He pressed his cheek against the top of my head. “One day, for good. Soon. I’ll make you pancakes every morning. I don’t even make good pancakes, but I’d do it...or get North to do it. He makes better ones.”
I let myself giggle, grateful for the happier mood. Luke seemed to know just what to say to make me forget my stress for a moment, and sometimes I needed it. “He’d make us eat veggies for breakfast. We’ll have to make it.”
“The best food is always the food someone else made.”
“I can make some.”
He chuckled. “You make good food. I really want grilled cheese apple sammies again.”
“What’s the plan now? What do I do today?”
He hugged me close. “You need to leave here without eating breakfast,” he said and then he started to release me. “Oh man, I’m stupid. Here I was talking pancakes.”
“I can wait to eat,” I said.
He grinned. “You can have some after. Dr. Green wants to run some tests.”
“Are we going to the downtown hospital?”
“He can do most of it at Nathan’s, I think.” He kept his palm against my cheek. “Hopefully you won’t have to go anywhere. Just don’t faint again, okay?”
“Wasn’t planning on it.” I breathed in through my nose and let it out slowly, looking at his dark eyes. “I guess now is as good a time as any—before she makes breakfast and expects me to sit at the table to eat it.”
“Sure,” he said with a smile. “I may have to stay a while if you wake Jimmy up on your way out, so just make sure you head straight to Nathan’s the moment you’re out the door. If Carol insists on someone going with you, or taking you herself, head to the diner, and just start working the counter until they go away. We’ll try to avoid Carol as much as we can. We still don’t know how much she might know about us individually.”
All the sneaking around pushed a heavy weight onto my heart. I used to be so paranoid about my stepmother. This time, it felt more dangerous. Carol was way more attentive, and Jimmy was nosy. Sneaking around might not be as easy as before.
Dolled
––––––––
I gathered up a set of clothes out of the wardrobe without looking at them, and a pair of sneakers. I knocked lightly before opening the attic door.
Jimmy had hung up a clothing line across a small part of the far side of the room, and a makeshift curtain made out of bedsheets had been set up.
Was that his idea? I appreciated that he thought I needed privacy and was making an effort. Or was it so he had privacy? Maybe I’d been around the Academy guys, who shared everything with me, for too long.
Would it make it easier for Luke to leave? Or for the others to come in as needed? I thought it would make it harder, because I couldn’t just look out and see if he was asleep.
Would it make it hard for the cameras to catch something important?
I wondered if Jimmy assumed I’d eventually want to come out of the attic if I knew there was a way to divide the room.
I groaned internally at the idea.
I didn’t want to be here long enough to get that comfortable sharing a space.
I got dressed in the bathroom, putting on a gray wool skirt made of material that felt like a sweater and a thin long-sleeved white shirt. It was dressier than I’d anticipated, but I didn’t want to risk waking Jimmy up.
The sneakers didn’t really match either, being pink. Or maybe it made the outfit casual.
Gabriel would let me know.
I kept Victor’s phone with me. I sat in the bathroom, anticipating going downstairs and summoning up the courage to talk to Carol, especially with a straight face. After listening to her and Jimmy talk about me the night before, I realized I did really seem like a crazy person: no dirty clothes from camp, the way I talked to her, sleeping in the attic. Who knew what Marie and my father had actually said to them—how much was the truth and how much might have been made up?
She’d asked for my help with things, and so far, she’d seemed reasonable. Maybe the boys were right about getting on her good side.
When I left the bathroom, I found the pink notebook North had had me create a planner in. It had been left on the hallway floor for me.
Luke had snuck out here to remind me to take it with me.
I wanted to scold him later for being so reckless, but at the same time, I adored his ability to sneak around the house. I hadn’t heard him at all while in the bathroom.
I took the notebook with me as I crept downstairs, easing my weight to walk quietly and not wake anyone. It was just before seven. We’d gotten up really early. I wondered if leaving alone without telling anyone would be appropriate.
It probably wasn’t a good idea to sneak out, though. I didn’t want to face Carol, but I didn’t want her to have a reason not to trust me.
The master bedroom door was partially open. My dad was still in bed, a lump on one side under the blankets. The other side of the bed had been partially made.
She was awake.
I listened. No noise in their bedroom, but further into the house.
She’d been up for a while.
I found her in the laundry room. The old white laundry baskets we used to have were replaced by taller woven baskets. She was sorting through what looked to be Marie’s clothing. She tossed one T-shirt into a bin marked “Donate.” She picked up another one, turning it over in her hands.
I waited for her to notice me. Eventually she did, and made an effort to smile through a tired expression. Had she been up all night? Yet her clothes were different, another billowy blouse in a different flower pattern but similar in style. She wore tan slacks underneath. Her hair was tied back with a bandana today. It made the excess of blush and highlights at her forehead stand out more.
“Up with the birds,” she said. “I appreciate that.”
“I thought I’d go over early to the diner,” I said. “It’ll give me a chance to talk to Un...the boss about leaving before it gets too busy.” Saying Uncle sounded strange when she didn’t know the reasoning behind it.
“That’s a very clever thing to do. Leaving on a good note with a previous employer is always a good idea. Although by the time you graduate college, you probably wouldn’t have to put a diner on your resume...”
What was wrong with it? I pressed my lips together and nodded slightly to look like I agreed.
She tossed the shirt in her hands into the donate bin and her gaze turned to the notebook. “What’s this?”
“Oh, the...schedule you asked me for. I made a planner last night.”
Her eyes lit up in an approving glow. “You did? You didn’t have to do it from scratch. I could have found a planner for you.”
“I wanted to,” I said quietly, trying my best to come up with what weren’t technically lies. “It saves money...” I was going to give her more excuses, but the less I had to speak, the better. I held out the book to her. “If you wanted to go over it, I thought I’d leave it with you?”
She beamed as she took it from my hands, opening it up to pore over the first couple of pages. “This is very thorough.”