High and Dry (9 page)

Like a cat with burrs on its back, I tried to shake my dark musings loose, but some of them stuck. If we'd had sex, would Ellie still have broken up with me? Or would we have been tied together in some stronger way that was more difficult to undo?

At breakfast, my dad shoveled in his Shredded Wheat like he was halfway out the door, so I asked quickly, “Did the sheriff's department call with an ETA about when I can get Amelia back?”

“Not until Thursday. And I can't drive you this morning because I'm already late for a faculty meeting. Sorry.”

Maybe this makes me sound like I was still drunk, but for the first time since my car had been impounded, it dawned on me what the situation really meant.

It meant—oh Jesus God—I had to take the bus.

I hadn't ridden the bus to school in two years. I wasn't even sure where it picked people up. Squinting in the January sunlight, I looked in both directions and saw a couple of underclassmen hunched over their smartphones across the street and down a block.

I adjusted my backpack and strolled over to wait in line, trying to look like I didn't care that I was a senior waiting for the goddamn yellow-and-black. The two clogged pores were playing Guttersnipes Versus Woodpeckers, but then one of them looked up and saw me.

“Charlie Dixon?” he nudged his friend. “That's—are you Charlie Dixon?”

Since they'd initiated the conversation, it was okay to reply. “I also answer to Dix, Chazz, or Chuckles. Actually, I don't. What do you want?”

“You're on the soccer team.”

The second clogged pore looked up now. “No way.”

The first guy went into a frenzy of elbow nudges. “I told you he lived on our block.” He turned back to me. “I saw you wipe out that guy from Agua Dulce last fall. Red card in the fourth minute. Suhweet.”

It was disconcerting that what they remembered from the game was me fouling Steve, not me scoring or assisting or defending the box, but hey—I happened to be the player who slid cleats-first into opponents to steal the ball. Someone had to be, right?

“Who are you with?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

“Orchestra. Are you gonna nail him like that again on Friday?” the second frosh asked.

“Haven't decided,” I said. Maybe I'd rather be remembered for something else. It was a little too much philosophizing for 7:15 in the morning. “You guys play?”

“Hellz yeah. We have a game in the street every Thursday night,” the first guy said. “You should come.”

His buddy shoved him. “He has
real
practice every night, 'tard.”

“It's cool,” I said. “Hey, is that today's issue?”

“Yeah.”

“How'd you get a copy already?” I asked.

The
Palm Valley High Recorder
came out on Tuesdays, with issues appearing in stacks outside the principal's office, cafeteria, and journalism room. They shouldn't be available outside school yet, but this one had today's date on it.

“My sister's the coeditor. She brought one home last night.”

“Can I take a look at it?” I said.

He was delighted, practically threw it at me. “Yeah, here, keep it.”

The bus pulled up and I motioned for the little dudes to go ahead in front of me. It was friggin' embarrassing climbing up the steps inside the bus, like I was returning to childhood. I half expected Mom to appear on the sidewalk outside the house, waving goodbye in exaggerated motions or racing after the bus to hand me my brown-bag lunch with a smiley face drawn on it.

I strolled to the back of the bus, doing my best to ignore the rows of curious eyes and excited murmurs following me. The clogged
pores had already spread the word that Charlie Dixon, local soccer antihero, was inexplicably gracing them with his presence this morning.

“I saved a spot for you,” one of them chimed from the very last seat.

“Move,” I said, pointing to a spot in front. I wanted the back seat to myself, so I could have privacy while reading the school paper.

I settled in and flipped straight to the last page—the classifieds and gossip section. Not everyone's parents let them use Facebook, so if you wanted to get a message out schoolwide, establish an introduction to an underclassman, or make romantic intentions known, the newspaper was still the best way to do it.

A little over a year ago, Ellie had signaled her interest in these pages. I still had the scrap, faded and yellowing, in my shoe box of Ellie stuff. It read, “Which East Coast transplant doesn't want to be too Forward about her crush?” At the time, junior year, I was center forward, and everyone knew it.

I still found it strange that she'd aligned herself with girls' choir when she moved here. A lot of groups in school wanted to claim her, but she belonged nowhere—and everywhere. The chekhovs came closest, at first, until she explained she wasn't reading Chekhov's stories or plays for anyone but herself. Not for a teacher, not for a grade. She told me once the reason she liked his work was because she could never tell if she'd understood it. Finding out if she had or hadn't by discussing it with other people seemed vulgar to her; it would've sapped all the joy out of it.

Maria Posey took one look at Ellie, saw she was worth knowing, and invited her to be a songbird. Ellie was just an okay singer—which suited Maria fine. That meant she wouldn't be competition.

The day I saw Ellie's message to me in the paper, I made it a point to say hi to her in no-man's-land before the game. I'd had my eye on her for ages but acted like my interest was brand-new. I asked what she was doing after the match, and she said she was hoping I would ask, and the rest is too happy and painful to go into.

Today's issue was the first since our breakup and I guess I thought there might be a mention to close it out, a hidden message,
something
from or about her.

I skimmed the whole page, fighting off the pounding headache that dehydration, dead alcohol, and reading on a bouncing bus induced, and that's when I saw it. The final message. They were listed in order received, so it must have been added right before deadline last night.

“To ChD. If you find it, don't give it to her. I'll pay more. IM 10 2nite.”

The flash drive again!

Ryder's warning came back to me. I'd been so caught up in my Ellie call last night I'd forgotten about the conversation that preceded it.

I read the message three more times, my heart racing. The person who'd written it was willing to pay for the drive. If I managed to find it, there were apparently several interested parties.

I dug through my backpack for Bridget's list of suspects and
leaned over to the clogged pores in the seat ahead. “You know this kid Danny? Who's he run with?”

They looked at each other, decided it was safe to tell me, and nodded. “He's with the art kids—charcoal sketches, that kind of thing.”

“Who do I need to see? Is Jake still in charge?”

They nodded again.

“I'll square things with Jake, but in the meantime, can you find Danny this morning and tell him I want a word? Tell him to meet me at the water fountain outside the art room after first period.”

“Okay,” the first clogged pore said.

“So what do we get for facilitating this?” the second clogged pore said.

I laughed. “You get me not kicking your ass.”

They looked nervous for a second, so I rolled my eyes. “What do you think is fair payment?”

“At the soccer game on Friday, we might have dates …”

“Uh-huh,” I said dryly.

“If we come up to you, act like we're pals. And maybe see that we have good seats.”

Having had little to no truck with them before today, I understood within five minutes why it was so tempting to beat the crap out of freshmen; but I also had to admire their style. “Sure, fine. What are your names?”

They told me and I promptly forgot, but that was okay because I was good with faces. I'd put on a nice show for their supposed
girlfriends and maybe pay for a couple of hot dogs and Cokes to be sent over to their section.

I dismissed my new foot soldiers.

I couldn't believe it was only Tuesday morning, only forty-eight hours since
West Side Story
Maria had been dumped at the hospital. She should've been heading to school right now with the rest of us. She should've been pissing off the other songbirds by practicing her concert solo in the hallway. She should've been looking all around with those big, sad eyes of hers and taking in the same weary world as me.

As head of the art kids, Jake controlled who interacted with his charges. Art boys were notoriously bullied by upperclassmen, more so than the rest of the groups combined, so Jack was overprotective.

If I'd approached Danny out of nowhere to question or accuse him, it'd be like declaring war on every potter, jeweler, painter, sketcher, and wind chimer at school. Worse, they had an alliance with the drama kids, and you did
not
want to make enemies of the drama kids. Not because they were scary; they were just … dramatic. They would band together, write original arias and skits about you, and corner you in the hallway or cafeteria to publicly shame you for what you'd done. Sometimes it went on for
days
.

Since the library was no-man's-land, a lot of romances originated there. If you couldn't or didn't want to wait for a formal introduction, you could meet on the sly in the stacks, but it was all on the down low and could easily backfire.

I prided myself on my social mobility. I was welcome with the beckhams, a few other sports that overlapped, the songbirds (because of Ellie), and several people in my neighborhood (Bridget, plus now the clogged pores from this morning). I had
some
unofficial clout with the journos because of my dad's job, and his occasional columnist work for the
Palm Valley Register
. He'd given my classmates a tour of the newspaper office last year. That might've been one of the reasons Bridget had asked me for help; it was quicker for me to interview the people on her list because I didn't have to schedule as many meetings as the one I was about to.

I hovered outside the art classroom, waiting for Jake to show and watching the clock. I took out Bridget's list of names again and studied it. Josh was crossed off definitively, but before I could cross off Maria Posey, I had to make sure that one of the other ID numbers matched Oscar, her tutor. It did. Seemed she'd been straight with me. I crossed her off and shoved the list away in time to see Jake approach. He was wearing overalls and a Nine Inch Nails T-shirt, both dotted with paint.

“Charlie.” He nodded shortly.

“Jake,” I replied.

“The bell's imminent.”

“I know. Sorry to keep this last-minute, but I need to speak with your boy Danny after first period, at the water fountain. Nothing serious, just getting data for a friend about an incident in no-man's-land Friday morning.”

“What makes you think Danny has anything to do with whatever's going on?”

“I've been told he might have seen someone swipe a flash drive that didn't belong to them. I'm looking at Danny as a witness, not a suspect, and I'll treat him accordingly.”

Jake's expression remained blank.
Impress me, soccer boy.

“I also told two freshmen to make the intro for me, on the bus this morning,” I added.

That seemed to do the trick. “So he won't be ambushed?”

“No, he'll be expecting it.”

Jake nodded again. The bell rang. I looked at him for final confirmation.

“I'm going to allow it,” said Jake. “But next time give me twenty-four hours' notice. And I might drop by.”

We shook hands and went our separate ways.

Danny was a quivering wreck at our meet-and-greet. I think my minions from the bus told him I was a bruiser or something. He looked more like a seventh grader than a freshman, and he reminded me of Ellie's brother, who actually
was
a seventh grader. I tried to put Danny's mind at ease.

“Hi. Thanks for agreeing to this. I'm Charlie.”

“I know.”

“Look, I just want to know if you saw anything suspicious in the library, second period, on Friday. A friend of mine had a flash drive stolen.”

“Who's your friend?”

“Bridget Flannery.”

His face got pink. Jesus, he was blushing.

“You know who that is?” I said.

He nodded, apparently mute with lust. I was glad his sketchbook was in front of his crotch.

“She was sitting at the computer near the far left window,” I said. “Where were you sitting? Did you see anything?”

“Is she your girlfriend?” Danny asked. He seemed to be fundamentally confused about the order and purpose of a Q & A.

“She lives next door to me,” I replied, with all the patience I could muster. “Did you see anything?”

“She lives next door to you?” he sputtered. “Ohhhh my God.”