Girl Defective (25 page)

“Nancy says if a guy gives you a mix tape, it's True Fucking Love.”

Luke made a face. “Steve Sharp?”

I remembered Vesna's talk about “the woo.” What if the tapes were Steve Sharp's tools of seduction? And what had Nancy said about working an angle? It wasn't unbelievable that she should be shagging Steve Sharp and Otis Sharp at the same time. It wasn't unbelievable, it was just creepy.

Luke and I walked along the canal to the wall where Mia hung. We sat with our backs against her and stared
at the water. After a while I took out my phone and texted Nancy.

Need to see you. Call me!

Where was she? With Otis? Or Steve? Or someone else entirely? What if I never saw her again? I felt a lump in my throat. Maybe our friendship had always been hollow. I'd needed someone to admire, and Nancy needed to be admired. And now that the framework had changed, we were all at sea.

“Well,” I said, closing my palm over my phone. “I know where we can find her. If she's still with Otis, she'll be at the mess.”

Luke nodded. He looked at me. I couldn't read his expression. He said, “You don't have to do all this, you know?”

“All what?”

“This . . . investigation.”

“Ah, but I do. It's in my blood.”

We staggered our return to the shop. I headed straight for the stereo, rewound Nancy's tape, and pressed play. The tracks were the same as the ones on Mia's tape. I knew the songs not just because I worked in a record store, but because they were a certain vintage. Dad nodded along. When “Wishing Well” sounded, he jolted to attention.

“Whose tape?”

“It's just a mix,” I replied.

“Someone's got good taste,” Dad said grudgingly.

O
N THE LAST DAY
of school Quinn cornered me in the girls' bathroom and asked if I wanted her to sign my dress.

“Go crazy,” I said. “I'm not coming back next year.”

“What do you mean?”

“We're moving. We're crossing the water. Newport.”

“For real? Well, that sucks. It's only taken me three years to find a compadre and now you're absconding. . . . Are you happy?”

“I'm happy we're not moving to the country.”

She nodded and was quiet for a bit. We listened to the last day's sounds: girls gone wild, shrieks and water bombs, the triumphant clang of emptied locker doors. Quinn brandished her Sharpie.

“Okay, bend over.”

I bent over. I wriggled under the nib. Quinn was writing for a long time—on my shoulder blades and my spine and the soft spot above my hips. Finally she put the cap back on and sat on one of the toilets and lit a cigarette.

“What did you write?” I twisted to try to see.

“You'll have to take it off to read it.” She smiled through the smoke. The words felt like a challenge, but I was up for it. I pulled my dress up over my head and stood there in my undies and singlet with my non-chest out on display. Quinn checked me out shamelessly. “I think it's cool that you don't wear a bra. I wish I didn't have to.”

“You don't,” I said, though she definitely did.

“I'm going to burn it.”

I laughed as I spread my dress out on the bench.

Quinn had drawn a map.

“What is this?”

“That's where the mess is. Christmas Eve.” She really was trying to burn her bra. She poked the cups with her cigarette. It caught and sent off a sharp smell as my fingers traced the line of the canal. Quinn hung her flaming bra on one of the dress hooks. “The password's ‘Ringo.' ” The smoke alarm sounded and a limp spray shot down from the ceiling. I threw my dress back on and we ran out laughing. We headed for the library and logged into Goldmine, where I nearly wet myself anyway because every record we'd listed had sold.

“Result!” I cried, and promptly printed off the list.

“You gonna show your dad?” Quinn asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“Can I come?”

“Uh-huh.”

Friday night family fish and chips. Quinn was eye-balling Luke over her potato cakes. She knew all about him now, knew that he was Mia's brother, and my boyfriend, but she didn't let on.

Meanwhile, the shop was in chaos. Records stuck out all over like country teeth. The bargain bins had been well plundered. The trestle table out front was caving under the pressure of 101
Top of the Pops
records. But we had living, breathing, walking-around-eating customers. The Grand Sale was having a moment, and it made Dad merry enough to study my list of Goldmine results with minimal freak-out.

“Where did you get the stock?” he asked.

Quinn jumped in. “My grandma. In Sydney. She died. She had eclectic taste.”

“I'm sorry,” Dad said. “Not about the records, obviously—they're fucking great—but about your grandma.”

“It's okay.” Quinn smiled innocently. “I didn't really know her.”

“So you just list them and choose a starting price?” Dad marveled. “It's incredible.”

“It's not new, Dad.” I rolled my eyes, but I felt a warm buzz inside. Something had shifted. Bill the Patriarch was finally getting it.

Later when Luke and Quinn and I had escaped to the roof, she said, “Your dad is a time traveler.”

“Yeah, only he never goes forward.”

“I'd go forward,” Quinn decided.

“I'd go back,” Luke said.

Quinn had her camera with her. She leaned over the rail and took a photo of the poster of Mia. It had been weeks since Luke had first put her up, and she was starting to look a little tired.

“That's her, huh?” Quinn said softly.

“That's her,” Luke said.

“I didn't know her.”

“I'm starting to think no one did.”

“At least you had her for a while,” Quinn said. “The thing about being an only child, you don't know your place in the world.” She paused, and cocked her head, like she was tuning in some other frequency. When she tuned back into us, her eyes and voice was sharp. “If we go to the mess, you can talk to Otis.”

“I heard he's a delicate flower,” Luke said. “But I'm gonna try.”

Quinn looked at Luke through her lens. She took a photo. “What's a good memory of her?” Luke closed his eyes. His words felt like a cool wind blowing across us.

“Remember I told Gully about the kid who wanted to fight me? Mia used to take me to the kung fu movies. One day, after, we ended up in the same ice cream parlor—me and Mia and the kid and his parents. I'd never told her who he was, but Mia knew just by the
look on my face. She dumped a double scoop of rainbow and choc-mint in his lap. She said it's always better to do something, even if it turns out to be the wrong thing. Because no one ever got anywhere by sitting still.”

We gazed at Mia's face, gave her a minute of silence. So much had happened since the first time I saw her. Her mouth that I'd once thought haughty looked soft now. Had she laughed a lot? Had she loved anybody? Did she know that Christmas Eve when she put on her flower crown and silver dress and headed out the door that she wouldn't be coming home? In my mind she merged with Nancy. She was smiling, saying, “It was just an accident, little sister. Just bad luck. Don't you know it has to end this way for some people?” I knew she was right, but that didn't mean I had to like it.

M
Y PHONE—ALWAYS PRIZED
, a symbol of friendship, of freedom—took on a new importance. I kept it on hand and waited for the magic ring. No Nancy, no Nancy, no Nancy. Saturday afternoon I saw her stroll past the shop like a stranger, like she'd never sat up on the back counter and teased Dad or me or Gully. I left my post and followed her down Blessington Street to the corner of the park. It was a perfect day, and the green was ringed with travelers. They came from all over, fixing their campervans in the last remaining strip of deregulated parking. As I turned to avoid a juggling crusty, I saw something else: Gully ducking behind a palm tree. For the moment I forgot my pursuit of Nancy and felt my way around the trunk. He was pressed against it; eyes shut, like if he couldn't see me, then I couldn't see him.

“Gully—what are you doing?”

One eye opened, then the other. “I thought you might need backup.”

“Well, I don't.” I craned my head past a circle of people who were taking turns laughing stupidly loud. “Shit—now she's gone.”

“Mouth,” Gully shot back. Then: “She's over there.”

Sure enough, Nancy had stopped at the end of the playground.

“Nancy!” I shouted.

She turned but either didn't see me or didn't want to see me. She started walking off. I nudged Gully back in the direction of the Wishing Well. And then I dashed past the laughing club, trying to shake off the feeling that I was making them laugh louder.

Nancy ambled. She was carrying a hippie bag that had sheafs of paper sticking out of it. Her hair looked like she'd brushed it with a fork. I caught up with her, laying my hand on her arm, and she whipped around. When she saw it was me, her mouth dropped open, but the laugh never came. “Dollbaby,” she said. “Are you stalking me?”

“Yes!” I willed her to smile. Her mouth didn't move. I hung around her. That was how it felt. I was
hanging
. And as it became clear that she wasn't going to talk to me, I clamped my feet to the ground, as if to earth us both.

“So . . . where are you going?”

Nancy shifted. “The beach. I'm meeting Otis.”

“How is it going with him?”

She gave me a dull look and didn't answer. I broke then, and I couldn't keep the whine out of my voice. “I've been calling you and calling you.”

“I lost my phone.”

“I went to your place.”

“I'm not staying there.”

“I know that.”

Nancy wrinkled her nose. She looked itchy to leave. I kicked a little dirt over her feet.

“Don't you wear shoes anymore?”

She dropped her cold pose and looked me in the eye. There was sadness there; it was unnerving. She said, “I wish I hadn't told you.”

I tried to act diffident. “It doesn't change anything.”

“Liar.” She turned away. “Whatever.”

I grabbed her arm.

“I wanted to ask you about the tape. The one that was in your bedroom. The mix tape with the Millionaires . . .” I rushed on. “Mia Casey had a tape too, with the symbol on it. You know—the three lines.”

Nancy blinked. Her mouth slowly curled upward.

“Look at you, Nancy Drew. I thought Gully was the detective in the family.”

“Luke has this photo of Mia. It was taken in your room—it's the same door handle. . . .”

Nancy quacked her free hand and rolled her eyes. “All that talk is just a whole lot of noise in the wrong place.” A quote from somewhere.

I persisted. I was almost going to go the pretzel hold, but Nancy pulled her arm free. Papers fell from her bag and littered the street. She huffed and bent to
pick them up. They were travel brochures, too many of them, to all different places.