Mr. Loumans climbed down and clapped ice from his gloves. “That should do it.” He turned to me. “Yeah. A girl.” He looked over his illuminated creation. “Have I reason for concern?”
I exhaled. Given my angelic constitution, I could’ve, with one sentence, one word from the Lord, swayed the man and prevented any Christmas chaos. Why I didn’t still mystifies, as it might have made all the difference. But the mind of man is confusing beyond measure.
“Here’s what you do. Let him go. But to be safe, give me free rein on Christmas Eve as well. I’ll check in on Will from time to time.”
Mr. Loumans stepped forward and placed his left hand on my right shoulder. He squeezed. A strong, man squeeze. An I-trust-you-with-this squeeze. Had he been my dad, I knew one thing: no matter how loudly I had screamed, no matter how hard Jude had tried to force him out, he would never have left.
“Okay. I believe in you.”
Mr. L spoke the words—I know it, I saw his lips move. But inside my brain, the voice I heard was Dad’s. How this happened, I cannot explain. I can only record the impact.
It had been thirteen years since Dad spoke those words at my piano recital. But there beside Mr. L, a wash of longing surged over me, and I wanted nothing more than to see my father’s face.
The really scary part? I wanted to see him more than Addy.
I broke free from Mr. L’s grasp and ran.
I sprinted up the lane to my cottage, opened the door, and slammed it before I busted. Tears fell free; I made no effort to stop them.
But it wasn’t Shane. Yeah, he throated the sounds, bawling awkward and ugly, but these were deep-down tears, bubbling up from wherever I was inside that body. They were my tears because no man with strength had ever touched me or anyone else I knew without wanting something back. Mr. Loumans’s hand was gentle and honest and powerful, and I wondered where Dad was now. Was he alive? Remarried? Would he be alone this Christmas?
I plunked onto the chair and forced my hand through my hair.
“Can’t get sidetracked here. I got a job to do and a sister to protect—”
“Whoa. Rough Christmas, huh?”
I leaped up. Will sat in the corner, his eyes sparkling.
“How did you get in here?” I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands.
“Relax, Prophet. I didn’t take your cell phone or anything.” He grinned. “I even knocked. Your door was unlocked and it was cold, so I thought I’d sit inside. I’ve been waiting ISS proper. I came to make peace.”
“You want peace?”
“Well, actually, I don’t care what you think of me. I’m interested in seeing Adele, and it’s seemin’ like I need to go through you to do that.”
I stared at him. There was no posturing. He was just a kid.
He continued. “I’ve put up a perfect week. Did Mr. L tell you that? I have an invite to Adele’s house on Christmas Eve. I want to go. Is that so bad?”
“No. Not so bad.”
He shifted in his seat. “Adele’s a great girl.”
“Yeah, she is.”
“So what do you have against the two of us—I mean, it ain’t normal. You show up dead-on that I can’t see her, can’t talk to her, or you’re going to kill me? That’s not ‘beat the crap out of me,’ that’s ‘kill me.’ Who threatens someone over a date? Something’s wrong with that.” He looked around the cottage and raised his arms. “I know I ain’t perfect. Not even close. But your hating on her and me is over the top. You’re keeping something. Would you care if I wanted to see someone else?”
“No.”
“You care only about Adele.”
“Yes.”
His eyes narrowed. “Why?”
Sadie’s warning floated in, floated out. “I don’t know.” I paused. “You can save your words. I talked to Mr. Loumans. I told him that he should let you go. Pay me later.”
Will jumped to his feet. “Shut up!”
I said nothing.
“For real? The talk-to-her-and-I’ll-kill-you guy pulled a one eighty? What the heck?” Will cast me a sideways glance and walked up to me. “You ain’t so bad, Prophet.”
“Do yourself a favor. Try to speak in complete sentences. Crow likes that.”
“Yeah, okay.” He walked toward the door and paused. “Merry Christmas, Mr. Shane.”
“Merry Christmas, Will.”
He whistled and pushed out into the cold.
Maybe choice is overrated. How could it be that the one relationship I came back to destroy, I was now allowing? What happened? Was it seeing Crow’s fear, feeling her body, experiencing the touch of a father figure? Why was my mind fixed more on Crow than Adele? Something greater than self-preservation was at work. Call it fate, or providence, but some things might be hardwired into the historical record.
The Dalai Lama would have a hard time with that one.
CHAPTER 18
THE THOUGHTS OF C. RAINE
When evil men plot, good men must plan.
Martin Luther King Jr.
I ARRIVED AT SCHOOL TO A CRYING MEL. Not light sobs. Large, heaving noises that sounded two parts animal, one part girl. A ring of friends pinned her against a locker and, by all appearances, did their best to console her, several of them wiping tears from their own eyes. The hall looked like a disaster triage.
I pushed my way nearer. No, I had not planned on offering condolences. That would’ve ended with my speaking of slimy Basil and revealing more to Mel than I felt comfortable with, since Sadie’s drive-by. But she was one of my former best friends, so I felt some responsibility. I couldn’t recall Mel ever being so distraught.
Ever.
“Shane!” Mel screamed and broke out of her circle. She grasped onto me, her nails making painful inroads into my arms. She looked to me wide-eyed, choking back those noises.
“Do I know you?” I paused and let my lie take root, then continued. “Whatever’s going on, I’m sure it’ll all work out, you know?”
“We need to talk.” Mel yanked me away from the guidance office and down the main hall. Students parted in front of her despair, and we quickly reached the choir room. She glanced both ways, rushed me through the door and into a practice room. She quietly shut the door; lights automatically flashed on, and more tears fell. Five minutes later, Mel had composed herself and related her tale of woe.
I would not make it to the guidance office that day.
• • •
Mel sang in the choir; most days this was a fact of little consequence other than that she possessed a general knowledge of when the practice rooms were unoccupied. This provided her and Basil a cozy place to get serious within the confines of the school, but I digress . . . though not much.
She arrived early this morning to help prepare for the Christmas—I’m sorry, Winter—choir concert. Mel was on choir-robe detail. The sheet on the rack listed the garments’ sizes, from “petite” to “grande.” The entire choir had, the previous day, lined up, skinniest to fattest, in a rare acknowledgment of the truth, in order to receive their robe assignments. After all, those black tents with Big Bird yellow collars must fit properly.
After the school’s robes had been matched with appropriately—or inappropriately—sized singers, a master list was created. Petite Kelli Hawthorne would model robe number 1, and so on, right up to grande Lionel Ferrar, dashing in robe number 98. The list of names and numbers was posted in preparation for the concert, and the robes were returned to their hangers. Mel arrived early in the morning to assure that, come concert time, the robes would be found hanging in proper numerical order.
After a few perfunctory checks, Mel was satisfied, and turned to leave. And paused.
Why she bothered to check the master list, she couldn’t say. How different for us all had she not.
But she did. Kelli Hawthorne, number 1. David Tea
sel number 2. David starting-forward-on-the-basketball-team Teasel was number 2? She went on, chuckling, thinking about the miniskirt robe he would sport until she reached Lionel Ferrar at number 5. His powerful tenor scraped the boundaries of each doorframe he entered. Lionel was number 5? The list had been doctored.
“So I asked myself, Who would have done it? Who would want to cause that much chaos before a concert? Who has something against Mr. Grion?”
I lifted my palms.
“Only one person. Someone booted from the choir.” She nodded big and slow.
“Basil,” I whispered.
“He told you about that?” Mel frowned.
“No, I just heard it in passing.”
Mel came to the same conclusion I did. She set out in search of Basil, not so much angry as amused. She wanted to ask him if she should ignore the messed-up list. After all, robes were her responsibility, not assignments.
She checked the places where Basil could get his hands on a computer and printer, where he could have created a deliciously insidious alternative posting, but the media center, computer lab, and business center were still locked down. On a lark, she tried the guidance office. The door swung open and the light was on, and there’s where, sitting in the choir’s practice room, I almost threw up. I swallowed the burn and methodically thumped my forehead with the heel of my hand.
“You okay?” Mel asked.
I stopped thumping and squeezed the bridge of my nose. “Keep going.”
Mel stepped inside the guidance office. Right around the corner, on the floor, her body curled up inside an empty cubicle, slept Crow, a notebook fallen from her hands.
“She didn’t wake up when the door opened?” I asked, knowing the tragic answer.
“It’s a very quiet door.”
I hate quiet doors.
Mel was more than a little curious and tiptoed over to Crow, who had spent some time on herself.
“Shane, she wasn’t even wearing black.”
I said nothing, and Mel continued.
Curiosity got the best of her, and she bent down on one knee and opened the notebook.
Shane,
Here is what I know. I spent last night pulling it all together. I did it for you.
“Honest, that’s where I stopped.” It didn’t matter, and I gestured for the rest with my free hand, the one not covering my face.
“I stopped reading because I was thrilled. Crow liking you is a dream come true. It would sure keep her mind off my Basil, if you know what I mean. He sure seems to be preoccupied with her of late.”
Mel quietly stood with Crow’s notebook in hand, and walked it back to my cubicle, finishing the delivery and feeling good for the first time in weeks. She would let Crow sleep, seeing as she was the nocturnal type.
Then the quiet door opened again. Mel dropped down. The door closed gently.
“Right there I should have stood up, but it was so early, and I wasn’t supposed to be there. That’s when I heard kissing and Crow whispering, ‘Shane.’ Honestly, I started smiling. But when I peeked up, expecting to see you, it was, uh, it was Basil.
“Then what?” I whispered.
“What do you mean?” She stiffened. “Haven’t you heard what I’ve been saying?”
“Believe me, I’ve heard. Then what?”
Mel shifted. “Basil yelled.”
“Why?”
“Based on his eye, I think Crow hit him.”
“Crow did hit him. Two fists to the face and a knee to the groin.” I bowed my head.
Mel took a deep breath. “You don’t know that. And even if she did, it doesn’t change anything. Crow must have realized it was Basil and not you, at least for a little bit. She always knows what she’s doing.”
“She’s been sleep deprived for ten years. She barely knew her own name, and she stopped Basil, who, by the way, has deteriorated from decent guy to something between scum and monster.” I looked up at Mel. “Crow was pretty heroic, if you ask me.”
“You think this is Basil’s fault?” Mel bristled, the muscles in her face twitching and tightening. “What I saw this morning started long ago. Long before you showed up. There’s a history here, a secret one. I know about their little darkroom rendezvous, their washroom grope sessions. She sets the traps. He happens to walk into them. He’s been so confused—”
“Let me get this straight. I need to be sure I follow you. . . .” I leaned forward. “Crow is sleeping, clearly waiting for me. Basil touches her, and she whacks him in the eye. And you blame her? That’s what we’re talking about here?”
Mel’s face darkened. “She’s had a hold on him since elementary school, and day after day I put up with it. I put up with her half-dead looks that suck Basil in like a vacuum. I never fought back . . . but that ends now. I’m not losing Basil.”
There was a long silence here, a gathering of thoughts, at least on my part.
“Maybe she just needed a friend, you know?”
“A friend,” Mel scoffed. “Right.”
I raised my eyebrows. “So what now?”
“Believe me, Shane. I don’t know what she’s told you, but she doesn’t care about you or me or anybody except her precious sister. She would drop anything for her, and that fact is my only hope, because for Addy, she’d even drop my Basil.”
The woozy feeling returned.
“So what if we had something to occupy her, just until her Basil fetish is dead once and for all?” She brightened. “And here’s the best part: What if it helped you, too? Helped you get Crow back.”
I stared at her blank-faced, not something you normally can sense about yourself. But I felt so numb, expression wasn’t possible.
“I’m sure you know, Adele’s seeing this loser from Hope Home. What you probably don’t know is that, until the end of middle school, Crow protected Addy from her stepdad, a real sicko. She told Basil about it just last year. I guess she’d sit up all night, a little girl with a big knife.”
And I had entrusted my secret to Basil, a little boy with a big mouth.
I held up my hand. I didn’t need the replay.
“Well, that’s over for her, but if Crow thought someone else was a threat to Addy, it would dominate her thoughts.” She bit her lip. “Look, I’m not talking cruelty. The outcome would be best for everyone, including Crow.”
My brain glazed over. I was witnessing the rumor hatch. The one that I had believed and lived to prevent, and that eventually took my life. A rumor started by a friend. The revelation was too much.
Mel continued, “The two of us will say, oh, this is perfect because you work with him, the two of us will say that the only reason Will is seeing Addy is to get her alone, which, knowing guys, no offense—“she chuckled—“is probably true, but that will be enough to set Crow’s protective instincts on fire.”
“Yeah, it would.”
“She’ll focus her time protecting Addy from Will.”
“Yeah, she will.”
Mel clapped hands together as if planning a birthday party. “Let’s make it specific. We need a day, a target day for Will’s move.” She stared at me, and I dropped my gaze. “Let’s push it into the future because that will keep her mind whirring for some time and give me a chance to work some sense back into Basil’s brain.” She drummed her fingernails on the piano bench. “Got it! Prom night. Will’s sure to ask Addy. Let’s say he’s planning this for prom night. That’s May 1. Sound good?”
“Mayday,” I whispered.
“In the meantime, I get Basil back, and after the prom, after Crow busts up Will’s plan, which is really our plan, and she’s thinking normally again, you get her!”
No, I won’t.
I stood and shook my head. “You don’t know what you’re doing. What you’re setting in motion.”
“This isn’t what I asked
for.” Mel rose and paused. “Crow’s a friend. There’s just no other way.” She opened the door and glanced over her shoulder. “Honest. Everyone will thank me when this is over.”
Have you ever witnessed the beginning of the end? A point in time when the dots fell into place and only you could see the complete picture? The crash, my attempt to rid Will from Addy’s life—it was all based on a lie.
I have no proof Will ever set out to hurt Adele.
CHAPTER 19
THE THOUGHTS OF C. RAINE
People can’t concentrate properly on blowing other people to pieces if their minds are poisoned by thoughts suitable to the twenty-fifth of December.
Ogden Nash
AS MENTIONED, I DID NOT RETURN TO THE GUIDANCE OFFICE. That’s not completely true. I ducked back in to find, as Mel reported, a notebook filled with all Crow knew of Will. On another day I would have been overjoyed. This day I did not care. This day I needed to find Crow.
I remembered where I went the first time around, after Basil had attempted to stake his claim.
The darkroom had been locked; of all the days for Mr. Gerald, the custodian, to get serious. I ran to the girls’ lavatory, locked the stall, and shook. I stayed there the entire day, listening as Basil’s bravado floated in on wings of female voice. With each version, the assault’s account twisted, bringing me closer to the role of instigator and Basil nearer the position of victim. I must’ve heard the story twenty times—it pleased the school to hear of me as weak.
I remember feeling I deserved it, somehow. That although I remembered his attack from within a thick fog, I must have deserved it. So I listened and sat until Mel and Julie Richear walked in. Upon hearing Mel’s voice, I relaxed and forced cramped legs to stand. But the topic of their conversation strayed from convention and kept me hidden where I was.
“That’s what I heard him say,” Mel’s voice echoed loud.
I peeked at her through the crack in the stall, watched as she continued. “On prom night. He’ll pick her up, take her to the hotel, and—”
“You’re kidding, that’s sick. Have you told Addy yet?”