Rivals (12 page)

Lucy brought
her hands down. She turned her face away but she couldn’t stifle the laugh
bubbling up out of her mouth.

“Ha ha. Very
funny. This media stuff is getting out of control. It’s not like I’m getting
anything out of it. Grandma won’t let me do commercials or let them make a
movie about me, and honestly, I don’t want that either. Why should I bother
talking to them at all? Who even listens to the things I say? Who—”

He stopped in
mid-rant and stood very still for a second.

“Brent?” Lucy
asked, when he didn’t say anything more.

“Wait here,”
he told her. Then he headed out of the room and down the stairs. Grandma
called out to him but she just wanted the TV remote—he found it for her,
then headed for the front door.

Nobody was
standing on the porch. There were maybe two dozen reporters on the front
steps, though, and a pair of news vans were parked illegally in the street.
When the reporters saw him come out they all flooded in, moving closer to get a
better look at him, to get pictures, to ask him questions.

He held up his
hands for silence. For once, he got it. “I want to say something,” he told
the reporters. “Can we get some TV people up here? I want this to go out on
every network tonight.” He felt like an idiot as he waited for them to set up
their blinding lights and all their microphones. He felt like a pompous jerk,
acting as if the whole world was just waiting, holding their breath to hear
what he said next. But they kind of were—and anyway, this was important.

He needed to
talk to Maggie, but he couldn’t find her. Maybe there was another way to get
through to her.

“Are we
ready?” he asked. One of the camera men gave him a thumb’s-up. He chewed on
his lower lip for a second, then he looked right at the cameras and started.

“As everyone
is aware by now my sister Maggie has run away from home. She’s not showing up
for classes at school and she avoids anyone who tries to talk to her. I think
she’s scared, mostly. I think she’s worried about what will happen if the
police catch her. And maybe she’s ashamed of what she’s done. I hope she is,
because that means there’s still a chance for her to make it all okay.”

He turned to
face a different camera. “Maggie. If anybody knows what you’re going through,
it’s me. If anybody could understand, I’m the guy. I really want to talk to
you. I need someone to talk to about what’s happened to us. About what
happened to Dad. About what you did, and how we can make it okay. It won’t be
easy, but I think that together we can work everything out. Come to some kind
of solution.”

He looked over
at a reporter from the local newspaper. He wanted this to go out in print, as
well. “Just come home, Maggie. Or if you’re not willing to do that, come find
me somewhere. Somewhere neutral. So we can just talk. I’m not going to cause
trouble for you. I just want us to be a family again. I want us to be okay.”

Brent lowered
his head. Would she listen? He didn’t know. But he knew it was what Dad
would have wanted. Dad had believed in giving people second chances.

“Thank you,”
Brent said. “That’s all I have right now.” As the reporters surged up the
steps and started climbing over the porch railing, he stepped back inside the
house and closed the door behind him.

Please,
Maggie,
he thought.
Just come
talk to me. Mom and Dad are gone. I can’t lose my big sister, too.

Maggie was amazed
at how easy it was to hide in plain sight. You’d think a girl in a rumpled
plaid field hockey skirt with a look of desperate villainy in her eye would
stick out on the street, and that every person she passed would turn and point
and scream, “There she is!” But in fact all she had to do was spend five
minutes shoplifting at the Gap. She put her hair up under a baseball cap and
threw a lightweight hoodie and a backpack over her jersey and suddenly she was
invisible, or close enough. No one gave her a second look. No one shouted for
the police.

Even when she
walked into the bank building, right past the security guard.

As she
surveyed the red marble lobby of the bank—the rank of ATMs on her left,
the four teller windows on her right, people streaming in and out, carrying out
their business, living their happy safe normal lives—she told herself
over and over again that this was going to be the last time, the last bad thing
she would ever do.

She had spent
most of the day psyching herself up for this. Convincing herself she had no
choice. There were some things, after all, that you couldn’t just steal. She
needed to find a place to stay, for at least one more night. She needed a car.
Sure, you could steal a car, but she didn’t know how to hotwire one and
carjacking seemed too risky. It would be too easy to hurt somebody that way.

She needed
money. She told herself if she could get some money together then she could
leave town. Drive off into the sunset. Find some place where nobody knew who
she was and start life over. Do it right this time.

But first, she
needed money. She’d chosen the bank for a pretty simple reason. If you were
going to get in trouble for a robbery, it seemed to make sense to rob the place
where all the money was.

This would
only take a minute, she told herself. And then she would be free.

She waited
until one of the teller lines emptied out. Then she headed over to the window
and smiled at the woman behind the bulletproof glass. The teller was maybe
forty-five years old, pretty in a commonplace way. She had a mole on the side
of her nose. Maggie couldn’t stop staring at it.

“What can we
do for you today, miss?” the teller asked.

Maggie pulled
off her baseball cap and dropped it on the floor. Then she unzipped her hoodie
and let the teller see her jersey, with the team logo and her number on the
front. “Do you know what this means?” she asked.

The teller
screamed. Which Maggie guess meant that yes, she did.

A second later
an alarm started going off, a bell ringing in the back of the bank. More
people screamed. All around Maggie people started running, heading for the
revolving door behind her. She figured that was for the best. The teller
tried to duck under her counter. Maggie punched the bulletproof glass window
that separated them and it cracked in half. She punched it again and one piece
fell away to thunk on the floor behind the window. Then she reached over
across the counter and dragged the teller back up to her feet.

“Just give me
some money,” Maggie said, “and I’ll go away. Nobody needs to get hurt, okay?”

There was a
dull impact on the back of her neck. Maggie spun around and saw the security
guard standing there. He had a wooden baton in his hand, and he was pulling it
back for another swing.

“Seriously?”
Maggie asked. “That’s the best you’ve got?”

The baton came
whirling around toward her face. Maggie had plenty of time to grab it as it
came around. She flipped it in her hand and then jabbed the guard in the
stomach with its rubberized grip. His face went pale and he slumped to the
floor, gasping to get his breath back.

He would be
fine, she told herself. She hadn’t hit him hard enough to damage anything
vital. She turned back to the teller, who was pulling a long metal drawer out
of her counter. “I’m so sorry,” the teller said. “I’m sorry. Please don’t
hurt me.”

“It’s not your
fault they didn’t give him a gun,” Maggie said. “What are you sorry for?”

“I—I
just started my shift, and they only.” She stopped talking.

Maggie raised
an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“I think I
might be sick,” the teller said. She definitely looked a little green.

“Look,” Maggie
said, “you’re not going to get hurt, as long as you give me the money. I don’t
have any reason to hurt you.”

“It’s the
beginning of my shift,” the teller said again, slowly, “and they only bring out
cash as we need it. It’s all controlled downstairs, in the vault.”

Maggie
frowned. “I’m not getting the point, here. Help me out.”

The teller
held up the metal drawer. There were a couple of twenties in there, and a
handful of fives and ones. The slot for ten dollar bills was completely empty.
It looked like there was less than a hundred dollars there. That wouldn’t get
Maggie very far at all.

“People don’t
do cash transactions like they used to,” the teller explained. “Most people go
to the ATM for withdrawals, and when they make a deposit I send it downstairs
right away.”

“Down to the
vault.”

The teller
nodded.

“Which I’m
guessing is locked. Okay,” Maggie sighed, “who has the key? Or the combination,
or whatever?”

“The branch
manager. But he.”

Maggie waited
patiently for the teller to start again.

“He ran out of
here as soon as I screamed,” the teller finished.

Maggie turned
around and looked for a way to get down to the vault. There was a stairwell
leading off the lobby, with a red velvet rope strung across it. A pair of
security cameras watched the stairs and anyone approaching them, but Maggie
wasn’t afraid of cameras. She looked down at the security guard on the floor
and saw him slowly recovering. His right hand was reaching shakily for his
baton. She kicked it away from him, into a corner of the lobby, and jumped
over the velvet rope.

This was only
supposed to have taken a minute. If she took too long getting into the vault,
the police would surround the bank and she’d have to deal with them on her way
out. Well, she thought, as she ran down the stairs, I’ve come this far.

There was no
point in turning back.

Brent had
reached the point of no return.

On his last
algebra test, he’d gotten a twenty-five. Out of a possible hundred points.
He’d been holding out hope that if he just tried really hard,
really
hard, he could bring his grade back from a D to a C.
Now it looked like he would be lucky if he didn’t fail the class.

It was just so
hard to focus. So many other things were occupying his mind and even at his
best he found algebra confusing and difficult to keep straight. There were all
those variables and you never knew what any of them were, it was like playing
solitaire except you weren’t allowed to see your own cards.

Clutching the
test paper in his hand he wandered through the halls, wondering what he was
going to do. At least his next period was lunch. He was pretty sure he could
get through his sophomore year without failing lunch.

He picked up
his tray—meatloaf today, with stewed carrots and apple juice to
drink—and looked up to see where there was a place to sit. He didn’t
often have trouble finding a seat in the cafeteria these days, but for once it
looked like the place was packed. All the usual tables he frequented had
students crammed into every available inch of space. He couldn’t see a single
open—wait. Over there.

There was a
space right between two girls. They turned to look at him over their shoulders
and he saw it was Jill Hennessey and Dana Kravitz.

“Did you ask
everybody to fill up the tables so I had to sit here?” he asked, sliding his
tray onto the table between the two of them. He saw that Dana was eating the
meatloaf but had a salad instead of the carrots. Jill was eating sushi out of
a tiny black plastic box.

“Do you
believe in willpower, Brent?” Jill asked him. “I do. I believe that through
the sheer power of my will I am capable of getting what I want. I find if I
want something badly enough, I never have to actually ask for it. Please sit
down. We have something to discuss. A mutually beneficial partnership you’d
be very foolish to refuse.”

“O-kay,” Brent
said, climbing onto the bench. “You want to—what? Ask me for help with
something? If you want me to beat somebody up, I have to tell you I don’t do
that. I don’t hit anyone who’s weaker than I am, which is everybody.”

“Fascinating.
But no, that’s not what we’re looking for here. We’re looking to help you,
Brent. We’re looking to help you reach your potential.”

“So, um, hi,”
Brent said, turning to Dana. “Does she ever let you talk?”

“Hi,” she said
back. “Of course she does. I just find that—well—she’s better at
it than I am. She’s better with words.”

“As I was
saying,” Jill went on, shooting Dana a nasty glance, “you’re a star, Brent.
You’re a celebrity. Every boy in this school wishes he was you. And every
girl in this school wants your tongue in her mouth. That’s a wonderful
opportunity but you need to think carefully before you decide who you want to
be with. You could make a horrible mistake and spend all your time with Lucy
Benez—”

“Don’t,” Brent
said, squinting. “Don’t you dare say anything about Lucy or—”

“—or,
you could do the sensible thing. You could do the appropriate thing, and date
a girl who is already popular. Someone who can enhance your reputation.
People in this school can be very judgmental, Brent. I should know. And a man
is often judged by the quality of his significant other. It is very important
that you be with someone who will make you look good. Now, the most popular
girl in this school,” Jill said, and placed one hand over her own heart, “is
taken. But the second most popular girl is still available.”

“I’m not sure
I have time for dating,” Brent said, not wanting to hurt Dana’s feelings.

Jill sighed
dramatically. “Listen. I’m a sympathetic and considerate person, so I’ve
tried to be subtle and preserve everyone’s dignity. I gave you a chance to ask
her out on your own. I tried talking to your sister about this. Big mistake.
And yesterday Dana went so far as to embarrass herself by admitting she doesn’t
have a date yet for homecoming, and yet you failed to rise to the occasion.
What is it going to take, Brent? Do I have to offer you money? Because I
will.”