I stared out the window as Cyndra drove us into the hills surrounding the city.
We stopped at a security gate, and a guard offered a salute as we entered.
“I’m taking you to my house,” Cyndra said. “It’s too early for the party yet. Besides, we’ve got to change.”
It sounded like a mandate: We’ve got to change.
She glanced at me.
“That’s okay, right? I figure you’d rather hang with me than go home or whatever.”
I tried on a smile, telling myself the fact that she’d seen it wasn’t her fault.
“Yeah. Fine.”
She flashed that magnetic smile, like she knew the power it had and wasn’t afraid to use it. “Good.”
“Where’s the party, anyway?” I asked as the car climbed up a hill.
“Highland Terrace,” she said. Like that meant something to me.
I would text it to Clay later, when Cyndra wasn’t sitting right there.
We pulled onto a private drive. The road snaked through trees and over a rise before the house appeared like magic. The driveway curved in front of massive double doors. A fountain splashed to one side.
Something else Janie would love to see—the fountain, cascading water over a mermaid and dolphin.
Cyndra handed me the department-store bags and led the way inside. The door hadn’t even been locked.
I guess when you have a security gate, you don’t have to worry about door locks so much.
“Come on, we’ll go to my room.”
“Cyndra? Is that you?” a woman’s voice called.
Cyndra whispered a curse. Her shoulders slumped for only a moment before she straightened and turned an empty smile at me. She didn’t say anything, so I followed her through a series of rooms toward the voice.
“Cyndra?” the woman called again.
We entered a room where a wall of glass looked out at the setting sun and over the city below. Talking heads jabbered in mute from a giant TV mounted over a massive fireplace.
The woman was on a stair-climber, the setting so fast that if it was real steps, she’d be at the top of the Empire State Building in no time.
She was gorgeous, not quite as much as her daughter, but clearly someone who spent a lot of time trying not to look like anyone’s mom.
When she saw me, she came to a sudden stop. The platforms she stood on sunk slowly, finally resting at the bottoms of their arcs.
“Oh, honey, I didn’t know we had company.” She flashed a dazzling smile at me and climbed off the machine. She walked forward with a hand outstretched. “Hello, I’m Tiff.”
I shook her hand and glanced at Cyndra.
“Jason. Nice to meet you.”
“Cyndra. Where have you been?” A man was reclining on a large sofa in front of the TV, a smirk flashing on his lips.
Cyndra crossed her arms.
“The mall,” she said, an edge to her voice.
Cyndra’s stepfather didn’t look at me, his eyes peculiar and intense on her instead. Like she was holding a secret in her mouth, dark and vaporous.
Suddenly things started clicking, but my brain was too slow to make sense of it at first. Something about Cyndra, the way she’d been at break yesterday, the way she now wore her pose like a shield.
The way her stepfather watched her mouth, then let his eyes slide down her chest.
Tiff tinkled a laugh and mounted her stair-climber again. The steps accelerated as Cyndra’s mom leaned over the arm rails of her machine, running those steps like if she could only get high enough, fast enough, she would be in time to stop some horrible event from happening.
I moved forward next to Cyndra and wrapped my arm around her.
Her stepfather barely glanced at me. “Party tonight?” he asked, flipping channels. He stopped at a scene of bikinis bouncing on the beach.
“Yes,” I answered.
“Is Michael going to be there?” Tiff panted the question. An oblique way of asking just who the hell I was, again?
“We’re meeting him there. Ice, let’s go to my room,” Cyndra said, both answering her mother’s question and planting a new one. Like she wanted them to imagine exactly what we were going to do. She led me from the room.
We climbed a curved staircase, then walked down a long hall. Cyndra pushed the door closed behind us.
A huge bed dominated the center of the room. A recliner, television, and stereo filled various nooks and walls. A deep, double-door closet gaped, clothes spilling out and across the floor. Another door opened into a large bathroom.
Cyndra took the bags and tossed them into the recliner. She sighed, pulling fingers through her hair.
I leaned against the door. “I think we picked the wrong house, after all.”
Her smile was brittle. “I don’t get it.” She knocked a stuffed elephant onto the floor and sat on the bed.
The clock ticked. Outside, the burnt sunset faded.
Cyndra pushed all the other stuffed toys onto the floor with the elephant and clicked on the TV. She got off the bed.
“I’m taking a shower.” She waved at the TV. “Watch whatever you want.”
She closed the bathroom door behind her.
I stretched out on her bed and texted Clay.
Highland Terrace 9pm? I’ll send the address when we get there.
Some cooking show was on TV. I flicked the remote, amazed as always at all the crap channels.
The phone buzzed. K
I flipped the channels around to a music channel, thinking about Cyndra and her home. And mine. My eighth-grade girlfriend, Celia. And the teacher I’d punched.
I remembered the wet snap of his breaking nose.
Imagined the gun I’d buy at some pawnshop. Two bullets, each with a name.
I closed my eyes and dreamt.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The shifting bedsprings woke me. I opened my eyes.
Cyndra sat next to me, her hair falling in a fluffy wave. She leaned over just a little, not on top of me, but so close I could smell the flowery scent of her hair and feel the warmth of her hip next to mine.
“You frown even when you’re asleep.”