This couldn’t be happening. I looked around for some kind of explanation. I even looked at the Scandinavian kid, but he was just playing on his phone.
“What are you doing here?” Jamie asked, his posture rigid. He was looking at me like he wanted me to disappear.
Well, of course he wanted me to disappear. Last night had proven beyond all reasonable doubt that the two of us should never be in the same room together, ever again.
“I could ask you the exact same question,” I said.
He shoved his hands into his pockets, then pulled them out and flexed his fingers. I noticed how tired he looked. There were deep grooves under his eyes, and he was wearing a scruffy T-shirt, faded jeans, and black-framed glasses instead of contacts. Plus, the pretentious hat was gone.
Thank God. Or maybe not thank God, because he looked so much smaller and so much less confident without it. It made me want to ask him if everything was okay. It made me want to reach out to him. But as soon as I felt that, my stomach twisted in rebellion. I wanted to sit down. I wanted to close my eyes and make him disappear, too.
“Do you have to see a counselor?” he asked. Still annoyed.
“Of course not,” I said. Also annoyed. “I work here.”
The annoyance on his face turned to confusion. “You do?”
A skinny, tan woman started walking down the hall toward us, cork wedge sandals smacking angrily against the ground. Jamie turned away from me just as she stepped between us.
“Good,” she said. “You found the office.”
“Yup,” he said, all low and mumbly. He didn’t sound like Jamie anymore.
“Well,” she said, “have you talked to anyone? Have you done anything?”
“Mom…”
She pinched the bridge of her nose between her forefinger and thumb. Her nails were painted beige; they almost matched the color of her leather bag. “Answer the question. I want to be here for as little time as possible.”
“I talked to Sophia.” Jamie pointed at me. “She works here.”
Great. Now his mom was staring at me. I’d seen her around, of course, even after Jamie moved. Sometimes she came to Mika’s apartment to talk to Mika’s mom. Or, when Mika dragged me to the American Club, I’d notice her coming out of conference rooms with a group of women gathered around her like skinny, well-dressed bodyguards.
“Well,” she said, “who are you?”
“Uh. I work here.”
His mom sighed. “And?”
“And—I update the website every week.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jamie smile. A little.
His mom took her cell phone out of her bag and tapped the screen. “This is ridiculous. Someone was supposed to meet us outside at nine fifteen.”
The can of iced coffee was starting to sweat in my hand. I shifted it to the other. “You’re probably looking for Mr. Frederic. He’s the admissions counselor, in room four.”
“No.” She dropped the phone in her bag. “We’re here to see Ms. Suzuki.”
Ms. Suzuki? I felt my eyes widen.
The only reason anyone saw the head counselor was if they were in the kind of trouble I could only dream of. Couldn’t even dream of! I’m the type of person who recoils at the subconscious imagining of trouble. But how could Jamie be in trouble? He wasn’t even a student yet.
“Mom,” Jamie said quietly.
“Oh, stop it,” she said. “You’re not allowed to be precious about this. Especially not after showing up at one in the morning without telling us where you were. I swear to God, Jamie, you…”
“Ms. Suzuki’s in room two,” I blurted.
“What?” She blinked at me. “Oh. Good. Thank you.” She walked right through the waiting room, breaking all sorts of waiting-room protocol, and leaving Jamie and me to face each other.
What’s going on? I mouthed at him.
He cringed and glanced over his shoulder. Later, he mouthed back.
God. Why did I ask that?
Ms. Suzuki opened her door. “Oh, Mrs. Foster? Did you find the office all right?”
“Jamie,” his mom called. “Come on.”
His back stiffened, and the look in his eyes changed, becoming closed off and insular. And then he was turning away from me. Again.
CHAPTER 7
MONDAY
IT HAD BEEN AN HOUR.
An hour and twenty-three minutes.
Enough time to down my iced coffee. Enough time to listen to Mr. Frederic talk to the Scandinavian kid who, in typical T-Cad fashion, was the son of a Norwegian diplomat.
I kept my headphones on but not plugged in. I couldn’t hear what Ms. Suzuki was saying, but I did a crack job of obsessing over it. I obsessed over why Jamie had come back to Tokyo in the first place. Mika said it was because his parents thought he’d be happier here.
Yeah. Right. After seeing him with his mom, I definitely didn’t think that was the case. Maybe Jamie had done something at boarding school that meant he had to leave. Maybe he’d cheated on a test or been caught with a girl in his room. Or maybe he was in legal trouble. Maybe he’d stolen a car or robbed a gas station for cigarettes and booze and condoms.
Maybe he’d killed a man.
I checked to see if Mika was online. If she was, I could ask what Jamie had said about boarding school or about his parents or—no. I couldn’t do that. She’d have serious questions if I showed a sudden, reinvigorated interest in Jamie. I’d lain low the whole summer after he left, and when I came back to the T-Cad at the beginning of freshman year, I was convinced he’d have told her everything and that she’d come up to me in the cafeteria and punch me.
But she didn’t. And I realized he hadn’t said a word. Still, she must have known something had happened. Whenever she brought him up, I got so distant and twitchy that, eventually, she dropped it altogether. Jamie had turned into this strange, vacuous space between us. The He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named of our friendship.