Getting REVENGE on Lauren Wood (22 page)

Little crowd? How patronizing could this guy be? “Lauren and I aren’t friends.”

“Ah, perhaps you’re hoping if you take the heat for this situation she’ll be endlessly grateful. I know how young girls can be;
I’ve been doing this job for a long time. Cliques can be difficult to manage, especially for someone new. I don’t know if she put you up to it or if you took it upon yourself, but either way, it doesn’t matter.”

“I put the drugs in there,” I insisted again, as if repeating the information would somehow help. How could he not believe me?

“I know you’re involved in the theater program, Miss Dantes, but allow me to remind you that drama should stay on the stage. I will refrain from granting you a detention this time, but I trust that your”—he made finger quotations in the air—“‘confession’ will be your last such attention-getting scheme.” Mr. LaPoint strode to the door and opened it. “I have confidence this is the last time we’ll have this discussion.”

I trudged past him and he shut the door behind me. I held my hands out and they were shaking. If I pushed Lauren to the very edge of a cliff, did it really matter that she took the last step herself? I would feel just as guilty as I would if I had shoved her. If you try to do the right thing and no one believes you, does it still count?

Chapter Forty-One

I told the secretary I was sick. She took one look at me and decided I wasn’t lying. I wasn’t. It wasn’t the flu, but I had a serious case of guilt-induced stomach upset that made the whole strawberry to the handbag incident look minor. The idea of sitting in class and acting like everything was fine seemed impossible.

Grandma wasn’t home when I got there. I walked around the house. I didn’t want to lie down and couldn’t think of anything that I wanted to do. I clicked on the TV and flipped through the afternoon court TV shows. I tried to get interested in who got justice, but it seemed too complicated to follow. When Judge Judy starts being too complex you have to know you aren’t at your best. The Turner movie channel was showing
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane
? Even a creepy Bette Davis movie wasn’t going to do the trick.

I picked up the phone and put it down. Then I saw the
number stuck to the fridge with a magnet. I pulled it off and dialed it without thinking about it any more. The receptionist at the meditation camp went to get my mom.

“Hey, Poppet, is everything okay?” As soon as I heard my mom’s voice, I felt better. I clutched the phone close to my face as if that would bring us closer together.

“I hope I didn’t interrupt you from reaching enlightenment or anything.”

“You’re never an interruption.”

“Mom, how to do you fix karma?”

“Karma isn’t a broken thing.”

“What if someone did something, say, a bad something, but when they did it they knew it was wrong, but thought they were doing it for the right reason, but then they realized it wasn’t the right reason, but the situation was already out of control and then everything was all screwed up?” The words flew out of me in a giant run-on sentence.

“Well, assuming I followed that last bit, I guess I would tell this mysterious someone that everything we do and say has an impact on the world around us. If this person has put something out in the world that was wrong, then she needs to double her efforts to put in something good.”

“Sort of balance things out,” I said, with a sniff.

“Exactly.”

“What if she tried to make things right, but it didn’t work?”

“What do you do when you draw something and it doesn’t come out right?”

“I erase it and do it over.”

“There you are. We need to redraw the world when we don’t like what’s in front of us.”

I could hear the chime of a bell in the background. “I suppose I should let you go,” I said.

“I can stay and talk longer if you want.”

“No. I’m okay. Will you tell Dad I said hi?”

“Of course. One more thing: Karma is a heavy weight. Hard to move, hard to change.”

“Yeah, I’m getting that idea.”

“That’s why it’s always best to get a helping hand. You can leverage so much more when you don’t do it alone.”

I hung up the phone and then picked it up again before I could talk myself out it. Brenda picked up on the second ring.

“I need your help,” I blurted. “All those times I was giving you advice? You were right, I should have been taking it from you instead. You’re clearly the smart one in this relationship. I’ll say I’m sorry a million times in a row, but you have to help me.”

“Anyone ever tell you that you’re sort of intense?”

“So if I say I’m sorry, say, a hundred times in a row that would cover it?”

“Maybe.” I could hear a thaw in Brenda’s voice.

“The thing is, the person who turned in Lauren actually did it for the right reason. I don’t want to get that person in trouble, but I need to make things right somehow.”

“And you think I’ll know how to sort this out?”

“I’m pretty much counting on it.”

Brenda sighed. “Okay, this is a bit outside my usual area of expertise, but in science if you screw up, the honorable thing to do is make it public. You write a paper about where you went off track and publish it where all your colleagues will see it. You have to own the error.”

“You think I should take out an ad in the school paper saying I planted the drugs?”

“I’m not saying it’s the best plan, but it is an option. Do you have any other ideas?”

“Not really. Science isn’t my thing.”

“What’s your thing?”

“Movies.”

“What do they do in the movies?”

“In the movies when a character wants to redeem himself, he has to make a noble sacrifice. Like when Rhett Butler leaves Scarlett O’Hara in the middle of the invasion of Atlanta to join the army, even though he knows they’ll lose.”

“I think joining the army and heading off to war to your certain doom is going a bit far.”

“Yeah, I look lousy in a uniform. I can sacrifice something though.” I picked up a pen sitting by the phone and tapped it
on the counter. “I’m going to have to kill off Claire.”

“At least she’ll die with a purpose.” Leave it to Brenda to find a silver lining.

“Before I put her obituary in the paper there’s someone I need to talk to.” My voice shook slightly.

“What do you think he’ll say?”

“I don’t know. I might end up sacrificing a chance with him too.”

“Or it might make a chance possible.”

Chapter Forty-Two

I got to the theater early, but Christopher was already there. He was sitting near the back with his eyes closed while he waited for the show to start. They were showing
Flying Leathernecks
. I took a deep breath and moved down the aisle. He opened his eyes when I sat down. I motioned to the pile of junk food in his lap—a bucket of buttered popcorn, a giant box of Junior Mints, and a bag of those SweeTart knockoffs that taste like sour sugar cubes.

“Hungry?” I asked.

“Dinner of champions.” He shook the popcorn in my direction and I took a handful. “I take it you’ve decided you like old movies?”

“I think I always did.” I took a deep breath. “I need to talk to you.”

“Now?” He looked confused. Talking and movies don’t usually go together. The lights went down and the Dolby sound
kicked into overdrive. It was so loud, the sound waves pushed me back into the chair. The previews were apparently being screened for those with hearing impairments.

“No, it can wait.” I wasn’t sure what he was going to do when I told him the truth. He might be Lincoln High’s bad boy, but he had his own clearly defined sense of right and wrong.

“I’m glad you came,” he said, before scrunching down in his seat.

“Me too,” I whispered, but I wasn’t sure he heard me.

“How can you not like John Wayne?” Christopher asked as we walked out to our cars after the movie. “It’s like saying you don’t like baseball or apple pie. It’s un-American.”

“It’s not exactly the same as flag burning or marching for anarchy.”

“It might be worse. What about his film
Fort Apache
?”

“Nope.”

“Okay,
Rio Grande
?”

“Meh.” I waved my hand back and forth.

“
Hellfighters
?”

I gave a shrug. “
The Quiet Man
was okay.”

“Oscar-winning film and she says it was okay.”

“You know what happened to Lauren? Those drugs weren’t hers.” I said it in a rush, before I lost my nerve.

“Holy changing topics, Batman,” he said.

“No, I’m being serious. I know they weren’t hers.”

“Why do you always bring her up?”

“I don’t always bring her up,” I protested.

Christopher gave a laugh, which ticked me off for some reason.

“I don’t bring her up that often,” I said, trying to calm my voice.

“Hey, don’t get mad. You can talk about whoever you want. Everyone else is talking about her these days.”

“That’s what I’m trying to talk to you about.”

“Now listen here, pilgrim, you don’t want to get involved with the law, ” he said with a really bad imitation of John Wayne. I crossed my arms across my chest. “Oops, that’s right. I forgot you hated him. Look, you’re right. The stuff wasn’t Lauren’s.”

I suddenly felt light-headed. “How do you know?”

“That girl is wound way too tight to be smoking weed on a regular basis. I mean ask yourself, does she strike you as someone that people would call mellow?” he asked.

My mouth clicked shut. The logic there was hard to ignore.

“I put the stuff in her purse.”

“Why would you do that?” He took a step back. I had to fight the urge to step closer.

“This is a long story. Is there some place we could talk?”

Chapter Forty-Three

Christopher had a tree house. It was built high in a giant oak tree in the woods that ran behind his neighborhood. He jumped up to pull down a rope ladder and motioned that I should climb up first. I hadn’t been in a tree house since I was ten, but this was about a thousand times better than any tree house I had ever seen. The floor was straight and felt solid. The roof was large, shingled with a generous overhang. The walls went up only half way so you could look out between the branches. It felt more like an outpost than a tree house.

Christopher climbed up behind me. There was a giant Rubbermaid container in the corner, and he popped it open to pull out some blankets. He spread one on the floor and then passed me a worn blue fleece blanket.

“It’s getting cold,” he said. He pulled another blanket out for himself and then a lantern, which he fired up. It gave the space a sort of yellow glow. If we’d had some marshmallows and a fire
it would feel like camp. Of course I suspected Smokey the bear frowns on campfires being set in trees, given that they are flammable and all.

“Nice place,” I said, breaking the silence.

“It’s a little elementary school, which is fair since it’s been mine since elementary school, but you wanted a place we could be alone. This would be it.”

“You make it yourself?”

“Me? No. My dad and I built it when I was a kid. He knew how to make stuff last, but he wasn’t as good with keeping relationships going. This tree house will be around for years, which is more than I could say for him.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I got over feeling bad about that a few years ago. All my family trauma will give me something to talk about when I’m interviewed as a famous director. Gotta have something to fill up those behind-the-scenes DVD sections. And if nothing else, this gives me a place to go when my mom and I aren’t getting along. I like to think of it as my dad’s lovely parting gift.”

I pulled the blanket around me so I was wrapped up like a fleece burrito. I took a deep breath and began at the beginning. “When you said things with me were complicated you were right. You know how my grandma calls me Helen? Well …”

Christopher didn’t interrupt while I told the whole story. I wasn’t sure what he thought, but I was considering it a positive that he didn’t get up and leave.

“That’s it,” I said, in case he hadn’t guessed from the silence that the story was over.

“Can’t say I expected that.”

“The thing is, I didn’t call LaPoint.” I felt it was important that he knew that I hadn’t done this final piece of damage.

“But you would have. I mean, maybe not LaPoint, but you would have gotten her in trouble at some point. Your point was to destroy her, wasn’t it?”

I pulled at the thread on the edge of the blanket. “Yes.” A tear ran down my face, it felt hot on my cheek. That was the first time I realized how cold the night had gotten. “I’m sorry that I did it. I’m sorry that it ended up hurting Lauren, and I’m sorry that I lied to you and Brenda. I always thought that Lauren ruined everything for me, but the truth is, the reason I never made any other real friends is because I’m lousy at it.”

“I’m pretty lousy at the people thing too.”

“You’re better than me.”

“Take this in the nicest way, but you haven’t exactly set the bar real high.”

It was hard to argue with that. I pulled the blanket closer. “The whole thing will come out tomorrow after school.”

“Should make for an interesting day.”

“Can you forgive me?” I held my breath waiting for him to answer.

“How can I forgive you? I don’t really know who you are.”

Do not cry. Do not cry.
I reminded myself that you didn’t see
Rhett Butler crying. You can’t be noble and a crybaby at the same time. Tomorrow was another day and all that. “Fair enough.”

I stood up and folded the blanket. I passed it back to Christopher without saying anything else and crawled down the rope ladder. I jumped down the last few feet.

“Hey, Helen.” Christopher poked his head out of the tree house. I could hardly make out his features in the dark. “I don’t know who you are, but it might be interesting to find out,” he said.

My face burst into a huge smile. “I can promise you, with me it will almost certainly be interesting.”

Chapter Forty-Four

I left school early. I didn’t want to be around when they distributed the paper with my
claire dantes=helen worthington
ad in it at the end of the day. Besides, there was one other person I had to talk to. Lauren’s mom answered the door. She was wearing slacks that looked freshly ironed and a scarf tied at her waist like a belt, an expensive, all-silk belt. I wondered if she stood up all day to avoid being wrinkled. The dark circles under her eyes were the only things out of place. Otherwise she looked perfect. She didn’t say anything; she simply raised one eyebrow as a question. I guessed my paint-stained yoga pants weren’t kicking her hospitality gene into action.