The Mall - Megan McCafferty Page 0,57

ten miles over the speed limit.

“I’m so sorry, Drea,” I said. “I realized, like, halfway into the dinner that I wouldn’t want to take the map from Troy even if he offered. I don’t want to be indebted to him in any way.”

Drea sighed and drooped wearily on the steering wheel.

“Couldn’t you have waited to take the moral high ground until after you got the map?”

“I—”

It was too late. Drea put the top down and the volume on the stereo way up. Between the synthetic throb of house music and the roar of the road, there was no way she could have heard my explanation even if I’d offered one. She preferred ruining her hair over listening to my excuses for letting her down. When we arrived at the mall, Drea swiftly exited the Miata, and I hurried to follow.

“I really wanted to find the treasure,” I said. “But not at any cost.”

“I get it,” she said curtly.

“I can still help you with the application to FIT.”

“Without the money, what’s the point?”

“We don’t even know if the treasure is real, Drea,” I reasoned. “But you shouldn’t let that stop you from applying. I promise I can get you financial aid and all that…”

If I perfected Drea’s application to FIT, she’d forget all about how I’d botched the treasure hunt.

“Are you one hundred percent sure you can help me get in?”

Any Mock Trial coach would tell you to avoid answering any questions requiring 100 percent certainty. There was no such thing. But …

“Yes!” I lied.

Drea didn’t want to let me off the hook that easily, but a barely there smile betrayed her gratitude.

“Fine,” she finally agreed with an overly casual shrug. “But you’ll have to work around my schedule. I’ve got two bridal parties and a bat mitzvah scheduled for this morning. You know I’m covering all the appointments while Ma works on the Back-to-School Fashion Show.”

I was only half listening as I unlocked the office door and switched on the light. In the battle for my attention, Drea’s academics were no match for sexual fantasies about Sam Goody.

“Of course! Of course!” I babbled, imagining what he looked like with his shirt off. “Whenever and whatever you want…”

We were so focused on ourselves—Drea on her busy day ahead of her, me on my busy night behind me—that it took a moment to register we weren’t alone in the office.

“Boo.”

33

GHOST GODDESS

Ghost Girl was back. Unfortunately, she was empty-handed. No doll. No map. No clue.

“I’m sorry.”

Zoe didn’t offer an explanation as to how she got in the office without a key, or why she was waiting for us in the dark. Honestly, asking for such petty details would’ve been an insult to her supernatural instincts. Do you ask a vampire why he bites? A werewolf why he howls at the moon?

I did, however, want to know why she was apologizing to us.

“I wouldn’t have given Troy the doll if I’d known you wanted it,” Zoe explained. “Did I think it was weird that he was asking me for my Cabbage Patch Doll? Sure, but who am I to judge what’s weird? I’m saving up for a coffin and want an ankh tattooed on my tongue.”

Drea sucked sharply on her teeth. Not in disapproval, exactly. More like, disbelief. Why would anyone voluntarily do that to herself?

“I didn’t care why he wanted it,” Zoe continued. “I just saw it as my chance to take that entitled prick down a few notches by making him my garbage bitch for the rest of the summer.”

“I can’t get mad at that,” Drea said admiringly.

“Please tell me you put a curse on the doll before you let him have it,” I said.

A close-mouthed smile spread across her lips.

“The biggest curse I put on him,” Zoe replied, “was putting him on the schedule with Helen.”

I laughed hard.

“I have to know,” Drea said. “Why’d you go after Slade? Those tanning pills were genius!”

Zoe looked directly at Drea, then shifted her attention my way.

“I’m tired of guys like him being shitty to girls like you,” she said. “Or me.”

“Go on…” I urged.

“Well, I saw what Troy did to you at the start of the summer. And then the way Slade spread those rumors. And I know how that humiliation feels. Like, personally.”

Wait, was Zoe saying what I thought she was saying? Thankfully, I had Drea to put it all out there, dispensing with any subtleties.

“You hooked up with Slade?” she asked. “You?”

It was a fair question. Slade was the tanned, taut embodiment