Trouble is a Friend of Mine

‘Well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,’ he said, and left.

I didn’t know how it wouldn’t come to that, since in my experience of school, report cards were kind of impossible to avoid. But like I said, that was my experience of school, and this was Digby we were talking about.





FIFTEEN


That night, I googled Digby’s family some more. By the time I looked up, I’d spent two hours in the Church of Search.

An interview with one detective fascinated me. Her name first of all: Rosetta Pickles. Who wouldn’t follow that down the Google hole? And the weird mole on her lip looked like it’d pop whenever she said words with an O sound like lost and home.

Then I noticed something. I rewound the interview to make sure.

‘She was the sweetest little girl,’ Rosetta Pickles said.

Past tense. I remembered something about murderers using the past tense to talk about victims they couldn’t know were dead.

I kept googling, but Rosetta Pickles dropped out of the story. The only thing I saw was a listing for an apartment bought by a Rosetta Pickles in Manhattan. River Heights to Central Park adjacent? Nah, it couldn’t be the same person. I had twenty-three tabs open when my phone rang.

‘If you get down to the mall in the next twenty minutes, I’ll show you something that’ll blow your mind, I swear to God,’ Digby said.

‘Can’t. Busy,’ I said.

‘Oh, come on … you can screen stalk any time.’

He was too close to the truth for my taste. I shut down some tabs.

‘Nope. Busy.’

‘Pretty sure you can sit alone in your living room eating leftover rotisserie tomorrow night too,’ Digby said. ‘And next time, if you want to pretend you’re busy, don’t answer on the first ring.’

I threw down the chicken leg I’d been chewing on.

‘Still can’t.’

‘What’s your excuse now?’

‘I feel crappy.’

‘You were fine at school today … what, did you and Liza have a fight?’

‘No. Well … maybe. She’s annoying.’

‘She’s there?’

‘She’s out. On a date.’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Oh, okay.’

‘No, you don’t get it. She’s wearing my dress, which is way tight on her, and these heels that give her cankles …’ I said. ‘It’s not what it sounds like.’

‘You mean like a little kid moping around at home, mad because Mommy’s out on a date?’

Maybe it was exactly what it sounded like.

‘Fine. But if I come to the mall, can we not talk about my personal stuff?’

‘Sure. But hey, I’m starving, so bring ten bucks.’

‘I’m not just your ATM, you know.’

‘Oh, right. Then bring twenty. No fun watching you watching me eat anyway.’

I still found the whole one-stop mall shopping thing weird. I liked going to three different places when I wanted three different things. Like, I got my shoes fixed in the subway station on Henry and Clark. I’d get croissants at a bakery on Montague, and Mom bought flowers at the bodega down the street because they always lasted three days longer than flowers from anywhere else.

In River Heights, though, you got your shoes repaired and bought your cakes and flowers at the mall. And in River Heights, going to the mall meant going to Promenade Plaza, which, except for a couple of dusty strips of depressing businesses like DVD rentals and inkjet cartridge refill places, was the only real mall for miles.

The food court was packed. The jocks were in a food fight in one corner. The pretty, popular girls were sitting on their boyfriends’ laps uploading mall-haul videos. A big group of guys eating KFC were playing an RPG and taking directions from this one kid wearing a cape and giant plastic ears. The emo kids caught me looking in their direction and glared. They didn’t have to consult each other. They just did it all together and at the same time. One girl snarled.

Henry and Digby were right. There was a huge difference between being alone at home and being alone in a crowd. I was lonely sitting home alone. At the mall, I was terrified.

I needed to get out of there and was halfway across the food court when someone wearing a full-body costume of a brown girl teddy bear in a tutu and ballet slippers stepped in my way. The leotard had SUZIE BEAR written across it. I moved to the left. The bear moved to block me.

‘Hey,’ Suzie Bear said.

I moved to the right, and Suzie Bear moved to block me again.

‘Hey,’ Suzie Bear said. ‘Gimme ten bucks.’

I wondered if people were going to let me get mugged by a teddy bear in the middle of the food court.

‘Don’t tell me you forgot to bring the money, Princeton. I’m desperate. I just ate what I thought was a Skittle covered in lint,’ Suzie Bear said. ‘It wasn’t a Skittle.’

I finally realized it was Digby. My hand made a hollow donk when I slapped the head of his costume. ‘You scared the crap out of me. Will you take that thing off?’

‘My boss won’t like that,’ he said.