Tempestuous (22 page)

“Well, maybe we do.” She lowered her chin and fished one hand into the deep pocket of her jumper. I stared in astonishment as she produced a small silver key.

“YOU!!!!” Chad, Caleb, and I were a weary trio of slack-jaws. “When did you find the key?”

“Have you had it all along?” I said.

“Guilty as charged,” Ariel said, hanging her head sheepishly.

“Why on earth—?” I was majorly confused and slightly peeved. Being played by my prep school cohorts was one thing, but I’d never suspected it from the girl I considered my tried-and-true friend. Please let her have a good reason for deceiving me like this.

“I’m so sorry, Miranda. Caleb, you, too,” she said, hurrying over to him to release him from the manacle. Caleb slapped one of Grady’s wrists in the cuffs, then ushered him across the room to the salad bar, to which he affixed the other end of the steel shackles.

“We’ve been trying to find a way out of these all night,” I admonished her. “Why did you do this?”

“I wanted to give you a taste of your own medicine. And I mean that in the best way possible.”

“I’m not in the mood for aphorisms. Cut the crap and explain yourself.”

“Oh come on, Miranda! You’re always pulling strings behind the scenes, setting the universe spinning along whatever orbit you dictate. So sue me if I decided to tie your hands for a while … and play matchmaker.”

“Say what?!” While I attempted to wrap my brain around her explanation, Caleb had started to softly chuckle.

“Oh, man,” he said with a laugh. “She totally stole a page from your playbook.”

“Oh, you think this is funny?”

“Yeah, actually, I do,” he said, hiding his grin with his fist.

“Matchmaker?!” I turned back to Ariel. “What makes you believe that yoking me to
this
yahoo would somehow make us fall hopelessly in love?”

“Seeing is believing.” Ariel wrapped her arm lovingly around Chad’s waist. He kissed her affectionately on top of the forehead. “As a matter of fact, my plan worked out even better than I’d expected it to. You guys are perfect for each other, whether you want to admit it or not.”

I crossed my arms in a demonstration of defiance and stormed off a few paces to brood—and blush.

Leaving Grady securely handcuffed in Teasers to await dawn and his punishment, we headed back down an empty Main Street toward the food court. The others were amped-up and giddy, eager to fill in everyone else on our white-knuckle adventure. But when we arrived at base camp, it was eerily quiet, as if a spell had been cast over the once-bustling epicenter of our night in captivity. The lights were dimmed and I immediately noticed that the rest of our informal bunch had hunkered down in makeshift bedrolls, finally too exhausted not to yield to slumber’s succor.

“Should we wake them?” Ariel said as we trod noiselessly over our snoozing chums.

“Not now,” I said
sotto voce
, pulling a fleece blanket emblazoned with neon-colored handprints up over Alfredo’s shoulders. “It’s so peaceful.”

Chad walked over to our retinue of supplies from earlier, shuffled around for a bit, and then, in the dim light, headed back to us.

“There are only two pillows and two blankets left,” he said in a low voice, beginning to spread them out on the floor. “You girls go ahead and lie down for a few hours. Caleb and I can tough it out.”

“No way!” Ariel said, stifling a yawn. Sleep had begun to beckon us, thanks to the darkness of the food court and the intensity of our night-long ordeal. “Chad, sweetie, you take one pillow and I’ll snuggle with you. We’ll share a blanket.” Wow, for someone who’d never even gone on a date before, she’d adapted to her new role as girlfriend like a seasoned pro. Good for her, though it admittedly felt strange that the idol-worship she had once reserved for me was now being lavished on someone else. The little lark had up and left the proverbial nest, a fact that made me feel proud, but not without some poignancy. Ariel looked my way as if urging me to make a similar sleeping arrangement offer. I glanced at Caleb warily, not sure what to say.

“It’s all right,” he said, letting me off the hook. “You’ve been stuck with me for the last eight hours. I’d say you paid your dues. I’ll be fine over here.” He took a seat and leaned back against a nearby wall, folding his arms and stretching his legs out before him. He closed his eyes, and I stared at him for a moment, admiring his strong jawline and that adorable cleft in his chin. The nerves in my body seemed miffed that he was five feet away instead of the five inches that had separated us for most of the night. I missed matching my gait to his, the protective security of his stalwart presence, and the reassuring touch of his hand in mine. The faint sound of breathing and soft snores could be heard in the room, and I knew Ariel and Chad were off in cuddle heaven under a table near Fro-Yo-Yo across the room. I sat up from my pillow and glanced at him again.

“The floor’s really cold.” His head was still tilted back against the wall, but at the sound of my voice his eyes perked open to look at me, quizzically. I waited for him to say something, but he only nodded his agreement and closed his lids again. Damn it. I’ll need to try another gambit.

“Your back might get all jacked-up sleeping against the wall like that.” He didn’t even open his eyes this time.

“I’ll be fine.” He either couldn’t take a hint or he was having fun making me beg.

“Well, umm, it’s a pretty big blanket—meant for a king-sized bed, I think. Maybe we could draw an imaginary line down the pillow and split it or something. Like you said, we’ve been together all night. A few more hours isn’t going to kill us.”

As if capitulating, he gave a knowing smile and slowly got to his feet. I wriggled my head to the far end of my pillow and threw open the down comforter to give him entree to our little cocoon.

Relieved to have him back by my side—or maybe just too tired to care about appearance’s sake anymore—I snuggled against him and drifted off to sleep, a storm-tossed skiff now safely in harbour.

• • •

“Rise and shine, campers! Shake it off! Wake up! Wake up!”

Groans, coughs, and a distant, “But I don’t
wanna
go to school!” roused me from my warm slumber. I rolled over sleepily, my eyes still closed, and felt a warm breath on my face. Huh?! Caleb startled and blinked, seemingly as surprised as I was to find himself waking up next to me. The food court’s fluorescent overhead lights were back on now, and with my lids at half-mast, I surveyed the scene.

The court was a sight to behold—you’d have thought we were the last remaining survivors of a postapocalyptic wasteland. Tables and potted plants were overturned. Food and condiments had been splattered, Jackson Pollack–like, across most of the counters. One of the red plastic trays had (god knows how) lodged itself in the fancy crystal chandelier, and “The Mariner” had been filled to overflowing with used plastic cups and straws—if we’d accomplished nothing else last night, we’d at least managed to drink our weight in soda.

Our food court manager, Randall, was walking through the mess in his boots and winter parka, gently nudging some of the deeper sleepers awake.

“Up and at ’em, guys,” he said, kicking a few of the errant wheeled janitorial buckets out of the way.

“What time is it?” Riley asked, unwittingly displaying an epic case of bedhead. I died a little inside wondering what kind of national disaster I must have resembled.

“It’s quarter to nine,” Randall said. “We’ve got a plow and a crew with shovels out in the parking lot right now extricating the cars.”

“You mean we can go home?” Caleb said, still reclining on his elbow under the blanket.

“Soon. They plowed and salted most of the main roads, but the secondary roads are still pretty hazardous. They’re predicting warmer temperatures today, which should help. You guys were wise to stay put last night.”

“As if we had any choice,” Troy said.

“Yeah, well, you were a lot safer in here than out there.”

I threw the blanket off my legs and got to my feet. “You wanna bet?”

“Oh, hey, Miranda!” Randall made his way over to me. “Don’t worry—a few guys from the maintenance team were the first to make it in this morning, and they found Grady—along with your little note spelling out all his crimes. The police are down there questioning him now.”

“Oh, what a relief! I was worried he’d sweet-talk his way out before we could explain the situation.”

“Apparently, he tried, but from what I’ve heard upstairs, there’s evidence in his office as well as down by the loading dock where he’d stashed the stolen goods. But I’m sure they’ll want to question everyone who was in the mall. I’m going to head down that way and find out some more details.”

Randall trudged off and, after flashing me a quick grin, Caleb stood up, clasped his hands, and stretched them overhead with a yawn. Now that I had a chance to suss out the room, I was surprised at how many of the Eastern Prep kids had migrated to our little enclave over the course of the night. They say a crisis brings people together, and while I liked to think maybe I had a little something to do with it (what with conjuring dance parties, promoting rock concerts, and all), I guessed it was probably due to the fact that the food court had more bathrooms.

Ariel came flitting over to me like a cygnet from
Swan Lake
. Was she always this perky after two hours of sleep, or was the carton of OJ in her hand spiked with an energy drink? I suspected the former.

“You’re not
really
mad at me, are you?” she said, pausing to gauge my reaction.

I thought about everything she’d done for me last night, gamely going along with my every whim, no matter how vainglorious, silly, or even dangerous. I’d initially made the excuse that I’d done it as a diversion for her, when all along she’d been the one trying to help
me
.

“How could I be mad at my best friend?”

“I’m your best friend?! I’ve never had a best friend!” I half-expected her to implode into a maelstrom of confetti, but instead she leaned in closer and whispered for my ears only. “Would you say I did a good job, then?”

I glanced at her, attempting a look of nonchalance even though I knew exactly what she meant.

“We can talk about it later.”

Once the rest of us managed to catch up to Ariel’s level of alertness (well, maybe not quite), Caleb rightfully pointed out that it wasn’t fair for the janitors to have to deal with our super-sized mess. He and Chad rounded up some empty garbage bins with Colin and Cory while Ariel and I teamed up to put the tables to rights and wipe them down. Ours wasn’t the only cleanup effort in progress. Raj’s crew circled around the Itneys like mad scientists, deliberating a solution to their orange-hued, henna-stained skin, with suggestions ranging from boric acid to WD-40.

“But I kind of like it,” Whitney said. “It’s like the ultimate fake tan!”

I had just tossed Ariel a spray bottle with disinfectant when I felt a light tap on my shoulder. I turned to find Rachel standing behind me with her arms crossed. Uh oh.

“Rumor has it you were the grand architect of my elevator run-in with Bunnicula,” she said, her eyes narrowing.

“Oh. Uh … yeah. I guess that wasn’t exactly the most mature thing in the world to have done, but—”

“Forget it. My therapist has been telling me for months that exposure treatment was the only thing that would cure my
leporiphobia.
”

“Come again?”

“That’s the scientific name: the paralyzing fear of bunny rabbits. I’m sure it wasn’t your intention, but you probably cured me. Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Okay?” I thought the situation between us had mellowed after our encounter in the ladies’ room, but now I wasn’t so sure.

“I think you might need to have a word with Brian.”

“I’d prefer not to. Why are you telling me this?”

“He’s outside like a raving lunatic right now, spelling out ‘I Heart Miranda Prospero’ in the snow.”

“You’ve got to be joking.”

“I wish. You can see it from the upstairs atrium overlooking the parking lot. Of course, he forgot the ‘S’ in your last name. Please tell me you are not back together with that sleazebag. I know you and I didn’t end on great terms, but I think I speak for us all,” she pointed over to the Itneys, “when I say that we can do better than him.”

In so many ways, Rachel and I represented two very opposite sides of the same coin, but on this point we were in agreement. I’d cried too many tears at the mere thought of my ex-boyfriend over the course of the last month, and though I had vilified him for the mess he’d made of my life, I could see in hindsight that I was to blame for being so uncomprehendingly spellbound by him in the first place. It was just as Caleb had said to Grady; I hadn’t just been a fool for dating Brian, I’d been a bigger fool for not figuring out how to get over him. Suddenly, I felt unable to suppress my laughter at the visual of Brian tromping through the snow to profess his love when we all knew it would melt as soon as the mercury climbed. Tears welled up in my eyes, but this time, they stemmed from the kind of unimpeded laughter that gives you a complete ab workout. It seemed a fitting enough reprisal that he was pining away for me in a mad state of unrequited love, literally left out in the cold for a change. Who knows? Perhaps it would make him a better person. After all, that’s what it had done for me.