Also Known As (20 page)

“Am I adopted?”

“No, no, darling. We never told you how hard it would be to do this assignment. There is always a choice, but I’m afraid we never prepared you to make it.”

I looked up at him, still clutching his handkerchief in my fist. “But the Collective …”

“They will always find a new person to take a job. I know you said yes because you wanted to prove yourself, but as I said, there is always a choice.”

I nodded. “I know that,” I told him, and I did, but it was still nice to hear him say it. “I just wanted to show you guys that I could do it.”

“I know you can,” Angelo assured me. “You have always been the same capable girl who learned how to pick my front door lock when she was three years old.” He smiled at me, forcing me to smile back a little. “And now you know that this is what it’s like. All the training in the world can’t prepare you for a secret life. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to be honest with people.”

“I’m trying to be as honest as I can be,” I said. “I haven’t actually lied to Jesse about anything. I just haven’t told him the whole truth. My parents, though. I haven’t even told them about the date yet. They’re going to murder me when they find out.”

“Don’t worry about your parents,” Angelo said. “I have faith in them just as I have faith in you. You leave them to me.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I mean it, really. I don’t have anyone else to talk to about all this.”

“I know, my love,” he said. “And you are very welcome.”

“Sorry about your handkerchief, too.” It was now a teary, snotty mess balled up in my fist. “I guess I was a little upset.”

Angelo waved the thought away. “I have a drawerful at home.” (I knew it.) “It won’t even be missed.”

“Okay.” I wiped my nose again. “Do you want more tea? My treat.”

“No, I think we should probably walk.” Angelo stood up and I realized that the park was suddenly being overrun with tourists. “Come along, take an old man home.”

I took his arm as we joined the chaos out on Fifty-Third Street. “What would I do without you, Angelo?” I sighed.

“You’ll never know.” He smiled, then patted my hand as we turned the corner.

Chapter 22

“Hey,” Jesse said to me on Friday afternoon at school. “Don’t forget, tonight is the night! Are you ready? Any lastminute concerns?”

I pretended to think. “No horse-drawn carriages. They freak me out. What if the horse is tired and doesn’t want to walk? Or what if it wants to run? The horror!” I leaned closer to him. “
The horror
.”

Jesse laughed and put his hands on my shoulders. “No horses, okay. Noted. I’ll just scratch ‘rodeo’ off the list of activities, while I’m at it.”

“Good call,” I said. “So what time should I meet you?”

“Meet? You don’t want me to come over, meet the parents, shake the hands, kiss the babies?”

There was, of course, absolutely no way ever that Jesse could meet my parents. How awkward would that introduction be? “Oh, hey, meet the two people who are partially responsible for the downfall of your family empire? Do you want anything to drink?” No, clearly that would not be happening.

“They’ve got a thing tonight,” I said.

“A thing?” Jesse repeated.

“A …” My mom was right, I was a terrible liar. “A benefit auction. A silent one. For children. Who have diseases. Bad ones. The diseases, not the kids.” Yep, gotta work on those lying skills.

“A silent benefit for good kids who have bad diseases,” Jesse repeated. “Got it, okay. Can I tell you something?”

“Anything.”

“I just think you don’t want me to meet your parents.”

“Oh, I do!” I told him, and that was no lie. “You don’t even know how much I wish you could. I
really
wish you could because I think they’d like you a lot. But … they’re just not home tonight. It’s you and me. And my dad will still break your neck if I don’t come home by curfew, by the way.” I had no idea what my curfew was, or if I even had one, but I thought it sounded more believable that way.

“Well, if he does, maybe then they could have a silent auction for me?” Jesse grinned, leaning forward, and I kissed him, risking yet another detention.

Worth it.

“You’re antsy tonight,” my mom said as she stirred the chili on the stove, but just the thought of eating made my stomach flip. “What’s up? Friday night jitters?”

“I’m fine,” I said, then remembered what Angelo had said about the word “fine.” “I’m just thinking about everything that I have to do next week. Take another French quiz, find the Oliver documents, get the Oliver documents, get a pedicure. It’s a lot on my plate.”

My mom chuckled and I knew she thought I was joking around, which was great. Gotta butter the parents up, after all. If I had learned anything from watching hours of television, it was that parents are gullible. And yes, mine were spies and probably had a combined IQ score somewhere in the four digits, but I was their kid. All that intelligence had to distill down into something, right?

“Hey,” I said. “Remember that girl Roux I was telling you about? Well, she’s having some people over tonight and Jesse Oliver is going to be one of them, so I thought I should go.”

“Okay,” my dad said, where he was trying to solve the day’s crossword puzzle. The Friday puzzle was never good to him. I glanced over his shoulder.

“Forty-nine Down is ‘asinine,’” I told him. “Trust me. I know it is.”

My dad frowned. “No, it’s not.”

“Are we looking at the same puzzle here? Because the puzzle I’m looking at—”

“Is mine,” he finished. “Can you please corral your nosy daughter?” he asked my mom as I started to inspect the rest of the puzzle. “Let’s all just stick to our respective talents, shall we?”

“You should probably do it in pencil,” my mom replied. “In case you mess up.”

“He wouldn’t mess up if he put ‘asinine’ for Forty-nine Down,” I said. “Do they even
make
pencils anymore?”

“Of course they make pencils!” My mom sounded almost offended at the idea. “What about standardized tests? And grocery lists?”

But my dad and I had tuned her out. “Look!” I said. “It’s seven letters and the third one is an
I
!”

“Hey, when are you leaving again?” my dad asked. “Soon, right? Like, right now?”

“Ha, nice try. I still have to get ready.” I had to get a lot ready, that was for sure. “I think I’m—”

And then someone knocked at the front door.

All three of us froze, my dad’s pen poised over the crossword and my mom stuck between the refrigerator and the stove. “Um,” I said. “Did someone order food?”

My dad made it over to the video surveillance monitor in what seemed like less than two steps. “It’s a short person,” he said. “Maggie, she looks like someone you would know.”

Oh no oh no oh no
.

“Roux!” I gasped when I opened the door. “What are you doing here?”

“Sorry I’m late!” she said, flouncing into the room. “I know, we’ve gotta do, like, three hours of prep in about half an hour, but don’t worry, I’ve been training for an emergency like this. Oh, hi!”

My parents probably would have looked less horrified if there were a group of rogue assassins in the room. “Hi?” my mom said. “Um, Maggie—?”

“I’m Scarlet,” Roux said, reaching forward to shake my mom’s hand. “Everyone call me Roux, though. Except my grandma, but she lives in Arkansas, so who cares? Hi!” Now she was pumping my dad’s arm up and down.

The jig was up.

“Is this the Roux that you were supposed to go see tonight?” my mom muttered under her breath.

“How did you know where I lived?” was the only thing I could think to ask her.

“I saw you go inside the building last week,” Roux said, setting down her bag and starting to unwind her scarf. “And then I just took the elevator up.”

So apparently the security in this building was complete crap. Great. I’ll sleep like a baby knowing that.

“But what are you—?”

“Getting you ready for your date. Duh.” Roux started to rummage through her bag. “I went to Sephora today. Thank me later.”

“Your what?” my parents said at the same time.

I took a huge, gigantic, deep breath. Roux glanced up from her scrounging. “Oh,” she said, eyeing my parents. “Oops.”

“Yes,” I said. “Oops.”

“You have a date?” my mom asked. “With a boy?”

“No, with a tortoise,” I said. “Yes, of course with a boy! With a boy
named Jesse Oliver
.”

“Ah,” my dad said. “You have a date. With Jesse Oliver.” I could almost see the aneurysm bulging behind his left eye. “Okay, then. Do we have any wine?”

“I’m sorry!” Roux whispered to me. “You didn’t say that your parents didn’t know! Are you grounded now?”

“How long have you known about this date?” my mom asked, interrupting Roux. “Weeks, days, what?”

“Um, a good amount of hours,” I said. “Roughly
speaking? I just thought it would be a nice way to get to know him better. You know?”

“Yes,” my dad said. “It would.” He was uncorking the wine bottle at record speed. “Your first date. And it’s with Jesse Oliver. Wonderful.”

“This is your first date?” Roux squealed. “Oh my God! Then you need to wear this!” She dug around and found a pink sweater. “When I bought this, the salesgirl called the color ‘salmon.’ Salmon!” She shook it in my mom’s direction, and my mom nodded and widened her eyes at me as Roux dove back into her bag. “Can you believe it? I was like, ‘Honey, listen. Salmon’s a fish, not a color.’” She glanced up at me. “Those are your staying-in jeans, right?”

“Right,” I said, even though I had kind of planned on wearing them out. “Hey, why don’t you go poke around in my closet and—”

There was another knock at the door, but this time it was all too familiar. So familiar, in fact, that the person went ahead and let himself in. “Hello?” Angelo said, stepping into the loft. “Is this a bad time?”

“Oh, no, this is just peachy,” I said. “The more, the merrier.”

“Angelo, what are you doing here?” my mom said, going over to him. “Is everything all right?”

“Of course, my dear, of course. I was just in the neighborhood and thought I might stop by.”

Both of my parents turned to look at me. “Does Angelo know, too?” My dad gaped. “Really? Did you tell everyone
but
your parents?”

“Hi!” Roux piped up. “I’m Roux!
Love
the suit.”

Angelo shook her hand. “Thank you, lovely to meet you, I’m sure. Maggie has told me a great many things about you.”

Roux beamed at me. “Well, the good things are better and the bad things are much worse, I assure you. So who are you?”

“Angelo,” he said. “A longtime family friend.”

“Cool.”

I halfway hoped that someone was taking a video of the scene that was unfolding in our kitchen, it was that ridiculous. Angelo and Roux shook hands while my parents and I watched them, mouths open like it was the most amazing tennis match. I was pretty sure that this was going to be one of those situations that was funnier in the past tense. Like Luxembourg.

“And you go to school with Maggie?” Angelo straightened his cufflinks.

“Ugh, yes. Ugh to the school part, not Maggie, of course.” Roux squeezed my arm. “She’s, like, my best friend. What do you do?”

For several seconds, no one said a word, and then Angelo let it fly.

“Well,” he said, “I happen to be a world-class forger.”

“Okay, then!” I said, grabbing Roux by the shoulder and practically tossing her toward my bedroom. “Why don’t you go find something for me to wear?” I said. “It should take you a while, right?”

Roux was still cracking up at Angelo’s answer. “I love
him!” she told me. “Why does everything sound better when a British person says it?”

“Jet lag. Focus on my outfit. Think Audrey Hepburn.”

“I’m not a miracle worker,” Roux protested, but she went anyway as I turned back toward my parents and Angelo.

“Who,” my mother demanded, “is
that
?”

“That’s Roux,” I said. “My friend, remember? Excuse me, ‘friend’?” I made air quotes around the last word. “She just wants to help me get ready.” I glanced behind me to make sure that Roux wasn’t standing nearby, then I turned back and dropped my voice. “Her parents travel a lot and they’re, like, never home. All she has is a housekeeper who doesn’t work weekends.”

“What about other friends?” my dad asked, but I could tell that my parents were softening. They’re big on family and togetherness.

“Um, touchy subject,” I said. “There was sort of a scene last year. It got messy. Teenage girls are nuts, did you know that? You really lucked out with me. Anyway, she doesn’t have other friends.”

“She’s quite a whirlwind,” Angelo said. “But she seems to have excellent taste in suits,
non
?”

“Are you insane?” my mother said to him. “What were you
thinking
!”

My dad closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Maggie,” he said, “explain to me again how you have a date.”

“Um, he asked?” No one said a word. “And I said yes?”

“Well, I think it’s a wonderful idea. I do,” Angelo said as my mother glared at him. “Maggie is merely doing her assignment, and quite well, as a matter of fact. She seems to have assimilated in record time.”

“Yes, I have,” I said, agreeing, but then my mother glared at me and I shut up.

“Also,” Angelo continued, as calm as ever, “let’s all remember what it’s like to be young and in this job.”

Well, that certainly did the trick. Both of my parents grew thoughtful, rather than pissed. “If you want,” I offered, “you can give me a curfew.”

My parents looked at each other. “Don’t look at me!” my mom said. “I have no idea!”

“Midnight?” my dad guessed. “Eleven?”

“Two,” I said.

“In Manhattan on a Friday night?” my mom asked. “Uh-uh. No way.”

“Most of the kids I go to school with don’t even have curfews,” I pointed out. “If you make me come home at eleven, I’m not going to get anything accomplished and they’re going to think I’m weird. Well, weirder.”

“What’s Roux’s curfew?” my dad asked.

“I’m pretty sure she doesn’t know what that is.”