High and Dry (13 page)

They wanted so badly for me to be okay, so they could be okay. The pressure of it was enough to crack concrete.

I hung around for another hour, learning gin rummy and watching Granddad's hands, gnarled but steady, deal the cards. He always gave the cards a little topspin and flip as he tossed them in my direction. He looked pretty wiped out, though, and my homework wasn't going to write itself, so with reluctance I said good-bye, picked up my backpack (now containing an issue of
Ace
), and headed out to the hallway.

When I passed by the last room on the right, I heard someone crying and moaning. I crept closer and peeked through the door to make sure a nurse or doctor was tending to the patient.

The patient was Maria Salvador, in the throes of hallucination, rocking back and forth at the edge of her bed, holding a nurse's hand.

Her head wobbled around like it was off its hinges. She was wild-eyed, swiveling; part of her face looked like it wanted to get away from the other part.

I remembered her sad, hollow eyes from the party on Sunday. She was a pretty Hispanic girl with thick hair, small, chapped lips, and gorgeous eyelashes. In the hospital light, I vaguely recognized her from the caf, from songbird events, from a solo last year. She didn't belong here, tripping her brains out.

“The walls,” she moaned, slapping her hand against the wall
closest to her bed. She was looking at me but seeing God only knows what. “They're breathing. They always breathed, didn't they? I just never noticed before.”

“She hasn't had too many visitors, just her family,” said the nurse holding her hand. “Do you go to school with her?”

“Yeah. Thought I'd stop in.”

The poor girl was clutching something in her hand and murmuring to herself. “The kiss,” she said. “In exile. In exile.”

I was stuck in quicksand, rooted to the spot, like all the people who hadn't meant to but found themselves in Palm Valley, California. I couldn't lift my feet again to keep heading west. I don't care what people say; it's as hard to leave misery as it is to leave happiness.

Why had no one from school visited her yet?

“What's in her hand?” I said in order to say something. Anything.

“A key chain. She won't let go of it,” the nurse said. “I think it comforts her, but it's leaving a mark in her palm.”

“Sugar. Bup bup bup bup bup bup. Oh, honey, honey. You are my candy girl,” Maria sang, woeful and warbled.

“Is she ever going to stop hallucinating?” I asked. How much had she taken?

“We're keeping her hydrated and safe, and hoping for the best for now,” said the nurse, though I wasn't sure what the nurse meant by “her.”

Because there was no “her” left. Whoever Maria Salvador used to be, she was gone.

THE COUNTEROFFER

WHEN I GOT HOME, ALL THE WINDOWS IN ALL THE HOUSES
on my block had their lights on. Every rectangle and square glowed, both floors, top to bottom. It was the opposite of the school at night, and combated some of my gloom. I stared, mesmerized and comforted, until I realized the uniform golden blaze lighting up every window was nothing more than a reflection from the fading sun, about to disappear.

I did my homework for a couple hours, then changed for bed and emptied my pockets.

Out came the folded note written on Ellie's stationery.

Out came the message I'd ripped from the school newspaper. “To ChD. If you find it, don't give it to her. I'll pay more. IM 10 2nite.”

It was 9:45. I turned on my computer and logged on to my IM account.

I knew what I had to do.

Whoever this guy was, he assumed Bridget was paying me to find the drive, or he wouldn't have offered to beat the price. I could shake him down for anything, since he didn't know money had
never been part of the equation. I could walk away from Bridget
and
Ryder, win Ellie back for doing so, and just report to this mystery guy from now on for one big payoff.

At 9:59, my computer beeped.
BM has sent you a message. Do you accept?

I clicked Yes and when the chat window opened, I cut to the chase:

Charlie
: Who is this?

BM
: Do you have the flash drive?

Charlie
: Not yet, but I'm close.

BM
: How close?

Charlie
: Who is this?

BM
: Not so fast.

Charlie
: You'll have to tell me eventually.

No reply. Thirty, forty, fifty seconds went by.

Charlie
: How much money are we talking about?

BM
: Double whatever she's paying.

It was my turn to pause. Ryder had offered to pay me five hundred bucks for fouling Steve at the soccer game and giving him a penalty kick. Why not start there? Before I could type $250 so BM would double it to $500, BM panicked, apparently believing I was stalling as some kind of negotiating tactic. I hate to brag, but I'm not that smart.

BM
: I'll give you as much as I can.

Charlie
: $1,000

BM
: She's paying you $1,000? That's all?

(Dammit, dammit, I'd lowballed.)

Charlie
: Yeah, so double is $2,000.

BM
: I can multiply.

Charlie
: Don't get snippy.

BM
: How close are you really?

Charlie
: I'm getting there. Eliminating suspects.

BM
: You know about the lady with the dog?

Charlie
: Who's that?

BM
: I thought you worked at the library.

Charlie
: I do.

BM
: Look, no more games. I'm good for the money. Just don't give it to her, okay? You can't give it to her.

Charlie
: No worries. I'm done dealing with Bridget.

BM
: ??

I stared at the screen. It felt like we were having two different conversations.

Charlie
: What do you mean “??”

Long pause.

BM
: I wasn't talking about Bridget.

Charlie
: Then who?

BM has signed off.

I cursed myself for denying Granddad's flask fill-up. If that IM conversation had been any more confusing, I might as well have been drunk for it.

Mostly I was sick of going alone on this. It'd only been two days and I was already having trouble keeping track of the players.

I wrote a quick chart.

Bridget — Wants her flash drive back, which may not be hers; claims it was stolen out of the library 2nd period last Friday, when she may not have been there. Claims it has a college scholarship essay on it. Is probably lying about A) everything

BM — Wants flash drive, and is willing to pay $2,000 for it, which he thinks is a steal (!). Is under the impression I've been dealing with a girl other than Bridget.

Ryder — Wants me to forget about the flash drive.*

Maria Posey — Was at the library last Friday getting tutoring. Has a thing with Ryder? Wanted him to do a favor for her, but he said no. Hates the Other Maria for “stealing” her solos.

Other Maria — overdosed on LSD; has been hallucinating since Sunday night; no one seems to care

Danny — Bridget's li'l stalker who may come in handy

Ellie / Ellie Plagiarist — Wants me to think Ellie is blackmailing Bridget

Car thief (Griffin?) — Wanted the cops to think I dosed Maria Salvador

*Best option so far

Everyone needed someone else to bounce ideas off of. Sherlock had Watson. Kirk had Spock. In
Fast & the Furious
, Brian O'Conner had Dominic Toretto. And like Granddad said, Ellie was smart.

I picked up the phone and dialed. Ellie answered on the third ring. The clock read 10:18.

“Two nights in a row?” was her greeting.

“Too late to call?”

“Never was before.”

She told me once she loved hearing my voice as the very last one before she fell asleep. She said her day wasn't complete unless she'd told me about it.

Sometimes we'd kept our phones on even when we weren't talking, even when we were trying to drift off. (
“You still there?” / “Yeah, you?” / “Yeah
.”) Not the wittiest banter in the world, but it was ours.

“Wasn't sure if the rules had changed,” I said. “But here we are.”

“You can't keep calling me,” she said.

“You're the one who called me yesterday,” I pointed out.

“To explain why you couldn't keep calling me.”

“And our date tomorrow? Is that to further explain?”

“It's not a date. Think of it as a way for Jonathan to say goodbye.”

“And yet you haven't hung up.”

“I—”

“Any idea why someone would want to frame you?” I said.

“Frame me? For what?”

I read her the note.

“I didn't write that,” she said, sounding perplexed. “And I don't know what it means.”

“Yeah. It's a pretty good forgery, and it's on your stationery, but you never call me ‘Dix.'” I'd spent part of the day mulling things
over in my head, and wondering what Ellie was hiding from me, but in the end it didn't make sense. Only Bridget called me that. Either
she'd
forged the note (but why?) or the person who had was close to Bridget and believed both my exes used the same nickname for me. Maybe I should thank the person; it'd given me a reason to call Ellie.

“Where'd you get it?” Ellie said.

“Doesn't matter, anymore,” I said, crumpling the paper up.

“There was a sale at Pens 'n' More at the mall last week. Anyone could've bought that stationery.”

“Okay. Good to know.”

“Now that you've cleared my name, is that all?”

“I don't know. Are you done running hot and cold?”

“Are you done taking a bath in it?” she said.

“I saw Maria Salvador today,” I remarked, without missing a beat.

“I didn't know you two were friends,” said Ellie. “Is she doing better?”

“I was visiting my granddad, and she was down the hall at the hospital. The nurse said no one's visited her besides family.”

“I wasn't sure they were letting anyone see her. Shit. Now I wish I'd gone, too.”

“She's in pretty bad shape, muttering to herself, not making any sense, saying weird phrases like ‘In exile.' She kept repeating that. And singing that song ‘Sugar, Sugar.' It was really messed up.”

“That was in our medley of sixties harmonies for the qualifier
in Pomona over New Year's. Maybe it got stuck in her head?” Ellie wondered. “God. I feel so bad for her. Do they have any idea who dosed her yet?”

“Not that I know of. Any idea who the lady with the dog is?”

“You should signal when you make a weird turn like that.”

“My conversational segues have gotten rusty without our nightly calls,” I said. “You have no one to blame but yourself.”

“It's not a who, it's a what. The title of a Chekhov story.”

“What's it about?”

“A young woman with a Pomeranian and this old dude she has an affair with. I probably misinterpreted it. I hope so, anyway.”

“Why's that?”

“Just once I want to read about an old woman and a young man.”

“But that would be gross,” I teased.

“Uh-huh,” she said drily. “Why so curious about the chekhovs?”

“I'm following a tip. Do they meet in the library or something?” BM had acted like I should know about them simply because I was doing time there.

“There's a section in the library that's only available to students in the AP Chekhov class.”

“It's restricted? Off-limits?”

She laughed. “It's not dark magic, it's just that the books are falling apart. They're from the seventies. You have to prove you're in the class before you can look at them. Not that anyone else would want to.”

“Got it,” I said, though I didn't. “Can I say one more thing?”

“Sure.”

She was in a better mood now, so I took a risk and came clean. “Ryder's been stealing test answers and selling them. That's why he needed the window unlocked. I didn't know before, but now that I do, I'm not helping him anymore. I just wanted you to know.”

Silence.

“Well … now I know.”

“So we're cool with the Ryder thing?”

“I mean, I'm not
thrilled
, but yeah, we're cool with the Ryder thing.”

One issue down, two to go: soccer and college. “And we're still on for tomorrow night?”

“Seven. Jonathan and I expect you to wear a film-related costume. And it can't be half-assed. Start sewing.”

Click.

I smiled at the dial tone and set the phone down. In my dreams I continued to hear her voice, all soft and teasing, like strings of possibility dangling from the ceiling. All I had to do was pull, and a trap door would open, and I could walk up the ladder and back into her arms.

THE OBVIOUS HIDING PLACE

ON WEDNESDAY MORNING, I TOOK THE BUS AGAIN AND IT
was the same old thing, most of it involving the petty destruction of property. Freshman boys in hoodies drew on their seat backs with pen, digging in deep; freshman girls in hoodies made ironic friendship bracelets by piercing their seats with safety pins and tying embroidery floss in intricate patterns.

The driver bleated at us. The radio broadcast static. The potholes got revenge for decades of tyranny. The bus cut off commuters. It had been doing this for twenty years and would continue doing it for another twenty.

You never forgot you were on a bus. iPhones and headphones could block out a lot of things, but the bus was not one of them. You were always aware of the smell of green plastic and burned rubber, and the squeaky door handle rusting on its hinge as it slowly opened and closed to accept more mass onto the rolling amoeba.