Another Pan (7 page)

“If you don’t know her, she must be a new teacher,” said John. “Let’s go.”

Wendy turned for just a second and wondered if she should greet this woman. But when she turned back, the woman was gone. Or maybe she had blended into the crowd — she was so plain, so nondescript . . . exactly the type of person that spends her life blending in, watching, never really standing out.

John seemed to forget her instantly. He began pushing his way through the crowd, and Wendy followed. They cut across the lawn and around the main building, arriving at the lacrosse field only minutes before morning practice came to an end. Wendy could see John fidgeting with a mixture of excitement and nervousness, because now Connor was approaching them with two of his teammates. John was probably trying to think of just the right thing to say.
Poor kid
.

Though, now that she considered it,
she
should probably be thinking of the right thing to say, too. She and Connor had never talked at school — not really — and somehow everything felt different here. More official. These guys didn’t know her. They hadn’t come to Connor’s Fourth of July party or hung out with them all summer. In fact, Wendy and Connor had spent the summer in a bubble, since most of their classmates were off on summer adventures around the world. So what would Connor say now? Would he pretend it was all no big deal? That he wasn’t
really
dating the teacher’s kid? What would Connor’s lacrosse friends think?

“Hey,” she managed to mumble when Connor waved and then jogged up and slapped John on the back.

Then Connor threw a sweaty arm over Wendy’s shoulder and said, “This is my girlfriend, Wendy Darling.” The boys were saying hello when Connor added, “And you guys know John, right?” And then when they didn’t show the appropriate level of excitement, he said a bit more loudly, “They’re Darling’s kids. Remember?”

Wendy looked up, amazed, because the way Connor was rambling, it was as if
he
was embarrassed that his friends didn’t remember her — like he wanted her to think that he had already told all his friends about her and her whole family. He was giving his friends a look that said
Stop being jerks in front of my girlfriend
.

Wendy tried to play it cool, but she couldn’t help the giant smile that was spreading across her face.
What a good guy,
she thought. And then he leaned over and gave her a hard, sweaty kiss on the lips. Wendy wanted to pull away, because to be perfectly objective, it was really gross. But that didn’t matter now, because one thing was for sure: this was Wendy’s one opportunity to prove that she, Wendy Darling, was the kind of girl who would pick the nice guy whether or not he met some vague standard of fiery romance or fairy-tale chemistry. She, Wendy Darling, was sensible and good. She would never be anything like Mrs. Darling.
And look at that,
she thought.
John’s loving this. Wait, what’s he doing?

John was digging into his backpack and pulling out a stack of cards.
Oh, God, he didn’t
. . .

“Here’s my info,” John said as he handed out solid black business cards to Connor’s friends. “I blog sometimes . . . you know, about underground stuff I learn on the streets: picking locks, getting clean in two weeks in your room . . . stuff you need.”

One of the guys rolled his eyes. Another chuckled. John looked deflated. Wendy nudged him and smiled, but he took a step away from her. Just as she was about to suggest that they leave, one of Connor’s friends turned toward the dorms across the playing field and said, “What do
they
want?” From the other side of the field, four senior boys were strutting toward them with that lazy lethargic swagger that said they’d just bought another case of unpolluted urine for the monthly Marlowe dorms drug test. Wendy felt sorry for the boarding kids. They were usually some of the richest ones — their parents were willing to pay the astronomical price of housing their children at Marlowe, not to mention the guilt money that lined all their designer pockets. Still, Wendy thought it was sad that they were forced to live away from home. Most of them were international, with homes in faraway places. Just looking at them, Wendy felt a little backwater, even though she’d lived in New York all her life. All those accents and fashion trends she’d never heard of — and all of them too
street
to give a second look to the unoriginally preppy day students. Of course, every year there were a few boarders whose parents lived in New York. Those were the worst ones. Or maybe they had the worst parents. Either way, they were the truest orphans, the ones that caused the most trouble.

Now the four boarding boys, all wearing the Marlowe gray-and-navy uniform, were approaching Connor and his two teammates. They stopped a few yards away and motioned for the lacrosse boys to go over. Connor told Wendy and John to wait while he and his friends went over to the boarders. After a few minutes of talking, Connor was looking more and more pissed off. “Be right back,” said Wendy, starting toward them. But of course, John followed one step behind. He was fascinated with all things Connor-related. As she approached, Wendy could hear them arguing about last week’s preseason game.

“Hey,” said one of the boarders, a kid whose parents were some sort of South Asian royalty, “your boy took the money, and now you’re trying to punk out. Pay up, bro.”

Connor’s face was growing pink. “Nobody on this team would agree to fix a game. Go sell your bullshit somewhere else.”

“Yeah, I get it,” said the kid in the fake street accent they all cultivated. “You’re sticking up for your boy. That’s cool. But he
did
agree, and now he owes us.”

“Relax, man,” said another one of the boarders. “It wasn’t like we asked him to lose. Just shave a couple of points to cover the spread.”

“Same thing,” said Connor, the anger rising in his voice. “He’d never do that.” He glanced at his friend with his blond eyebrows in a furious tangle.

“So we’re in agreement there,” said the Indian boy, trying to sound suave but coming off sleazy instead. “He didn’t do it. Now he has to pay for all the lost bets.”

Wendy wondered why these guys cared about a few lost dollars, anyway. It was probably nothing to them. Maybe they just wanted to bring Connor down a notch. People were always trying to do that. She felt a tingle of pride at the thought. Just as she was trying to decide whether she should approach Connor or keep hanging back, she saw someone running toward them from the direction of the dorms. He was tall, his brown hair bouncing as he dashed toward them with long, easy strides. He was wearing the dorm crew shirt, a white polo with the Marlowe crest.

“What’s going on here?” he asked with an air of authority that made even the lacrosse boys take notice.

“Who’re you?” asked Connor.

The handsome newcomer gave a friendly grin that made Wendy smile involuntarily. He held out his hand. “I’m Peter, the new resident adviser. Everything OK here?”

“This punk won’t pay up,” one of the boarders, a Chinese boy with a crew cut, blurted out.

Wendy noticed that all four boys were looking eagerly at Peter. One of them had on a smirk that revealed a large gap in his teeth.
Wait,
thought Wendy, glancing at the Chinese boy.
Do they all have a missing . . . ?

But then her attention was diverted by Peter, who spoke with the cool confidence that had belonged to the Indian boy only a second before. Not uncomfortable
adult
authority, but the kind of confidence that Connor always had — the kind that only one person in every group can display. “Pay for what?” Peter said blandly, and Wendy thought she saw him warn the Chinese boy with his eyes. “Let’s go.
Now
.”

The four boarders fell in line in a way that Wendy had never seen any Marlowe kid do for an RA, or a teacher, or even the principal. From the corner of her eye, Wendy could see John staring with awe, his admiration finding a new target.
Not again,
she thought, since John’s hero roster was growing longer and longer with each passing day. And now that John’s plan to change his online image had totally failed with the lacrosse boys, he would be looking for a new group to admire — probably a group that didn’t care as much about image, a set of friends that didn’t have time for Facebook, who were more
street,
as John would put it, which was bad news because the boarding kids were big trouble.

Peter leading the way, the boys walked to the other side of the field, where a girl Wendy had never seen was waiting for them. She, too, was wearing the white crested polo shirt. Wendy was still staring with curiosity in Peter’s direction when she felt Connor’s arm around her shoulder. He was still sweaty, and she pulled away a little, then chastised herself for being shallow in front of the hot new RA and forced herself closer to him. Connor didn’t notice, anyway. If they were alone, Wendy would have thanked him for sticking up for John, for being so perfect in every important way. She would have done something to show that she wanted to
deserve
him. But they weren’t alone, and the RA with the brown curls was turning around to take one last look at the scene, capturing the attention of everyone around him with every minuscule gesture, making Wendy notice Connor’s youth and his tight grip and his sporty smell, forcing her to think of grad students and disloyalty. The RA’s dark gaze caught Wendy’s for just a second before she turned sharply into Connor’s arm. Again, Connor didn’t notice. As they walked toward the locker rooms, he rattled on about weekend plans and last week’s game and entitled druggies who spew lies about his teammates.

Peter woke with a start. At first he didn’t recognize his dorm. He was always in strange beds, in houses that didn’t belong to him. He ran his fingers through his sweat-soaked hair.
Another nightmare
. They were getting worse, more intense, and the stress was getting to him. He spotted the moth in the corner. He wished for someone, a protector, to ward off his dreams.
But what if the one standing over your bed is the one causing it all?