“Of course not,” Molly said. “Come on, guys. We’re all just excited to see Damon.” Damon was grinning with his ruddy, chubby cheeks, the silver stud glinting over each eyebrow. But his blue eyes were luminous and clear, and a little uncertain. He was only a kid, after all. One of hers. Why had she been so afraid of him?
“We’re glad to have you back, Damon,” she said now. “We missed you.” As she said it, she realized she meant it. In a rush of good feeling, she stepped forward and embraced him. He smelled powerfully of boy: cigarettes and menthol deodorant and undertones of sour laundry. His chest was broad and fleshy and shielded by a T-shirt and she felt the queasy sensation of her breasts pressed against him, a fact of a hug that she remembered too late. His arms hung at his sides as she squeezed him. She heard him breathing. She felt him hesitate. She patted his shoulder blades and let him go.
Pulling away, Molly realized Katie Norton was watching them, arms crossed over her chest, on her face a contemplative frown. Months ago Molly might have rushed to Doug Ellison to debate what this meant. Now she knew better. She was trusting her instincts. She was doing her job.
THE DIME
Elisabeth Avarine ate lunch alone, on a low stone bench among orange trees, in a sun-baked courtyard. Her companion, in that little-populated corner of the school, was the small stone statue of a girl who sat atop the fountain in the center, gazing mutely with her head inclined. Perhaps it was the statue that drew Elisabeth here, day after day, or perhaps it was the faint citrus fragrance in the air, or the clock tower above, its arched windows revealing occasional flickers of light and ghosts. Perhaps it was that she simply found it easier to spend her lunches here, away from the groups on the front lawn and the smoking circles in the back parking lot and the crowds at the shopping center across the street. She had no obvious place in this complex social matrix nor the drive to insert herself within it. She preferred to be here—to tuck herself into this secluded, sunny courtyard, communing with a sixty-year-old statue, her small, contemplative face of stone, safely out of sight.
Nick Brickston, a person to whom she had never really spoken, stood before her, extending a wad of twenty-dollar bills and telling her he owed her. Telling her to take the money and spend it on, of all things, a party.
Elisabeth took a moment to process this. Squinting up at him, she saw a boy who was tall and thin with a sharp, narrow face, a boy who associated with slackers and tried to pass as one himself but whose eyes betrayed him, quick, intelligent, and dark. In response to these eyes Elisabeth’s mind went blank, as often happened when she was given the imperative to speak, converse, parlay, be normal—in short, she was afraid.
Finally she said, “I can’t take this.”
“Sure you can. You did your part. Our secret, right?”
Our secret. The phrase sent a rare thrill through her body: she felt as if a gate were cracking open, she was being led inside. At the SAT, the registrar had asked her about Nick and she’d denied knowing him, not out of any sense of loyalty but because it was her nature to say nothing, to remain safely uninvolved. Now she saw that her decision to keep quiet meant, potentially, much more. She told Nick, “With or without the money. I wouldn’t tell.”
He sat down next to her. Casual, close. He smelled like cigarettes. He sat the way boys did, legs spread wide so his knee nudged her thigh. Warm, assured, he pressed the wad of bills into her palm. “Look,” he said, “it’s cool. I want you to have it.”
“I can’t have a party,” she said.
“Of course you can.”
“What I mean is, I don’t—” she began, then stopped herself. Dipped her gaze to her lap, where her hands were clenched and knuckles white. How could she explain to someone like Nick Brickston, a boy who felt entitled to be everywhere, with anyone, I don’t have any friends? To know this fact was one thing; to say it, impossible.
Nick was watching her closely—she felt his gaze on her neck. But it wasn’t the kind of gaze she was used to. He was seeking something deeper. She didn’t know what he hoped to find. She was desperate for him to leave and desperate for him not to. She could not think of a thing to say, and her silence stretched, terrible, between them.
Finally he saved her. “You know what? I’m gonna help you out. I’ve got some fuckin’, what, expertise in this area. You got a house in the canyon, right? Your mom ever go out of town?”
All the time. Napa, Tahoe, Santa Barbara, Vail, depending on the guy. “In a few weeks, maybe? I’m not sure.” Her voice sounded small to her ears, unsteady.