No Safety in Numbers

  “Class seems like a strong term,” Lexi said, dragging the bag off the table and into her lap. “It was gym. I didn’t feel like playing volleyball-in-my-face.”

  “Is this a new thing for you?” Dotty said, leaning back into the shiny, red fake leather of the booth. “Should we expect weekly reports of your delinquency as punishment for sending you to one of the top ten private schools in the country?”

  “I didn’t ask to go there,” Lexi said. “I was perfectly happy in public school.”

  “Time-out!” Dad said, waving his arms between them over the table. “In your corners for at least ten seconds.”

  He winked at Lexi and she couldn’t help but smile. She had the best dad in the universe. He almost made up for the fact that Dotty had become a Mom-strosity.

  At first, the whole politics thing was fun. Mom was home all the time—the house was her campaign headquarters. Lexi and Dad created the campaign website, programming while Dotty wrote the content. Mom would read them passages at the dinner table and they’d all help hone the prose. The website was the reason Lexi got into computer animation. It felt like the campaign was something they were doing as a family.

  Even once Mom was elected, she still tried to carve some private time out of her public life: There was the public Senator and the private Dotty. But then Dotty became the most senior senator on the Investigations and Government Operations Committee and now, three years later, there was really just the Senator. When Lexi saw brief glimpses of Dotty, it was usually to point out that her outfit didn’t match or she really needed some new friends—“Not some online buddy to play Minecraft with, but a real friend in the real world.”

  Like it was that easy. Like Lexi could just flip a switch and suddenly be friends with the snobby kids at Irvington. What was wrong with online friends, anyway? Lexi had almost three hundred friends on Facebook, and fifty people followed her Twitter feed, which was devoted to tips on computer animation techniques. And she had at least one real friend: Darren. They’d been inseparable since the release of the original Xbox—they met on the checkout line at the store and were instant partners in Halo decimation. At this point, they could wreck any punk who tried to challenge them. If she’d stayed in public school with Darren and their old computer geek crew, she’d have friends. It was Dotty’s fault that she was reduced to a completely online existence.

  The Senator flipped through messages on her phone. Dad sat silent in the corner, as if keeping watch to make sure the time-out was obeyed. The waitress came to their table and slapped some menus down.

  “Welcome to Chopsticky Buns,” she said in a drone. The paper lantern dangling low over the table threw unfortunate shadows across her pale face. “Can I get you something to drink?”

  She glanced up from her pad and scanned the table. Her gaze lingered on them for just a beat too long before returning to the paper. It was something most people wouldn’t even catch, a tick, nothing. But Lexi always noticed. Always felt those sidelong glances. Always knew that when people looked at her family they were trying to place them in the picture. A preppy and power-suited black family living in Westchester? And who’s the kid with the boobs? What is she doing at Irvington Country Day?

  “Chicken with broccoli as usual?” Arthur said, tapping Lexi lightly with a menu.

  Lexi put her napkin in her lap. “Yeah, sure,” she said. The waitress left with their order.

  “They’re going to change the name of that dish to ‘The Alexandra Ross,’” he said, smirking.

  “At this point, they could change the name of this restaurant to Ross’s Kitchen and I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  The Senator put down her phone. “Now we have to criticize my cooking?”

  “She wasn’t criticizing your cooking,” Arthur said.

  “Like you ever cook,” Lexi muttered.

  Dotty slumped back into the booth. “Okay, I surrender,” she said, sliding her fingers over her hair. “You win, Lex. If you don’t want to stay at Irvington at the end of the semester, you can transfer back to public school. Deal?”

  She held her hand out like they had just struck some corporate bargain, negotiated a complicated budget proposal—like they were strangers. Maybe, at this point, they were.

  Lexi slapped her mother’s hand. “Deal.”

  “Good,” Dotty said, sitting straight again. (Problem solved! On to the next task! Busybusybusy…) “Now, where’s my egg roll?”

  Arthur reached across the table and squeezed Lexi’s arm. He gave her a you okay? look: raised eyebrows, slight smile. Lexi shrugged. It wasn’t his fault the Senator had lost all interest in her daughter.

  The Senator’s cell phone rang again. Dotty sighed—Lexi thought she saw something of her mother there, an exhaustion with the job as opposed to her delinquent daughter—and then picked up the phone. “It’s Frank,” she said. “I should take this.”

  “Like you’d ever ignore a call,” Lexi snarled.

  Dotty glanced at Lexi with large, sad eyes. “Really, Lex? Have I fallen so far?” She swallowed, then hit TALK. “What’s up?”

  The waitress appeared with their appetizers.

  Dotty picked up her egg roll. “I’m actually there.” Her expression changed. She put the egg roll down. “They found what?”

  Dotty got up from the table and walked out of the restaurant.

  Lexi could not believe what she had just witnessed. Her mother lived for Chopsticky Buns’ egg rolls. She could not fathom what information could have caused the Senator to leave an egg roll uneaten.

  Arthur looked as stunned as Lexi. His mouth hung slightly open and his eyes lingered on where Dotty’s back had hustled past the hostess station. “Let me see what’s going on,” he said, sliding out of the booth. He shuffled between the tables, leaving Lexi alone with the blue flame of the pu-pu platter as her only company.

  Her phone buzzed. Not my only company, she thought, smiling. It was Darren, as she’d guessed. She slid her finger across the touchscreen and saw the text.

  Movie any good?

  Still at lunch, Lexi wrote back.

  You could always just wait with me for the illegal download.

  Lexi snorted a chuckle. Careful or I’ll sic my mom’s committee on you.

  I await The Man’s imminent arrival. There’s the black van now. Oh, and here’s the dude in sunglasses and a suit to drag me off to Guantanamo.

  Swift kick to the groin should finish him off.

  Darren texted a frowny face. Never joke about kicks to the groin.

  Dad sat back down in the booth. “Darren, I presume?”

  Lexi typed a quick TTFN and put her phone back in her bag. “Who else do I have to talk to?”

  “Could be there are some decent kids at Irvington, you know.” He picked up a shrimp stick and held it over the flames.

  “Don’t you start in on me too,” Lexi said, lifting a chicken wing. “Is the Senator coming back?”

  “You mean your mother?” Arthur said, frowning.

  “Yes,” Lexi muttered, rolling her eyes and dropping her head back.

  “I know you can’t see it, but she’s trying,” he said, lowering his food. “This job is pulling her in a million different directions.”

  Lexi poked a discarded foodstick into the blue flames and watched it flare up, then disintegrate. “So what’s the crisis this time?”

  Arthur tipped his head as if he were going to try to prod their conversation back to the Senator’s lame attempts at parenting, but then picked up another shrimp. “Some situation in the parking garage the mall manager needs help with. She said to eat without her.”

  As usual…

  When they finished their meal, the Senator still hadn’t surfaced, so Arthur suggested they check out the new graphics cards at the Apple Store. As if Lexi would ever say no to that.

  She made a beeline for the new desktops. The store had preloaded a professional-grade graphic design program on the floor model. Lexi decided to take it for a test drive.
She hacked the Internet firewalls, accessed her iCloud, and opened her movie project.

  “Wow,” said a vaguely familiar voice. “That looks amazing.”

  Lexi turned around. The voice belonged to a girl from Irvington. A popular girl. She stood there with her perfect red curls in her perfect little outfit, her pissed-off-looking perfect friend behind her. Ginger Franklin. Lexi remembered the name from roll call in fourth period Ancient History. She’d thought it funny that a “ginger” was named Ginger and texted Darren about it. He’d texted back that her parents must have been getting back at her for being a miserable baby.

  Ginger pointed at the computer screen. “I saw you working on that at school. It’s amazing.”

  “Thanks,” Lexi said. She clicked the mouse and the window collapsed.

  “Don’t be shy,” Ginger said. “You’re really good. Like, Pixar good.”

  Lexi’s brain grasped for an explanation of why Ginger was talking to her. She felt like she’d been ambushed, like some guy with a camera was going to jump out from behind a curtain and scream, “You’ve been punked!”

  “Can you show me how to do that?” Ginger asked.

  “Weren’t we going to Abercrombie?” the pissed-off friend groaned. Lexi suddenly recalled her name—Maddie Flynn. Maddie had (intentionally?) spiked a ball into Lexi’s face during gym the other day. She flicked her wrist and glanced at her watch, as if her time were so important and not a second could be spared.

  “Go on,” Ginger said. “I’ll meet you there.”

  Maddie snorted—at least Lexi could have sworn she heard a snort. “Fine,” Maddie said, and stalked out of the store.

  Ginger smiled at Lexi. “Maddie’s kind of got a one-track brain,” she said.

  “You could say the same about me,” Lexi said.

  Ginger wrinkled her perfect nose. “You’re funny,” she said. “Alex, right?”

  “Lexi,” she replied. Then, after a heartbeat, she added, “Why are you talking to me?”

  “Is that a problem?” Ginger asked, pulling a stool over. “Look, I don’t mean to come off as a freak or anything, but I saw what you did in the lab at school. How do you do it?”

  Lexi had never before met someone who felt comfortable just sitting next to complete strangers and asking them about their totally private, top-secret movie projects. Was this how one was supposed to make friends in that alternate universe known as Irvington Country Day? No wonder I’ve spent the last month and a half alone…

  Ginger raised her perfectly plucked eyebrows and smiled encouragingly.

  “It’s not hard.” Lexi turned back to the computer and opened a blank project.

  Ginger flicked her hair out of her face and watched the screen as if Lexi were about to deliver crucial test-prep information. Not sure what else to do, Lexi showed her a few simple things with the graphics program.

  It wasn’t hard to impress Ginger; she seemed blown away by a stick figure walking across a white screen.

  “That’s amazing!” she said, eyes wide. “And you did it in, like, three seconds. Amazing.”

  Lexi felt a smile break out across her face. She knew her work was amazing. Compared with some of the amateur stuff on YouTube, her clips looked professional. But it was one thing to think it to herself and another algorithm entirely to have one of the most popular girls at her school utter the words.

  “If you think that’s cool, wait until I add a wireframe.”

  “Oh my god, let’s do it.” Ginger dragged her stool closer.

  Lexi choked on a laugh. The girl was legitimately psyched about a computer program. Even Dad had never been this excited about one of Lexi’s animation projects.

  The mall’s speaker system crackled to life, silencing the Muzak that had been droning quietly in the background.

  “May I have your attention,” the Senator’s voice said. “There is currently a security situation being handled in the parking garage. We ask that you please remain calm and make your way to the nearest store. Remain inside the store. We will update you shortly.”

  Leave it to Dotty to turn some car alarm crisis into a “security situation.”

  “Guess Maddie will have to wait a little longer than she thought,” Ginger said, glancing over her shoulder at the crowded corridor. Then she nudged Lexi’s arm. “Let’s get going on the frame-y whatnot.”

  Screw the Senator. I have the coolest girl in ninth grade sitting beside me, waiting for me.

  Lexi turned back to the screen and began clicking through menus. She would show Ginger wireframing, how to add avars—she’d make Ginger a fully functional 3-D character. She’d make her a whole 3-D world.

  Her phone buzzed in her pocket—Darren.

  Ginger glanced in her purse. “Not mine,” she said.

  “It can wait,” Lexi said, ignoring the text. “Watch this.” And a new person emerged on the screen.

  R

  Y

  A

  N

  Ten more minutes, and Ryan would have been out of Toxic, zombie makeup in hand. He would have been at Shep’s Sporting Goods, maybe already halfway up the climbing wall. But no, the security situation had to shut down the mall and here he was, stuck with the emo kids between racks of studded collars, fake leather pants, and T-shirts with things like “Black Death European Tour” on them. Not a store Ryan would normally shop in.

  But Ryan’s brother Thad, the quarterback, had said the West Nyack High School varsity football team would go as zombies for Halloween practice before heading out to the usual party at Mike Richter’s house. As the newest and youngest member of the varsity team, and younger brother of the QB, Ryan felt a lot of pressure to do everything right—no, not right. Better than right. On the field and off. Ryan owed everything he was to Thad, given their parents’ inability to do anything besides lay into each other over money, a crap dinner, or nothing at all. He wanted to make his brother proud with the big stuff and the stupid, like this costume.

  Having nothing else to do, Ryan flipped through the nearest rack, which was packed with flowing skirts in acid green, fuchsia, black. Who would wear this stuff?

  “Do you mind?”

  The rack had spoken.

  Ryan stepped back. “Hello?”

  Two hands appeared from inside the wall of material, separating two skirts and revealing the most stunning face Ryan had ever seen or even dreamed of. The face smiled.

  “I’m only joking,” she said. “But you did smack me in the eye with a string of beads.”

  The girl stepped out from between the skirts. She had rosy brown skin and huge, weird green eyes rimmed in black lashes, and this waterfall of black hair. She wore some strange, shiny golden cut-off top over a flowing, flowered see-through muumuu with skinny jeans and black boots. Thin gold chains with charms dangling from each circled her long neck, which featured a tattoo of a vine curling around it, ending at a flower that bloomed on her left cheek.

  “I’m Shay,” she said, sticking a hand out.

  Ryan was pressed against a glass case full of silver skull rings.

  “And you are?” she asked, arching a perfect black eyebrow.

  “Ryan,” he finally managed. He took her hand. Her skin was warm and smooth.

  “It’s the tattoo, right?” Shay said. It wasn’t just the tattoo, but Ryan was happy to let her start with that.

  “It’s henna,” Shay continued. “Like my parents would ever let me get a real tattoo. But that’s the plus of living with your Indian grandmother. There’s always lots of henna.” Shay looked through the front windows of the store at the corridor. The only people visible were two mall security guards patrolling the other side of the hall. “Where’d everyone go?”

  “Didn’t you hear?” Ryan asked, still trying to get a hold of his heart rate. “The mall cops ordered us to stay in the store. Some security thing in the garage.”

  “Oh.” The smile faded from Shay’s face. “I should find Nani and Preet.”

  “Who and who?” Rya
n asked.

  “My grandmother and sister. I left them in Aéropostale. Preeti takes forever to pick out a pair of socks.”

  Ryan suddenly felt the need to keep Shay from moving. “We can’t leave,” he blurted out. “The mall cop said so.”

  “The mall cop?” she said, smiling. “I think I can face the wrath of the mall cop.”

  She reached into the rack and pulled out a book and her iPod. So that’s why she missed the announcement. The book was a ratty thing; the yellowed pages curled and the cover was so faded, Ryan could barely make out the name.

  “Tagore?” he asked, desperate to keep her there, even if it meant talking about a book. “Is that, like, foreign or something?”

  “Or something,” Shay said, smacking him lightly on the arm with the book. “He’s only the most famous Indian poet. He won the Nobel Prize.”

  “Oh.” Ryan could not have felt like a bigger idiot. He’d maybe read one poem. Ever. And he thought maybe it was some kids’ book thing about farts. “You reading it for school?”

  “No,” Shay said. “I’m reading it for me.” She held his eyes for an intense moment. “Here.” She handed the book to him. “You look like you need this more than I do.”

  He took the book from her, letting his fingers brush her skin. Their eyes met again. The green of hers was flecked with gold. Ryan looked away, patted the book. She started again toward the door.

  “How can I get this back to you?” he said, following her as she weaved through the racks.

  “You can have it,” she said without turning.

  “You’re just giving me your book?” A hanger jabbed him in the ribs.

  “That’s what they’re for,” she said. She stopped at the entry and looked at him. “Books are meant to be shared.”

  “At least give me your email,” he said. “So I can tell you what I thought.” He waved the book at her.

  Shay half smiled, like she knew what was really going on here. “You can come with me,” she said. “If you’re done skirt shopping.”

  Ryan felt everything in his body relax. I can go with her. “I think I have enough skirts at home.”

  Ryan felt like a criminal stepping over the threshold into the abandoned corridor—the guards must have moved on. Shay simply walked out onto the carpeted hallway and turned toward the escalators. Her strange shirt twirled behind her like a pennant.