch again: seven forty-five. Okay, I thought, Ill give him until eight and then…
"Hi," I heard from behind me.
Oh, jeez- Oh, jeez. I couldnt turn around. Oh heck, I had to turn around.
"Cammie?" he said again as if it were a question.
I could have said hi back in fourteen different languages (and thats not including pig Latin). And yet I was speechless as he came to stand in front of me.
"Um … Oh … Um …"
"Josh," he said, pointing to himself as if he thought Id forgotten.
How sweet is that? I know Im no boy expert, but I have heard entire lectures on reading body language, and I have to say that assuming that a person will have forgotten your name is way high on my "indicators of humbleness" list (not that I have one, but I totally have a starting point now).
"Hi. "
I said that in English, didnt I? It wasnt Arabic or French? Oh, please, God in Heaven, dont let him think Im an exchange student … or worse, a girl who knows, like, three words of a foreign language and goes around using them all the time just to prove how smart/cultured/generally better than everyone else she is.
"I saw you sitting over here," he said. Okay, looks like were good on the English thing. "I havent seen you around at all lately. "
"Oh. " I shot upright. "I was in Mongolia. "
Note to self: learn to be a less extreme liar.
"With the Peace Corps," I said slowly. "My parents are big into that. Thats when they started the homeschooling thing," I said, remembering my legend, feeling the momentum.
"Wow. Thats so cool," he said.
"It is?" I asked, wondering if he was serious. But he was smiling, so I said, "Oh, yeah. It is. "
He slid onto the seat beside me. "So, have you lived, like, a lot of places?"
Ive traveled quite a bit, but Ive actually only lived three places: a Nebraska ranch, a school for geniuses, and a D. C. town house. Luckily, Im an excellent liar with a very thorough legend. Four years worth of COW lessons swam in my head, and I went for some of the highlights. "Thailands really beautiful. "
"Wow. "
Then I remembered Maceys dont be cooler than he is advice. "It was long time ago," I said. "It wasnt a big thing. "
"But you live here now?"
The Subject likes to state the obvious, which may signify a defect in observation skills and/or short-term memory?
"Yeah. " I nodded. And then things got quiet—painfully quiet. "Im waiting on my mom," I blurted, finally remembering my cover story. "She takes a class at night … at the library. " I gestured to the red brick building across the square. "And I like to come into town with her because I dont get out much, thanks to my nontraditional education. "
The Subject has really blue eyes that twinkle when he looks at someone like shes maybe a little bit insane.
After a long stretch of really awkward silence, he stood up and said, "I gotta go. " I wanted to beg him not to leave, but even I knew that might come off as a tad bit desperate. He stepped away, and I didnt know how to stop him (well, I did, but several of the moves I had in mind are really only legal during times of war).
"Hey," he said, "whats your last name?"
"Solomon," I blurted.
Ew! A large portion of my future government salary will someday be spent trying to understand why I chose that name at this moment, but it was out there and I couldnt take it back.
"Are you, like, in the book?"
The book? What book?
He laughed and stepped closer. "Can I call you?" he asked, reading the confusion on my face.
Josh was asking if he could call me! He wanted my phone number! What it meant—truly and irrevocably meant—I didnt know. But I felt very safe in ruling out the possibility that he thought I was "nobody. " Still, that didnt change the fact that the last phone I used doubles as a stun gun (so for obvious reasons I probably shouldnt give him the number of that one).
I said, "No. " But then the most amazing thing happened: Josh looked totally sad! It was as if Id run over his puppy (though no actual puppies were harmed in the formation of that metaphor).
I was shocked. I was amazed. I was drunk on power!
"No!" I said again. "Not, no you cant call me. I meant, no, you cant call me. " Then, seeing his confusion, I added, "There are strict rules at my house. " Not a lie.
He nodded, faking understanding, then asked, "What about e-mail?"
I shook my head.
"I see. "
"Ill be back here tomorrow," I blurted, stopping him in his tracks. "My mom, she has class again. Ill…"
"Okay. " He nodded, then turned to go. "Maybe Ill see you around. "
"What the heck is that supposed to mean?" I yelled at Macey, though it wasnt her fault. I mean, if a boy gets all gooey and disappointed because you wont give him your phone number and then you tell him you will be at a designated place at a designated time—therein eliminating the need for a phone number—and he says "maybe" hell see you there? Thats cause to yell—isnt it?
"Maybe?" I yelled again, which might have been overkill since Id had the whole walk back to school to simmer in his words, and my roommates were hearing them for the first time.
Liz was wearing the same expression she gets whenever Dr. Fibs tells us well be needing our gas masks for class— equal parts fear and euphoria. Macey was doing her nails, and Bex was doing yoga in the corner of the room.
Most people are supposed to get calmer with deep breathing and inner reflection—not Bex. "I could take him out," she offered, and if she hadnt been twisted up like a pretzel at the time, I might have worried more about it. After all, she knew where he lived.
"Well…" Liz stammered. "I supposed youll just have to go, and then if he shows, it means he likes you. "
"Wrong," Macey said, making a buzzer sound as she flipped through a textbook. "If he comes, it means hes curious—or bored—but probably curious. "
"But when will we know if he likes her?" Liz pleaded.
Macey rolled her big, blue, beautiful eyes. "Thats not the question," she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "The question is—how much?"
Is there no end to the things we have to learn?
Chapter Fifteen
Spy training isnt something you can turn off and on. We eat, sleep, and breathe this stuff. It has become as much a part of my DNA as lackluster hair and a weakness for peanut M&Ms. I know that probably goes without saying, but before I tell you what came next, I thought Id better point it out.
After all, imagine if you were a fifteen-year-old girl standing alone on a deserted street on a dark night, preparing for a clandestine meeting, when, all of a sudden you cant see
anything because a pair of hands are covering your eyes. One second youre standing there, being grateful that youd remembered to pack a candy bar, and then…POW…everything goes black.
Well, thats what happened. But did I panic? No way. I did what I was trained to do—I grabbed the offending arm, shifted my weight, and used the force of my would-be attackers momentum against him.
It was fast. Really fast. Scary, these-hands-are-lethal weapons fast.
I am so good, I thought, right up until the point when I looked down and saw Josh lying at my feet, the wind knocked out of him.
"Oh my gosh! Im so sorry!" I cried and reached down for him. "Im so sorry. Are you all right? Please be all right. "
"Cammie?" he croaked. His voice sounded so weak, and I thought, This is it. Ive killed the only man I could ever love, and now Im about to hear his deathbed (deathstreet?) confession. I leaned close to him. My hair fell into his open mouth. He gagged.
So … yeah … on my first psuedo-date, I not only physically assaulted my potential soul mate, I also made him gag—literally.
I pushed my hair behind my ear and crouched beside him. (Incidentally, if you ever want to feel a boys abs, this is a pretty good technique—because it seemed perfectly natural for me to put my hands on his stomach and chest. ) "Ooh. What is it?"
"Do something for me?"
"Anything!" I crouched lower, not wanting to miss a single, precious word.
"Please dont ever tell any of my friends about this. "
He smiled, and relief flooded my body.
He thinks Ill meet his friends! I thought—then wondered, What does that mean?
The Subject demonstrates amazing physical fortitude, as was exhibited by his ability to recover quickly after a very hard fall onto asphalt. The Subject is also surprisingly heavy.
I helped Josh get up and brush himself off.
"Wow!" he said. "Where did you learn to do that?"
I shrugged, trying to guess how Cammie the homeschooled girl who had a cat named Suzie would reply. "My mom says a girl needs to know how to take care of herself. " Not a lie.
He rubbed the back of his head. "I feel sorry for your dad. "
Bullets couldnt have hit me any harder. But then I realized that he wasnt taking it back, slinking away, trying to pull his foot out of his mouth. He just looked at me and smiled. For the first time in a long time, when thinking about my father, I felt like smiling, too.
"He says hes pretty tough, but I think she could take him. "
"Like mother like daughter, huh?"
He had no idea what an amazing compliment hed just given me—and the thing was: hed never know.
"Can you…like…" He was gesturing to the town around us. "…walk around or something?"
"Sure. "
We set off down the street. For a girl who has been described as a pavement artist, I was a little surprised at how hard it is to walk when youre actually trying to be seen.
After a few minutes of listening to our feet on the street, I realized something. Talking. Shouldnt there be talking? I searched my mind for something—anything—to say, but kept coming up with things like "So, how bout those new satellite-controlled detonators with the twelve-mile range?" Or, "Have you read the new translation of Art of War? Because I prefer it in the original dialect. …" I half wished hed charge at me again or draw a knife or start speaking in Japanese or something … but he didnt, and so I didnt know what to do. He walked. So I walked. He smiled, so I smiled back. He turned a corner (without using the Strembesky technique of detecting a tail, which was really sloppy of him), and I followed.