“Perhaps I can be of some assistance to you, maybe with finding out what became of your father.” Emily already knew what had become of her father, but she didn’t let the man on the other end of the phone know it.
“What happened to my dad? Where is he?” she demanded with all the passion she could muster. She hated talking about her father in this way, bandying his memory about with people who she thought could not care less about him or her. But she imagined he would approve, if it gave her a useful advantage over her adversaries.
“Maybe we ought to speak face to face. I could come down to Goshen if you like,” he proposed insinuatingly. Emily was taken aback by this suggestion. Was it just a guess? Or had he been able to track her earlier phone call from Goshen?
“No. Someplace else,” she said, in the defiant tone of a child. She wanted to see if he would name Warm Springs next. How much did he really know about her living arrangements? Would he tip his hand?
“You better tell me where you want to meet then,” he said condescendingly, pushing past her little test. She waited a moment before replying, trying to create the impression that she had not had time to work out a place to meet in advance.
“Meet me at the university, on the patio outside of Newcomb Hall tomorrow at noon. Wear red plaid pants, I’ll have an orange ball cap on.” She hung up, not waiting to give him an opportunity to argue. She removed the battery and sim card, wiped any fingerprints off the phone, wrapped it all in a napkin and smashed it under her shoe on the floor.
Out in the parking lot she looked for any sign of Burzynski’s men, vans or motorcycles. She saw nothing. As a precaution, she rode around the entire mall parking lot twice before heading home.
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Chapter 11: Out with the Guys
As Emily pulled into the driveway she noticed Danny, Billy and Wayne sitting on the front porch. They looked like they had spent the better part of the afternoon there. But as soon as they saw her, they all came tumbling off the side and ran up to greet her.
“Hey, Em! Where ya been all day?” Billy crowed.
“Em, we’ve been wondering where you were. Watcha been up to?” Wayne bellowed.
“I’ve just been running errands. What have you guys been doing? Holding down the porch the whole damn day?” she snorted.
“You hungry, Em,” Danny asked. “Whaddya say we all go get some pizza down in Covington?”
“Whoa! That’s a great idea,” Wayne bubbled, always ready for food of any kind.
“Yeah, let’s make a night of it. This is the weekend after all,” said Billy. “Whaddya say, Em?”
“Yeah, that does sound good,” Emily said. “Who’s driving?”
“I got my mom’s SUV for the evening,” Billy said.
“I’m gonna go upstairs and change. I’ll be down in a bit,” she said. After a quick shower, she changed into one of Andie’s outfits, grabbed a leather jacket and headed down to the guys. Danny’s mom was talking with the boys when she got there.
“Don’t you look nice, Emily,” she said. “Keep these boys out of trouble, okay?”
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Rincon, I’ll take care of ‘em.”
The pizza place in Covington was jammed with teenagers, all looking at the same long weekend. The music was loud, and the conversation even louder. The pizza was only so-so, Emily thought, but she felt that same peculiar synergy again, as she had at the concert. The same paradox was palpable to her: even when they craved companionship, they remained isolated from one another. She thought she understood something about human nature as she watched her friends together in the crowded restaurant. In order to be together, they also had to be apart. In order to have something of themselves to share with one another, they had to hold something back as well. The more intense the rite that brought them together, the more entirely they tried to give themselves over to the group, the more resolutely they would hold something of themselves back. She imagined the extreme case, the bacchanalian revel in which the revelers lose themselves entirely. But the self they give to the revel is impersonal, generic, while the truly personal self is preserved entire and apart.
Teenagers in a pizza joint, they spoke of the same things that were on the minds of all the other teenagers: cars, friends, school, college dreams, the urge to get away from home. Emily found she only shared an interest in some of these topics, and sat quietly listening to her friends’ aspirations. Billy’s parents wanted him to go to Charlottesville to study pre-med. He just wanted to go somewhere and not get stuck in the track his father had taken. Pre-med would be okay for awhile, but his heart wasn’t really in it.
Wayne’s mom wanted him to go anywhere. She was a real estate agent, and had no pre-formed ambition for her son. She spoiled him a bit. His father had been an insurance salesman, and was killed in a car accident a few years ago. Even though the real estate business was slow, he and his mom lived comfortably, but carefully on the proceeds of the insurance payout. Wayne just wanted to stay near home. He had no idea what sort of thing he wanted to study. He hoped something would strike his fancy once he got wherever he was going.
Danny was just adrift. He would go to some school. He hoped he would get an athletic scholarship. Otherwise his parents probably wouldn’t be able to afford the tuition. He didn’t have time to lift his imagination beyond the practicalities of paying for college to imagine what he wanted to study. Emily wasn’t sure he wanted to study anything. Maybe he just wanted to follow his friends wherever they went under the pretense of being a student. She hoped that wasn’t true, but he seemed directionless whenever he talked about college. Danny’s mind seemed mainly pre-occupied with the wish that his parents would get back together again. If only his father would get his act together.
“What’re you gonna do after graduation, Em?” Wayne asked. She thought about it for a moment and realized she hadn’t turned her mind to this question at all in the last couple of weeks. All her thoughts were focused on survival, about her dad, and her mom, and only then about graduation. She was so focused on not allowing her parents’ enemies to ruin her life that she had hardly even been able to imagine what she wanted that life to look like. They all looked at her intently, waiting for a sign.
“I dunno. I’ll probably travel around a bit over the summer, before school starts in the fall,” she said cautiously.
“What schools you thinking about?” Billy asked. Emily could have rattled off the usual list of schools, but she realized she had not been able to talk to her mom about any of this stuff. She knew her mom wanted her to go to college, study a science, be like her. Isn’t that what all parents want? But she only knew vague generalities about what her mother wanted for her. Would she have to formulate her aspirations without any input from her?
“I dunno, really. I’m going up to Charlottesville to check out the university tomorrow. Maybe I’ll end up there.” she said blithely. She was surprised by the excitement this report produced in her friends.
“Hey, I’d like to go too, Em. Whaddya think, let’s make a day of it,” Billy burst out.
“Me, too,” chirped Wayne and Danny almost simultaneously. “It’ll be like a mini road trip,” Danny added. They all laughed. But Emily was worried about letting them tag along. She couldn’t let them anywhere near her meeting with Burzynski. She figured it would be easy enough to lose them if she insisted on checking out the library. They would have no patience for that sort of thing. She’d also have to find a way to steer them to one of the other food courts on campus. No, it was a crazy idea, letting her friends come along. It was just too dangerous. She was prepared to risk her own life, but not theirs, especially if they had no idea of the danger.
“Guys, I’ve got an errand in Harrisonburg in the morning. Maybe I should just go alone. We can go together another time,” she offered. They were crestfallen.
“There isn’t gonna be another weekday off before Thanksgiving,” Wayne said. “I don’t mind going with you to Harrisonburg. We can meet up with you guys in the afte
rnoon.”
“We can all go to Harrisonburg,” Billy objected. “What’re you doing there anyway, Em?”
“I’m getting the truck repainted. It’s supposed to be ready tomorrow morning,” Emily replied evasively. “Plus there’s other stuff I gotta do.” She was beginning to see there was no way to extricate herself from the boys’ plan. She decided to make the best of it. “Look, I have to leave before eight to get everything done, and I’ve got an appointment at the admissions office at the university at 11:30. Why don’t I meet up with you guys at like one thirty by the library?” She knew they wouldn’t like the sound of getting up that early. And she was right. Once that ugly detail emerged, they were all compliance.
As they were leaving the restaurant, they happened upon a tussle in the parking lot. It didn’t seem to have anything to do with them. Just some tough kids from Covington High acting out. Emily scanned the parking lot to see if anything looked out of place. Had they been marked by Meacham’s operatives? Or Burzynski’s? Was this just a setup? She didn’t see any suspicious vans, or cars or motorcycles, no older guys in dark suits. All she saw was teenagers. She breathed a sigh of relief. While she had been scanning the surroundings, Wayne waded into the middle of the brawl. He was the biggest guy there. He got shoved a bit, he shoved back. One guy tried to hit him. Wayne blocked and punched straight to the chest. His assailant staggered back and crumpled next to a car. There was stunned silence for a moment, then suddenly everyone turned on Wayne regardless of which side they had been on before. He was outnumbered, at least seven to one. Danny and Billy rushed in to help him. Together the three of them were pretty formidable. Wayne was huge, and pretty much immovable. The other two were trained athletes, strong and quick. And they’d all had some karate training. They knew how to hit, how to block, and even how to take a hit.
There was one other thing they had in common: Emily was there. They each wanted to be brave in front of her, to show her what they could do. It also didn’t hurt that they knew she could bail them out if they got into real trouble. Emily understood. She stood to the side and watched. She owed them that. A few other girls stood nearby watching the scene as well. They glowered at her occasionally. Emily supposed they were wondering if they should try to hassle her. She was struck by how different their feelings must be from hers as they watched the brawl. Emily admired her friends for their courage. They entered the fight to keep people from getting hurt. She imagined these other girls had provoked the original fight in the first place, and now watched with satisfaction at how well they had been able to manipulate the boys. The very fact that all of them had so quickly turned on Wayne showed they felt no deep commitment to fighting with each other.
“What you looking at, bitch!” one of the girls snarled, clearly trying to provoke something. Emily ignored her, and continued to size up her friends. The girl stepped toward her, trying to look tough.
“I said, what...,” she started up again, by this time right next to her. Emily looked her in the eye darkly and cut her off in mid sentence.
“Don’t you have anything better to do, honey?” she said contemptuously.
The girl reached up to grab Emily’s hair. There was no way this girl in her pretty clothes was going to be able to stand up to her, she thought. She was the ringleader, the tough chick, out with her friends. Emily caught her hand, twisted it down then up. She writhed in pain and sunk down to her knees on the pavement, trying not to cry. She tried to yell “Let me go!” as loud as she could, but hardly any sound could escape her mouth because of the pain. The other girls started to rush over. Emily glared at them sternly and shook her head. They understood perfectly and retreated. Emily looked down at the girl, helpless beneath her and hissed: “This will get a lot worse for you if you stay.” The girl’s eyes were wide with terror. Emily released her and she tried to edge away without completely standing up. Emily took a step towards her and said “Run!” The girl jumped out of her way and ran back to the restaurant, visibly shaken. Her friends followed her.
The boys were preoccupied with their fight and hardly noticed what transpired among the girls. Emily was at last the only spectator left. She mused on the difference in how boys and girls fight. Boys fight for dominance, she thought. This means that at some level they understand that they must preserve their defeated enemy. Otherwise dominance will not have been achieved. But girls fight to injure or eradicate. They have no use for a defeated enemy. Girls are much more malevolent than boys, she concluded.
The boy Wayne originally punched in the chest finally regained his breath and picked himself up from the pavement. He had a look of focused anger in his eyes. Emily noticed as he took a knife out of his pocket and worked his way around to Wayne’s blind side. Before he had a chance to react, Emily intercepted him with a quick, short kick to the back of his right knee. He crumpled to the ground. As he went down Emily grabbed his right wrist and twisted it out and away from his body. She wrested the knife from his hand and tossed it into a nearby dumpster, then released him with a sneer. He stood up in anger and made a move to grab her. Just then, Danny stepped between them and spat out “Why don’t you try me, tough guy!” The other boys saw that the girls were gone and ran back to the restaurant. The boy who had the knife spat on the ground and slunk away towards his friends. “I thought so!” Danny snorted triumphantly. They all looked at each other. Emily and her friends were alone in the parking lot. They laughed out loud for a moment, and then all piled into Billy’s SUV.
On the ride home, the boys regaled each other with accounts of their exploits. “Did you see how I blocked that guy?” Or “Did you see how I took care of that really mean looking dude?” “That was amazing how you dodged that guy’s kick!” “Yeah, he almost fell over from missing me!” “I couldn’t believe it when you blocked both those guys into each other!” But there was no vaunting over injuries or pain inflicted on their assailants. They didn’t understand fighting in those terms, even though the kids they were up against clearly did. As they saw it, there was no glory in hurting an adversary, only in defeating him. Emily reflected on the character of her friends. She had only come to know them by chance, but they were all such fine young men. When circumstances pressed upon them, they looked inside to see what to do, and what they discovered inside themselves was essentially good. This was the character of someone who does the right thing just because it is right. It was marvelous to her that they had found each other. Was it just chance? Or had it been some sort of destiny? Or perhaps just the unseen operation of their natural sympathies. They might as well have gravitated toward each other naturally, not randomly or magically. Whatever had brought them together, Emily rejoiced in it.
Billy dropped off Emily and Danny around eleven, and then took Wayne home. As she approached the stairs to her apartment she became suddenly much more circumspect. She looked for any sign intruders had been there, but she saw none. She went into the apartment and changed into a dark sweatshirt and sweatpants. With her sleeping under her arm she found a dark spot in the backyard behind a couple of overgrown rhododendrons. From there she could see her staircase and the top of the driveway between the leaves, though she was pretty much invisible. It was just a precaution for one night, in case Meacham or Burzynski knew where she was. She woke up at dawn, went upstairs, showered and prepared to face the day.
As she was coming down the stairs, Mrs. Rincon called from the backdoor to invite her in for breakfast. They sat in the kitchen and shared coffee and toast. Danny had told his mom all about the plan to go to Charlottesville before going to bed.
“Emily, thank you so much for encouraging him to go,” she said. “He needs to start making plans soon.”
“Oh, it’s nothing, Mrs. Rincon. We’re all going, Billy and Wayne, too.” Emily was bemused. After all, she had tried her best to discourage any of them from going with her. And here was Danny’s mom thanking her anyway.
“I don’t believe that for a second. If it weren’t for you, none of them would be g
oing,” Mrs. Rincon insisted. “You’ve been a very good influence on them all. I know Danny would kill me for telling you, but he’s been much more focused on his schoolwork since you moved in.”
Mrs. Rincon was beaming at her, but Emily found it just a little oppressive. She knew the guys depended on her in lots of ways they perhaps were not aware of, and she probably depended on them too. But she didn’t want to be responsible for them beyond that. She was really torn between wanting simply to release herself into the joys of normal social life, and the need to hold herself aloof from her friends in order to confront the danger no one else saw gathering around her.
“You’re being too kind. I’m sure he has his own reasons.”
“Well, maybe. But I’m sure you figure in those reasons somehow. Can I get you anything else?”
“No, thanks,” said Emily. “I’ve got to get on the road if I’m gonna meet those guys later. Thanks for breakfast!” she cheered as she headed out the kitchen door. In the driveway she hoisted her backpack on and got on the bike. She brought a change of clothes and a few accessories. She also had the paperwork for the truck in her pocket as well as a couple of thousand bucks. She was considering selling the truck to one of the mechanics at the shop in Harrisonburg, in case it became necessary.
She kicked over the engine and sped out of the driveway and down the street.
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Chapter 12: Students Everywhere
The got to the auto detailer’s shop was already a beehive of activity at a quarter to nine. She walked around back to the bays and saw Hector, the mechanic she had left her truck with.
“Is it ready?” she asked. “The green F-150.”
“Oh, yes, it’s definitely ready,” Hector replied. “Come on, I’ll show you.”
He led the way back to the yard where seven or eight vehicles were lined up with shiny new paint. And there was her truck, in forest green. She had chosen that shade because it was completely different from the original white, but also in part because it would be easier to hide in the woods if it ever became necessary. Hector motioned to her to look at something in the cab of the truck.
Girl Fights Back (Go No Sen) (Emily Kane Adventures) Page 10