The phone almost slips out of my hand. Another text from Chad Posner came through while I was reading. People r fucked up.
I text back, Where’d you get this?
Posner writes Some rando emailed a link, with the laughing-so-hard-I’m-crying emoji. He thinks it’s somebody’s idea of a sick joke. Which is what most people would think, if they hadn’t spent an hour with a police officer asking ten different ways how peanut oil got into Simon Kelleher’s cup. Along with three other people who looked guilty as hell.
None of them have as much experience as I do keeping a straight face when shit’s falling apart around them. At least, none of them are as good at it as me.
Chapter Five
Bronwyn
Friday, September 28, 6:45 p.m.
Friday evening is a relief. Maeve and I are settled into her room for a Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathon on Netflix. It’s our latest obsession, and I’ve been looking forward to it all week, but tonight we only half pay attention. Maeve’s curled up on the window seat, tapping away on her laptop, and I’m sprawled across her bed with my Kindle open to Ulysses by James Joyce. It’s number one on the Modern Library’s 100 Best Novels and I’m determined to finish it before the semester’s over, but it’s pretty slow going. And I can’t concentrate.
All anybody could talk about at school today was that Tumblr post. A bunch of kids had the link emailed to them last night from some “About This” Gmail address, and by lunchtime everyone had read it. Yumiko helps out in the principal’s office on Fridays, and she heard them talking about trying to track whoever did it by IP address.
I doubt they’ll have any luck. Nobody with half a brain would send something like that from their own technology.
Since detention on Monday people have been careful and overly nice to me, but today was different. Conversations kept stopping when I approached. Yumiko finally said, “It’s not like people think you sent it. They just think it’s weird, how you guys got questioned by the police yesterday and then this pops up.” Like that was supposed to make me feel better.
“Just imagine.” Maeve’s voice startles me back to her bedroom. She puts aside her laptop and raps her fingers lightly on the window. “This time next year, you’ll be at Yale. What do you think you’ll do there on a Friday night? Frat party?”
I roll my eyes at her. “Right, because you get a personality transplant along with your acceptance letter. Anyway, I still have to get in.”
“You will. How could you not?”
I shift restlessly on the bed. Lots of ways. “You never know.”
Maeve keeps tapping her fingers against the glass. “If you’re being modest on my account, you can give it a rest. I’m quite comfortable in my role as the family slacker.”
“You’re not a slacker,” I protest. She just grins and flutters a hand. Maeve’s one of the smartest people I know, but until her freshman year she was too sick to go to school consistently. She was diagnosed with leukemia when she was seven, and wasn’t fully disease-free until two years ago, when she was fourteen.
We almost lost her a couple of times. Once when I was in fourth grade, I overheard a priest at the hospital asking my parents if they’d considered starting to make “arrangements.” I knew what he meant. I bowed my head and prayed: Please don’t take her. I’ll do everything right if you let her stay. I’ll be perfect. I promise.
After so many years in and out of the hospital, Maeve never really learned how to participate in life. I do that for both of us: join the clubs, win the awards, and get the grades so I can go to Yale like our parents did. It makes them happy, and keeps Maeve from extending herself too much.
Maeve goes back to staring out the window with her usual faraway expression. She looks like a daydream herself: pale and ethereal, with dark-brown hair like mine but startling amber eyes. I’m about to ask what she’s thinking when she suddenly sits up straight and cups her hands around her eyes, pressing her face against the window. “Is that Nate Macauley?” I snort without moving, and she says, “I’m serious. Check it out.”
I get up and lean in next to her. I can just about make out the faint outline of a motorcycle in our driveway. “What the hell?” Maeve and I exchange glances, and she shoots me a wicked grin. “What?” I ask. My voice comes out more snappish than I intended.
“What?” she mimics. “You think I don’t remember you mooning over him in elementary school? I was sick, not dead.”
“Don’t joke about that. God. And that was light-years ago.” Nate’s motorcycle is still in our driveway, not moving. “What do you suppose he’s doing here?”
“Only one way to find out.” Maeve’s voice is annoyingly singsongy, and she ignores the dirty look I give her as I stand up.
My heart thumps all the way downstairs. Nate and I have talked more at school this week than we have since fifth grade, which admittedly still isn’t much. Every time I see him I get the impression he can’t wait to be someplace else. But I keep running into him.
Opening the front door triggers a floodlight in front of our garage that makes Nate look as though he’s on center stage. As I walk toward him my nerves are jangling, and I’m acutely conscious of the fact that I’m in my usual hanging-out-with-Maeve ensemble: flip-flops, a hoodie, and athletic shorts. Not that he’s making an effort. I’ve seen that Guinness T-shirt at least twice this week.
“Hi, Nate,” I say. “What’s up?”
Nate takes his helmet off, and his dark-blue eyes flick past me to our front door. “Hey.” He doesn’t say anything else for an uncomfortably long time. I cross my arms and wait him out. Finally he meets my gaze with a wry smile that makes my stomach do a slow somersault. “I don’t have a good reason for being here.”
“Do you want to come in?” I blurt out.
He hesitates. “I bet your parents would love that.”
He doesn’t know the half of it. Dad’s least favorite stereotype is that of the Colombian drug dealer, and he wouldn’t appreciate even a hint of association from me. But I find myself saying, “They’re not home.” Then I hastily add, “I’m hanging out with my sister,” before he thinks that was some sort of come-on.
“Yeah, okay.” Nate gets off his bike and follows me like it’s no big deal, so I try to act equally nonchalant. Maeve’s leaning against the kitchen counter when we get inside, even though I’m sure she was staring out her bedroom window ten seconds ago. “Have you met my sister, Maeve?”
Nate shakes his head. “No. How’s it going?”
“All right,” Maeve answers, eyeing him with frank interest.
I have no idea what to do next as he shrugs off his jacket and tosses it over a kitchen chair. How am I supposed to … entertain Nate Macauley? It’s not even my responsibility, right? He’s the one who showed up out of the blue. I should do what I normally do. Except that’s sit in my sister’s room and watch retro vampire shows while half reading Ulysses.
I’m completely out of my depth here.
Nate doesn’t notice my discomfort, wandering past the french doors that open into our living room. Maeve elbows me as we follow him and murmurs, “Que boca tan hermosa.”
“Shut up,” I hiss. Dad encourages us to speak Spanish around the house, but I doubt this is what he had in mind. Besides, for all we know, Nate’s fluent.
He stops at the grand piano and looks back at us. “Who plays?”
“Bronwyn,” Maeve says before I can even open my mouth. I stay near the doorway, arms folded, as she settles into Dad’s favorite leather armchair in front of the sliding door leading to our deck. “She’s really good.”
“Oh yeah?” Nate asks at the same time I say, “No, I’m not.”