Night Owls (2 page)

He made a low whistling noise. “We had fetal pigs, but I got to opt out and do mine on the computer. Philosophical reasons.”

He said this like he wanted me to ask what those reasons were, and I took the bait. “Let’s see, squeamish about dead frogs—”

“Philosophically opposed,” he corrected.

“Vegetarian,” I guessed.

“A really bad one, but yes.” He pointed to his coat collar. Pinned there was a small button that read
BE HERE NOW
.

I shook my head, confused.

“It’s my philosophical excuse. Zen.”

“You’re a Buddhist?”

“A really bad one,” he repeated. The corners of his mouth curled into an almost-smile. “By the way, how long ago was it that you dissected this frog? Four years? Two years . .
. ?”

“Are you trying to guess my age?”

He smiled all the way this time, and one attractive dimple deepened in the hollow of his left cheek. “Hey, if you’re in college, I’m totally fine with that. I dig older
girls.”

Me? College? I let out a high-pitched, neurotic laugh. What the hell was the matter with me? Thankfully, the bad muffler on a van turning the corner muted my hyena cackle. After it passed, I
gestured toward him with the pepper spray canister attached to my keychain. “Why is a vegetarian Buddhist dressed like a jewel thief?”

“Jewel thief?” He peered down at himself. “Too much black?”

“Not if you’re planning a heist. Then it’s the perfect amount, especially if you have a Hamburglar mask in your pocket.”

“Damn,” he said, patting his jacket. “Knew I forgot something.”

The sidewalk rumbled beneath my boot heels. I glanced up to see the digital
N-OWL
sign on the windshield of the bus that was pulling over to our stop. Cool white light
glowed from the windows.

“Miracles of miracles,” the boy murmured. “The Owl actually arrived.”

I stood on tiptoes to see what I’d be dealing with. Looked like some seats were filled, but it wasn’t sardine-packed. Yet.

A line was already forming at the curb, so I rushed to outpace the medical students and the drunken preacher. Was the boy getting on, too? Not wanting to appear obvious, I resisted the urge to
turn around and, instead, dug out my monthly pass. One swipe over the reader at the door and I was inside, hoping I wasn’t alone.

THE FIRST RULE OF RIDING PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION
late at night is to stick close to the driver, so I staked out a prime spot up front, on one of the
long center-facing bench seats. You’re supposed to reserve them for the handicapped, pregnant women, and the elderly, but since the woman with the umbrella had already claimed the adjoining
seat on the other side of my pole, I wasn’t too worried about it. I wedged my portfolio behind my calves, quickly scoping out the rest of the bus for any other risks. To my great relief,
drunk preacher was nowhere in sight.

But someone else was.

As the bus doors squealed shut, hot boy plopped down across the aisle in the seat facing mine and tucked his backpack on the floor between his feet. He blew out a dramatic breath and slouched in
his seat before jerking up a little, pretending to be surprised to see me. “You again.”

“Your target seems to be in my neighborhood. I hope you’re not planning to rob my house. We have no jewels, Mr. Burglar.”

“ ‘Jack the Burglar’ has a nice ring to it. Maybe I should give some serious consideration to this career path.”

Jack. Was that his actual name? Under the fluorescent glare of the bus lights, deep shadows etched the valleys of his cheeks and the crevice beneath his lower lip. He had a devil-may-care thing
going on in the way he teasingly held back his smile.

“You knew the homeless guy, Will,” I said, going into Sherlock Holmes mode as the bus rumbled away from the curb. “That means either you live around Parnassus or you’ve
got a connection to either the hospital or the campus.”

“I will eliminate one of those things for you,” he said. “I don’t live here.”

“Hmm. Well, you’re not going to med school.”

“Let’s not be judgmental. Some jewel thieves could have surgical skills.”

“But you made that ‘older girls’ remark, which means you’re in high school, like me—”

“Like you? A-ha!” he said merrily. “I’ll be a senior this fall, by the way.”

“Me too,” I admitted. “So if you’re not taking classes at Parnassus, I’m guessing you know someone who either goes to school here or works in the hospital. Or
possibly you’ve been visiting someone in the hospital.”

“Nicely logical, Sad Girl,” he said. “Hold on. I wasn’t the only person who knew Will. He said your ‘old lady’ gave him dinner, so he knows your mom. And
since you’re now worried I’m going to burgle your house—”

“ ‘Burgle’? I don’t think that’s a real word.”

“Sure it is. Burglar here, remember?” he said, raising a gloved hand. “Anyway, you and your mom might know Will, but you don’t live near the hospital, either. Inner or
Outer Sunset?”

“Yes,” I said, avoiding a real answer.

Undaunted, he tried another approach. “You never said why you were meeting with the anatomy director who didn’t show. Are you trying to get an internship or . . . ?”

“No, I was just trying to get permission to draw their cadavers.”

One eye squinted shut. “As in corpses?”

“Bodies donated for science. I want to be a medical illustrator.”

“Like, drawings in textbooks?”

I nodded. “And for pharmaceutical companies, medical research, labs . . . it’s super competitive. Only five accredited masters programs, and to get in those, you need any advantage
you can get. A couple of local museums are cosponsoring a student drawing competition in late July, and I want to win it. There’s scholarship money up for grabs, and a win would look good on
my college applications.”

“And drawing dead bodies will help you win?”

“Drawing
dissected
bodies will.”

He made a face.

“Da Vinci drew cadavers,” I said, using the same argument that had failed to win my mom’s approval when I announced my intentions to follow in the Italian painter’s
footsteps. “So did Michelangelo. The Sistine Chapel panels are filled with hidden anatomical paintings. If you look closely at the pink shroud behind God in
The Creation of
Adam
—you know, the one where God is reaching out to touch fingers with Adam?—the shroud is actually a diagram of a human brain.”

“Wow. You weren’t kidding about the frog thing, were you?”

“No.” I scratched the back of my head; the pins holding up a tangle of braids above the nape of my neck were making me feel itchy. “All I want to do is draw cadavers after
hours. I wouldn’t be bothering anyone or getting in the way. But now I have to come back Wednesday before her lecture. Hopefully she actually shows this time.” Was I talking too much? I
wasn’t sure, but I couldn’t stop. I get chatty when I’m nervous. “At least next time I won’t be risking my life on the Owl talking to strange boys.”

“Feeling alive is always worth the risk.”

“Feeling alive is merely a rush of adrenaline.”

He chuckled, and then studied me for a moment. “You’re an interesting girl.”

“Says Jack the vegetarian Buddhist jewel thief.”

His lazy grin was drop-dead dangerous.

You know, I always felt like I was pretty good at flirting—that it was the boys I’d flirted with who just weren’t good flirtees. Jack, however, was an excellent flirtee, and my
game was on fire tonight. His gaze flicked to my crossed legs . . . specifically to the few inches of bare knee peeking between my skirt and boot.

Crap. He was definitely checking me out. What should I do? Earth to Beatrix: This was the night bus, not a Journey song. Two strangers were not on a midnight train going anywhere. I was going
home, and he was probably going to knock over a liquor store.

When it came to romance, sometimes I was convinced I was cursed. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not one of those “woe is me, I’m so plain Jane, no boys will ever look my
way” kind of girls. Boys looked (like now). A few even stared (seriously, like
right
now). It was just when they got to know me—or saw my oddball medical artwork—that
things usually went south.

Too weird for jocks, and not weird enough for hipsters, I was neither freak nor geek, and that left me stranded in no-man’s-land. I was fine being a misfit—really, I was, even when
someone scribbled “Morticia Adams” on my locker with a Sharpie this winter. I mean, first of all, even though we sort of share a last name, Morticia’s is spelled with two
D
s, and I doubt whoever defaced my locked had the brain capacity to know the difference, but whatever. And second, I actually look more like the Addams daughter, Wednesday—the
apathetic girl with the headless dolls—than Morticia, mostly because of my hair. I always braid it, and I know a thousand and one quirky styles, from Princess Leia buns to Swiss Miss to Greek
Goddess, or tonight’s masterpiece: Modern Medieval Princess.

But the funny thing is, I actually like
The Addams Family
, so whoever christened me with that nickname wasn’t really crushing my feelings. I definitely didn’t lose sleep
over it. And it’s not like I’m completely socially inept, either. I have a couple of friends (and by “a couple” I mean exactly two, Lauren and Kayla, both of whom were
spending the summer together in a warmer part of the state). And I’ve had a couple of boyfriends (and by “a couple” I mean I dated Howard Hooper for two months, and Dylan Norton
for two hours during an anti-prom party in Lauren’s basement).

So, okay. My calendar wasn’t exactly full, and I could never wear black dresses at school without people snickering behind my back, asking me where Gomez was. But I figured I could ditch
all that in college, where I could reinvent myself as a sophisticated art student, bursting with wit and untapped joie de vivre. My limitless conversation starters about skin and bones would seduce
the heart of some roguish professor (who almost always had a British accent and was also a former Olympic-trained swimmer—but only for the body), and we would run away together to some warm
and fabulous Mediterranean island, where I would become the most celebrated medical illustrator in the world.

In this daydream, I was always older and more clever, and it was always sunny. But here I was, on a cool, foggy night, sitting on an Owl bus feeling . . . I don’t know. Feeling like maybe
I didn’t need to wait through senior year to make it to some fantasy island on the other side of high school.

Maybe I could seduce a dangerously good-looking boy on a bus right now.

His gaze lifted and met mine. We stared at each other.

And stared.

And stared . . .

A strange heat sparked inside my chest and spread over my skin. It must’ve been contagious, because two pink spots stained his cheeks, and I’d never seen a boy like him blush. I
didn’t know what was happening between us, but I honestly wouldn’t have been surprised if the Owl had burst into flames, veered off the road, and exploded in a fiery inferno.

Bus stops came and went, and we didn’t stop staring. The older, wittier me was one second away from leaping across the aisle and throwing myself at him, but the real me was too sensible.
He finally broke the silence and said in a soft, desperate voice, “What’s your name?”

The woman with the umbrella made a low noise. She gave me a disapproving frown that put my mother’s to shame. Had she been watching us the whole time?

“Shit.” Jack pulled the yellow stop cord drooping across the window and bent over his backpack. Irving and Ninth. A popular stop. Mine was still several blocks away, which meant one
thing: My night bus fantasy was ending. What should I do? Ignore the umbrella lady’s warning and give him my name?

What if I never saw him again?

The bus jerked to a sudden stop. Jack’s backpack tipped sideways. Something rolled out from a gap in the zipper and banged into the toes of my boots.

A fancy can of spray paint with a metallic gold top.

I picked it up and paused. The way he tightened up and ground his jaw to the side, there might as well have been a neon sign over his head that flashed
NERVOUS
!
NERVOUS
!
NERVOUS
!

I held the spray paint out. He stuffed the can in his backpack and slung it over one shoulder. “Good luck with your cadaver drawing.”

My reply got lost under the news ticker of recent headlines scrolling inside my head. All I could do was quietly watch his long body slink into shadows as the door shut and the bus pulled away
from the curb.

I knew who he was.

SINCE SCHOOL LET OUT IN MAY, GOLD GRAFFITI HAD
been popping up around San Francisco. Single words painted in enormous gold letters appeared on bridges
and building fronts. Not semi-illegible, angry gang tags, but beautifully executed pieces done by someone with talent and skill.

Could that
someone
be Jack? Was he an infamous street artist wanted for vandalizing?

The remaining leg of the ride blurred by as I recalled everything I’d heard about the gold graffiti on local blogs. I wished I’d paid better attention. I definitely needed to do some
research, like,
right now.

When the bus got to my stop on Judah Street, I raced off, eager to do just that.

I live in the Inner Sunset district, which is the biggest joke in the world, because it’s one of the foggiest parts of the city. Summer’s the worst, when the nights are chilly and we
sometimes go for weeks without seeing the sun. But apart from the fog, I like living here. We’re only a few blocks from Golden Gate Park. There’s a pretty cool stretch of shops on
Irving. And we’re just down the hill from the Muni stop. We live on the bottom two floors of a skinny, three-story pale yellow Edwardian row house and share a small patch of yard in the back
with our neighbor Julie, a premed student who rents the unit above us. She’s the one who got me the appointment at the anatomy lab.

I jogged up a dozen stairs to our front door. As I fumbled for the house key, a taxi pulled up to the curb. My brother jumped out and quickly paid the driver before spotting me.