Edgewood Series: Books 1 - 3 (18 page)

“I’d rather not conduct business at school, if you don’t mind,” Mr. Specter said. “It might have the look of impropriety. If you’d like to stop by my house this evening around seven, we could do the exchange then. You know where I live?”

“Yeah.” Everyone knew where he lived. He owned a red brick house; his backyard abutted the high school football field. You could see his entire roof from the bleachers. Some kids once got into trouble for throwing tennis balls over the fence during a football game. Several of the balls made it into his rain gutters, which caused overflow problems during the next storm. Or so I heard.

He snapped his briefcase shut. “Is there anything else, Mr. Becker?” he asked, pleasantly enough.

“No, that would be it.”

“To make it sound like an acceptable outing, perhaps you can tell your parents you need an hour at my house to watch a special science demonstration for extra credit. Sound good?”

When I nodded mutely, Mr. Specter said, “Well then, I’ll see you tonight around seven.”

He walked briskly out of the room while I stood there wondering how he knew I’d been wondering what excuse to give my parents. Maybe just a lucky guess.

“Don’t argue with me, Russ. I’m coming and that’s all there is to it,” Mallory said, as she drove me home from school. I’d gratefully accepted her offer of a ride home after science class ended that day. It beat taking the bus or walking, that’s for sure. I’d hoped people would notice us together in the parking lot but no such luck. None of my friends were around, and everyone else was busy with their own thing. High-schoolers can be so self-involved.

I’d just explained about the stone, and that I was going to Mr. Specter’s that evening, when Mallory announced she was going with me. I told her it wasn’t necessary, but secretly I welcomed it. For one, I’d be going somewhere with Mallory (and not Jameson this time), and for another, she could drive, which eliminated parental involvement. And lastly, the whole thing kind of weirded me out. It would be nice to have someone else along. Safety in numbers.

I used Mr. Specter’s lie and told my folks I was going to his house to see a science demonstration. “It’ll take about an hour,” I said, and they nodded agreeably despite the fact that the whole concept was absurd. What teacher requires kids to go to his house ever, much less on a school night for extra credit? Why a Monday? What kind of demonstration? But true to form, neither of them asked. I was already getting an A in science. Presumably with a little extra credit I could bump it up to a more acceptable A+.

Maybe part of their easy acceptance came with the knowledge they didn’t have to drive me. When I told them Mallory Nassif was picking me up, they didn’t question that either. Again, I’m just too good of a kid to ever do anything wrong in their eyes. Lying to them now made me feel terrible, but it couldn’t be avoided.

So now Mallory and I were headed to Specter’s house, with Jameson nowhere in sight. I didn’t miss that guy at all. Maybe I’d suggest we stop at Starbucks afterward and I could worm my way into her heart over a chai latte or whatever it is she liked to drink. Stopping somewhere for ice cream was another thought. The truth of it was, I didn’t care what we did, I just liked being with her. Something about her made me want to be as near to her as possible.

Maybe Carly was right and I did have the love disease. Lately I thought about Mallory all the time. I found myself replaying our conversations in my head over and over again when I was alone in my room. I’d memorized every expression on her face, the way she frowned slightly when she was deep in thought, the way she burst out laughing when something funny caught her off guard, the look of concern she had when people were injured, like when we’d found Gordy. Making her laugh was the best, like winning a prize. I found myself making funny little comments on a regular basis, trying to amuse her. I was a rat pulling levers, hoping a food pellet would come my way. It was craziness, but I couldn’t seem to stop.

Guys my age get stereotyped as being all about sex all the time. “Hormones are raging,” is what my health teacher, Ms. Hadley, was fond of saying. Some of that is true, but the hormone thing isn’t just a teenager thing. I don’t think I’m any moodier than, say, my mom, who admits to having emotional swings and wicked hot flashes (she calls them power surges, as if that makes it better). And I probably don’t think about sex any more than the average guy in his thirties. The thing they never talk about is that besides thinking about sex, guys my age also think about other things: the way it would feel to wrap my arms around her, how I like to picture myself protecting her from harm, what it would be like to press my forehead against hers and look right into her big dark eyes. I see movies with couples making out and I mentally insert myself with Mallory. I wonder sometimes—what would she do if I suddenly kissed her? These are the kinds of things I’d never tell my friends, or anyone else for that matter, but it’s all true.

I wasn’t one hundred percent sure if I was in love with Mallory Nassif, but I knew I wanted her to love me. I craved having her by my side, hearing the sound of her voice, having her full attention. I wanted to feel her body pressed against me and her lips against my ear. If she loved me, I wouldn’t need anything else.

As a passenger in her car, it was easy to watch her without seeming too obvious. I liked watching her fiddle with the radio, and I got a rush when she looked to me for approval when she got to a certain song. I always agreed with her choice. Whatever Mallory wanted worked for me.

“Nadia said she saw you yesterday,” Mallory said, breaking the silence between us. She paused at a stop sign before turning left.

“Yeah, at the custard shop. After the whole thing happened at the comic book store. She was with her mother. We didn’t talk.” We were only a block away from our destination and would be at Mr. Specter’s in about two minutes. If I was going to ask, I’d have to make it quick. “How did her face get scarred like that?”

“You saw it?” Mallory asked incredulously.

“Just for a second. She pulled her hood back.”

“On
purpose
?”

“I guess so. It seemed like she wanted to show me.”

Mallory shook her head. “Unbelievable. When Jameson asked about her face, she wouldn’t talk to him for a week. Why would she show you, someone she barely knows?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Hmmm. So odd.” Mallory exhaled loudly. “Nadia is sort of a puzzle to me. She doesn’t open up much. I knew her about a year before she even talked about it.”

I tried again. “What happened? Was she burned?”

“In a way.” She tapped at the steering wheel with her fingers, as if debating whether to elaborate.

“If you don’t want to tell me…”

“No, I can tell you,” Mallory said finally. “This is what happened. She was riding the bus, going to visit a friend, when some crazy man came on board carrying an open container full of this liquid. He started raving about our imperialistic society, and he wouldn’t sit down, and he wouldn’t pay the fare. When the bus driver told him to get out, he flung the liquid up in the air. It turned out to be battery acid. Nadia got hit in the face. The driver got splashed pretty badly too. A couple of other passengers tackled the guy and they called the police. It was awful.”

“Battery acid?” How horrific. It was like something from a movie. “I don’t remember hearing about this,” I said. “Was it in the news?” We were pulling up in front of Mr. Specter’s now. On the opposite side of the street the curb was lined with cars. Someone had company over.

“It happened in Illinois. They moved here two years ago.”

“And that’s why her mother never lets her out of her sight.”

“It’s worse than that,” Mallory said. “Nadia could get plastic surgery and it would make her face look a million times better, but her mother won’t let her do it.”

“Too expensive?”

“No, it’s not the money. In fact, insurance would cover it. Her mother won’t let her fix her face as punishment. It’s because Nadia didn’t have her parents’ permission to be on the bus that day.”

I let the words sink in. “But that’s cruel,” I said, shocked. “She has to be deformed forever because she did something wrong once?” I couldn’t imagine my own parents ever acting that unreasonably, no matter what I did. I complained about them sometimes, but I knew that overall they wanted me to be happy and do well. We were all on the same team for the most part.

“The woman is certifiably insane and just a horrible person,” Mallory said. “Nadia can’t wait until she turns eighteen because then she can arrange to have the surgery herself. But in the meantime…”

“She’s stuck,” I said, finishing for her. And then, almost to myself, “Wow, that’s a lot of years of suffering.” And the most important years too. Being disfigured anytime was horrible, but having it happen when you’re a teenager was worse yet.

Mallory turned the key and the engine went silent. “Let’s get this over with,” she said. “I’m eager to see this glowing stone.”

We walked up the pathway leading to the front porch with me in the lead, since the pavement was too narrow for two people side by side. Besides, as Mallory had said, this meeting was sort of my thing. “You do the talking,” she said, giving my back a nudge. Her fingertips trailed down my spine, giving me the shivers. “I’m just tagging along.”

The front door opened before I could even knock. As we stepped onto the concrete stoop, Mr. Specter pushed open the screen door to greet us. “Good evening, Mr. Becker,” he said. “Oh good, you brought Miss Nassif along with you. Perfect.” He nodded at Mallory. “Please, come in.”

I’d never been inside Mr. Specter’s house and I didn’t know anyone who had, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. Judging from the front entryway and living room, he believed in keeping things orderly. I’d heard he lived alone, so this was all his doing: the gray mat just inside the door where we wiped our feet, the coat rack and umbrella stand in the corner. In the living room beyond, I saw a couch and two chairs arranged around a coffee table, two end tables, and a lamp. There was no TV or anything else. Furniture displays at stores looked homier. “I don’t spend much time up here,” he said, as if reading my mind. “My den is where you’ll find evidence of life. I spend most of my time there.” He beckoned with one long finger. “Follow me.”

Like faithful dogs, Mallory and I quietly trailed him past the living room and through the kitchen. When he opened a door leading to the basement stairs, I said, “The stone is down there?”

He said, “Of course,” and proceeded confidently down the stairs, clearly not doubting we’d follow him. I had an uneasy feeling about this.

I stepped back to see if Mallory was feeling it too, but her face didn’t show any concern. She took my movement for good manners, as if I were saying—
Ladies first!

“Thank you, Russ.”

I paused at the top, uncertain, but when she was halfway down I came to my senses and followed. This was Mr. Specter, after all. The science teacher at my high school. It’s not like he’d have a dungeon in his basement, knock us unconscious, and lock us up. I’d told my parents I was going to be here and Mallory’s car was parked in front. If I didn’t come home, this is where my parents would come looking. Still. Why not have the stone upstairs? He had known I was coming to get it since this afternoon.

My nose wrinkled as I got a whiff of something, and at the same time Mallory said, puzzled, “I smell popcorn!” At the landing at the bottom, I smelled it too. Fresh buttered popcorn. Making the turn, I saw that Mr. Specter’s basement had been converted to actual living space—no cement block walls and iron support beams here. Instead, the walls had been covered with drywall, the ceiling tiled, the floor carpeted. Bookshelves on either side of a closed door lined the wall opposite the stairwell. A horseshoe-shaped sectional sofa with a coffee table in the middle took up a good portion of the room.

And sitting on that sofa were my psychiatrist, Dr. Anton; Mrs. Whitehouse, the lunch lady; Kevin Adams, the owner of Power House Comics; and Rosie, the waitress from the diner—all of them munching on popcorn and drinking tall glasses of what looked like lemonade. When Mallory and I walked into the room, they stopped what they were doing and turned their attention to us.

“Speak of the devil,” said Mrs. Whitehouse. “Or should I say devils?” She popped a kernel of popcorn in her mouth and laughed an insidious cackle.

Mallory backed up a step and said, “Sorry for interrupting.”

“You aren’t interrupting, Miss Nassif,” Mr. Specter said. “Please take a seat. We’d like to talk to you.”

“Just a minute,” I said, taking hold of Mallory’s arm. “What’s this all about?”

“A book club?” Mallory asked, her voice tentative.

“It’s not a book club,” I said. “They’re here because of us.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Dr. Anton said, his head tipped to one side in a show of empathy. “This isn’t anything you need to worry about. We just want to talk to you. Just a friendly chat.” Somehow it didn’t feel like a friendly chat. All of them stood up now, and I did a mental tally—there were five of them and two of us, but we were closer to the exit and we were younger. Maybe if we ran…

Mallory leaned against me. For the first time, I saw a look of alarm cross her face. All along she’d been saying someone was looking for us. She’d used the word “hunted,” but even after I’d been shot and despite spotting the men in business suits at the hospital, I sensed it hadn’t felt truly menacing to her until now. Is it paranoia if people really are out to get you?

“I think we need to go,” Mallory said. “My mom is expecting me back soon.”

“This was never about getting the stone back, was it?” I asked Mr. Specter accusingly. “You had this planned all along.”

“Really, Mr. Becker,” he said. “What an imagination. We only first talked about it after school. I couldn’t have planned this too far in advance, could I now?”