“Wait for me,” Reece growled. “I have to take care of something.” He stalked to the bench, hands ready at his sides.
There I stood, waiting. While the people and the colors and the sky swirled around me until I all I could picture was a tiny black-and-white portrait of Sunny View. Reece was in the middle of it, making me forget what he was, sucking me in, telling me to wait.
I’d let him touch me. Had broken all my own rules.
A bag exchanged hands. Then a wad of dirty green bills.
I ran. I flew into the crowd, parting it with my shoulders until it swallowed me.
“Nearly!” Reece called after me.
But I was gone.
? ? ?
The sun was low in the sky when I trudged to the park entrance, where we were counted off, waiting to be herded to the buses. Jeremy leaned against the iron filigree, staring into the fountains, cones of uneaten cotton candy in each hand. He didn’t look up. Sometimes, it was better to say nothing at all. He handed me the pink one. I reached for the blue instead.
We stood that way for a while, picking apart the fibers, letting them dissolve on our tongues. It felt late, like we’d been waiting too long and we were all growing restless. I shielded my eyes against the setting sun. It stung my forehead as I scanned the promenade, searching for a clock. My eyes climbed the green metal structure beyond the fountains, a replica of the Eiffel Tower. Its lengthening shadow was the only clue to the late hour.
“What time is it?” I asked Jeremy. Shopkeepers had begun pulling down the chain-link gates. The park was near closing.
“We were supposed to board thirty minutes ago.”
Teachers wearing blue-and-white West River Tshirts carried clipboards and weaved through the crowd. “We’re missing Posie,” they called. “Has anyone seen Posie Washington?”
I hadn’t seen Posie all day. That wasn’t unusual in a park this size, but it was unusual for Posie to be late. I kicked at the pavement, the blisters on my heels screaming. A toddler in a stroller laughed as the teacher repeated Posie’s name. “Has anyone seen Posie Washington?” they called again, louder. The little girl shrieked Posie’s name gleefully and sang behind me.
Pocket full of posie,
Ashes, ashes,
We all fall down.
My mind had that slippery feeling. Then it grasped at something solid, finding traction in the rhyme.
We all fall down. The tower will point the way . . . at day’s end you’ll know where to find me.
The Missed Connections clue was part of a nursery rhyme. We all fall down. Pocket full of posie.
Posie was missing.
I checked the equation I’d written on my hand. Height of tower = 1,052 feet high. It’s 68 ft. higher than three times a side of its square base. If the sum of these two is 1,380, at day’s end you’ll know where to find me. I squinted at the green replica of the Eiffel Tower, backlit by the setting sun. The real Eiffel Tower was over a thousand feet high. This had to be it.
I shielded my eyes and followed it from base to tip. The observation deck was empty, closed for the night. The tower will point the way. No. The tower wasn’t pointing the way. Its shadow was pointing, and growing longer by the minute.
I broke out in a sprint.
“Leigh!” Jeremy yelled. I could hear his hard footfalls right behind me. “What are you doing?”
I wasn’t sure precisely where to find her, but I followed the angle of the tower’s shadow deep into the amusement park, hoping it was far enough. I wove and dodged through the thinning crowd, sweating and swearing. The paths cleared and I pushed myself faster—until I slammed into a wall of people. My knees locked and I fought the forward momentum, freezing in place in front of the bathroom near the thrill ride called The Crypt. Jeremy stopped short behind me.
A crowd formed a tight knot at the entrance to the women’s room, stretching up on their tiptoes and craning their necks to see inside. A voice called out from the bathroom, “Call 9-1-1!” Concerned faces looked at one another, and reached for their phones. Someone ran to find an attendant.
“What’s wrong? What’s happening?” I breathlessly asked the woman in front of me.
Without turning her attention from the bathroom door, she said, “Someone found a body in the ladies’ room.” A sheet of paper taped to the frame of the open door curled in the slight breeze, angling toward me. OUT OF ORDER, it said, in bold blue letters.
I’d found Posie Washington.
20
“I have to help her! Let me go!” I threw myself against Jeremy, bucking and kicking.
He held me tighter. “Help who, Leigh? You don’t even know what’s going on! If someone’s really dead in there, then this place is going to be crawling with police and paramedics in a matter of minutes, and we shouldn’t be here! We’ve got to get back to the buses!”