Scoop to Kill (21 page)

“Do you want to?”

His question stopped me in my tracks. I knew that my answer mattered. A lot.

I sighed. “Of course I want to know you, Finn. But it’ll take time. Are you willing to give it time?”

He stepped away, pulled open the refrigerator and began tossing cartons of yogurt and half-used jars of salad dressing into a garbage bag.

“I don’t feel like I have time, Tally.”

I could barely hear his words, but the thread of pain in his voice was clear as day.

I set down the half-wrapped plate I held and crossed the few steps to his side. “Finn, none of us know how much time we have, which is why we need to relish every minute. Maybe you need to get out of this town to be happy. Maybe you need a big city and an exciting job. That’s okay. I won’t hold you back. I’ll miss you, but I would never begrudge you going after your dream.”

I hugged him, but he stayed stiff in my arms.

“Just promise me you won’t make a decision about your future while you’re in the midst of this grief. Let yourself mourn for Emily. Get on your feet before you take a step.”

For a second, he sagged in my grasp. Then he cleared his throat of tears.

“I’m going to clean out her bedroom,” he said. “Can you finish in here?”

I was torn between relief that he didn’t want me to accompany him into the room where she died and hurt that he didn’t need me by his side.

“Sure, Finn. You go ahead. I’ll be right here.”

As he walked away, I wondered if he’d come back. And I wondered how long I could wait.

T
hanks to the condensed schedule of the May-term class, we had our final exam a mere three weeks after we started class, on the last day of May. I’d been trying to keep up with the work. Alice wouldn’t grade my test, of course, but she’d see my grades, and I didn’t want to look like an idgit.

Cal and I had all the plans for Bryan’s benefit sewn up, and after our strikeout in Emily’s office, Finn had left me alone about Bryan and Emily’s murders. But between class time and keeping the A-la-mode afloat, I was in the weeds. When Ashley asked me if I wanted to study with her, I jumped on the chance.

She stopped by the store at ten, as we were closing up. I sent Bree and Kyle on home, so we’d have quiet, and we settled into a booth in the dining room.

Ashley pulled a couple of cans out of her bag, tall beverage cans, black with orange flames licking up the sides and acid-green lettering. “For energy,” she said, pushing one toward me. “Can’t study without it.”

Curious, I read the label. The can promised me lasting energy with no crash, but caffeine and sugar were pretty high on the list of ingredients.

I cracked open the can and took a sip. It tasted like pure evil. I let the liquid dribble back into the can rather than swallow it. That sort of crap might be fine for young people, but my stomach couldn’t handle it. I’d stick to good ol’ diet soda.

I didn’t want to be rude, though, so for the first couple of hours of our study session, I’d occasionally lift the can to my lips and pretend to take a drink. Finally, though, I needed some caffeine for real, so I offered to get us sodas.

Ashley tipped her head back to drain the last dregs of her energy drink. “That would be great.”

While I got our drinks, I made small talk. “Your folks must be really proud of you, almost ready to graduate.”

“Hunh,” she grunted noncommittally. “They’d be a lot prouder if I’d graduated on time.”

I didn’t challenge her, but she went on as though I had. “I know I’m not the smartest person in the world,” Ashley said. “I didn’t even want to go to college. But you can’t get a good job without a degree anymore.”

I guessed that depended on your definition of a “good job.” My friend Angel didn’t have a college degree and she’d just started a new job at Erma’s Fry by Night Diner, but I imagined “short-order cook” would not make the cut in Ashley’s world.

“I had it all figured out,” she continued.

“Yeah? What are you planning to do when you graduate?” I handed a can of diet soda to Ashley and popped open my own.

“When we were freshmen, we had to take all these personality tests to find our strengths and figure out what we were passionate about.” Ashley took a sip of her drink. “I’m good at motivating other people and organization, and I really love health and fitness. So I decided I wanted to work in the fitness industry.”

“And that’s why you got that job at the Lady Shapers?”

“Right. I started off working at the desk and doing personal training, but I did an unpaid internship last summer in their corporate office. And I’m double-majoring in kinesiology and marketing.” She set down the can, picked up her pen, and started doodling on the open page of her notebook. “I’ve been working hard, trying to get good grades, and doing all the networking stuff we’re supposed to do so we know the right people.”

I had to hand it to her. Ashley Henderson might not be destined for a Nobel Prize, but she seemed to have a grip on what she wanted to do with her life and how to go about getting it. When I was her age, I wasn’t nearly so focused.

Heck, I
still
wasn’t.

“So do you have a job lined up for after graduation? I know it’s a tough market out there.”

Her lower lip quivered, but then she took a deep breath, narrowing her eyes as she exhaled. Misery or anger, and she chose anger.

“I
did
have a job,” she said. “A spot opened up in the management trainee program at FitFab. But not anymore.” A muscle in her jaw twitched.

“Oh, dear. What happened?”

“This stupid class happened,” she spat. “Stupid, stupid, stupid.” She punctuated each “stupid” by stabbing her notebook with her pen.

“I have to take this dumb class for my degree. Who even cares about this stuff? A bunch of boring books written by guys who are dead. If I really wanted to know this story”—she picked up her copy of
The Age of Innocence
and waved it around—“I would watch the movie, right? I looked it up. It has that lady from that Johnny Depp movie in it.”

I had no idea what she was talking about, but I nodded along. The girl had lost a job, and she was plenty pissed.

“This class is an intro class. Intro! But that . . . that . . . man wanted us to know all sorts of stuff about these books. Like about symbols and shit. I just couldn’t do what he wanted and do well in my real classes
and
do well at the Lady Shapers.”

I assumed “that man” was Bryan Campbell. Alice had said Ashley took the class from Bryan during the fall semester, and both Alice and Emily said he had unreasonable expectations of his students.

“Sure,” I said soothingly. “You’re only one girl.”

That took some of the starch out of her sails, and her lip pooched out in a childish pout.

“Exactly. I asked him for help, and he said I could have an incomplete. I thought, ‘Great, I’ll write an extra couple of papers and then he’ll give me my C minus, and it will be okay.’ ”

Her emotions were rocketing all over the place, making me extra glad I hadn’t consumed that so-called energy drink. Now, tears welled up in her eyes. She was close enough to Alice’s age that I had to fight the urge to wrap my arms around her and mother her.

“I worked all term on those papers—three of them!—and he still said my class average was a 69.49. Can you believe it? Just a smidge higher, 69.5, and he would have rounded up to 70 and I would have passed. But instead, I got a D plus.”

“That’s not passing? I thought anything more than an F was passing.”

“Not for requirements. You have to get a C minus or higher for it to count. Stupid!” Her pen attacked her notebook with sudden ferocity. “I begged him—begged him!—to give me the C minus. I was so close!”

I nodded again and made a soothing sound in the back of my throat.

“But he said no. I told him it was—what’s the word?—arbitrary? To say that a 69.49 was failing and a 69.5 was passing, but he said that everything was arbitrary.” She scrunched up her face and spoke in a mocking, whining voice that was clearly supposed to be Bryan’s. “Why do your shoes cost eighty dollars instead of seventy-nine ninety-nine? Why does the bank give you 2.99 percent interest instead of 3 percent? It’s just a fraction of a percent on paper, but that tiny fraction can represent a real difference.” She shook her head and slipped back into her own voice. “Maybe it’s a real difference when it’s money, but this wasn’t money. Just points, and those aren’t real things.”

I could see both sides, and I sensed a philosophical dimension that I didn’t particularly want to tackle at half past midnight on a school night.

“So FitFab retracted your job offer?”

A tear slipped from one mascaraed eye and made a sooty track down her cheek. “Yes. The training program is only offered every six months, at the corporate office in Chattanooga. I was supposed to start next Monday, but I won’t have my diploma yet.”

“Can you do the program in the fall?”

She shrugged her shoulders and sniffed. “No, this was it. My only shot. And now it’s gone.”

I’d spent enough time around Alice to know that teenage girls have a very black-or-white view of the world. That one pair of size-six jeans fits a little snug? You must be super fat and completely gross. The cute boy doesn’t ask you to dance? You must be hideous and totally unlovable.

Ashley wasn’t strictly a teenager, but close enough.

I also knew that anything I might say, any logical argument I might make, would prompt a storm of tears and rage about how I just didn’t understand. So I kept my lips shut.

“My life is over,” Ashley concluded.

The tears were coming faster now, and she suddenly went white as a ghost. “Oh, God,” she muttered, then pushed away from the table and dashed for the bathroom.

I briefly considered following her, weighing her need for comfort and her need for dignity. On the one hand, I was her peer in class, not her mama. On the other hand, her mama wasn’t here, and I was.

Ultimately, my desire not to completely embarrass myself on the final exam won out. I spent the next ten minutes reading through my notes and skimming over the passages I had dog-eared in my books, until Ashley returned. Her face was still pasty white, but she’d dried her tears and seemed to be together.

“You want something to eat?” I might not want to hug the girl, but at least I could feed her. “We’ve got ice cream, of course. And crackers and fruit in the back.”

Her face creased in a pained expression. “Maybe some crackers?”

I gave her a teasing wink. “Sure I can’t convince you to try a little ice cream? Lots of calcium,” I prodded.

“No, thanks. I’m getting really fat. Completely gross.”

Before I could restrain myself, a laugh escaped me. It was, of course, the wrong thing to do. Her face clouded over, and I rushed to smooth her ruffled feathers.

“Oh, honey, you are so far from fat. Trust me.”

She looked uncertain, like she desperately wanted to believe me but just couldn’t bring herself to do it.

Before we could wander down the rabbit trail of adolescent female body image, I hustled to the back of the store and grabbed the stash of crackers.

“Now,” I said, plopping the box down on the table between our books, “can you explain the effect of the First World War on the Harlem Renaissance? Because I sure can’t.”

G
enerally speaking, the May-term American-lit students weren’t Dickerson’s A-team. But apparently we all had strong motivation to pass that exam, because when I arrived at Sinclair Hall the morning of the test, the overwhelming majority of my classmates were already in their seats, ready to rock. They all bent over their notebooks, looks of pained concentration plastered on their faces, cramming frantically.

All, that is, except for Ashley Henderson.

Ashley rested her forehead on her desk as though she felt ill. Her hair was greasy, her skin blotchy, her clothes even more disheveled than ever.

It was so quiet in that room, you could hear a rat piss on cotton. Until Bubba arrived. He slid into the seat behind Ashley and gave her chair a nudge with his foot.

“Hey, Ash, you all set for the test?” he drawled.

She didn’t move except to raise one hand in the one-fingered salute.

He laughed, and elbowed his buddy in the next seat. “Ashley doesn’t have to worry. She can earn an ‘A’ with extra credit.” They all cackled like this was some sort of hilarious joke.

“Shut. Up.”

I took the seat right next to her. “Are you okay?” I asked.

She moaned.

Reggie pushed through the door at the back of the classroom, Alice trailing in his wake. “Good morning, students. Are we all set?”

A collective groan filled the room, but beneath that sound I caught a whimper from Ashley. “Oh, God,” she muttered before she fumbled her way out of her seat, clawed her way over my legs, and dashed up the stairs, shoving both Reggie and Alice out of her way as she went.

The whole class watched her push through the door and disappear. When the door squealed on its hinges as it swung shut, a few students chuckled nervously. Then, from the hall, we all heard the unmistakable sound of retching. The chuckles turned into groans of disgust.

Reggie appeared flummoxed. He looked at Alice, who shook her head tightly. Apparently she did not consider playing nursemaid to Ashley part of her job description.

They both looked at me.

I sighed.

Sure, from the university’s perspective, I was just another undergrad. But I was the oldest person in the room, and even though I didn’t have children of my own, my very presence screamed “mom.” Who better to follow poor Ashley?

Besides, I thought, maybe if I helped Reggie out here, he’d cut me some slack when he graded my exam.