Be Strong & Curvaceous (24 page)

Lissa covered her mouth in horror and I reached over to give Mac’s foot a supportive squeeze through the covers. To my surprise, she didn’t jerk it away. Instead, she smiled at me. It had to be a record for her—three smiles in a row. Real ones.

“While he taped my hands together, he oh-so-kindly told me about the bomb he’d made that was just for the two of us,” she went on. “Somehow I think that even if I’d agreed to the slow-motion reunion between father and children in a sunlit meadow, he’d have still done what he did. At that point, that poor dear Clyde man creaked up and told David there was someone at the door and would he help him.” She glanced at me. “As soon as he was out of the room, I heard rocks hitting the window. Carly got me out, we did a Spider-Man impression going down the side of the veranda, and next thing I knew, I was being tossed headfirst into Brett Loyola’s incredibly noisy car.” She laughed. “And the funny thing was, the whole night was so surreal that his turning up seemed quite normal.”

“I still want to get to the interesting part between him showing up and him inviting us all to refugee at his house,” Shani put in. “Carly, you’re leaving something out.”

Hot blood crept into my cheeks. “I am not. That’s exactly what happened.”

“Come on, Carly,” Gillian said. “True confessions.”

“Leave her alone, you lot.” Mac took in the color of my face. “A woman’s entitled to her secrets.”

“Not this woman. Not the kind of secrets she’s been keeping from us all term,” Shani retorted. “A job, for heaven’s sake. Showing up in the middle of the night with one of the most popular guys in school. Next you’ll be telling us you landed a guest spot on VH1.”

“No, but I might get a summer job with Tori Wu.”

Gillian shrieked and Lissa clapped her hands and pandemonium broke out just long enough for me to hope that they’d all forgotten Shani’s question.

But no.

“Congratulations, Carly,” Shani said. “But I notice you cleverly did not tell us what we want to know.”

I gave up. They’d nag until dawn unless I told. “While we were coming up with the plan in the backyard, Brett kissed me. Is that what you want to know? Are you happy now?”

“Kissed you?” Shani leaned forward. “A real kiss? Or an ohmigosh-we’re-going-to-die-good-bye kiss on the cheek?”

“A real kiss. Full frontal. On the lips.”

More pandemonium. I swear, at this rate Mrs. Loyola would be calling the cops and
begging
them to take us down to the station.

“So are you guys, like, official?” Lissa wanted to know. “A couple?”

“How could they not be, after this?” Mac asked. “Facing danger, rescuing the damsel, the whole lot. It’s destiny.”

“It is not, you guys,” I mumbled. “It was the heat of the moment. He was just being gallant.”

Now Shani snorted through her nose. Such elegance my friends have. “Gallant is holding open the gym door so it doesn’t smack you in the face. Cruising up just in time so you don’t have to rescue your friend from the insane psycho by yourself is lo-o-o-ve.”

“He really followed you over there?” Gillian wanted to know.

I nodded. “He saw me in the cab, right after Ms. Curzon ordered me back to the school. He thought it was weird or that I was in trouble or something. I don’t care. I’m just glad.”

“I think there was more to it than that,” Gillian said thoughtfully.

“Don’t say the L word,” I begged her. “That’s not true, and besides, it’s embarrassing.”

“It
was
the L word.” Gillian smiled at me. “
L
for ‘Lord.’ ”

Lissa nodded slowly. “She’s right. Don’t you see? God was in on it from the beginning.”

“Oh, come on.” Mac’s voice would have been rough with scorn if she hadn’t been so tired and riding the same adrenaline crash I was. “That’s a bit presumptuous, don’t you think?”

“No.” Gillian looked over at me. “God is all wrapped up in the smallest details of our lives. You prayed for help, didn’t you.” It was a statement, not a question.

I nodded. “Like crazy. I prayed for protection for Mac and courage for myself. Repeatedly.”

“And I’d say those were both answered, wouldn’t you?” Gillian’s face had relaxed into happiness and a kind of awe.

“I don’t buy it,” Mac said flatly. “You lot are reading too much into it.”

“You know that’s not true, Mac.” The more I thought about it, the more amazing the whole night became. “I mean, I’m not exactly the Spider-Man type, am I? No hero. Just a Latina scholarship kid with a part-time job to finance some fabric for a dress. And there I was, shimmying up that veranda to get you out of that house as if I did spy operations for a living.”

“Wait. Whoa.” Gillian held up a hand. “That’s why you have a job? You’re here on a scholarship?”

I nodded. The last of my secrets, thrown out there in the open for my friends to see. It just seemed right to tell them everything, to get it all out, so I could leave Before behind and move on to After. “My father can’t afford the tuition to Spencer. I got a full ride. And no one could pay for the fabric for the dress I want to make for Design Your Dreams, so I decided I would. People can laugh if they want.” I shrugged. “I’m kinda beyond that now.”

“Why the secret, though?” Gillian wanted to know. “I’m on a scholarship myself.”

“Yeah, but yours isn’t to fill the minority quota. And you can afford to buy whatever you want,” I pointed out.

“Nobody’s laughing,” Lissa said. “Why should they?”

“Vanessa would. And I thought Brett would. So that’s why I kept it quiet all this time. Because I wanted them to see me as equal to them. Not—not as a fruit picker’s grandkid.”

“I don’t think you have to worry about Brett,” Shani said, eyebrows waggling. “That boy don’t care whose grandkid you are.”

“And besides, it totally fits,” Lissa said. “If you hadn’t gotten that job, you wouldn’t have developed the pictures. And we probably wouldn’t have known a thing until Mac disappeared and the school went up in smoke. So, see? That scholarship isn’t anything to be ashamed of. It was all part of a bigger picture.”

When you put it that way . . .

“So back to the story,” Mac prompted me.

“Right. So, anyway, like I was saying, there was Brett, following me because of nothing more than a funny feeling in his gut. Both of us arrived just in time to help you—even though you told me you didn’t think God would hear you. But He did. Because another five or ten minutes and we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.”

Mac burrowed down in her quilts, her brow furrowed. “I don’t know about this big-picture idea. I still think it was a lot of guts and lucky timing.” But to me, she sounded only eighty percent convinced.

Maybe the bigger picture didn’t have anything to do with me. Maybe the Lord was trying to tell her something. Maybe it took people like Gillian and Lissa, who are totally not afraid to see God in the details, to bring it out into the open.

To give You the glory, Lord.

A lump formed in my throat as I thought about it.
Thank You. You gave Mac her life. I don’t know what happened to David, but whatever that is, I know You’ll help us get through it. Lord, I think You’ve put Your hand around Mac for good, whether she knows it or not. And maybe Brett, too.

Gratitude welled up inside me, and love, and joy.

And then I remembered something else—something that took me from the big picture to the little corner that belonged to me.

Brett had asked me out for next Friday, and I hadn’t given him a for-real answer.

I had no doubt how I’d answer him now.

Chapter 21

T
HIS IS DREW ICHIKAWA reporting for Channel Four News, with an update on the story that broke late last night.” An exterior shot of the main Spencer building appeared on the sixty-inch flat-screen TV in the Loyolas’ dining room.

“Guys!” I waved the noise levels down so that everyone could hear. “This is it.”

“New developments in the story of the Spencer Academy bomber have made this shocking case even more chilling. As we reported in our newscasts early this morning, David Brandon Nelson, the illegitimate half brother of Lady Lindsay MacPhail, a Scottish exchange student presently attending the elite Spencer Academy in Pacific Heights, had been stalking the young aristocrat for several weeks. It’s not clear at this time what his motives were, as he has refused to talk to the police, but what is clear is that he made and then planted several bombs in various locations on the Spencer campus with the intent of detonating them when school began tomorrow. He then planned to use various weapons in his cache to massacre the students. His plot was foiled, however, by the quick thinking of a Spencer student who works at Piccadilly Photo, the photography shop where he took pictures of his handiwork to be developed.”

Philip’s face now filled the screen.

“Hey, that’s my boss!” I exclaimed. This would be great exposure for the shop.

“The name of the student has not yet been released, and her whereabouts are at present unknown. With me is Philip Nolan, the owner of Piccadilly Photo. Philip, how does it feel to find out you have a hero working for you?”

“I’ve known she was unusual all along. Her family and her school should be proud,” he had time to say before the shot switched back to Spencer, with crime-scene tape on the gates and cop cars in the front drive. Then it changed to a shot of the jail, where the reporter was standing.

“Nelson has been taken into custody, and this morning Channel Four News learned that he did indeed detonate a bomb at his own home at 1721 Bautista Court in the San Francisco State University area. Sources state that he had been holding Lady Lindsay against her will, but for reasons unclear to investigators at this time, she was not at the scene when the bomb went off.

“It is also not clear whether or not Nelson intended to take his own life. If so, he failed. Nelson’s landlord, Thomas Henry Clyde, seventy-two, was caught in the blast and taken to the university hospital. We learned this morning that Mr. Clyde died of injuries he sustained as a result of the explosion.”

I gasped and looked at Mac, then Brett, whose toast was suspended, uneaten, in front of his mouth as he watched the report.

“We’ll give you developments on these tragic events as investigators work to find out exactly what happened. What is clear is that Nelson won’t only be facing felony kidnapping and numerous charges of possessing a dangerous device with intent to injure persons or property. He’ll now be charged with second-degree murder. This is Drew Ichikawa reporting for Channel Four News. Back to you, Randy.”

The news switched to a story on a Middle Eastern prince who was coming to the States for an exchange term. Brett picked up the remote and muted the sound.

“That poor old man,” Mac whispered. “I wonder if he ever knew David was making bombs in his attic.”

“We’ll never know.” Did he have grandkids? Had they been watching the news? And how had he managed to be killed when David was obviously alive and well in some jail cell? I could only hope David had a beefy roommate whose name was Bubba.

The doorbell rang, and a couple minutes later, a flock of suits crowded into the dining room.

“Gentlemen,” Mrs. Loyola greeted them. “Please. Join us for breakfast.”

Sergeant Mason from last night spoke up. “Thanks, ma’am, but we’re here to talk to the students. We can do that while they eat, if that’s okay with everyone.”

I wasn’t sure what they intended to do if it wasn’t okay, but anyway, they took us out one by one to take our statements. Mac got an extra guy—the one from the British Embassy, who looked as if he’d sat on a Popsicle stick but who she said turned out to be really nice. After, that is, he endured a supersized freakout from Mac about her being on some VIP list without anybody telling her. I could hear her yelling from where I sat next to Brett in the dining room. You had to feel sorry for the guy.

When it was my turn, I got Sergeant Mason himself. I told my story and only left out the part about The Kiss. That was between me and Brett. And, okay, my
chicas
, but that didn’t count. Cops taking statements didn’t need to know about it.

“So that was the reason they couldn’t locate Lady Lindsay in the wreckage,” he said, like he just wanted to be clear. “You cut her out of the duct tape with your nail scissors and she climbed out the back window, and both of you climbed down the side of the building and made your way through the backyard? Am I getting this right?”

I nodded, and when I looked up, he was gazing at me with an odd look on his face.

“That’s why I called nine-one-one,” I offered. “So people wouldn’t worry. They’d know she was okay. The lady said she’d relayed the message. She did, didn’t she?”

“Oh, yes, we got it. After the fire department nearly killed themselves trying to get to the area where we thought Her Ladyship was being held.”

“Mac hates when people call her that. Just so you know. I’m not in trouble, am I?” How ironic—to be arrested for
not
letting Mac’s body be found in the wreckage.

“No. No, of course not.” He still sounded a little shell-shocked. “I’m just amazed at this kind of courage. Miss Aragon, you are the bravest girl I’ve ever met.”

I couldn’t help it—I laughed. “Yeah, right. What else was I supposed to do? She’s my friend.”

“Your friend, indeed. With your permission, I’m going to recommend that you be given a commendation.”

Oh, now that really was funny. “Sure, whatever.” It was nice of him to say it, though. “Hey, Sergeant? What’s going to happen to David? The news said he was charged with second-degree murder.”

The policeman nodded. “He’ll be held until his plea hearing, and then it will probably go to trial, considering the visibility and the seriousness of the case. I’m afraid you and Her—uh, Lady Lindsay will be required to testify. Is that going to be a problem?”

“Well, I’ve never actually met the guy.”

“The jury will need to hear your version of events, though, as well as Brett Loyola’s.”

Deep inside, I did a happy dance. Even when all this was over, when he’d forgotten he’d asked me out and he’d gone back to not talking to anyone but the popular kids, we’d still see each other in court, standing shoulder-to-shoulder on the side of justice.