Wicked Games (15 page)

Hidden behind a
beaded curtain, Jules watched Carter walk sadly back to his car. She wondered if he could see her perched on the window seat, wondered if he could feel her longing reaching across the distance between them.

He moved very slowly. His head hung low between his shoulders. She could sense the reluctance to go in his gait and in the way he dug his hands deep in his pockets.

Opening the door of his BMW, he looked up at her window, searching for her. He ran his hand through his sandy hair in the way she’d seen him do so often. Then he settled in the driver’s seat, still gazing up at the window.

She was holding the strands of light-tan beads apart
with a finger in order to see what was happening out there, curious about whether or not Carter saw her through the crack.

“Jules,” her mother said, touching her shoulder. “You should come away from the window now.”

She knew her mom was right, but she couldn’t stop looking, not as long as he was still out there. “In a second,” she said.

Her mom squeezed once and then let go of her.

She gave Jules a bit of space, seating herself across the room at the dining table, which was strewn with crystals of different sizes and colors, a new shipment she’d received that she’d been in the process or sorting when Carter had arrived at the door. Though she pretended to be working on this project now, Jules knew her mom was mostly focused on her.

Nonetheless, she kept her vigil at the window. The urge to lean out, to call to him and tell him that she still thought about him more often than she should, was almost too much to bear. Did he know she was reaching her heart down to him the way he was reaching his up to her? She wanted to ask him why he’d sent those ugly texts. What had she done to turn him so against her? Did he know about the video Lilah had on her phone? Did he hate her for it? So many questions she’d never be able to ask.

Eventually Carter turned the ignition of his car and
the headlights went on. He rolled out of the sand-strewn side of the road and slowly drove away.

Jules let the beads drop. When she looked at her mother, she saw her quickly pick up a lump of azurite and shift it into a new pile, pretending to be engrossed in her task.

“Did you have to be so hard on him?” Jules said.

“Somebody had to,” her mom said.

“I don’t even know for sure that it was him who sent the texts.”

“You don’t know it wasn’t.”

“It might have been the girlfriend.”

“In that case, you definitely shouldn’t be talking to him,” her mother said. “Has he broken up with her?”

“I don’t think so.”

“So . . .” Her mother rolled her open palms out toward her as though to say,
You know what you should do
. The compassion on her face as she silently gazed at Jules was unending, and Jules knew that this quiet fire was her way of showing concern. She wanted what was best for her. And Jules hadn’t even told her about the confrontations and threats with Lilah. She couldn’t tell her that. She couldn’t tell anyone.

“It gets better,” her mother said. “Love fades.”

Jules shrugged. “Does it?” she said. Before her mother could say anything more, she added, “I don’t think I want it to.”

The facts were
simple. They told a story, but no one knew what this story was: A car had been found in the parking lot, vandalized. A Honda Civic—nine years old, already dented and scuffed, one of those hand-me-downs that the less wealthy kids puttered around town in. Someone had taken a key to it. It appeared that at first some sort of words had been scratched onto the hood, but this had been crossed over, gouged out with hundreds of scribbles, and so whatever it said couldn’t be read. The rear driver’s-side light had been smashed in. The driver’s-side mirror was shattered. There was a hairline crack in one of the windows.

It belonged to Jules Turnbull.

This is all that was known.

Theories about who could have done it and how grew into rumors, which were elaborated upon until they became conspiracies. Then another rumor would spread through the student body, replacing the first and the second and the third, and the excitement would rise again. There was danger here. And scandal. It was better than TV because it was happening right here, right now.

Not everyone felt this way, of course.

Especially Carter.

As he and Jeff ate their soggy tempura in the cafeteria, they traded rumors.

“Todd Norris, her ex-boyfriend,” Jeff said. “Gotta be him.” He popped a piece of battered broccoli into his mouth. “Can’t you just see it? Todd stumbles on a hit of acid. He’s totally out of his gourd. Hearing voices. Seeing, like, flying cats or whatever. And he’s thinking he’s the Silver Surfer or something—riding his board through the backstreets of the Slats, following some song that’s floating in Technicolor in front of him, one of the corny love songs that Jules serenaded Peter Talbot with in
Camelot
last fall, and suddenly he’s right there at Jules’s house, and there’s Peter Talbot standing under Jules’s window in full knight’s armor, singing”—Jeff broke into an off key melody—
“If ever I would leave you, it wouldn’t be in summer”
—and then returned to his fantasy. “And he thinks Peter Talbot is a dragon come to steal Jules
away from him, so he takes up his sword and tries to slay the dragon—but Peter’s not there. And the dragon’s just Jules’s car and he’s scratched the hell out of it all of a sudden.”

Jeff had gotten a smile out of Carter. But the darker, more likely possibilities still hung like thunderclouds in his mind. Carter had yet to tell Jeff that he’d broken up with Lilah. He worried that this might be her doing. He knew her—he’d loved her. He didn’t want to believe that she could be so vindictive.

“I don’t know, man,” he said. “Jules and Todd broke up, like, four months ago.”

Jeff made a face. “Love never dies,” he said. “Speaking of which . . .” He nodded toward something behind Carter’s back.

Lilah. She seemed to have recovered from her fury of the night before. She was joyous, ebullient, her smile so wide it took over her whole face. The first thing she did after plopping her tray of tempura down on the table next to Carter’s was to lean in and kiss him on the cheek.

“There he is,” she said. “My hero.”

She rubbed his back. When she climbed into the bench attached to the table, she let her hand linger for a beat on his shoulder.

Her affection disturbed Carter. It made him tense up. It was like she’d completely forgotten that he’d broken up with her, like in her mind, their relationship was
better than it had ever been.

He flicked her off of him with a twitch of his shoulder.

And Jeff, who knew him better than anyone, saw the conflict between them without having to be told. He raised an eyebrow, asking with a nod if maybe he should tease her into submission, but Carter shook his head as though to say,
Let it ride.

Knowing she’d interrupted something, Lilah pressed herself into the conversation. “What are my two favorite guys up to today?”

“Nothing,” said Carter. “We’re eating tempura. Obviously. And having a conversation.”

“Wow, touchy. Whatcha talking about?” she asked.

“Just . . . stuff. What do you want?”

“Do I have to want something? Am I not allowed to sit and talk with my friends in the lunchroom now?”

It was all too much. She was playing an ominous game here, and Carter wanted nothing to do with it. He squeezed the bridge of his nose and held his eyes shut in an attempt to control his frustration.

“Okay. You want to talk, Lilah? Let’s talk. Did you hear about Jules’s car?” he said.

“What?”

“Jules’s car.” Carter stared her in the eye, trying to suss out what secrets she might be holding.

“Somebody took a baseball bat to it,” Jeff said.

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not kidding,” said Carter.

“Wow.”

“You really don’t know anything about this? It’s the only thing anybody’s been talking about today.”

“I live under a rock,” she said. “You know that. Do they know who did it?”

“Do you know who did it?” Carter asked pointedly.

“God, no. I mean, I’m just hearing about this now.”

The expression on Carter’s face was enough. He didn’t have to tell her how skeptical he was.

“It’s shocking, huh?” said Lilah. “I mean, she’s like the sweetest thing. And she’s so talented. You know, I bet it’s some girl who’s jealous of her acting. Like a psycho
Black Swan
sort of thing.”

“My money’s on that ex of hers, Todd,” said Jeff. “‘Like, whoa, dude. Nobody breaks up with Todd Norris, dude. Whoa, what’s that? Is that car trying to eat me alive? Thwack, thwack, thwack. I’ll show you, car!’” Jeff couldn’t help himself. He was in love with his tale about the dragon-slaying surfer.

Carter kicked him under the table. He wasn’t really upset at Jeff. It was just that this shtick was too much for his senses to take right now. He was too distressed by the smiley, happy act Lilah was putting on, the sudden compassion for Jules she was displaying.

“Carter,” she said now, “you’re sort of friendly with
her, aren’t you? Have you talked to her today? I mean, I can’t imagine. I’d be totally destroyed if someone did that to my car.”

“You don’t have a car, Lilah,” Carter said, without thinking.

Then seeing the disbelief on Jeff’s face, the words that had just come out of Lilah’s mouth sunk in. The depths of her deceit. The saccharine strain of her positive attitude. He felt the adrenaline surging to his chest.

“You sure you don’t know anything about this?” he asked her.

It was like he’d slapped her. “Is that an accusation?” she said.

“It’s a question.”

“I can’t believe you’re asking me this.”

“But I am.”

Though they were both speaking in reasonable tones of voice, the tension between them caught Jeff off guard. He tracked their conversation with a bemused interest, his glance bouncing back and forth and back and forth like a Ping-Pong ball from Carter to Lilah to Carter to Lilah.

“You know what, I’ll see you guys later,” Lilah said finally, seeing that Carter wasn’t going to soften. She stood up in a huff. “But for your information, Carter, no. I don’t
know anything about this
. I hadn’t even heard about it until you just told me. Good to know the kind of
person you think I am, though.”

“If I find out you’re lying, Lilah,” said Carter sharply, “I swear to God, I’ll—”

“Well, you won’t, ’cause I’m not.”

She stormed off, leaving her barely touched tray of tempura on the table.

When she was gone, Jeff asked Carter, “What was that all about?”

“I broke up with her last night.”

For a second Jeff wasn’t sure he’d heard Carter correctly. Then he dropped his head to the cold enameled table and slapped his open palm against it twice, laughing.

“Seriously, though, Jeff,” said Carter, “do you think Lilah could do something like this?”

Pulling himself together, Jeff said, “Do you?”

“Maybe.”

Carter stared at Jeff for a second with pleading eyes. “I mean, should I try to do something about it?”

“Have you asked Jules about what’s going on?”

“She won’t talk to me.”

“Then what can you do?”

“I wish I knew,” said Carter. “I’d hate for anything to happen to her.”

May 9, 10:44 p.m.

NEW TEXT FROM UNKNOWN SENDER

Is it true abt U + the football team, whore? Yum yum!

Jules stormed through
the house throwing things everywhere. She was looking for the duffel bag full of her dance clothes. She couldn’t find it anywhere. She’d already ransacked her bedroom, and now she was on to the living room, digging in the couch, checking under its cushions, opening drawers that hadn’t been opened in years, picking up and then putting down boxes of her mother’s crystals and Polynesian sarongs. She even pulled up the rattan mat on the floor and checked under it, though of course, the lumpy bag couldn’t have been hiding there.

The longer she searched, the angrier and more anxious she became. She’d had the bag yesterday; she knew
she had. She remembered throwing it over her shoulder and walking up the stairs to the porch with it. The fact that it had disappeared like this seemed impossible to her. It should be right here—but right here where?

Her mother, trying to be helpful, trailed behind her. She held her mug of ginseng tea in two hands, and in between sips, she reminded Jules that getting upset like this was doing more harm than good.

Rubbing Jules’s shoulders, she said, “Let it find you. If you really need it, it’s sure to make itself known.”

“Mom, don’t.”

“Or you could let me help.” She put her nose to her mug and let the scent of her tea saturate her nostrils. “You could at least tell me what it is you’re looking for.”

Jules shot her a look. She didn’t want her mother’s help. She was embarrassed to be this upset about something so insignificant as a bag of smelly clothes. It was stupid, really. But she was fixated, frantic. There weren’t enough Buddhist aphorisms in the world to calm her down.

“My stuff, all right?” she said. “My dance stuff.”

Her mother nodded sagely. She placed her tea on a circular glass-topped end table and took Jules’s face gently between her two hands. Peering into her daughter’s eyes, she tried to will some degree of calm into her body. “Let’s go outside, okay?” she said.

Jules let herself be led out onto the porch.

“Is this what you’re looking for?” her mother asked, picking the duffel bag up from the place where it lay, right there in plain sight next to the sunflower on the porch table.

Jules nodded.

No way would she cry. If she cried, she’d have to acknowledge—both to herself and to her mother—that the reason she was upset had nothing to do with the dance bag. Now that the bag was found, she felt weirdly worse than she had when she was sure she’d lost it. She never lost track of things like this. It was Lilah’s fault. All of this. Lilah and her stalking. To top it all off, now she was going to be late for school.