The Fixes (7 page)

66.

“So if you helped Jordan pass calculus somehow,” Paige says, “you really
are
a hero.”

Eric stops creeping on Jordan and Haley, lest Paige figure out what he's doing. He forces a laugh. “Come on.”

“Maybe
I
should have failed calculus,” Paige says. “Maybe you would have paid more attention to me.”

Eric looks at Paige. Can't see her eyes behind her huge Dolce sunglasses. Paige stares at him, her expression inscrutable, and suddenly the boat seems very small.

“Shit,” Eric says. “Yeah, about that. I'm sorry. I . . .”

He trails off, unsure of how to finish. Not sure how to tell Paige about how scared he was, toward the end of their little fling, when he realized he wasn't feeling the whole hetero angle. When he figured out he kind of, sort of, was more into guys.

(Scared? Fucking terrified. Fucking
ashamed.
)

But Eric still can't explain it. And Paige is watching him through her sunglasses, waiting for an explanation. The seconds drag on. It's awkward.

Then Jordan speaks from below deck. “Who
cares
?” he says. “He's here now, isn't he? E's back, baby. Better than ever.”

Paige's still watching Eric.

“Yeah,” she says. “I guess we'll see, won't we?”

67.

Jordan's phone buzzes. He trails a lazy hand over the pile of towels to get it, smiles when he reads the screen.

“Someone on Kik just sent a blast from the airport,” he tells the others. “Apparently Callum Fulchrest was just seen boarding a nonstop flight to
Barcelona
two hours ago. The bastard is fleeing the country.”

Nobody replies. Eric lifts his head from the towel, looks around the boat just in time to see Haley and Paige exchange glances. But neither of them says anything.

“Do you think it's true?” he asks. “Did he really do what they said?”

“Of
course
it's true,” Haley says. “Didn't you watch the Vine? It's all there.”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“But nothing. That guy was shady as fuck. He tried to slip a roofie in my drink at prom, like I wouldn't freaking notice.” Haley picks up her book again. “He got his, though, didn't he?”

“They always do,” Jordan says.

Eric replays the Vine in his head. The hidden-camera trick was pretty rad, pretty sneaky. Whoever pulled it off had balls and skill. He's been racking his brain, trying to remember the party, searching his mind for any memory of the person behind the video.

But he can't remember much.

(Eric was really drunk.)

“I don't know how they got that painting out of there, though,” he says. “Wouldn't somebody have noticed a million-dollar painting leaving a party?”

Another round of meaningful looks.

“Not necessarily,” Paige says. “And it's a six-million-dollar painting, actually.”

Jordan scoffs. “If it was real.”

“Which it totally wasn't,” Haley says. “Callum Fulchrest's dad can't even afford waterfront property. You think he can pay for a Basquiat?”

“Why do you think there hasn't been any news about it?” Paige says. “Callum's dad is too freaking embarrassed to report it.”

“And anyway, his son's a wannabe date-rapist,” Haley says. “He knows if he calls the police, it's his own ass that gets nailed.”

“So how do you guys know all this stuff?” Eric asks them. “I mean, you all left the party early, right? Did you, like, see who took the painting or something?”

Jordan looks at Haley. Something passes between them. Then Jordan turns back to Eric. Smiles.

“We saw something,” he says. “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

68.

(Let's cut to the chase. I'm just going to tell you now:

Jordan and Haley and Paige stole that painting.

But you already knew that, right?)

69.

It's almost full dark by the time they're back in Capilano. Jordan brings the boat into the marina, and they tie it to the dock and walk up to the parking lot to Jordan's BMW. Eric gets there first, and when he looks back, he sees Paige and Jordan and Haley huddled together. They're talking about something. Haley's shaking her head. It looks like Jordan's trying to convince her.

Finally, Haley just holds up her hands like she's disgusted. Turns and walks away from the others. She doesn't look at Eric as she approaches the BMW.

“Do you mind giving me a ride back to the law office?” Eric asks Jordan when he and Paige are within earshot. “I left my mom's ride when I bailed on my internship.”

Jordan unlocks the Bimmer. “Heading home, huh?” he says. “Big day tomorrow?”

“Those files aren't going to enter themselves.”

“Right,” Jordan says. “It takes a man with integrity.”

“Or something.”

It all suddenly sounds
so
boring. It all sounds so
unfair.

Paige and Haley climb into the BMW's backseat. Jordan circles around to the driver's side. Studies Eric over the roof of the car.

“I can take you back to your mom's Benz if you really want,” Jordan says. There's a wicked glint in his eye. “Or we could all have some
real
fun.”

The way he says it gives Eric a shiver. He flashes back to the boat, Jordan's tanned skin, his six-pack.

Real fun.

(Yes, please.)

But Eric forces himself to hold his poker face. “What do you have in mind?”

Jordan's grin gets wider. He gestures to his car.

“Get in,” he tells Eric. “It's easier if we show you.”

70.

“Where are we going, exactly?”

They've been driving for ten minutes now into an industrial park on the outskirts of Capilano. The streets are quiet; all business is done for the day, and this is a sleepy town after dark anyway, even on a Friday. Most of the real action is in the clubs across the bridge, in the city itself.

Nobody is speaking. Nobody's on the roads. Even the radio is turned off. It's like driving through a post-apocalyptic dead zone with the volume on mute. Eric plays along until he can't take it anymore.

“Um, guys?”

His voice seems intrusively loud in the silence. Nobody replies. Jordan keeps driving. He reaches an intersection and turns right, down a long road lined with warehouses and empty office buildings and almost zero streetlights.

Eric tries again. “Hello?”

Jordan slows the BMW. Peers out the window like he's checking for an address.

“Go easy on Eric,” Paige says. “It's his first Fix.”

“It's
my
Fix,” Haley says. “I'm not wasting it just because of the new guy.” She shakes her head. Mutters: “He shouldn't even be here, if you want my opinion.”

“
Fix
? What are you guys even talking about?” Eric says.

Paige just shrugs. Jordan says nothing. Haley scowls out
the window. They're creeping down the road. A pickup truck passes in the other direction, and then they're alone again.

(Eric's starting to feel a little, you know,
nervous
.)

Then Haley's voice breaks the silence. “There it is,” she says, pointing. “There's the spot. Get your game faces on, ladies.”

“Where the hell are we?” Eric says, squinting into the darkness. “Are you guys going to tell me, or what?”

Jordan pulls to the side of the road. Stops the car and kills the headlights. “You'll figure it out,” he says. “You're a smart kid. You'll get it eventually.”

71.

“It's your first Fix,” Jordan tells Eric, “so we'll bring you in easy. Just hang out with me here until the girls do their thing, cool?”

Paige flashes Eric a crooked smile. “We won't be gone too long,” she says. “Assuming Haley knows her shit.”

Haley gives her the finger. “Just watch me,
betch
. You assholes stand guard.”

Paige and Haley walk up the road toward a long, low-lying warehouse. Eric watches them go. Beside him, Jordan's lighting a joint.

“It's amazing what you can learn on YouTube these days,” he says. He blows out a smoke ring. “Like, there's everything. How to shave. How to give a good blow job. How to build a bomb. . . .”

It's the blow-job line that throws Eric, but it's just for a moment. “Why are you telling me this?”

Jordan inhales. Tilts his head back and blows smoke. “This world is filled with hypocrites, Eric. Would you agree?”

“Uh, I guess so.”

“Capilano, especially. Your dad's kind of an asshole, but he's right about this place, I'll give him that. I knew it the moment I got here; this town has no soul. It's all rich motherfuckers who think they can do what they want because they have money.”

Jordan passes the joint to Eric. Eric tries to wave him off.

“Take Callum Fulchrest, for instance,” Jordan is saying. “The guy has a buttload of money, and he's still a slimy fucker.
And the worst part of it is, he gets away with it too, because his family's tight with the freaking police chief. Awful, right?”

“I mean, yeah,” Eric says. “It's pretty messed up.”

(
What the hell are we doing here?
)

(
Where's Haley and Paige?
)

“This town's full of shit like that, though.” Jordan leans back on the hood of his car. Blows a cloud of smoke up toward the stars. “Racist teachers. Corrupt cops. Spoiled little rich kids who can get away with murder.”

“That's what my dad says,” Eric tells him.

Jordan nods. “Your dad and I are on the same page.”

(Somewhere in the darkness, a door hinge whines open.)

(Electronic beeps follow, like punching in a keypad.)

“We just have different ways of dealing with it.”

Eric squints toward the warehouse. “I still don't get it. What are they doing?”

“It's just something Haley's been working on,” Jordan says. “A YouTube tutorial she's trying to master.”

Suddenly, the front door of the warehouse lights up, bright fluorescent white. The lights flash twice, and Eric can see Haley waving from inside. Then the lights go dark again. Jordan smiles. “Looks like she nailed it,” he tells Eric. “Let's go.”

72.

Eric stares. Can't put the pieces together.

“I don't get it,” he says. “What is this place? Did they just, like, break in or something?”

“This place,” Jordan says, walking up toward the front doors, leaving Eric no choice but to follow. “This place is the West Coast headquarters for
Beauty Queen
magazine; you've heard of it? Kind of a low-rent
Seventeen
, trashy celebrity gossip and beauty tips for, like, fifteen-year-olds?” He looks back. “And yeah, they broke in. Paige picked the lock. Haley successfully overrode the master alarm.”

Eric stops following Jordan. He's struck dumb. His heart's racing too fast to let him concentrate, and all he can think is how being here is
really
not cool for a Connelly Man.

“But . . . why?” he manages.

“We fix things,” Jordan says. “That's what we're doing. That's what this town needs.”

He gestures to the front door. Paige and Haley are waiting in the shadows.

“It's Haley's turn to choose the target. Maybe you heard she had a bit of a situation last fall. She left school for a while.”

“I heard,” Eric says.

Haley makes a face that Eric can just barely make out. It's not a happy one. “I don't want to talk about it,” she says. “The point is, these fuckers in there contribute to exactly the kind of
mentality that screwed me up last September.”

“Haley has a bit of a body-image thing,” Jordan says.

“Yeah, like I think it's all
bullshit
. This
Beauty Queen
stuff is dangerous shit, man. It really messes with you.”

“And Capilano's all about that,” Paige says. “This town is so superficial.”

“One-hundred-percent superficial.”

“So, what?” Eric says. “Breaking into this building is going to fix everything?”

Haley scowls. “Of course not. But it's sending a message.” She looks at Eric, hard, through the dim light. “We're not just breaking in, dude. We're
trashing
the joint.”

73.

Haley pulls the front door open. Disappears inside. Paige is right behind her. Jordan has his phone out. He's filming the whole thing.

And that's when Eric catches up with the rest of the class.

“Holy shit,” he says. “
You guys!
You are the ones who stole Callum's painting.”

(Well, duh.)

“You're the Suicide Pack!”

Jordan holds up his hands. “Guilty as charged. You've discovered our secret identity, E. Congratulations.”

“But . . . why? Why are you doing this? Why did you bring
me
here?”

“Because we need you,” Jordan tells him. “
I
need you.”

(
Shiver
.)

(
Shit, what?
)

“I was wrong about you at the party,” Jordan says. “You're not just a nerd. I can see that now. You
know
this town's broken, and you're ready to actually do something worthwhile, instead of fucking
data entry
. Am I right?”

Inside the building, Haley has another light on. She's in, like, an outer office. She's kneeling down with Paige, working on another locked door.

“You
know
I'm right,” Jordan tells Eric. “That internship
you're working isn't doing shit for the world. I'm asking you to help us. I'm asking you to make a difference.”

Haley has some kind of tool in her hand. Eric watches her fiddle with the door, can't think for the sound of his heart pounding in his head.

(Connelly Men don't break into office buildings.)

Haley stands up, triumphant. Tries the door. It swings open, revealing a long line of desks and computers, posters of magazine covers with, like, airbrushed Emma Stone. Airbrushed Emma Roberts. Oh, and look over there. Airbrushed Haley's sister.

Paige pokes her head out the front door. “You guys coming, or what?” she says. “Don't be ashamed to be feminists, boys.”

“Go,” Jordan tells her. “We're right behind you.”

Paige disappears. Through the window, Eric can see Haley walking farther into the office. She stops at a desk piled high with papers. Cocks her hip to the side, looks back over her shoulder at Eric and Jordan, an innocent expression on her face as, ever so slowly, she topples the papers to the floor.

(
Who, me?
)

Jordan tilts his head at Eric. Smiles that movie-star smile. “So, what do you think? Are you with us?”