by Sarah Mello
“See yourself out,” she said as she walked through the doorway and toward the staircase. “Before I change my mind and rat.”
Kyle and I exchanged a look of confusion and followed.
“Norah, wait!” My voice commanded her attention. “Why are you helping us?”
She slowly turned around, her heel resting on the top step. “Because I love puzzles.” She paused and glanced at Kyle. “And I really hate shitty fathers.”
Sometimes we become our masks, slowly suffocating behind their hard plastic exteriors. But when the masks come off, because they always do, we learn that some of the faces underneath were never worth our fear.
11
The plan
The early bird gets the worm. It’s a popular concept, but far too often, the lazy birds who slept in are overlooked. If all the birds got up at the same time to get the worms, there wouldn’t be enough to go around. So isn’t the success of the early bird, in a way, due to the laziness of the birds that are still sleeping?
By the same token, would anyone be considered a winner without people who were okay with losing? Can a group be rich and powerful without a class of the poor and powerless? And in the same breath, can moralists stay perched on their moral high ground without the disgraced embroiled in scandals?
“A Princeton catalog?” JC held Kyle’s phone in front of his face as he scrolled through the photos. “That’s what was inside of the envelope?”
“We were just as shocked as you,” I said as I scooted into our usual booth in the corner of the club’s café the following Monday.
Casey followed closely behind. Then Kyle.
“I can’t believe Norah agreed to stay quiet,” Buckets said, still flipping through the photos with JC on the opposite side of the table.
“So she says,” I added.
JC slammed Kyle’s phone on top of the table.
“Whoa, JC, calm down,” Kyle said.
“Calm down? Piper is hiding something and we have absolutely no idea what it is. Everywhere we turn is a dead end.”
“We?” Buckets raised a brow.
“Quit being such an asshole,” Kyle said. “We’re trying to help you.”
“The food will be five more minutes,” Winston said, plopping down beside Buckets.
We all stared at him, and each other, in silence.
Winston looked around the table. “What’d I miss?”
I shook my head, exhaling loudly.
“So what do we do?” Buckets sipped on his energy drink. “What’s your plan this time, Sonny?”
“I think we should bring our suspicions to Ron Harrison,” I said. “He does PI work, and he’s the best of the best. Maybe he’d be willing to look into things. We can tell him Piper framed JC, and we can show him Mr. Russell’s paper.”
“Jacob’s dad?” Casey asked.
I nodded.
Buckets slammed his flat hand down on the table. “Take this to Ron? What evidence do we have? Photos of a catalog and a riddle?”
“Okay, could everyone stop beating the table?” Casey asked. “People are staring.”
“We’ll have more evidence than that,” I said. “If you’re all willing to help me get it.”
“What are you saying?” Kyle questioned.
“We need to get into the safe,” I replied.
“Jesus, Sonny!” Buckets looked side to side. “Absolutely not!”
“Why would Mr. Russell want us to go through the safe?” Casey asked.
“Let’s find out,” I replied.
“I’m drawing the line,” said Winston. “Sounds moronic, since I probably should have drawn it while you attempted to convince us to break into Piper’s house. But this? The safe? No way.”
“I’m in,” JC said. “I want in.”
I looked up. “JC—”
“No, Sonny, I’m not letting you five do all of my dirty work,” he said. “I want to help.”
“When do you suppose we do this?” Kyle asked.
“Saturday night before the scrimmage,” I replied. “It’s the only time we know the office will be vacant.”
Winston slammed his fist down on top of the table. “What is it with you and Saturday-night break-ins?”
“Winston!” Casey yelled.
“What?”
“The table,” we all said in unison.
“Look, how are we going to pull this off?” Buckets asked. “There are cameras.”
“You’re going to freeze the frames,” I replied.
“Really? That sounds a whole lot like something I’m not going to do,” Buckets replied.
“Come on, Buckets! I know you can easily figure out how to hack into the security system. You’re a technology genius.”
“Sonny, I work with teenagers, not the government.”
“So you can’t do it?” Casey asked.
“I can,” he replied. “I can’t, however, break into the office. They keep it locked. How are we going to get in?”
“With Principal Winchester’s keys . . .” I glanced at Kyle.
“No way,” Kyle told me. “If he notices they’re missing—I’m dead.”
“He won’t notice. You can put them back after the game.”
Kyle rolled his head in circles. I could see he was tormented by the idea.
I leaned in closer to him. “Kyle . . . I wouldn’t be asking you to do this if it wasn’t necessary. We go in, we get into the safe, and we finally put this riddle to rest. Whatever’s inside might give us our proof.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Please, Ky?” I stared into his hesitant eyes. “I need you.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?” I asked him.
“That thing. That needy thing you do with your eyes.”
“Did it work?” I asked.
Kyle exhaled loudly. “You guys need to understand that if we get caught . . . we’re done.”
We all looked around the table at one another, lost in our own thoughts. Nobody talked, because in a situation so intense, words fall short.
“Are you decent?” Dean slowly opened my bedroom door.
I looked up at him from my bed, papers sprawled all around. “What if I wasn’t?” I asked as I pulled my crop-top sweater down.
“Your mom let me in.”
I tossed my pencil down and tightened my messy bun. “She doesn’t do that for everyone.”
“Yeah? Well, we do share a common dislike for her ex-husband. I plan to milk that.” Dean sat down at my distressed orange desk.
“You know, I hear there’s no greater bond than that of mutual hatred for another person.”
“It works well for us.” Dean smiled. “I also come bearing shakes.” He held up two covered Styrofoam cups.
“Oh. Yum.” I leaned over and took one of the cups from his hand.
“You don’t have to pretend to like them. I know you don’t.”
“Thank God,” I replied, tossing it into the trash can.
Dean’s jaw dropped. “That was my peace offering!”
“That’s a crappy peace offering,” I said, curling back up to work on my paper.
“Noted for next time,” he said. “Where were you today? I stopped by after school and you weren’t here.”
“I was at the club with some friends.”
“What are you working on?” He took his jacket off.
“Just trying to put this paper together,” I replied as I watched.
“For the Westcott Awards?” he asked.
“That’s the one.” I stared down at my interview notes. “By the way—how are you feeling after your big breakup? I hear you took a strong one to the cheek.”
“She got me pretty hard.” Dean rubbed his face.
“I also heard she was pretty rattled,” I said as Norah’s streaky face flashed across my mind.
“I noticed.” He spun one of my pens around on my desk. “It was the right thing to do. Probably not the best place to do it
, but definitely the right decision.”
“I thought you said you were going to break up with her after the dance.”
“That was the plan.” He paused. “But she picked a fight with me, so I took that as my opportunity.”
“What was your fight about?” I asked.
“I think she may have seen me talking to you,” he replied.
I curled my fists up into my sweater. “That’ll do it.”
“Yep.” Dean looked around my room. “It seems like it’s been years since I’ve been here.”
“It certainly does,” I replied.
We paused, the silence hanging between us like a curtain.
“How’s your dad doing?” I asked.
“He’s finally bouncing back.”
“Good,” I replied.
Dean looked down at his shake. “It’s been rough . . . for both of us.” He sighed, spinning the pen some more. “I just don’t know what he could have done with all of that money.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, it’s not like he bought a boat. There was nothing to show for the amount of money that was withdrawn. He showed your dad his bank statements. He never deposited a dime. So if he didn’t spend it on materialistic items, and he didn’t put it into savings, where did it go?”
I stared at my low ceiling. “That’s a good question.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” he said. “I’m just happy I finally fixed things with you.”
I looked down at the colorful blocks on my quilt. “Well, to add to the bright side of things, now that you’re not with Norah you can save your money. I heard she’s quite the expense.”
Dean shook his head. “Would one fifty for a birthday dinner qualify as expensive?”
“And all you ever gave me was strawberry shakes and heartache.”
Dean threw the pen at my legs. “You’re not high maintenance.”
“You know, I’m not sure you mean that as a compliment, but I’ll take it.”
“Good,” Dean replied, smiling a little. “Speaking of Norah . . . what’s up with her and Jacob?”
“What do you mean?”
Dean placed his hands behind his head and leaned back in the chair. “I saw them hugging in the hallway this morning.”
“Hugging?” Although I wasn’t sure why, my heart nearly shattered at the thought. “Norah and Jacob?”
“Yep.”
“Are you sure it was them?” I asked.
“I’m positive,” he replied.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I know he likes her. Maybe he’s making his move now that she’s single.”
Dean gave me a dry smile. “Norah isn’t who Jacob likes.”
If looks could chastise.
He coughed. “I, uh, I should go. I have practice tomorrow. Better rest up.”
“You made the team?” I pretended to be surprised.
“Funny.” Dean stood up and put his jacket on. “Your friend made it too.”
“Really?” My heart smiled for Jacob, although I tried to hide my excitement. “That’s . . . cool.”
“Very.” He grabbed his shake. “You should put your paper away and get some sleep.”
I watched Dean as he tugged down on his jacket and walked toward my bedroom door. His body language exuded loneliness. The kind that makes you wish you’d never met a person—so you didn’t have to feel what loving them and losing them is like. The kind that has a certain type of potency, persuading you to draw near. And that’s the unfortunate thing about loneliness—it makes you believe you can be lonely together.
“Dean . . .” I closed my notebook and jumped off my bed.
He spun back around to face me, his heavy eyes barely making the turn.
“Will you stay?”
Winston and I walked toward our cars the following day after school. The sky was dreadfully cloudy, and the air felt thick. I dragged my feet against the pavement as we drifted in between the rows of cars.
“I overheard Ari and Cliff talking in the hallway the other day,” I said. “They’ve been hooking up ever since he and Lana broke up.”
Winston scrolled through his cell phone. “Mm-hmm.”
“He also admitted it was he and Ari in the video, not Lana. Which we already knew.”
I was met with silence.
“Are you listening to me?” I asked.
He looked up. “Oh, come on, Sonny. You’re not shocked, are you?”
“I’m not, but Kyle would be. He doesn’t know it’s her in the video. And they plan to keep it from him.”
“Kyle knows, we know, the middle schoolers know. He just refuses to face it.” Winston yawned. “So, when are you going to tell him?”
I continued dragging my shoes against the concrete, not looking up and not answering his question.
“Oh, no. No, no, no. No. You have to tell him!”
“I—can’t.” My eyes sunk.
“If you didn’t plan to tell him, why did you tell me?” Winston stomped his foot. “Now I know about it too! I don’t want to know secrets that I won’t enjoy keeping. You know this.”
“I had to tell someone! I just can’t bring myself to tell Kyle. He’s so . . . good. Maybe it’s better if he doesn’t know. Maybe he’d rather turn a blind eye.”
“This is Westcott.” Winston sighed as he looked side to side. “You don’t get to turn a blind eye. It’s going to come out on its own—eventually.”
We continued walking and passed directly by Jacob’s black Jeep. I dragged my finger against the hot hood.
“One more thing—I heard that Jacob and Norah hugged in the hallway yesterday.”
“So?” Winston said.
“So—don’t you think that’s a little strange?”
“Doesn’t he like her?”
I tilted my head. “So he says.”
“Then what’s the big deal?” he asked.
“It was the way Dean said it . . . as if he were implying that it must have meant something.”
“Dean? So Dean told you this? Did you ever consider he’s trying to come in between whatever it is you and Jacob have going on?”
“Which is what?” I asked.
“You tell me. You’re the one riding two horses with one ass.”
I glared at him, dismissing his insensitive claim. “I don’t know. I’m just not so sure Jacob likes her. Which is why I’m wondering why they were hugging.”
“You’re not sure Jacob likes her because it’s obvious he likes you,” Winston said.
“It’s more than that,” I continued. “When I told him Dean was going to break up with Norah, he took it as an opportunity to scrutinize Dean.”
“Yeah, so?”
“If he really liked Norah—wouldn’t that have made him happy? It’s like every time I mention Norah, he seems completely uninterested.”
“You have a point.” Winston opened his trunk. “But why would Jacob lie about liking Norah?”
“Why would he need to lie about seeing her the night of Dustin Coleman’s summer party?” I asked back. “I have no clue.”
“If you’re so worried about it—why don’t you go through Jacob’s phone? Maybe we can find out what he’s hiding,” Winston suggested, tossing his book bag into his trunk.
“Are you insane?”
“You know, coming from you and your recent history of breaking and entering, I find that question pretty hypocritical.”
“I can’t go through Jacob’s phone! We aren’t even dating.”
“Maybe you can’t”—he closed his trunk—“but I can.” He began walking back toward the school. “You coming?”
“Where are you going?” I yelled, tossing my hands into the air.
Before I knew it, we approached the door to the men’s locker room. “You cannot do this,” I whispered solidly from the door frame.
“Jacob’s in practice,” Winston argued, pulling me into the muggy room. “He’ll never know.”
I pulled my arm back.
“No, Wins! This is an invasion of privacy.” I stared at the rows and rows of blue lockers. The room reeked of sweat and cologne.
“Oh, please. He waived that right when he came to Westcott.” Winston kicked a gym bag with his foot.
“Just hurry up!” I whispered. I dug my fingers into my temples and fell against a row of lockers, dropping to the floor in defeat.
Winston began confidently looking through the adjacent lockers, searching for Jacob’s belongings. “I came by your house last night,” he said with a suggestive tone of voice. “Apparently I wasn’t the only one.”
“Dean came by, if that’s what you’re alluding to.”
“Dean didn’t leave either.” Winston paused. “I also drove by this morning.”
I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples in a quick circular motion. “What happened to not meddling?”
“What happened to your convincing ‘firm stance’ on being done with Dean? Now you’re spending the night together?”
“We fell asleep watching a movie,” I said.
“You know I don’t care what you do—just who you do it with.” Winston picked up a dirty T-shirt and threw it on the floor.
“We’re just friends.”
“Until someone catches feelings again,” he replied. “Then you’re both screwed.”
“That’s not how that works.”
“It is if your feelings are for Dean Ballinger. He’s unpredictable, Sonny. Ever since his mom died—he just hasn’t been the same.”
“Would you be the same if that happened to you?” I asked. “She had an unexpected heart attack.”
“I don’t think there’s an expected kind.”
I rolled my eyes. “Not everything’s a joke, Winston.”
“I think Dean’s a little dangerous—that’s all.”
“Look, I’ve known Dean for years. We were best friends before we ever started dating. He’s not dangerous—I know him. I know him, and he knows me.”
“Oh, you walked right into this one. Did you know that he’d dump you? Or how about when he asked Norah out? Did you know him then too?”
“He made a mistake,” I countered.
“You’re making excuses.”
“He’s been through a lot, Winston.”
“Have you forgotten he’s been a rich kid his entire life? He used to be neighbors with Cliff, for God’s sake. I’d hardly call his story a sob. They had to count pennies for a while—big deal. Welcome to the harsh reality of being a Cobalt.”