I shoot him a withering look, but he just smiles.
“I didn’t tell him much. If you want to know about him, I can only tell you a few things. There’s a lot I don’t know.”
“Who’s the girl?” I immediately ask.
“What girl?”
“The girl he brings books to.”
“Oh. You must mean Sophia.”
“Sophia,” I repeat quietly. “Is she his girlfriend?”
“I’m not sure. To be honest, he hasn’t told me much about her. She’s the one thing he guards very closely. I know she’s ill – she’s in the hospital almost always.”
“Sick Sophia. Got it.” I catch a falling can and hand it to blush lady. “Anything else?”
“He lives with his Mom in Coral Heights.”
“That’s that fancy gated suburb with the huge houses, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, a lot closer to Columbus.”
“Where’s his Dad?”
“Died in a plane crash, I believe.”
My heart sinks for absolutely no reason. I pull it back up by the ventricles. Now is no time to be feeling sorry for the enemy, heart! Get it together! Extremely together! Get it together so well you fuse!
“So what did you tell him about me?”
“I told him about Will Cavanaugh.”
I flinch so hard I jolt into the table behind me. A pyramid of soup cans wobbles, and comes crashing down. I bite back a swear and hurriedly help them clean up my mess. When the pyramid is back on the table in a mass of tin and cheery labels screaming SODIUM FREE, Wren sighs.
“My cousin is kind of a cruel little shit. I can understand why his name affects you like that.”
“He’s –” I swallow what feels like the entire contents of a staple box. “He’s your –”
“Cousin,” Wren confirms. “I don’t know if you’ve been told, but it’s a very small world.”
“Microscopic,” I laugh nervously, but no part of me feels happy. Nameless is closer than I thought. No – it’s not him. Calm down. It’s just a relation of his. He’s not here, and he won’t ever be. Hopefully. I mentally make a note to search for the closest cliff to dive off of just in case.
“I don’t know the full story between you and my cousin, but he’s said you and he were involved at some point.”
“Yeah. Involved. That’s hilarious.”
“Are you okay? You look green.”
“I’m – I’m fine.” I put a hand on my stomach to steady it and send it a memo.
Can you wait until we’re alone to recalibrate the burrito?
Thanks and Love, The Management Upstairs.
My stomach replies with a rebellious gurgle. Wren checks off something on a clipboard, eyes burrowing into me all the while.
“Anything else I can help you with?”
“Yeah, how legal is underage prostitution?”
He blinks. “Excuse me?”
“Like, it’s not death sentence illegal, but it’s not booze-legal either. So it’s somewhere in-between those two, right?”
“Presumably, yeah.”
“Okay. Cool. Thanks again, prez!”
He flinches at the nickname as I wave and walk off, my mind brewing with a fantastic, ultra-cool, surefire plan.
Jack Hunter might have a sick girlfriend and no Dad, but he’s still a dick. We’re still at war. And he’s still gonna pay.
-5-
3 Years
12 Weeks
5 Days
Doing a bit of Google research on the Rose Club clues me in on two things;
1. There is no Rose Club. At least, not out in the open. People on sketchy Ohio sex forums refer to something called the ‘Club’, but they don’t ever detail the name. I guess it makes sense – things like this are pretty illegal. And if the Club is hiring minors, it’s even grosser and illegaler. Or maybe Jack lied about his age – his fake ID certainly looked convincing enough.
2. Clubs with good-looking men for escort hire are usually gigolo clubs, run by a smart, older gigolo from overseas, where the practice is widely common in Europe. It’s not unheard of for rich, wealthy daughters to hire equally beautiful guys for proms, weddings, family functions, and the weekend usual of wild-ass rave nights. The Duchess of Orlan-Reis (eighteen and gorgeous) was busted last month in Los Angeles for a DUI with fifteen pounds of Versace couture and two Portuguese gigolos in the car. Bill Gate’s daughter’s been going out with a rumored gigolo for a year and a half. Rich girls like pretty guys. And Jack is a lot of hugely negative things, but he is, I hate to admit, a pretty guy. But it’s hard to believe a gigolo club would be here, in Ohio. I mean, there are some pretty rich people in Columbus, so it makes sense, but only a pie slice of sense versus an entire pie of sense. And why would Jack sign up to be in one to begin with? Last time I checked, sex-for-hire isn’t exactly one of those jobs you like. Or do you?
I shake my head and open a can of tuna. Let’s not think about sex. Ugly people have sex, sure, but me, particularly? It’s not in my future. I made it through high school without having it, and I’ll probably make it a couple more years. Even if I do have it, it won’t be with someone who actually likes me for who I am, and whoever I have it with will have to like stretch marks and flab and zits, and last time I checked a significant portion of the population thinks all three are gross as hell. I’ll turn the lights off or something and get it over with. It’ll be, like, a fling. A bar thing. What do grown-ups do to get laid again? Dating sites, I guess. It’s a pretty bleak future, but it’s not like I can expect anything else – I’m sparing people from me, and that includes relationships. If I ever have sex, it’ll be with some guy I won’t ever see again. That way there’s no chance of anything beyond a one-night stand forming. It’s the most practical, logically sound plan I’ve ever come up with, if I may say so myself.
“Honey.” Mom comes in. “Your father wants to know what schools you’re applying to.”
I smack my hand against my head but there’s a can opener in it. As I rub away the bruises, I sigh.
“I’ve told him a million times, Ohio State, Oregon U, Idaho U, and that one Mormon college in Seattle with the creepy brochures.”
“Why are you applying if it looks creepy?”
“Because creepy is awesome? They’re like a cult. I’m all about that shit.”
Mom shoots me the Disapproving-Mom-Subtle-Lip-Frown.
“I’m all about that poop,” I correct delicately. She laughs, and it’s a good sign. Two good signs in one month. I quash my optimism for stark realism – it won’t last. I hope it does, but it won’t. That won’t stop me from enjoying it while I can, though. I assemble the tuna melts and slip the sandwiches in the oven to, well, melt. The doorbell rings, and I answer. Avery stands there, flaming hair lit from behind by the half-setting sun and a little scowl on her face.
“Awesome, thanks so much for coming!”
“I’m not staying,” Avery drawls. “Just give me the money so I can leave.”
“Uh, right! How much do I owe you?”
“Twenty bucks.”
“Okay, one sec, lemme go get my wallet.”
I take the stairs two at a time to my bedroom and rummage frantically in my wallet. I pull out two tens and hurtle downstairs. Avery passes me a brown paper bag, squished small, and I give her the money.
“Thanks for this.” I smile. “Means, uh, a lot.”
“Stay in school,” she mocks what I told her that night at the party.
“Haha,” I laugh awkwardly. “They aren’t for me. They’re for my high-anxiety…aunt’s…boyfriend’s…daughter…who is my cousin.”
“Sure,” Avery snorts. “Whatever.”
There’s a moment of quiet in which I think she’ll turn and walk away, our business done, but she stays.
“Can I give you a piece of advice?” She narrows her eyes at me.
“Sure.”
“Stay away from Jack’s past.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Any particular reason? And how did y
ou know –”
“Wren and I talk. You asked Wren about Jack. And I’m telling you to stay out of Jack’s past. People don’t do well when they meddle in there.”
“Like, they’re struck by a terrible illness? Did he steal a crystal skull from a tomb? I told him that wasn’t the brightest idea –”
“He’s dangerous,” She cuts me off. “Okay? He’s fucking dangerous when you try to get close to him, and if you keep it up, he’s going to turn that danger on you and I won’t be able to stop him this time.”
“Oh, is that a friend, Isis?”
I immediately stash the paper bag down my shirt. It bulges awkwardly and I pray she doesn’t notice I’ve suddenly gone up an entire lumpy cup.
“Uh, yeah. Mom, this is Avery. Avery, this is Patricia Blake, my mom.”
Avery takes one look at my bathrobed, watery-eyed, slightly fragile looking mother and sneers.
“I gotta go.”
She’s gone in her green Saab before Mom has the chance to rope her into the living room. Smart girl. Also all kind of hells rude, but also smart.
“That girl – she looked familiar,” Mom starts.
“Yeah? You’ve seen her before?”
“I have. I just can’t for the life of me remember where.”
***
I manage to slip the paper bag past security at school by almost rear-ending the janitor’s car as he pulls in to the parking lot Monday morning. He gets out, face a beet-red pimple ready to pop, and as he’s lecturing me on safe driving and checking my fender to make sure not a speck of his red paint is on it, I slip the bag into the bed of the truck, under the tarp. At morning recess, I go behind the maintenance shed by the art room, where the janitor parks and dumps the bed of his truck out. A pile of rakes, brooms, bleach, sponges, and hammers crowd the ground, and the paper bag looks perfectly at home. I quickly pull the bag out from under a window washing pole and scamper off.
Lots of people in the movies break into lockers with elaborate ear-to-the-lock techniques, and when that fails, there’s always the good old bolt cutters. But what the movies don’t tell you is it’s tons easier to just go through the door. Federal school district funding ensures the metal is the lowest quality nickel-tin hybrid, and all high school lockers are essentially made with a two-bolt drop system, which means if you take a hairpin and a pair of tweezers and wedge the center bolt to the left, you can crack the door open enough to slip something inside - for instance, two dime bags of weed that definitely are Jack Hunter’s because they are in his locker, now. I go to the bathroom and call the school office; anonymously tipping them locker 522 has the smell of weed coming from it.
Campus security is all puffed up after catching that ‘criminal’ the other day. Knife-guy’s suspended for a week, and everyone sniggers openly about the fact it took three security officers to catch one naked guy, but that doesn’t matter to the officers. In their minds, it was a triumph of Adult Good over the General Evil of Teenagers, and that’s enough ego puffing enough to have them walking around like balloons with mustaches and bald spots. In ten minutes they’re at locker 522, the janitor cutting the lock and the officers rifling through Jack’s things. I watch from around the corner of the hall as they take out his books, his pencils, dumping them on the floor unceremoniously. When they find the dime bags they sniff the inside of them and assure each other it’s weed. I cackle softly on my way back to class.
Jack Hunter: 2. Isis Blake: 1. It’s a big difference, but I’ll make it up quick.
The rumor spreads like fire on an oil spill – Jack Hunter is suspended for two days pending drug charges with the local police. Life is sweet. I bite into my sandwich and hardly notice it’s the third day in a row I’m eating tuna – my taste buds can only perceive sweet, sweet victory.
“What are you doing?” Kayla asks, staring down at me with a tray of chili in her hands.
“Savoring my win,” I say.
“That was you, wasn’t it!” Kayla slams her tray down and hisses. “You were the one who planted weed in Jack’s locker!”
“Uh, no? He’s the stoner, not me. I wouldn’t even know where to buy weed.”
“Avery said she sold you two dime bags.”
“Oh. Well, in that case, yes. I do know where to buy weed.”
She makes a disgusted noise, but her face is the opposite of disgusting. It’s beautiful. It’s like watching a purebred show cat hack up a hairball.
“In my defense –” I throw up my hands. “Everybody knows the popular people have weed, okay? It’s like a universal law, up there with ‘the apple falls on Newton’s nerdy herd’ and ‘the sky is a distinct blueish color’.”
“I can’t believe you,” Kayla sighs. “I thought you were cool, and now look at you; planting drugs on some guy you don’t like?”
“Uh, it’s a little more than ‘don’t like’.”
“Newsflash – the rest of us do like him, okay? So can you just lay off?”
“He still hasn’t apologized for making you cry, Kayla!”
“He makes me cry all the fucking time, okay? I’ve kind of cried on the daily into my pillow about him for six years now!”
“Even more reason to kick his ass!”
“This isn’t second grade anymore, Isis!” Kayla snaps. “Biting and kicking isn’t ladylike, and it’s not gonna get you anywhere with any guys, either.”
“Maybe I don’t wanna fucking get with any guys!” My voice is so loud it’s drawing attention. “Maybe all guys are scumbags! Maybe I’m the only one who apparently can think clearly anymore and see an asshole for who he really is!”
“He’s not an asshole –”
“I’m not going to listen to your excuses, Kayla! I know them all. I said them all once too for a guy, okay?”
“I have a hard time believing that,” She says nastily.
“Yeah? Believe this!”
I yank my sleeve up, and Kayla does three things in quick succession – she sees it, understands it, and recoils, flinching away from it. From me.
I pull my sleeve back down and grab my backpack. I leave the sandwich there. I leave the short triumph over Jack I had there. I leave my secret there, with her.
The rest of the day is a blurry soup of anger and half held back tears. When I get home, the house is dark. All the windows are closed and the curtains drawn, like usual. The house is sleeping, or that’s what it feels like. I call out for Mom – she didn’t have work or a psychologist’s appointment today, and her car is still in the garage. She should be home. I take the stairs two at a time and freeze when I see into her open room.
Everything is trashed. The lamp is broken, amber glass shattered across the carpet. Her documents and work canvases are scattered like the scales of a paper snake. She’s ripped some of them to shreds, her bed littered with scraps. Her makeup is dripping off her dresser in ugly, flesh-colored liquid rivers. The mirror in her bathroom is broken, her pill bottle open and the pills clogging the sink. Water overflows from the tub onto the floor, a pool just beginning to form. My heart turns cold, my fingers going numb.
“Mom?” I shout. “Mom!”
I check under the bed, her closet, tearing clothes and chairs aside as I look for her. She’s not in the living room, or my room, or the kitchen. I dial her cellphone but it rings upstairs, under her pillow. My mind crowds with images of her beaten, kidnapped, that man holding her by the arm and yanking her back to Nevada, back to where she was miserable –
I dial Dad frantically. But it only rings twice before I hear the faint sobbing. Mom. I leap after it, following the sound into the garage. She’s curled up in the backseat of the car. I yank the door open and touch her face, her shoulders, inspect her for wounds or cuts.
“Mom, what the hell happened? Are you okay?”
“He came,” Mom gasps into my hair, clinging to me like a baby monkey clings to a large one. “He found me.”
The police take fifteen minutes to get here. They comb the house, interrogate Mom to t
he point of tears and back again, and all I can do is hold her and snap at them when they get too nosy or invasive. When the sweep of the house is done, one of them pulls me aside.
“Look, Ms. Blake, you said your mom has a history of mental illness –”
“She has PTSD.” I correct angrily. “From a recent abusive boyfriend. Not an entire history of fucking mental illness.”
“I understand –”
“Do you?” I laugh, half-hysteric.
“Look, I’m sorry. PTSD can be hell. Shit, some of our guys have it too. Some of our guys have to be let go for it. Fact of the matter is, there’s no male-size footprints in the house, and the locks weren’t forced open. Nothing was stolen. There’s no sign of a two-person struggle in her room, either.”
“She said she heard him walking downstairs.”
“It could very well have been a flashback. You said she’s on medication, right?”
“And seeing a psychologist every week.”
“Well, I’m sorry, kid, but if she’s doing those things already, there’s not a lot we can do for her.”
“She’s not crazy! Stop treating her like she is!”
“I’m not, okay? I’m just stating facts. We can keep a cop outside your house for seventy-two hours, if it makes you feel better, but that’s about it.”
“Yeah. That’d be good.”
He pats my shoulder. “Keep your chin up. She’ll get better.”
I watch his retreating back and murmur;
“That’s what they all say.”
***
After Mom’s scare, I sleep in her room on the air mattress every night. I do my homework in there with her as she reads or naps. We eat meals upstairs, since she can’t bring herself to go downstairs for more than a few minutes at a time. My own room starts to look weird and foreign when I walk in – like I’m a stranger in it. The cop outside helps. When she gets jumpy in the middle of the night, I point out her window to the cop car sitting under the streetlight, and she relaxes and manages to get some sleep. I don’t. I stay awake, listening for the sounds of the heavy footsteps. Waiting. Praying. Praying that the bastard comes in and gives me an excuse to slit his throat.