Except for Mark, of course. He, I was discovering, always looks good.
Especially when, like now, he was worried. His dark eyebrows kind of furrowed together in this adorably vulnerable way . . . kind of like a golden retriever puppy that wasn't sure where it had put its ball.
"It's just that they all think I did it," he said as we started down Lurnley Lane. "And I . . . I just can't believe it. I mean, that they'd think that. I loved Amber."
I murmured something encouraging. All I could think was, Heather Montrose, please be downtown when we get there. Please see me getting out of Mark Leskowski’s BMW. Please see me eating pizza with him. Please.
It was wrong of me—so wrong—to want to be seen in the BMW of a boy whose girlfriend had, just days before, died tragically.
On the other hand, it was wrong of Heather—so wrong—to have been so mean to me about something that was in no way my fault.
"But these Feds . . . ," Mark went on. "Well, you know them. Right? I mean, they seem to know you. They're just so … secretive. It's like they know something. Like they have some kind of proof I did it."
"Oh," I said as we turned onto Second Street. "I'm sure they don't."
"Of course they don't," Mark said. "Because I didn't do it."
"Right," I said. Too bad I didn't have a cell phone. Because then I could make up some excuse about how I had to call Ruth, and then I could tell her I was with Mark. Mark Leskowski. That I was with Mark Leskowski in his BMW.
Why does every sixteen-year-old girl in the entire world have a cell phone but me?
"That's right," Mark said. "They don't. Because if they did, they'd have arrested me already. Right?"
I looked at him. Beautiful. So beautiful. No Rob Wilkins, of course. But a hottie, just the same.
"Right," I said.
"And they'd have told you. Wouldn't they? I mean, wouldn't they have told you? If they had something on me?"
"Of course they wouldn't have told me," I said. "Why would they have told me? What do you think I am, some kind of narc?"
"Of course not," Mark said. "It's just that you seem to be, you know, real friendly with one another...."
I let out a bark of laughter at that.
"Sorry to disappoint you, Mark," I said. "But Special Agents Johnson and Smith and I are not exactly friends. Basically, I have something they want, and that's about it."
Mark glanced at me curiously. We were stopped at an intersection, so it was okay that he was looking at me and not at the road, but I'd noticed that Mark also had a tendency to stare at me when he should have been paying attention to where we were going. This, in addition to his seeming to think that stop signs were mere suggestions, and that it wasn't in the least bit necessary to maintain a distance of at least two car lengths from the vehicle in front of him, led me to believe Mark wasn't the world's best driver.
"What," he asked me, "do you have that they want?"
I looked back at him, but my look wasn't curious. I was amazed. How could he not know? How could he not have heard? It had been all over the local papers for weeks, and most of the national papers for about the same amount of time. It had been on the news, and there'd even been some talk about making a movie out of the whole thing, except of course I wasn't too enthused about seeing my personal life transferred to the big screen.
"Hello," I said. "Lightning Girl. Remember?"
"Oh," he said. "That whole psychic thing. Yeah. Right."
But that wasn't the only thing Mark had forgotten about. I figured that out when he swung his car into the parking lot for Mastriani's. Mastriani's is one of my family's restaurants. It is the fanciest of the three, though it does indeed serve pizza. I thought it was a little weird that Mark was taking me to my own family's restaurant, but I figured, well, it is the best pizza in town, so why complain?
It wasn't until we'd walked through the door—Heather Montrose had not, unfortunately, been downtown to see me get out of Mark Leskowski's BMW—and the waitress who had been assigned to show us to our table went, "Why, Jessica. Hello," that I realized what a huge, colossal mistake I had just made.
Because of course Mark wasn't the only one forgetting things. I'd forgotten that the new waitress my dad had just hired for Mastriani's was none other than Rob's mom.
C H A P T E R
8
Yeah. That's right. Rob's mom.
Not that my dad knew she was Rob's mom, of course. I mean, he might have known she had a kid and all, but he didn't know that I was sort of seeing that kid.
Well, all right, that I was madly in love with that kid.
No, my dad had hired Mrs. Wilkins because she'd been out of work after losing her job when the local plastics factory closed down, and I'd told him about her, saying she was a real nice lady and all. I never said how I knew her, though. I never went, Hey, Dad, you should hire the mother of the guy I am madly in love with, even though he won't go out with me because he considers me jailbait and he's eighteen and on probation.
Yeah. I didn't say that.
But of course up until the moment I saw Mrs. Wilkins standing there with a couple of menus in her hand, I totally forgot she worked at Mastriani's . . . that she had been working there most of the summer while I'd been away at camp, and had been doing, from what I'd heard, a real good job.
And now she was going to get to wait on me—the girl who might, if she played her cards right, one day be her daughter-in-law—while I ate pizza with the Ernie Pyle High quarterback who, by the way, appeared to be a suspect in his girlfriend's murder.
Great. Just great. I tell you, with that, in addition to Skip's apparent crush on me, everyone thinking I was responsible for Amber turning up dead, and Karen Sue Hankey's lawsuit against me, my school year was shaping up nicely, thank you.
"Hi, Mrs. Wilkins," I said, with a smile so forced, I thought my cheeks would break. "How are you?"
"Well, I'm just fine, thanks," Mrs. Wilkins said. She was a pretty lady with a lot of red hair piled up on her head with a tortoiseshell clip. "It's great to see you. I heard you were away at music camp."
"Um, yes, ma'am," I said. "Working as a counselor. I got back a couple of days ago."
And your son still hasn't called me. Three days, three days I've been back in town, and has he so much as even driven past my house on his Indian?
No. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
"That must have been fun," Mrs. Wilkins said.
It was right then that I saw, with horror, that she was leading us to Table Seven, the "make-out" table in the darkest corner of the dining room.
No! I wanted to scream. Not the make-out table, Mrs. Wilkins! This isn't a date, I swear it! This … is … not … a … date!
"Here you go," Mrs. Wilkins said, putting the menus down on top of Table Seven. "Now you all have a seat and I'll be right with you with some ice waters. Unless you'd prefer Cokes?"
"Coke sounds good to me," Mark said.
"I'll . . . I'll just have water," I managed to choke. The make-out table! Oh, God, not the make-out table!
"Coke and a water it is, then," Mrs. Wilkins said, and then she bustled away.
Great. Just great. I knew what was going to happen now, of course. Mrs. Wilkins was going to tell Rob that she'd seen me, on a date, with Mark Leskowski. She might even tell him about the make-out table.
Then Rob was going to think I'd finally accepted his mandate that we not see each other romantically. And what was going to happen after that? I'll tell you: He was going to start thinking it'd be okay for him to go out with one of those floozies from Chick's Biker Bar, where he hangs out sometimes. How am I supposed to compete with a twenty-seven year old named Darla with tattoos and her own hog? I can't, I tell you. Not with an eleven o'clock curfew.
My life was over. So over.
"Hey," Mark said, lowering his menu. In the candlelight—yes, there was candlelight. Come on. It was the make-out table—he looked more handsome than ever. But what did it matter? What did it matter, how hands
ome Mark was? Mark wasn't the one I wanted.
"I forgot," Mark said. "You own this place, or something, don't you?"
"Something like that," I said, not even attempting to hide my misery.
"Whoa," Mark said. "I'm sorry. I mean, I don't want you to think I picked this place so I wouldn't have to pay or anything. I just really like Mastriani pizza." He put the menu down. "But we can totally go somewhere else, if you want to—"
"Oh, yeah? Where, exactly?" I asked.
"Well," he said. "There's Joe's...."
"We own Joe's, too," I said with a sigh.
"Oh." Mark winced. "That means you probably own Joe Junior's, too, then, huh?"
"Yeah," I said. I lifted my chin. Okay. It was the make-out table. But that didn't mean I had to make out with Mark Leskowski. Not that that would be such a sacrifice and all, but, under the circumstances, it would hardly be appropriate.
"Look, it's all right," I said, trying to rally my downtrodden spirits. "We can stay. You just have to tip really good, okay? Because I … know this waitress. Really well."
"No problem," Mark said, and then he started asking me what I liked on my pizza.
Look, despite all the evidence to the contrary, I'm not the world's biggest dope. I knew why Mark had asked me out, and it wasn't because since I'd started wearing miniskirts to school he'd suddenly realized what a great pair of legs I've got. It wasn't even because in the guidance office earlier that day we'd had that lovely little bonding moment, before the Feds so rudely busted in on us.
No, Mark had asked me out because he thought he could pump me for information . . . information I didn't have. Did Special Agents Johnson and Smith suspect him of murdering his girlfriend? Maybe.
Or maybe they'd just wanted to ask him some questions, so they could figure out who else might possibly have done it.
And hadn't I wanted to do the exact same thing? Pump him for information, I mean, about Amber's last moments on earth … or at least her last moments with Mark? Because however strenuously I tried to deny that Amber's death was my fault, there was still a part of me that felt like, if I'd only been around, it wouldn't have happened. I was convinced that if Heather and those guys had managed to reach me, I'd have been able to find Amber before she was killed. I knew it. I knew it the way I knew that when Kurt, the head chef at Mastriani's, found out I was sitting at Table Seven, he'd arrange the pepperonis on my pizza in the shape of a heart. Which he did, to my utter mortification.
Mark hardly even noticed. That's how strung out he was about the whole being-suspected-of-his-girlfriend's-murder thing. He just handed me a slice, and, as we ate, we talked about how it felt to be grilled by the FBI.
And the sad part was, that was about all we had in common. The both of us having been interrogated by the FBI, I mean. That, and our mutual dislike of Karen Sue Hankey. Mark's whole life, it appeared, was about football. He was being scouted, he explained, by the coaches at several Big Ten schools, and even a couple out east. He was going to take the best scholarship he could get, and play college ball until the NFL came knocking.
This seemed like a reasonable plan to me, except that even I, a football ignoramus, knew that the NFL did not come knocking on the door of every college player. What if, I asked, that plan fell through? What was his backup plan? Medical school? Law school? What?
Mark stared at me blankly over our pepperoni with extra cheese. "Backup plan?" he echoed. "There's no backup plan."
I thought maybe I hadn't expressed my meaning with sufficient clarity.
"No," I said. "Really. Like what if you don't make it to the pros? Then what?"
Mark shook his head, but more like he was flicking away something unpleasant that had landed on his head than actually disagreeing with me.
"Failure," he said, "is unacceptable."
There it was again. The whole unacceptable thing he'd mentioned back in the guidance office. These athletes, I couldn't help noting, really took their calling seriously.
"Unacceptable?" I coughed. "Yeah, okay. Failure is unacceptable, of course. But sometimes it happens. And then … well, you have to accept it."
Mark regarded me calmly from across the table.
"That's a common mistake," he said. "Many people actually believe that. But not me. That's what makes me different than everybody else, Jess. Because to me, failure is simply not an option."
Oh. Well. Okay.
It was kind of weird, I have to say, being out with Amber Mackey's boyfriend. Not just the fact that we were being waited on by the mother of the guy I really liked, either. No, it was the whole Amber-Was-Here thing. I couldn't help thinking, What had Amber seen in this guy? Yeah, he was totally buff, but he was also kind of … boring. I mean, he didn't know anything about music, or motorcycles, or anything fun like that. He'd seen most of the latest movies, but the ones I thought were good, he hadn't liked, and the one he'd liked, I'd thought were stupid beyond belief. And he didn't have time for anything else, like reading books or watching TV, because he was always at football practice.
Seriously. Not even comic books. Not even the WWF.
Not that Amber had been Ms. Intellectual herself. But she at least had had interests beyond cheerleading. I mean, she'd always been organizing bake sales for some charity or another. It seemed like every week she had a new cause, from collecting baby things for unwed mothers to holding food drives for starving people in African nations none of us had ever even heard of.
But maybe I was being too hard on Mark. I mean, at least he had a goal, right? A lot of guys don't. My brother Douglas, for instance. Well, I guess his goal is to get better. But what is he going to do when he's accomplished that?
Rob has a goal. He wants to have a motorcycle repair shop of his own. Until he's saved up enough money for it, he's going to work in his uncle's garage.
You know who doesn't have a goal? Yeah, that'd be me. No goal. I mean, beyond keeping the Federal Bureau of Investigation from finding out I'm still psychic. Oh, and getting a Harley when I turn eighteen. And one day being Mrs. Robert Wilkins.
But I have to have a career first. Before I can get married, I mean. And I don't even know what kind I want. You know, career-wise. I mean, you can't make a living finding missing kids. Well, you probably could, but I wouldn't want to. You can't take money for doing something any decent human being should do for free. I'd attended church often enough to know that, at least.
So I told myself to stop being so critical of Mark. The guy was going through a hard time.
And he did leave a really nice tip for Mrs. Wilkins, so that was all right.
As we were on our way out, she waved at us and said, "Y'all have fun now."
Y'all have fun now. My heart lurched. I did not want to have fun. Not with Mark Leskowski. The only person I wanted to have fun with was Rob Wilkins. Your son Rob, okay, Mrs. Wilkins? He's the only person I want to have fun with. So would you please do me a favor and DON'T tell him you saw me here tonight with Mark Leskowski? Please? Would you do that for me?
And for Pete's sake, whatever else you do, DON'T tell him about the make-out table. For the love of God, don't mention the make-out table.
Only of course I couldn't say that to her. I mean, how could I say that to her?
So instead all I did was wave back at her, feeling sick to my stomach, and say, "Thank you!"
Oh, God. I was so dead.
I tried not to think about it. I tried to be all bright and chipper, like Amber had always been. Seriously. No matter how early in the morning it was, or how foul the weather outside, Amber had always been cheerful in homeroom. Amber had really liked school. Amber had been one of those people who'd woken up every day and gone, Good morning, Sunshine, to herself in the mirror.
At least, she'd always seemed that way to me.
Of course, a fat lot of good it had done her, in the end.
I tried not to think about this as Mark walked me back to his car. I tried to keep my mind on happier subjects.
T
he only problem was, I couldn't think of any.
Happy things, I mean.
"I guess you probably have to be getting home," Mark said as he opened the passenger door for me.
"Yeah," I said. "I mean, I'm sort of in trouble. For the whole Karen Sue Hankey thing, I mean."
"Okay," Mark said. "But do you want to maybe stop at the Moose for a minute? For a shake or something?"
The Moose. The Chocolate Moose. That was the ice-cream stand across from the movie house on Main where all the popular kids hung out. Seriously. Ruth and I hadn't been to the Moose since we were little kids because as soon as we'd hit puberty, we'd realized only the beautiful people from school were allowed to go there. If you weren't a jock or a cheerleader and you showed up at the Moose, everybody there gave you dirty looks.
Which was actually okay, because the ice cream there wasn't as good as it was at the Thirty-one Flavors down the street. Still, the idea of going to the Moose with Mark Leskowski . . . well, it was strange and off-putting and thrilling, all at the same time.
"Sure," I said, casually as if boys asked me to go to the Moose with them every day of the week. "A shake'd be good, I guess."
There weren't many people hanging out at the Moose at first. Just Mark and me, and a couple of Wrestlerettes, who gave me the evil eye when I first walked up. But when they saw I was with Mark Leskowski, they relaxed, and even smiled. Todd Mintz was there with a couple of his friends. He grunted a hello to me and high-fived Mark.
I had a mint-chocolate-chip blizzard. Mark had something with Heath candy bar crunches sprinkled in. We sat on top of a picnic table that had a view all the way up Main Street, right up to the courthouse. The courthouse and, I couldn't help noticing, the jail. Behind the jail, the sun was setting in all these vibrant colors. It was beautiful and all—a true Indian summer sunset. But it was still, you know. The jail.
The jail where Mark might end up, admiring the sunset from behind bars.
I think he sort of realized that, too, because he turned away from the sunset and started asking me about my classes. That's desperation for you, when you start asking someone about their classes. I mean, if I hadn't realized before then that Mark and I had nothing in common, that would have been a real big clue.
Safe House Page 7