The Cutting Room Floor (16 page)

We sit and watch the first completed section of the film. I have to say it’s good. Really good. How could it not be, with Riley’s face in every scene?

“Shhh,” I say as she giggles at herself onscreen. “This is my favorite part.” It’s a close-up of Rye.

“Oh my God,” she squeals.

“What? You don’t like it?” My heart sinks.

“No, it’s not that. Your work is amazing, Dez.” She shifts in her chair. “I just don’t like seeing this much of myself.”

“Well, speak for yourself.” I lean into her shoulder. “I could watch this … watch you, all day.”

“Stop.”

Riley blushes, but I just shake my head.

RILEY

The room is crowded, forcing us to stand in the back. The who’s who of our high school are all here. The teachers, the school board superintendent, helicopter parents, and the Devlin family.

I knew he’d show.

Principal Bunker calls the meeting to order and they babble on about dates for this and votes for that. Dez leans against the wall as his eyes begin to droop.

“Wake up,” I say under my breath.

He yawns and cracks his neck.

“Okay, next agenda item is our humanities program.” Principal Bunker shuffles his papers around the table.

I stand at attention.

“As you know, we’d been considering getting rid of the program
before
the horrible tragedy struck. Before Ms. Dunn.”

“We can’t get rid of the program,” someone yells from the back, which sets off a rumbling in the room.

“I agree,” one of the teachers at the table says. “We need to advance the level of education at this school. We can’t make any more cuts to our curriculum.”

“Hang on,” Principal Bunker says. “One at a time.”

Devlin raises his hand to speak. He’s surrounded by his family. Tori keeps her head down and my stomach sinks, thinking about how Devlin must have punished her because he thought I was boozing at the party. Tori looks like a little girl now, sitting next to her dad and pulling the stuffing out of the ripped chair. Principal Bunker nods to Devlin so he can address the crowd.

“I’m all for advancing the level of education in this school,” Mr. Devlin begins. “Humanities is a perfect example of that. And we lost a great teacher this year.” He clears his throat. “One of the best. I’m sorry Ms. Dunn isn’t here tonight, because we wanted to make this proposal together.”

Together? What?

“We were working together last spring to come up with some viable and cost-efficient options to keep the level of education up while keeping costs down.”

But, what about the notes? The petitions? The papers?

I think back to exactly what we found. Nothing, really. Was I reading too much into it? I want to find her killer so badly. Am I seeing things that aren’t really there?

“We think … ” He looks down and appears genuinely saddened. “We thought we could delay the elimination of Ms. Dunn’s humanities class another year. We were planning on a phased-out approach that would slowly integrate her curriculum into English, science, and art classes. Personally, I was hoping it would buy us time to find a way to keep Ms. Dunn on board. But in any case, she’s developed the guidelines that show how her curriculum can fit into the other courses. All we have to do is give it to the teachers and have them implement it.”

Homer stands up and joins Mr. Devlin.

What is going on?

“I never thought I’d say this, but the mayor is right,” Homer says.

There are a few chuckles from the audience.

“This is the perfect solution to our budgeting problem, and one I know Rachel supported. Not only do I think it’s the right thing to do for the school and the students, but it’s a great way to honor the work Rachel did here.”

I look over at the Devlin family—together as usual. But this time Tori isn’t wearing her plastered-on smile. Neither is her mother.

We were working together last spring,
Devlin said.

I think about what I’ve uncovered so far: Ms. Dunn’s letters and financial documents; all the papers with Devlin’s phone numbers and notes; the Degas; the class action lawsuit dropped.

No.

Were they
together
together?

Ms. Dunn and Devlin?

Ew!

As the praise for Ms. Dunn goes on, Tori’s mouth scrun-ches up, venomous.

Just like it did the next day in school, after Ms. Dunn was killed. At her father’s request, Tori organized a prayer service for the students. Dez and I both went. It felt good to be around people, to mourn together. I think it was the first time I understood why people go to church. The connection they feel. The best part about the service was that it was for students only. People got up and talked about how scared and angry they were. Others told their favorite story about Ms. Dunn. But not everyone took comfort. Marcus almost got into a brawl with some freshmen during Amanda Fisher’s heartfelt story because they were too noisy or something. Dez was just as distracting. He was all jittery—bouncing his leg and tapping his hand on his knee. I was happy when he finally decided to leave. It was uncomfortable.

And then there was Tori. She led us in prayer. She read some sort of Bible verse, but I didn’t get it. It was about redemption and the forgiveness of sins. Almost like what happened to Ms. Dunn was her own fault. I might not be intimate with the Good Book, but it seemed weird. Surely there was a better passage that Tori could’ve used. Something a little more apropos?

As I look over at Tori now—her sour face and icy eyes—my Spidey sense kicks in.

“Dez,” I whisper. “I think we had the wrong Devlin.”

THE FINAL MOMENT

INT. OLD HIGH SCHOOL SUPPLY ROOM FILLED WITH JUNK—EVENING

The camera cuts to a medium shot of MS. DUNN. She grows increasingly flustered. Her hands shake; her eyes dart around the room; her posture is rigid.

MEDIUM SHOT—MS. DUNN

MS. DUNN continues to pack her box of supplies. She hums now to settle her nerves.

CUE: MUSIC

A film cart holding an old TV and VCR enters the frame. It comes crashing down on MS. DUNN. She falls to the ground, moaning.

The dark figure slowly enters the frame and pushes the cart off MS. DUNN. At first it seems like the dark figure is there to help, but instead …

The person strikes MS. DUNN in the back. We see what the person was concealing. It’s a blade of some kind.

MS. DUNN moves and tries to struggle. The dark figure doesn’t let up.

After almost a dozen brutal stabs with the blade, MS. DUNN stops fighting.

CUT TO:

CLOSE UP: MS. DUNN
We see MS. DUNN’s eyes go blank.
But her body continues to jerk back and forth as the attack continues.

FADE OUT

DEZ

Of course, there’s no way Tori killed Ms. Dunn. I know that. Little Tori stabbing a woman—a tall woman—dozens of times. I don’t think so, but it’s not like I can tell Riley this. How would I explain how I know the unpublished details of her murder?

And if she knew the whole story, she’d never forgive me. She’d never give me the chance to explain and all of this would be for nothing. All of it.

I try to hold her to our date after the meeting, but she’s caught a new scent and won’t give it up.

“So, I was thinking dessert at the Pie Place?” I ask as we get into my car.

“Sure, whatever you want,” she says, distracted.

“Don’t act so enthused.”

“Sorry, but food is the last thing on my mind right now, Dez. Tori may have killed someone. A teacher. Isn’t that freaking you out? How can you think about pie at a time like this?”

My mind searches for something to grab onto. Anything. Surprisingly, I’ve become pretty damn fast on my feet. I do the only thing I can think of. Throw her off track.

“Because I know it wasn’t her,” I mumble.

Now I have Riley’s attention.

“How?” Her eyes pull together.

My throat tightens. I hate what I have to do, but there’s no other choice. “I was with her that night,” I lie.

“What?” she yells, trying to mask the hurt I can see on her face.

“Please,” I whisper. “Don’t make me relive it.”

“Oh,” she finally says.

This is low. Lower than low.

“It’s a long story.” I try to salvage the situation. “Nothing happened.”

“Hey, it’s none of my business.” Riley raises her hands.

“Yeah, well, maybe I want it to be your business.”

“Dez, don’t,” she threatens. “Not now.” She scoots away from me, closer to her window. “Please, just take me home.”

Great—by giving Tori an alibi, I push Rye further away, and all I really want to do is reel her in.

We don’t discuss it again.

Thankfully, I think Riley’s investigation is finally over.

During the next week, I work to keep Riley close. I find random jobs on the film to busy her mind. Some bogus. Some not. It does the trick, and before I know it we shoot the last scene in the film.

RILEY

“That’s a wrap, people.” Dez puts down his camera. His smile is contagious. After two months, he finally got his last shot.

We’re outside, in the park. I grab my jacket and zip it up. The air is cool and the sun is setting earlier in the day. You can almost smell the frost in the breeze.

Dez waves everyone over and we stand in a little huddle.

“Yeah, now the real work begins,” Lucas says, referring to the editing of the film.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be there the entire time, bro.” Dez puts his arm around Lucas.

Wow, he’s in a good mood.

Dez turns to the group. “Lucas and I still have a lot of work to do in the cutting room, but I just want to thank everyone for their hard work getting us to this point. Our stars, Riley and Jonah, have been amazing, and the grips and PAs, everyone. It’s been stellar. Truly.”

He peeks over at me and my stomach tickles. I’m still mad at him, or jealous, or … I don’t know what it is, but I’m still something. He gets to me. I don’t want to think of Dez with Tori. Like I said,
it’s none of my business.
But like he said,
maybe I want it to be your business.

Maybe I want that too.

“We’re only as good as the director,” Jonah chimes in. “Let’s hear it for our fearless leader.”

We all hoot and holler and give it up for Dez. Soon he’s surrounded, being showered with praise. I want him to have his moment.

“Nice work, Frost.” Stella smiles at me.

“You too,” I say. We give each other an awkward hug.

The goose bumps are back, just like I remember …

I’m thirteen. All my friends are crushing on the High School Musical guys. I don’t get what the big deal is—they do nothing for me. I’m more into Pink and Lady Gaga. But soon it isn’t just the Disney boys that capture my friends’ thoughts every waking moment. It’s the boys on the radio, the boys on TV, the boys at school.

Boys, boys, boys.

We start hanging at the skate park so my friends can gawk at the boys on skateboards. I’m not the least bit interested, until one day two girls come to the park on their own boards. The girls look like me: tomboy clothes, sneakers, messy hair. One girl wears a visor over her mop, the other has a baseball hat on backwards.

I’m in awe.

The next day, I beg my parents for a board.

I start hanging out with the skateboard girls, Heather and Brit, and spend less and less time with my other friends. They’re like idols to me. I want to be just like them, especially Heather.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that I didn’t just want to be like Heather. I wanted to be with her.
With her
with her.

Unfortunately, she moved away before anything happened. Of course, she did kiss me goodbye.

I don’t think anything’s ever compared.

“I’ll take one of those.” Dez pulls me from my memories and my clumsy embrace with Stella.

I blush.

“Oh, umm, just celebrating.” I move my eyes from Stella to Dez and try to wipe away the goose bumps.