Delusion Road (6 page)

“When’d you find out about this?” asked Russell.

“A couple weeks ago,” she replied.

Russell’s eyes widened. “And you didn’t
say
anything?”

Bailey looked down. “I didn’t want certain people to, you know …”

“Give you a hard time,” Greg finished for her.

Bailey nodded.

“I don’t get it,” said Keegan. “Who would give you grief over something like that?”

Russell leaned toward him, no easy task given his considerable
belly. “There are a few seniors—” He stopped and seemed to consider his words before continuing, “Let’s just say you don’t want to get noticed around here. It’s usually best to keep your head down, if you know what I mean.”

Keegan
did
know what he meant. There were enough yahoos at his old school who took pleasure in singling out people for their own amusement. One group in particular had been a real problem for two of his friends, Curtis and Lamont, who’d made no secret of the fact that they were gay. But as often as he’d seen it happen, Keegan could never understand the mentality behind the need some people had to ridicule others.

“I don’t think he does,” Greg said to Russell. “Know about keeping his head down, I mean.”

Bailey nodded in agreement, releasing a low whistle as if for auditory emphasis.

“What?” asked Russell. He turned again to Keegan. “Okay, what’d you do?”

Keegan shrugged, figuring Raven must have told Greg about the no-hats incident with the VP in the office. But he was wrong.

“He dissed Willa Jaffrey,” said Greg, his voice noticeably lower.

Russell gaped at him. “Seriously?”

“In front of our English class,” Greg explained. “Including the whole royal party.”

“Oh, man,” said Russell. He glanced over his shoulder, then back, an expression of relief on his face. “You’re lucky they hardly ever eat in the cafeteria.” He shot a look at the others. “What happened?”

Bailey explained the task Richardson had given them. “And Keegan got to introduce Willa,” she said.

Now Raven spoke up. “I think I’m missing something. Keegan didn’t say anything bad about her. In fact, he didn’t say much at all.”

“That’s the point,” said Greg.

Russell groaned. “Tell me you at least mentioned her trip to Italy.”

“Look,” said Keegan, “I had a run-in earlier with her and her friends. I was pissed, so I thought the less I said about her right then, the better.”

“He said,” Greg offered to Russell, “what you see is pretty much what you get.”

Russell echoed Bailey’s whistle. “Oh, man,” he said, shaking his head. “You are in some serious shit, dude.”

“I probably should’ve said more,” conceded Keegan, “but she got under my skin. Especially after the way she looked at me when she found out my dad works for hers.”

“Your dad works for Carleton Jaffrey?” asked Russell.

“At his dealership. He’s their new accountant.”

Russell and Greg exchanged a look that Keegan couldn’t read. “I hope your dad doesn’t get too comfortable,” Greg said. “After this morning, the royal party’ll be on your ass for sure.”

Keegan heard Forbes’s prime directive echo in his head, and he grimaced.

“Maybe you should apologize to her,” Raven offered.

Again? thought Keegan. “For what? Not saying enough about her?”

“Something to think about,” Bailey agreed.

Another moment passed, and suddenly Russell grinned. “Jeez, I wish I could’ve seen the look on her face.”

Greg pulled out his phone. “Priceless.” He touched the screen and then passed it around. “Use the zoom,” he said.

A second later, people all over the cafeteria turned toward the group huddled over their table, Russell Shaw’s laughter echoing through the large space.

Willa stared at Britney’s phone. “I can’t
believe
you took a picture of that,” she moaned.

“I’m taking photos of all of us on our first day back,” said Britney from across the table at Subway, where the six had gone for lunch. “Since you were standing up there during our first class of our senior year, I figured what could be better, right?” She reached for her phone and, looking at the screen again, she frowned. “Trust me, I won’t be posting
that
one.”

Wynn put his arm around Willa. “Listen, babe, nobody embarrasses my girl and gets away with it. If he hadn’t disappeared so fast, I would’ve had a chat with that asshole after class.” He made a fist with his meaty free hand to clarify the meaning of
chat.

Willa let her body lean into his. “Thanks, Wynn,” she said, “but I don’t want you getting into trouble for me. It isn’t worth it.”

Todd shook his head. “He disrespected you in front of the whole class, Wills.”

Willa reddened again, remembering how she’d reacted to the new guy about his dad working for her father. She’d kind of rubbed it in, clearly pissing him off in the process. “Look, it’s no big deal, okay? Let’s just forget it.” She spied a newspaper lying
on the table next to them and reached for it. “Here,” she said, eager to change the subject, “let’s check out the personals.”

“Jeez,” said Jay, “do people even
read
newspapers anymore?”

“Yeah,” said Celia. “Ninety-year-olds who’ve never heard of the Internet.”

Ignoring their comments, Willa pulled out the classifieds and scanned for the personal ads. “Here’s one,” she said. “‘Phyllis Tidwell is no longer responsible for the debts incurred by Andrew Tidwell.’”

Jay cocked an eyebrow. “Sounds like some old lady finally gave the boot to her slacker son.”

Willa looked up. “I’m thinking Phyllis and Andrew were married. She caught him cheating.”

“With her best friend, right?” said Britney.

Willa shook her head. “With her brother.”

“Ew!” said Celia, and all of them laughed.

Willa scanned a few more ads, then read, “‘Thank you, St. Jude, for favours granted. Signed L.J.’”

“Favours granted,” murmured Celia. “I’m guessing sexual.”

“All you ever think about is sex,” Britney teased.

Jay put an arm around Celia, grinning as he drew her close. “And that’s a problem how?” he asked.

Willa suppressed a sigh—talk like that always reminded her of what she and Wynn didn’t share—and she pondered the cryptic message. “Jude’s the patron saint of lost causes.” She read the ad again silently and then grinned. “L.J. just won the lottery. Not the big one, but enough to pay off some of his gambling debts. But ten-to-one he’s back at the casino tonight.”

Still grinning at her explanation, Willa looked up, catching
what she thought was the tail end of an eye-roll Celia had given Britney. It was no secret those two had never shared Willa’s delight at making up backstories for the anonymous people who posted those ads. They preferred their drama real and starring people they knew. Of course, after her embarrassment in class earlier, Willa knew she was just being overly sensitive, had probably imagined the eye-roll.

She noticed the time on the wall clock behind the cash register. “Uh-oh,” she said, nodding toward it. They had only minutes to get back for their first afternoon class.

Celia, however, obviously thought Willa was drawing their attention to the person behind the counter, a girl maybe a couple of years older than they were. “I
know
!” she exclaimed breathily. “Somebody needs to give her some tips on plucking. Those eyebrows look like skidmarks!”

Wynn, Britney, Todd, and Jay cracked up, their laughter raucous in the small space. Willa grinned in agreement, until she looked again at the girl, whose face reddened as she took an order from an old woman with a hearing aid. Rising to leave, Willa hoped that the girl was just flushed from the heat of the ovens behind her, but that hope dissolved when Britney muttered in a voice loud enough for even the old woman to hear, “If they’re gonna serve the public, people with eyebrows like that need to take a course in personal grooming.”

Outside, the six piled into their cars. Wynn had driven Willa to Subway in his new Thunderbird, which his father had bought last week while she was away. Since it was a two-seater, the other four had taken Todd’s Mustang. Both cars were convertibles, and Willa revelled in the feel of the wind in her hair as they raced
back to the school. It helped get her mind off the expression she’d seen on that girl’s face as they’d walked by her.

The Thunderbird’s tires complained against the pavement as Wynn took the next turn faster than he should have. He wasn’t worried about getting ticketed for speeding, and for good reason—besides being the town’s mayor, his dad was tight with Brookdale’s chief of police. Sure, Wynn might get stopped from time to time and given warnings, but none of the town’s constables would dare to write him up.

What you see is pretty much what you get.

Why couldn’t she get those words out of her head?

“I don’t know why Coach Cameron had to start tryouts this afternoon,” Celia whined after last period as she shoved her textbooks into her locker. “It’s the frigging first day back!”

“I don’t know why our guys should have to try out in the
first
place,” muttered Britney.

Willa could understand their complaints, since Wynn, Jay, and Todd had led the soccer team in goals last season. “I guess Cameron’s just being fair,” she offered, clicking her lock on the hasp.

“But the first day of school?” Celia repeated. “Doesn’t he realize that some people have actual
lives
?”

“When Todd told me about the email Cameron sent out to all the boys last week,” Britney grumbled, “I thought he was joking.”

Having been out of the loop, Willa had only heard about the email that morning and she, too, thought that first-day-of-school soccer tryouts were a little much. But she could understand the
coach’s reasoning—every school in the district would be looking to take down Brookdale after their amazing performance last year, and finalizing this season’s roster even a few days early meant more time for practices. Willa idly wondered if the new guy would be trying out today and, as if her thoughts had conjured him, he suddenly appeared around the corner. Willa groaned softly, and both Britney and Celia turned to look at the source of her discomfort. They whipped back immediately, grinning.

“Be gentle,” said Britney, although her tone suggested she meant something quite different. Celia was nearly quivering with anticipation.

It turned out that Willa and the new guy had
two
classes in common that semester, the other one being accelerated math immediately after lunch. Having taken math from Mr. Shedrand last year, Willa wasn’t surprised when he’d launched immediately into a mind-deadening lecture on the importance of calculus and then shown them a lengthy PowerPoint containing what he called “essential notes” that everybody had to copy. Out of earshot, his students called him Deadhand because of the pages of notes he gave each day, and Willa’s hand was numb halfway into that class. If she could’ve gotten away with it, she’d have taken shots of his remaining slides with her phone, but Shedrand was infamous for confiscating any cell he saw in his classroom.

During an uncharacteristic pause in the flurry of note-copying that period, Willa had glanced across the room and caught the new guy staring into space, and even from two rows away she could see that the open pages of his notebook contained none of Shedrand’s material. The only thing he’d done was doodle something that, from where she was sitting, looked a lot like a campfire. Rubbing
the stiffness out of her hand, she’d automatically begun inventing a backstory about his family being outdoorsy, how the father took the two brothers camping as often as he c—

But then Shedrand had advanced to the next slide and pencils were racing once more.

Seeing the new guy walk toward her now, his backpack slung over his shoulder, she assessed his looks. He wasn’t nearly as hot as Wynn, of course, and his height—he was at least a head taller than her—made his body look slimmer than she liked in a guy, but even his loose clothing didn’t hide his athletic build. His hair, so black it was almost blue, was far too long and hung straight in every direction, as if he couldn’t be bothered to deal with it. And his jaw, in her opinion, was much too square, like Buzz Lightyear from the
Toy Story
movies she’d watched when she was a kid. But he wasn’t ugly. She’d give him that.

She watched as he ran a hand through that black hair now, dragging it from his eyes, then stiffened when he noticed her, too. Coming abreast of her and her friends, he stopped. “Hey,” he said.

Willa nodded. Behind her, she could sense movement: Celia and Britney glancing at each other, waiting.

His awkwardness was almost palpable, and she couldn’t help remembering Celia’s comment that morning:
Man, wouldn’t that suck? Starting your senior year in a new place and not knowing anybody?

“One day behind us,” he offered, then grimaced as if realizing how lame his comment sounded.

But it was also true. Hadn’t she thought the exact same thing when the final bell rang? The best school year ever had started out pretty much like every year before. Lousy. “Yeah,” she agreed, adding an automatic, “only 194 more to go.”

He seemed surprised. “Isn’t it 179?”

“Maybe in Vancouver, but not here in Nova Scotia.”

He reddened, reminding her of the clerk behind the Subway cash register, how embarrassed the girl had been. Which made Willa think of how she and Brit and Celia had embarrassed him over what had happened in the parking lot. And then how she’d treated him in English class, rubbing in his face about his dad working for her fa—

A hand nudged Willa from behind. She glanced back at Britney, whose expression telegraphed an undeniable
WTF!

“Look, I didn’t mean to hold you up,” the new guy said, obviously thinking he’d interrupted something. “But about this morning, what I said when I introduced you, I wanted to—”

“About that,” said Britney, her voice like a razor. She stepped out from behind Willa. “You think you can get away with saying shit like that about our friend?”

His face coloured. “I just meant—”