As if the devil herself heard me, the door to the room flies open and Crissa comes flouncing in. “Oh, hello, Scarlett,” she says. “I didn’t know your mom was coming.” She paints on a forced smile. “It’s nice to see you again, Mrs. Northon.”
“Nice to see you too, Crissa,” my mom says, smiling. I shoot her a look. Traitor.
“My mom came here to take me to dinner,” I say. “And to bring me new gym clothes. So I won’t be needing yours anymore.”
“Fine,” Crissa says, waving her hand as if she didn’t pitch a big fit about having to lend them to me. She starts rummaging around in her closet. I roll my eyes at her behind her back, but my mom shoots me a look like Be nice. Why is it parents always want their kids to be nice no matter what? You’d think they’d want to look out for their own.
“I’m just getting my coat,” Crissa’s saying from inside the closet. “It’s getting cold out there.”
“It certainly is,” my mom says, nodding. Crissa is obviously very good at handling parents. There are certain things parents love to talk about, the weather being one of them.
Crissa smiles and stops in front of the mirror. She smoothes her long brown hair back into her headband. “Anyway, I better go. Don’t want to be late for student council!”
“Yeah,” I say through gritted teeth. “You better go.”
“Sorry I can’t stay longer, Mrs. Northon. Have a nice visit with your mom, Scarlett.” And then she’s gone.
“Remind me again why you don’t like her,” my mom says. “She seems like a nice girl.”
“Yeah, well, she’s not,” I say. “She totally wasn’t being nice. She was forcing it that whole time.” How can parents be so clueless?
My mom and I pile into her car and drive to a little Italian place about twenty minutes from campus. I order chicken parm and an antipasto, and eat it all, plus three pieces of garlic bread. The food is hot and filling, and the restaurant is cozy and warm. My mom and I talk about clothes and makeup, her job, how school’s going. The waiter is bringing us a yummy-looking tiramisu for dessert when she finally asks me about my dad.
“So,” she says, clearing her throat. “Have you talked to your dad?”
I pretend I’m chewing a bite of cake and swallowing carefully, even though there’s nothing in my mouth. “Well,” I say. “No. Have you?”
“I’ve talked to him a few times,” she says. She takes a sip of her water, and then sets it back down on the table. A ring of moisture stains the tablecloth.
“He’s e-mailed me,” I admit. “And, um, he wrote me a letter.” I don’t tell her that I never opened it. “I don’t know if I really want to talk to him.”
“Well,” she says. “It’s your choice. But he is your father, Scarlett.”
“Yeah,” I say, even though this argument doesn’t make too much sense to me. He’s my father. So what. I mean, I know it counts for something, but does that really give him a free pass to just ruin my life?
“The things that he’s done, the choices he’s made, that doesn’t take away from your relationship, the time you’ve spent together.”
I want to tell her that the fact that my dad and I used to be close doesn’t take away from the things that have happened because of him. Losing all my friends. Brianna turning on me and calling me a thief. Crying myself to sleep at night. So what if we used to spend Sundays at the bookstore and watch basketball together? Dance parties and fajitas don’t make up for the hurt he’s caused me and my mom. The worst part is, it’s not even really over—things would probably be really bad for me at Brookline, too, if people knew. I’m lucky I was able to switch schools. Otherwise, everything would still be horrible. And it’s all my dad’s fault. Does my mom think I don’t see that? Does she think I didn’t notice that the clothes she brought me tonight are all from Old Navy and Target? My dad turned our lives completely around, and I don’t think he should just be able to say “I’m sorry” and have everything be okay. It doesn’t work like that.
“Scarlett, he feels really bad about what happened.”
“I’m sure he does,” I say. “I’d feel bad too if there was a chance I was going to jail.”
She sighs and pushes the plate of tiramisu toward me.
“All done?” I ask, anxious to change the subject.
“Yes,” she says.
So I eat the rest.
The next day in English, I write a carefully constructed letter to Number Seventeen, hoping that he will realize that I will not be privy to his flirtatious ways anymore. No ex-boyfriend of Crissa’s is going to be getting me all ensconsed in some flirty letters. Here is what it says:
Dear Number Seventeen,
Number fourteen on the secret pen pal list IS Louis Masterpole. This is a truth. Also, he is my friend Amber’s pen pal. Do you have any idea why he wants to be called Stuart? This seems weird.
Any luck on finding the guy with the Notre Dame hat? I’m almost done with The Catcher in the Rye and I LOVE IT. It might be my fave book ever. And I need a date to the dance, so I’d like to maybe ask him.
Talk soon,
Scarlett
I spend the rest of the week and the weekend studying basketball plays, making sure I have chapter three down in my math book (we’re having quizzes all next week), and hanging out with Amber in her room, gossiping about the social and talking about books and music and Crissa and James and Louis Masterpole. Crissa spends most of the weekend out with her mom, shopping for new riding clothes. Apparently she’s taking up riding. Which is good, since I’ve been trying to avoid her now that I know I’m corresponding with her ex-boyfriend. Not that she knows that. But still. Plus it’s just a good idea to avoid Crissa anyway. She’s not very pleasant.
But on Monday morning in English, things take a turn for the worse. Here is what happens:
I get a letter from Number Seventeen (aka James McFayden aka Mr. Life Ruiner), who says this:
Dear Number Seventeen,
Here is your third statement.
KARLI MONTESORRI MEETS HER BOYFRIEND ON MONDAY NIGHTS IN THE LIBRARY AFTER CURFEW.
If you do not find out if this is true TONIGHT, the truth about your father WILL be revealed.
Number Seventeen.
There is no second letter. Suddenly, I feel sick, like my stomach is being twisted in a hundred different directions. I take a deep breath and try to slow my beating heart. The blood is rushing to my head, and I lay it down on my desk for a second. Images race through my mind—sitting alone at lunch, Brianna saying I was probably the one that stole that lip gloss, the unopened letter from my dad in my book bag. It’s fine, I tell myself, it’s okay. Nothing’s happened yet. No one knows except for James. I try to calm myself down by taking deep breaths. But it doesn’t work. Somehow, James McFayden knows the truth about my dad. And for some other reason, he’s decided to blackmail me.
“I don’t get it,” Amber says, looking down at the letter. We’re in the bathroom on the third floor. We’re supposed to be in math, but I persuaded her to get the pass and meet me in the bathroom. Usually only one person is supposed to be allowed out on the pass at one time, but I somehow convinced Mrs. Walker to let me go a minute or so after Amber left the room. I sort of screwed up my face into an intense look of concentration and told her I really couldn’t wait, that it was an intense emergency. I actually said that. Intense emergency. Which wasn’t even a lie.
“What’s not to get!” I scream, waving the letter in the air like a maniac. “He’s blackmailing me.”
“Blackmailing you about what?” she asks, peering again at the letter. “Something about your dad?”
“Yeah,” I say. I start to feel tears pricking the back of my eyes, and I head into a stall and grab some toilet paper off the roll. “And obviously it’s Crissa. Somehow she knows the truth and she got her boyfriend to start writing me letters and making me DO INSANE, CRAZY THINGS.” I blow my nose.
“Ex-boyfriend,” Amber says.
“Obviously not,”
I say. “They must still be together. And she found out that we’re pen pals, so she made him flirt with me, and lure me into a false sense of security, and now she’s blackmailing me.” I blow my nose again, then throw the tissue into the trash can against the wall.
“Hold on,” Amber says. “Back up a second. What’s the deal with your dad?”
Amber’s looking at me intensely, a look of compassion on her face. And I want to tell her, I do. But I just can’t. It’s not that I don’t trust her. But even if she didn’t tell anyone, she would still look at me differently. She wouldn’t be able to help it. Besides, I’d have to get into the whole story, talk about how much it hurts, how we might not have any money soon, how my parents are living apart. And I don’t want to talk about that stuff. It hurts too much to even think about, much less say out loud. “I don’t want to tell you,” I say finally. “But it’s bad. And now Crissa knows about it.”
“How would Crissa know about it?” Amber asks.
“I dunno,” I say. I slide down the wall so that I’m sitting on the bathroom floor. “Didn’t you say her mom’s superinvolved in the school? She probably found out and told her.”
“I don’t think you should be sitting on the floor like that.” She crouches down next to me and makes a disgusted look.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “If I get some horrible disease from this floor, like a flesh-eating bacteria, it doesn’t even matter, because my whole life is over.” It’s my own fault. I mean, how dumb was I to think that I could keep this a secret? Of course people were going to find out. People always find out everything.
“Well, you don’t know it’s definitely Crissa,” she says.
“Who else could it be?” I stand up angrily. “Who does something like this?” I’m getting myself all worked up. “And besides, I thought they broke up. Why would she lie about that? And who has their ex-boyfriend start blackmailing the new girl? And how does she know he’s my pen pal anyway? THEY’RE SUPPOSED TO BE SECRET.”
“Um, I’m not really sure,” Amber says. She looks a little concerned, like maybe she thinks I’m about to really lose it. Even though I’ve already really lost it.
“Well, Crissa will know,” I say. “So I’ll just have to ask her, won’t I?”
I start to push past Amber and out of the bathroom. I’m going to march right into that math classroom and let Crissa know what’s up. Who cares anyway if I make a big scene? I’m failing math anyway. I might as well get kicked out of class. Or even this school!
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Amber says, grabbing my arm. “Calm down there, Turbo.”
“I will not,” I say, shocked. “My life is about to be over. Now is not the time for calm. Now is the time for action.”
“Look,” she says. “You have to calm down. Running into math and yelling at Crissa isn’t going to accomplish anything. Besides, what’s to stop her from telling everyone your secret? If that’s going on, which we don’t even know if it is.”
“But—”
“Look, take a deep breath.”
I do as I’m told, inhaling through my nose.
“You need to have a plan before you go marching in there, getting all upset and wrecking everything. I mean, honestly, Scarlett, you don’t even know what’s going on.”
“You’re right,” I say. I keep taking deep breaths, and my heart rate starts to slow a little.
“Write James back tomorrow and try to get some answers out of him,” she instructs. “And by all means, do not let Crissa know you know what’s going on. Who knows what she’ll do.”
Good point. Crissa is obviously crazy. Blackmailing someone is a serious offense. I think it’s even illegal. And plus, why would she be blackmailing me into doing these ridiculous things, such as following Miss Cardanelli or Mr. Lang around? How does that benefit her?
When I get back to math (exactly two minutes and seventeen seconds after Amber returns, you know, so it doesn’t seem obvious), it takes all my willpower not to reach out and grab Crissa’s ponytail and give it a good yank. But I know violence is not the answer. Well, at least in my head I do.
I’m so distraught over this whole thing that it almost doesn’t even matter that I get an eighty-seven on my math quiz.
That night, Amber has a newspaper meeting, and Crissa is at soccer, so I sit in my room by myself, composing a letter to James. I know that, technically, we’re supposed to write our secret pen pal letters in English class, but I feel it’s good to have things thought out so that I can be really clear about what I want to say. It hasn’t been that easy. Wadded-up pieces of paper are strewn around me on the bed.
Here is a sample of what some of them say:
Dear James,
You are a low-down, good-for-nothing, disgusting pig. I hope you get kicked off the soccer team. What kind of unsavory character would…
Dear James,
I realize now that you are attempting to ensnare me into some kind of emotional blackmail. I do not appreciate this, and besides, James, I cannot be bought. I have alerted the authorities, and they will be showing up at Brookline Academy for Boys soon, where they will handcuff you and take you to Brookline Juvenile Detention Center for Boys….
Dear James,
I thought we were flirting! Between you and my dad, I am going to have trust issues with guys now probably my whole life; how do you feel about inflicting psychological trauma on me at such a young age? Hmmmm??? I don’t know if I’d be able to live with myself….
Obviously, none of these choices works. A is too harsh, B is not true (I don’t even know if there IS a Brookline Juvenile Detention Center for Boys, since I made it up), and C is too psychological. Not to mention if I make him too angry, he might turn around and tell Crissa I’m on to them, since they’re obviously in cahoots.
I feel like I’m about to start crying, when there’s a knock on my open door. It’s Miss Cardanelli. I’m still not used to having teachers show up in my bedroom. Too weird. But every night there’s one on duty, and tonight must be her night. I wonder if Mr. Lang misses her. Or if they maybe work out their nights on duty so that they have their nights off free to be together.
“Scarlett?” she says. “I was trying to call your room.”
“Oh,” I say, looking at the phone on the nightstand. “Sorry, sometimes Crissa turns the ringer off when she’s studying.” She says it distracts her to have it ringing at all hours. Which is ridiculous, because it definitely does not ring at all hours. Well, except for sometimes when Amber calls from down the hall. She thinks it’s funny to call my room when she’s only a few doors away. But that’s only happened once. Or twice. Not enough to have a whole ringer rule about it.
“Anyway, you have a visitor,” Miss Cardanelli says.
“A visitor?”
“Yeah, he’s in the lobby.” It must be my dad, I think, and my heart jumps into my chest. But then Miss Cardanelli says, “It’s your cousin.”
“My cousin?” I don’t have any cousins. My mom has one older sister who has no children, and my dad’s an only child.
“Yeah, your cousin James? He’s waiting for you in the lobby.”
Okay. This is not a reason to freak out. Even though James McFayden, flirter, blackmailer, and possible crazy person (made even more crazy by the fact that he is obviously trying to pass himself off as my cousin) is downstairs in the common room waiting for me.
After I thank Miss Cardanelli for letting me know, she leaves, and now I’m standing in front of my mirror, wondering what will happen if I just don’t go downstairs. Just leave James McFayden waiting in the lobby, looking around, lost and forlorn, wondering where I am. Maybe Crissa’s down there with him, and this is some sort of crazy trap.
I run a brush through my hair and pat on a little bit of lip gloss, then slide into a pair of jeans and a pink Dolce & Gabbana top. If he’s going to blackmail me, I might as well look good while he’s doing it.
Here’s the deal with visitors at Brookline: You’re pretty much allowe
d to have them whenever you want, although only immediate family members are allowed in your room. Anyone else has to stay down in the common room with you, unless you get special permission. Which means if I want to talk to him, it’s going to have to be in our common room.
I start to get nervous when my foot hits the bottom step. What if he’s creepy and scary? Although not likely, if Crissa’s all broken up about him. I’ll bet he’s nerdy. I’ll bet he has greasy hair and a big nose and lots of pimples and a bunch of green spinach stuck in his teeth.
I take a deep breath, then peek around the corner into the common room. A guy is in there, alone, with his back toward me. He’s standing up near the couches in the corner, looking out the window. He has a backward baseball hat on, dark jeans, and a blue sweatshirt.
“Excuse me?” I say coldly. “I’m looking for James.” Even though, you know, it’s obvious that he’s James. We don’t get too many boys around here.
And then the boy by the window turns around. “I’m James,” he says. And then I notice the Notre Dame logo on his hat. It’s the boy from the mall.
“You,” I say, feeling the anger burning inside me. “You from the mall!” Which isn’t, you know, the most intelligent thing to say, but under the circumstances I think is pretty good.
“Yes,” he says. “Me from the mall.”
“Well,” I say coldly. “You from the mall, I would really like to know just why it is you are intent on ruining my life.” What a great line. I’m off to a great start. I sit down on the squashy tan couch, to show that even though I’m steaming mad, I’m not rattled or anything.
“I’m not,” he says. “I mean, I didn’t mean to, I—” Good. He’s the one who’s rattled. He sits down next to me on the couch. I will not be swayed by his rhetoric. (Another English vocab word, meaning “the use of language persuasively.” Who said these words don’t come in handy in real life?)