no sidewalks, where no one knew their neighbors, and all physical activity started with loading children into a minivan. With that scrim now in danger of being ripped away, with Aubrey’s college escape plan threatened, Parkhaven’s awfulness hits me in a whole new way and I speed up even more.
“Uh, just FYI,” Dori says, gripping the sides of her seat. “That light? The one you just barreled through? It was red. A deep, dark, hemorrhaging, corpuscle red.”
I recognize in a distant, abstract way that if Dori Chotzinoff is scared, I should slow down, but I am too intent on my mission. I nod without taking my mind off passing a dump truck overloaded with gravel.
Pebbles are ricocheting off my windshield when Dori asks, “So?”
Even though I know exactly what she means, I say, “So what?”
“Oh, come on. Any tingles?”
“Dori, please, this really is not the time.”
That’s what I say, but I am remembering the split second after Martin said, “Cam.” Before the more orderly parts of my brain had processed what was going on, there were, in fact, nothing but tingles. Massive, heart-stopping tingles. Colossally irritating, humiliating tingles that I will never acknowledge.
I blast past the truck. It is several miles before I warn Dori, “Look, when—if—if he calls back, there will be lying.”
“God, of course. Will it be of the I-am-surrounded-by-hot-hunky-lovers-lining-up-to-kill-for-what-you-tossed-away variety or the my-life-without-you-has-been-an-impeccable-dream version?”
“The impeccable-dream one.”
“Great. In that case, Aubrey is all packed and ready and eager to go to college and she has a major picked out and her roommate has already invited her to spend Thanksgiving with her family on Cape Cod.”
“Yeah, the Cape Cod version. Sign me up for that one.”
OCTOBER 29, 2009
I cram my backpack under the attendance counter. There is already a swarm of students waiting on the other side.
“You’re late,” Miss Olivia teases. “Should I write you up?”
I shrug. “Go ahead.”
“How was the big college tour?”
“Fine.” I.e., effed-up, insecure, neurotic, and evil. Highly evil.
And then I am besieged by kids shoving notes at me from their orthodontists, pediatricians, marriage counselors. I don’t care. I am supposed to care, supposed to check, but I don’t. They could hand me a note cut out of letters from the newspaper telling me where to drop the ransom money and I’d write them out an excused absence slip. If Peninsula or, really, any college is what I’m supposed to be working toward, caring about, then I seriously, seriously do not care.
When Twyla’s old emo-stoner friend Miles Kropp, the chronic Jims ’n’ Jays guy, shows up with his eyes flaming red, he no longer seems like a giggling ass. He suddenly seems like the only person in my whole universe who has the tiniest clue. He’s figured out that Parkhaven High requires anesthesia. All the synonyms that Twyla was so fond of for getting messed up scroll through my brain, because, for the first time ever, I am overwhelmed by the desire to “toke up till I woke up.” I want to ask Miles to take me to his car and get me stoned, blazed, blitzed, toasted, tore up from the floor up, wrecked, high, ripped, buzzed, and then I can’t remember any more. Wasted? Wasted might be one of Dori’s.
Tacked under the counter is Miss Olivia’s latest list of all the students who aren’t allowed any more excused tardies. Miles Kropp is at the top of her list.
Miss Olivia has her headset on and is listening to messages using her supersleuth powers to decide whether the person calling in is a parent or a conniving student she must hunt down and punish. Possibly kill. As fast as I can, I write Miles a slip, shove it at him, and whisper, “Next time they’ll suspend you.”
The wheels turning very, very slowly, he finally nods in understanding and is about to leave when Miss Olivia rips her headphones off. “Aubrey, what are you doing? That’s Miles Kropp! Kropp is on the list. Aren’t you reading your list? No more excused tardies for Kropp.”
I grab a note off the pile in front of me and wave it at Miss Olivia. “He has a note from his doctor. See?”
Miles manages to fire just enough synapses to snatch up the slip and disappear. Miss Olivia, who is not a fan of standing or, really, moving her body in any way, rolls her chair toward me. “Let me have a look at that.” She sticks her hand out. “It’s probably forged.”
My doom wheels closer and I am oddly elated to discover