“Are you kidding? They’d die. Especially Wes,” she says.
“Why especially him?” From what I remember, Henry was a lot stricter.
“Because he’s the dean at Carlton College. Hello?” Ivy waves a hand in front of my face when I don’t react. “Do you not watch the news?”
“You know I don’t.”
“Well, Carlton College just fired a professor for sleeping with a student. It was a whole thing, and Wes was interviewed a bunch of times. If people knew his son was sneaking around with a teacher, he’d look like a hypocrite. Or a clueless, uninvolved parent. Neither is great for the dean of a college.”
Suddenly, Cal flattening himself against an alley doorway makes a lot more sense. “No wonder Cal freaked out this morning,” I say.
Ivy chews her lip. “He said she wasn’t at the studio, right?” I nod. “But he also said she works there on Tuesdays. She’s blond, and she knows Boney. That’s three strikes. Plus a bonus fourth strike for”—she waves her hand toward Cal’s table—“all that. It’s a good thing we followed him. He clearly has no objectivity when it comes to this woman, so he’s not going to ask any of the right questions.”
“You want to move closer? Try and listen in?” I ask.
“We could,” Ivy says. “And we should. But I had something else in mind, too.”
YOUTUBE, CARLTON SPEAKS CHANNEL
Ishaan and Zack wave at a phone camera from what looks like the front seat of a car.
ZACK: Hey, this is Zack Abrams and Ishaan Mittal, coming to you live from (glances around) Ishaan’s car. Which, not gonna lie, could be cleaner.
ISHAAN: You’re the one who wanted to record here. I voted for Angelo’s Pizzeria.
ZACK: Too noisy. Anyway, we ducked out of lunch to bring you a Carlton Speaks special report on what everyone at school is talking about today: the shocking death of our classmate, Carlton High senior Brian “Boney” Mahoney. The news reports don’t have much detail yet, but it sounds like Boney died in an abandoned building in Boston.
ISHAAN: He didn’t just die. He was killed. By a blond chick.
ZACK, glaring at Ishaan: You’re getting ahead of the story. That part’s not even confirmed yet. (Looks back at the camera.) Anyway. Boney was elected senior class president yesterday, and was supposed to give his acceptance speech at ten o’clock this morning. We were all in the auditorium, waiting. (Dramatic pause.) But Boney never showed up.
ISHAAN, crowding into the camera: You know who else didn’t show up?
ZACK: Not yet—
ISHAAN, loudly: That’s right, a blond chick. The one he beat.
ZACK: Damn it, Ishaan, you always ruin my intro.
ISHAAN: You were taking too long. Anyway, it’s weird, right? Ivy Sterling-Shepard never misses a single day of school until today, when the guy who totally humiliates her dies? And nobody’s heard from her. Not her brother, not her best friend— ZACK: I’m not sure we should be saying names here. This is all just speculation, obviously, but— ISHAAN: But that girl is intense. Like, the kind of intense that snaps one day and goes off the deep end. You can see it, right?
ZACK, after a beat: Well. It’s not like you can’t see it.
CAL
I don’t know why I grabbed her hands, under the circumstances. A combination of habit, probably—even though it’s only been a few weeks since we started meeting up outside of class—and the desperate need for some kind of comfort.
I can tell I’ve annoyed her, though, so now I feel even worse. “Sorry,” I say, leaning back and fiddling with her discarded straw wrapper. She’s drinking something pink and iced, and gives me a small smile as she takes a sip.
“It’s all right. Just a very public spot, you know?”
I know. And I know how this looks—all of it.
I never thought I’d be involved with an older woman, or an almost-married woman, or a teacher. It’s not like it was planned. I’ve had a crush on Lara ever since I first took one of her classes last year, but I never imagined anything would come of it. Especially once she got engaged. But when senior year began, I asked her advice about college art programs, and we started talking a lot more. Then she gave me her number, in case I had any questions outside of class. I sat in my room for three hours that night, composing messages until I finally got up the nerve to send one.
We ended up texting for almost two hours, and every day after that. It went from being about college applications, to art in general, to pop culture, and then about hopes and dreams and plans for the future. I got kind of obsessed with her, I guess. I thought about her nonstop, even when I was with Noemi, and I filled my phone with songs about unrequited love. Earlier this month, I was listening to one of them when she called me for the first time.
“Hello?” I croaked, my heart in my throat.
“Hi, Cal. I was just thinking about your face.”
“Excuse me?” I was positive I’d heard her wrong.