Sloth (5 page)

“Uh, thank you?” he asked sardonically. He leaned forward. This was the moment, he realized. Kane hated nothing more than not having the answers, and ever since that day in the hospital, he’d had nothing but questions. Her guard was down. She would answer. “Where’d you get the drugs, Grace?”

“Huh?”

“That day. The speech. What were you high on? And why?”

She shook her head furiously. “Not you, too!” But after a flicker of anger, she sighed loudly and slumped down in her chair. “Nothing,” she said. “I told you. I told them. Nothing.”

“Come on, Grace,” he pushed. “They found them in your system. Everyone saw you up onstage—I heard what a head-case you were.”
And I saw the way you pulled out of the parking lot. I saw the car skid out, I saw you drive away. “
You were on
something.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Believe me. Don’t believe me. Who cares. And what’s the difference? It’s over now.”

“Yeah, I guess. What’s the difference?”

He is sitting in the waiting room, breathing shallowly. The scent of citrus-scented air freshener is overwhelming—but not enough to mask the smells beneath it. Old age, decay, vomit, blood, death. He hates hospitals. He hasn’t been in one since he was a kid, sitting by his mother’s bed, pretending not to know his father was crying out in the hall.

It’s too soon, too fast, and no one knows everything, but as always, Kane knows enough. He has his sources.

One crash. Two girls, both thrown from the car. One with traces of psychotropic drugs in her bloodstream. One dead.

“Mr. Geary.”

The cop sits down across from him. It’s a woman, which he’s not expecting. She’s short and stocky in a dark gray blazer, her hair pulled back in a tight bun. Right out of central casting, he thinks. Not a coincidence—she probably takes her cues from
Law & Order.

The thought depresses him.

“I’m told that you have some information that can be of assistance to us, Mr. Geary.

“She has a sexy voice.

He shrugs. “I saw them leave the school,” he says.

“Can you describe what you saw?” She doesn’t ask what he was doing loitering on the back steps when the rest of the school was stuffed into the auditorium for a mandatory assembly.

“Harper ran out of the school.”

“How did she appear?”

“What do you mean?” He knows. But he’s not in the mood to help.

“Did she seem upset? Disoriented? Ineb—”

“She seemed in a hurry. She didn’t stop to talk. She ran down to the parking lot. Kaia was standing there, by her car.”

“What was she doing?”

The question hadn’t occurred to Kane before. He didn’t know the answer. He never would. “Standing. Staring. They talked for a while. Then they got into the car and drove away. ”

“Who was driving?”

It is the question he has been waiting for. She asks it casually, as if uninterested in the answer. He responds the same way, without pause, without hesitation, without thinking of Harper grabbing the keys, jumping inside, and tearing out of the lot.

“Kaia” he says with certainty. “It was her father’s Beamer. She always drove. ”

They believe him. The evidence has all burned away. There’s only his word. And when Harper wakes up, groggy and confused, she believes him too.

“I can’t remember,” she says, her voice soft but angry. These days, she is always angry. “Nothing. Just school, that morning, then . . . here. I can’t remember. “ She closes her eyes and knits her
brow. She can’t rub her forehead—her arms are caught in a web of wires and tubes. He surprises himself pressing his palm to her head, brushing her hair off her face.

“There’s nothing to remember,” he tells her. “You two got into the car. And Kaia drove away.”

It’s the last time he sees her. Soon she’s done with visitors, except Miranda. But he knows she believes him.

They all do.

Some days, he even believes himself.

He drove Harper home, stopping only once for her to hop out and throw up in some bushes.

“Sorry,” she said weakly, climbing back into the car.

“We’ve all been there,” he assured her. “Just as long as you don’t hurl in my car.” He patted the dashboard fondly. “Then I dump you out on the side of the road and you can find your own way home.”

She chuckled—then moaned and leaned forward, cradling her head in her arms as if the laughter made her brain hurt. He knew the feeling. “That’s what I love about you,” she said in a muffled voice. “There’s no confusion about where your loyalties lie. You look out for your car—”

“Of course.”

“You look out for yourself—”

“Naturally.”

“And the rest of us can find our own way home.”

“You know me too well, Grace.” His fingers tightened around the steering wheel. “You always have.”

“Can I carry your books for you?”

“Can I get you a soda?”

“Could I stand in line and get you some lunch?”

“She said I could stand in line!”

“But you got to drop her stuff at her locker—”

“Girls!” Harper massaged her temples as the two girls abruptly stopped their bickering.

“What is it?”

“What do you need?”

She sighed. She’d been waiting for this moment for three years, ever since she’d spent one eternal day sophomore year traipsing around after a bitchy blond senior with an undeserved superiority complex. King and Queen for a Day was a senior tradition—on paper, it meant that each underclassmen showered his or her designated senior with affection and treats. In reality, it meant spending the day being primped and pampered by your own personal servant—or, in Harper’s case, two.

Who knew being waited on hand and foot could be so exhausting?

Of course, perhaps she could have enjoyed the novelty of the experience a bit more had the two underclassmen in question not spent the better part of the year following her around and imitating her every move. A theme song from one of those old Nick at Nite shows floated into her head:
“They laugh alike, they walk alike, at times they even talk alike—you can lose your mind . . . ”

That sounded about right. And now Mini-Me and her best friend Mini-She were stuck to her like glue, jockeying for the right to clean off her cafeteria seat.
The best time of my life?
Harper thought dryly.
Starting when?

“Why don’t you go get me something from the vending machine,” she suggested to Mini-She, then turned to Mini-Me. “And you can go buy me some lunch.”

“Coke? Diet Coke? Sprite? Vitamin Water? Gatorade? Snapple?”

“Salad? Meat loaf? Meat loaf and salad? And what kind of dressing? And what if there are fries? Or some kind of vegetable? Or—?”

“Vitamin water. Salad, make sure it’s not just lettuce, Italian dressing. And—” It was going to be a long day; she deserved a treat. “Plenty of fries.”

They were gone, and she was left with a blessed silence, so sweet that she was disinclined to scope out the cafeteria and find herself an appropriately high-powered table; better just to stand to the side for a moment and try to gather her strength. She’d been working on her icy, expressionless face, and she deployed it now. You never knew who was watching.

She didn’t notice him at first—people like that flew below her radar; and even when she registered his presence, dimly, all she noticed were the ripped jeans and the scuffed sneakers, the long hair and the grease-stained fingers, and she expected him to pass her by.

It wasn’t until he spoke that she looked at his face.

“Hey.” He slouched against a wall and tilted his head down, looking up at her briefly, then looking away again, as if stealing glances at the sun.

“Hey.” No stolen glances here; she stared, unabashedly, trying to figure out what Kaia had seen in him. There must have been something, but it was well disguised. True, his black T-shirt hugged some impressive arm muscles, and he did have that whole dark, sullen man of mystery thing going for him. But judging from the smell, the only mystery was how he’d managed to afford so much pot.

Probably grew his own, Harper decided. That’s what they always did on TV.

She knew she should say something caustic and send him away; he wasn’t the type she should be seen talking to, especially not now, with her reputation on the bubble. But she was too curious to hear what he was going to say—and how
she
was going to respond.

“I’m Reed,” he said.

“Yeah, I know.”

“Kaia and me, we—”

“Yeah, I know that, too.” She didn’t, not really. Kaia had never talked much about her life. But she’d dropped enough hints, and Harper had witnessed one kiss steamy enough to confirm that
something
was going on.

“I want to ask ... I need to know . . .”

She felt a fist tighten around her heart. She’d been waiting for this, she realized. He would want to know all about it, what happened, every detail.
Did she suffer? Did she scream? Did she know?

I don’t remember!
Harper wanted to shout.
I know what you know. Leave me alone.
But she stayed silent and kept her placid, patient smile fixed on her face. Maybe she wanted him to ask. At the very least, she could understand why he wanted to know: She did, too.

“Were you two, like, friends?”

“What?” It was so far from what she’d been expecting that it took her a moment to process.

“I don’t know, I just thought—how are you, uh, doing?”

Harper let out a ragged breath, a precursor to a laugh or a sob—she wasn’t sure which. What did he want, some kind of partner in crime for his adventures in grieving? As if the two of them would walk off hand in hand somewhere and cry on each other s shoulders? As if she could ever open up to someone like him?

If not him, then who?

“Uh, anyway, if you ever need, like, to talk—” He put a hand on her shoulder. A wave of emotion washed through her, and it wasn’t the annoyance or revulsion she would have expected. It was comfort—and gratitude.
You too,
she wanted to say. But she couldn’t force the words out.

”Ex
cuse
me?” Mini-She slammed three bottles of soda down on the table and advanced toward Reed, hands on hips. “What are
you
doing here?”

“Am I hallucinating, or are you, like, touching her?” Mini-Me chimed in, sliding a heaping lunch tray next to the drinks and joining her co-clone.

“You must be hallucinating,” Mini-She pointed out, “because no way would someone like
him
be bothering someone like
us
.”

“Don’t you have, like, an engine to build?” Mini-Me asked. “Or some fires to set?”

“He’s probably just begging for funds for his next pot buy,” Mini-She suggested. She waved disdainfully. “Sorry, but charity hour’s over for the day. Better luck next time.”

Harper wanted to stop them, but if she did that, and took a stand, it would surely mean something—and she didn’t have the energy to find out what.

“Yeah . . . ,” Reed mumbled. “This was a mistake. Later.”

“Try never!” Mini-Me called as he ambled away. Then she burst into giggles. “God, Harper, were you actually
talking
to that waste of space?”

“You’re such an airhead,” Mini-She taunted her friend. “She’s Queen for a Day, remember? She was just waiting around for us to get rid of him for her.”

“Which, by the way, you’re welcome.” Mini-Me did an exaggerated curtsy. “We’re at your service, as always.”

“Great job,” Harper said weakly She slumped into a chair at the nearest table. The giggle twins bounced down beside her.

“They didn’t have Vitamin Water,” Mini-She explained, pushing a handful of bottles across the table. “So I got you some Sprite, and Diet Coke, and some Poland Spring, and I can go back if you want something else. . . .”

“And the salad looked kind of dingy,” Mini-Me added, setting a tray in front of Harper. It was piled high with a lump of brownish slime, surrounded by heaps of creamy
beige sludge. “So I got you the . . . well, I’m not sure what it is, but there’s plenty of protein. And then I got the mashed potatoes instead of the fries, you know, so there’d still be something healthy. . . .”