The Quick Fix (12 page)

“Wait! You can't!” Pete cried. “I need you!”

No response, just a soft squeak from her sneakers as she left.

“Wait! Wai—” Pete's words turned to sobs. I stood rooted. It was one of the few times in my life when I had no idea what to do next. The voice of the girl, the girl who finally stood up to Pete despite what she still felt for him … that voice belonged to Katie Kondo.

school got out, I went down to Sal's and ordered a root beer, hoping it would help to clear my head. Katie Kondo—the toughest, most no-nonsense hall monitor the school had ever seen—had a soft spot for Peter Kuhn, career criminal and Pixy Stixer. She had talked about cleaning up messes for him, implying that she had bent some rules to do so. My imagination kicked into overdrive, coming up with horrible crimes that Pete could have committed but that we'd never find out about … because Katie had orchestrated their cover-ups.

My world no longer made sense. One root beer wasn't going to clear things up, so I ordered three more. I figured that if drinking them didn't work, I could always try hitting myself on the head with the bottles.

When Cynthia walked in, I was so hopped up on sugar, I swear I could hear her heart beat. She spotted me at the bar and headed my way. She was wearing a tan suede jacket and a maroon skirt. Her hair was left wild and free in a sizable Afro. She was stunning, gorgeous, glamorous, and every other variety of flat-out heart-stopping. Two girls at a nearby table stopped chattering for a minute to watch her walk by.

She sat down next to me. Almost immediately, Sal accidentally knocked over a bunch of empty bottles. I gave him a wry smile; he gave me a nervous one back, then scurried off to see if the two girls at the table needed refills.

I saw Cynthia looking at me out of the corner of my eye. “I need to talk to you about—” she started.

“Wait,” I interrupted. I slugged down the rest of my third bottle with a twitch and a grimace and reached for the fourth.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yeah … Three root beers will do that to a guy.”

She reached over and grabbed the last bottle.

“That won't stop me,” I said. “I'll order more.”

“Shut up. I'm thirsty,” she said, then pounded half the bottle in one swallow. She let out a little burp that managed to be both tough and feminine. Then she downed the rest. She put the empty bottle on the bar, then licked her index finger and ran it along the rim, twice. It created a ghostly
whooooo
sound that made Sal looked up from what he was doing. Cynthia used that opportunity to order two more root beers.

“So, what are we drinking to?” she asked after Sal slid the bottles over.

“The deterioration of my imagination,” I answered.

“Hopefully not all of it,” she said, and gave me a smile that most guys would trade years of detention to see.

We clinked bottles, then took a drink. “Okay, so I'm no detective,” she said, “but I'm pretty sure something's bothering you.”

“What do you know about the last game Peter Kuhn played in?” I asked, before her smile could distract me any further.

“Peter Kuhn's last game,” she repeated, as if she wasn't quite sure she remembered it.

“Yeah, you know … the most infamous game in Franklin history? Shouldn't be that hard to remember.”

“I know the same as you,” she said. “The same as everybody. Pete threw the game to make a quick buck, but Will did everything he could to try and win it anyway.”

“How?”

“Pete wouldn't pass to Will. Whenever Pete had the ball, he'd try to drive and shoot or he'd pass it to one of the other players—you know, other than Will. They lost, Pete got caught, and he's been hooked on Pixy Stix ever since.”

“Nothing else?” I asked.

“Nope.”

“Bull,” I said. “You're not a bad liar, but you're not a great one, either. What else did you hear?”

She smiled, as if lying to me had been a test and I had passed it. “Couple of things,” she said. “We're there all the time, so of course we hear stuff. I've heard that Pete wasn't the only kid throwing that game. That he had help.”

“Who?”

“No one mentioned any names.”

“Do you believe it?”

She paused for a moment. “I don't know. It was a bizarre game. Were you there?”

“Yeah, but I had other things going on.”

“What kind of other things?” she said with a sly smile on her face.

“Casework. Nothing I can talk about.”

“Oh,” she said. “Making out with someone under the bleachers?”

“Uhhh … no. Why are you so interested?”

“Maybe I want to talk to one of your satisfied customers.”

I started sweating, which meant either I had malaria or I just realized that Cynthia was hitting on me. “So, what about the game,” I said, trying to get us back on target.

She held her index finger up, then placed it gently on my lips. “Shhh,” she said. “I'm not sure I want to talk about the game anymore. I think I found a topic that's more … intriguing.”

Before she could say anything else, the door opened. When Liz Carling walked in, I knew that fate and karma both hated me. Cynthia must have seen it on my face, because without a word, she turned to see what I was staring at: Liz, framed by the doorway, looking straight at us. Cynthia slowly let her finger fall away from my lips. It didn't matter; Liz had already seen it.

Liz looked at us for a second or two, then cast her eyes to the floor and walked over to a table in the front. Two of her friends came in behind her, giggling and talking. They all sat down. Liz stared at us, as if she didn't want to but couldn't help it. Liz's friends were still chatting and laughing. When they tried to include Liz, they noticed that she wasn't listening to them. They followed the line of her stare until all three of them were looking at Cynthia and me. Her friends' smiles disappeared.

“You okay?” Cynthia whispered to me. “Matt?”

“Yeah … sorry … I'm all right. But I have to … uh …”

“Yeah, I know,” she said. “Go ahead.”

I stood up and walked to the far end of the bar, feeling like a baby giraffe who had just learned to walk. I sat down on one of the stools.

Liz stood up from her table and walked over. She sat on the stool to my right. Her friends watched us.

“Matt,” she said.

“Hey, Liz. Taking a break from chess?” I asked. I tried to sound casual, but I felt stiff and unnatural.

“It's okay, Matt. I know it's just business.”

“It's just business.”

“I know. I just said that.” A wicked smile spread across her face. “There's no way that girl would be talking to you if it were anything but.”

“Ow.”

“Don't try to trade barbs with a chess master. We know your moves before you do.”

“Oh, so you're a chess master now?” I asked. “Where's your robe?”

“At the dry cleaner's,” she said. She looked over at Cynthia. “You should go. Your client looks like she's getting restless. And she's not the type to wait around for someone … not even the great Matt Stevens.” She was still trying to joke, but there was something odd and forced about her tone.

“You anxious to get rid of me?” I was kidding, but it didn't really sound like I was, to either of us.

She took a deep breath. “No, Matt, it's just …” She paused.

The words “it's just” hung in the air, foreshadowing worse things to come.

“It's just what?” I asked, though I wasn't sure I wanted to know.

“It's just that … I feel like I'm holding you back.”

I laughed. “From what?”

She peered over my shoulder at Cynthia. I started to turn, when Liz hissed at me. “Stop! She'll know we're talking about her.”

“Yeah … right … she'd have no idea otherwise.”

Liz smiled and shook her head. “She just smiled at me, and even I got warm and tingly.”

“Look, it's just business,” I said. “She's the head cheerleader, for crying out loud.”

“I know, Matt. It's not that … it's just—” She paused.

“Stop saying ‘it's just' and then stopping.”

“Sorry. It's just that I don't think either of us can really commit to anything right now. I have my chess, you have your business …”

“No. That's bull,” I said. “We've had these for a while and they've never gotten in the way.”

She blushed and looked down at the bar. “We've only just been friends before,” she said, barely above a whisper.

I felt my cheeks get warm, and the back of my scalp start to tingle. “Well, what do you think we'll be after this?”

“I don't know.” She paused. “Look, I know your talking to her is just business. And I know you have to talk
to girls all the time, and some of those girls are going to fall for you …”

“You give me too much credit.”

“I know.” She smiled, looked at me for a second, and then dropped her eyes. “It's because I like you.”

“I like you, too … but that doesn't seem to be working in my favor right now.”

“I just think that right now both of us need our freedom.”

“Liz, I—”

“I tried calling you. I wanted to talk about this privately. I didn't expect to see you here with—” She stopped.

“With Cynthia,” I said, finishing it for her.

“No. Yes.” She ran her hand over her face. “It's not Cynthia.”

“But it is.”

She sighed. “I just … I don't know, Matt. It is, and it isn't. Look, you and I have something really special, and I don't want to ruin it.”

“So you're ending it?” I asked. “How does that make sense?”

“I just don't want to end up hating you.”

“Well, what if I hate you for doing this?”

“You'll recover. You're built that way.”

“Liz—”

“Stop,” she said and slid off her bar stool. “You can't change my mind on this. And trust me, if she's going to be your client, you'll be glad that you're rid of me.” She tried to smile, to show me that she could tease me about other girls, just like “one of the boys,” but her smile looked more like a grimace.

“Liz—”

She put her hand over my mouth to stop me, in a gesture that resembled the one she just saw Cynthia do to me.

“Good-bye, Matt.” She gave me a soft kiss on the cheek. My mind was searching for something to say, something to make her change her mind, but she didn't give me time. She walked over to her friends and said something. They nodded sympathetically. She gave them a little wave goodbye and then slipped out the door.

Cynthia walked up behind me. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yeah. Sure.”

“Really?”

“You're a client now, so even if I wasn't, I wouldn't tell you. You'd expect a discount.”

“I'm sorry, Matt.” She put her hand on my shoulder.
It was a simple gesture that caused a complex range of emotions: guilt, longing, happiness, self-loathing, and just a touch of anger.

“Why?” I asked. “You have nothing to be sorry about.” I turned to face her. “This was about Liz and me, not you.”

She looked me dead in the eyes; her gaze never wavered. “I know. I'm sorry because even though you're hurting right now, I'm glad.”

“Glad?”

“Yes. When I'm interested in someone, I prefer that they're unattached.”

She blushed. As tough as she was, laying herself bare like that was a dicey proposition. I looked over at Sal, to see if I was imagining it. His facial expression made it obvious that I wasn't. He looked proud, envious, and incredulous all at the same time.

“I have to go,” she said. “School tomorrow … I'll see you.” She gave me a light kiss on the cheek, opposite the one Liz had kissed, as if she were leaving it for comparison. She walked out the door. I turned to watch her. When she was gone, I looked at Sal again. I couldn't tell if he wanted to give me a congratulatory hug or a punch in the mouth.