by A. J. Lape
“Valentine,” he laughed. “I actually might be in love here, and if it’s not love, it’s the most intense infatuation I’ve ever experienced. Go out with me, Darcy, or are you already going out with Taylor?”
Honestly, if Dylan and I ever went out there were possible Apocalyptic implications. To answer the question, though, Murphy had never really nailed down a day when I was allowed to date. Was it the day I turned sixteen? Six weeks after? It frankly was a nonissue since no one was beating down my door. Maybe I was boring, or maybe the small amount of hormones I’d discovered were reserved for certain people—ahem, Liam Woods—or maybe I was asexual or a late bloomer. Either way, I’d eventually venture into the dating scene, but then again, maybe not.
Still...
Somehow, I coaxed my tongue into answering. “I’ve never gone out.” (Hint, hint.) “I’m not allowed.”
He furrowed his brows. “Would you if you were allowed?”
Cough. Stare. Sniff. Wriggle uncomfortably. Stare some more. Try to be subtle. Give up and stare with my mouth wide open. In that moment, I thought of everything unholy. It’s a shame the message my mind sent me—that he was a dangerous, intimidating specimen of a male who threatened my virginity and sense of decency—never made it to my lips. Liam was so good looking I literally watched my hand reach up and touch his flawlessly sculpted chest, leisurely exploring its muscled planes then moving onto the strong curve of his jaw. In what only took one heartbeat, he snagged my hand in his and pulled it to his lips.
I had a fertile imagination, but this was beyond ridiculous. Had I just touched him? Liam seemed to have read my mind. He grinned, “Yes, you did, if I need to clear that up for you.”
I shivered with the knowledge.
I was an idiot, and now he knew it.
Vinnie laughed, and his belly jumped up and down. He pulled me even closer like we were really close, or worse yet, an item no one was talking about yet.
“Ah, Liam, you’re a fool. Dolce’s not interested in you.”
“I think my hand just said otherwise,” I mumbled to myself.
Liam gave him one of those we’ll-see looks he was so famous for. You see, Liam was a fastard at the end of the day, and I hadn’t run across one girl that had successfully unfastardized him.
Liam flirted, “We’ll have lunch together. Sit with me?” Uh, come again? “Please?”
I honest to God whispered, “I’m not worthy.”
Vinnie laughed…the punk.
Thankfully, Liam didn’t hear me. He was throwing off a scent that smelled like first-time kiss, and surprisingly, I was a little more than willing. We stood there looking at one another until an unscheduled gasp fell from my lips.
No, it wasn’t mine...it was Vinnie’s. Vinnie sucked in some air and started tapping his white sneaker on the tile. My guess was, it was going to be up Liam’s rear if things didn’t change.
You’d think I’d give Liam my undivided attention. In my opinion, he was the equivalent of Hailey’s Comet—rare and gone in a moment—but Jinx King walked by and my attention span was suddenly wrecked. He was talking to that guy he was speaking to when I saw him at the dumpster. Both had hostile looks on their faces, like they were doing society a favor by even being here. And both were wearing red bandanas hanging out of the left pocket of their beat-up jeans. New trend? No trend at all? Insert another guy. Brown hair, average looks, sort of sheepish looking and tiny. In fact, he had the physique of a toothpick.
I pitched my head in their direction. “Who’s that guy with Jinx King?” I said to whoever would answer.
“The type that would leave a horse’s head in your bed,” Vinnie snorted, referring to mob games. “Justin Starsong.”
“The guy following like a puppy dog is Adam Neeley,” Liam added with a frown.
I glanced up at Liam as he said something else, but all I could see were lips moving. I knew Adam Neeley from somewhere. It escaped me at the moment, but I’d eventually ah-hah with it anyway. While Liam said something like “I’ll see you at lunch,” I realized I was late for a date myself.
I peeled Vinnie’s arm from my shoulder and double-timed it to the office. Number one on the Mind-Scrub Squad, AP Unger, was on his way out as I was going in. I waved like we were long, lost friends; he lowered his eyes with a boom, looking at me like I had some deep-seated issues. It wasn’t like that was an all-points bulletin, people. It pretty much was common knowledge.
“Love you, too!” I yelled.
AP Unger mumbled to himself as he punched his arms into the sleeves of a navy blazer that had tan patches on its elbows. As I made it past the office receptionist, I realized Vinnie was once again right on my heels.
Dressed in a gray sheath dress, her hair pulled back in a smooth ponytail, Ms. Dempsey was seated at her desk, balancing her checkbook among a pile of unopened mail. She peeked up with a smile, motioning for me to sit in one of the black fabric chairs in front of her. Vinnie’s breathing grew heavier, and I knew it wasn’t from walking too fast. Vinnie was certifiably crushing on a woman ten years older than him...and he legitimately thought he had a chance.
“Good morning, Laken,” he murmured deeper than normal.
She looked up with one eye and politely corrected, “Ms. Dempsey.”
Vinnie ran his big hand through his hair then looked at her with sincerity. “You’re absolutely right, but if you ever want me to call you Laken, you know where to find me.”
My foot rose up and stomped his sneaker all on its own. I didn’t even have to tell it to. Thing was, I knocked her desk and the jelly doughnut balancing on its edge slow-mo’d in the air. I jumped up to catch it, and while one would think that’d be an easy enough task, unfortunately my body and brain didn’t always work in tandem. My toe nipped Vinnie’s shoe and I swan-dived across him, landing hard on my knees and hard enough on my chin to produce a rug burn...ugh.
If that wasn’t bad enough, when I finally got back up, I clipped Ms. Dempsey’s hand causing her to drop the doughnut she’d caught herself. It did a double back flip and landed with a splat. Vinnie snatched it up with a “whoopsies” quicker than a snapping turtle snagged a frog, loading it into his mouth like a shovel digging dirt. “Waste not, want not, I always say," he smacked.
I giggled, throwing a hand over my loudmouthed laugh. Ms. Dempsey’s face never changed. She closed her checkbook, pushing away from her desk. “Vinnie, why are you here?”
No one helped me up. As I dusted myself off and slid back into a seat, I turned with a sarcastic smile, actually wanting to hear his reasoning. I crossed my legs, not even once considering throwing him a lifeline. Vinnie plopped his hefty body into the seat next to me all serious. Crossing his hairy legs, he patted me on the knee. “Dolce’s the shy type, and she’s terrified of those in authority. I’m here to offer moral support.”
I choked on my own spit, wondering if I was in danger of being dropped dead by Heaven. Such hypocrisy. That’s the problem, I wasn’t afraid.
Ms. Dempsey closed her eyes, sighing like she didn’t have time to deal with Vinnie today. When she batted them open, she said to me, “I heard about your little field trip yesterday.”
Before I could talk myself out of it, I spat out, “Well, Vinnie shouldn’t get all self-righteous because he was field-tripping it with me.”
In retrospect, I probably should’ve sat there and not admitted to anything. Now, I just threw the fat boy under the bus with me.
Vinnie licked his fingertips and touched my hand softly. “See what I’m talking about, Laken? Dolce gets nervous when authority figures place demands on her.”
I could tell she debated reprimanding him again for the Laken comment, but she let it go. “Staying in school is placing a demand on her?” she asked him while she looked at me.
“Sometimes,” I mumbled.
Jeez, I just wanted this thing over. While Ms. Dempsey mentally flipped through the pages of her counseling book, the door to her office blasted wide with Oscar Small walking
inside—no, it was more like running.
Oscar acted as if something was about to explode. His hand was gripping his chest, and his eyes were golf-balled to twice their normal size—like the pressure inside his brain wasn’t balancing with the air around him. Oscar, I’d lay money, didn’t even see Vinnie and me. He just kept gripping his plaid shirt like it was the end of a rope that was fraying.
Ms. Dempsey’s blue eyes widened with fright. She quickly stood up, steadying herself on her desk as she hurriedly told Vinnie and me she’d get with us later.
It was absolutely none of my business, but I whispered, “Oscar, are you okay?” His head turned toward my voice, but I might as well have been a vapor in the wind.
Growing more frantic, Ms. Dempsey again excused us, but when we stepped out into the hallway, Vinnie and I neither one were interested in leaving. Without saying a word, we both remembered Valley Police were looking for Oscar and Frank yesterday. Could this have something to do with that?
When she closed her door, we snuck into the empty office next to hers and stuck our ears up to the wall, listening. The walls were as thin as ladies lingerie. Ms. Dempsey, who bordered being the nicest person in the world, spat out harshly, “Oscar, you have to tell me what’s going on! I can’t help if you don’t open up!”
Sometimes a whisper spoke louder than a platoon of loudmouths. Oscar was speaking so low I knew it was out-of-this-world bad.
After a few more minutes of unsuccessful eaves dropping, Ms. Dempsey finally screamed, “What?!” It was like she’d heard something that scared her to death or at least made her want to quit her job.
A little louder this time, Oscar took a trip down memory lane telling her exactly what he did on Monday. He said he went out to his car between classes and saw a group of guys around the Amity Health Care dumpster. They acted guilty of something, which incited the curiosity in him. At first, he thought there must be something worthwhile “picking” that he and Frank might’ve missed...but they ran scared when he walked over. That’s when he saw Alfonso Juarez in the same condition as I found him.
Ms. Dempsey went stone cold. She wasn’t saying a single word, or maybe she was praying. We heard him stutter, “Y-yyou believe me, right?”
Oscar’s voice said he was scared out of his ever-lovin’ mind.
Once again, we got nothing but dead air. With Oscar, there was always more than meets the eye. I wasn’t sure he had a good home life, and he and Frank struck me as doomed to be eternally overlooked. No way in the world was he going to be overlooked now, though. Whether Ms. Dempsey believed him or not...I did.
Right then, Oscar said the words my gut was waiting for. “M-Ms. Dempsey,” he stammered, “I didn’t know the other three, but one of them was Jinx…”
I was right, I whispered in my mind. For God’s sake, I was right. I relaxed my head back on my shoulders, drawing in a deep breath of victory as I closed my eyes. But then Vinnie grabbed me by the arm, twisting it with an abnormal amount of force. “Dolce, somebody’s coming. I feel it in my gut.”
You know what? I did, too. A window was to our rear, and when I looked outside I saw two black Valley Police Department cars, and my heart fell all the way to my feet. Oh, God, help Oscar, was all I could think. I said it over and over until I heard a deep voice asking for Oscar Small.
Vinnie cracked the door open, and we saw two of the uniforms from yesterday, one male and one female, knock on Ms. Dempsey’s door as Principal Grim Ward—the man we knew ran the place but never saw—escorted them down the hallway toward us. Vinnie held his index finger up to his mouth shooshing me—he didn’t need to tell me twice.
Right then, Principal Ward—dressed in a black suit and tie—knocked on Ms. Dempsey’s door with loud authority. He was a large man, head and shoulders above most, and his brown eyes were hard, like he wasn’t going to enjoy what he was about to do, but he’d successfully pushed any residual emotion down. “Ms. Dempsey,” he said formally, “do you have Oscar Small?”
There was a brief lull, but she finally answered, “Yes, sir, I do.”
That’s all it took for Valley’s finest to blast open the door. It was just like a television show—the male twisted the door open, while the female had her hand on her revolver ready to use whatever force necessary. “Oscar Small,” the first one said, “you’re under arrest for the murder of Alfonso Juarez.”
I was dumbstruck.
The radio said Juarez was AVO. What kind of hypothetical beef would Oscar Small have with someone from AVO? All I knew was since he and Frank were absent yesterday, it didn’t look good in their defense.
Oscar immediately cried, “No! No! It wasn’t me!”
Ms. Dempsey immediately dissolved into tears, telling Oscar everything would be alright, and for God’s sake to keep his mouth shut. “What are your grounds for arrest?” she desperately asked.
Uniform number one (the male) said, “We have witnesses that place Oscar at the scene of the crime, and there’s evidence of his bloody fingerprints all over the body and dumpster. You were absent from school yesterday, son. Is there anything you want to tell us?”
“Say nothing!” Ms. Dempsey begged.
Except Oscar repeated absolutely everything like a mocking bird. What he didn’t know, though, was that in defending himself he placed himself at the scene. The scene of a crime that he fled. The seasoned police officer was a pro at pulling things like this off, getting people to give up the goods before a lawyer stepped onto the scene. That way it was placed in an incident report and subsequently handed over to the Prosecutor’s Office.
Oscar’s eyes were like a wild animal as his hands were cuffed behind his back. “I didn’t do it. I swear! I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. All I wanted to do was see if there was something in there worth picking!”
“Save it for the judge, kid,” the female uniform said that cuffed him. “Three individuals said they saw you with a weapon.”
I released a breath I didn’t even know I was holding. Vinnie had a death grip on my hand, but I somehow wriggled away. Oscar hadn’t been sufficiently mirandized, and his blabber mouth was part of the problem. Right then, I heard the beginnings of his Miranda Rights.
But Oscar’s mouth kept running…
“Just shut up!” I yelled to Oscar, shoving the door wide. Everyone gave me their where’d-you-come-from face, but I didn’t care. I looked Oscar in the eyes and saw the panic, the paralyzing fear that his particular lifestyle was going to hang him, even though I knew in my gut he was innocent. Could Oscar weather the storm of scrutiny? Everything the policeman said about eyewitnesses punched holes in his argument about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He’d just admitted publicly he saw the body and ran. Even if he was in the wrong place at the wrong time—which I believed—he didn’t do the decent thing like contact the authorities.
My mind did the mental rewind where I ran into him before English class—when Ivy made fun of our hypothetical relationship. He was nervous and sketchy. Oscar was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a murderer; and you know what? I don’t think he’d even know how to shoot someone if the instructions were tattooed to his hand. Plus, I think if he did it, he wouldn’t be able to shut up about it. An example? Oscar ate dirt as a kid and got a case of worms. He wasn’t embarrassed. He told the class all about it and brought a dead one to school in a glass jar. Hands down, he won Show-and-Tell that week. This trumped Show-and-Tell, and he was acting as if he wanted to put a noose to his neck.
But who could’ve seen Oscar? Oscar was there before me, but so was Jinx King. Could it have been Jinx King? No...Jinx left class “after” I saw Oscar, but was he going back for a second trip? Whoever he was talking to on his cell phone was just as mixed up in this as he was; in fact, it sounded as if they were giving him instructions. In my heart, I knew Jinx was up to something. Trouble was, I had no concrete proof of what the something was.
I couldn’t help it, but the tears fell as Oscar’s shoulders dropped in d
efeat. I buried my head in my hands not even trying to mask the overwhelming display of grief racking my body. Was he going to get a good public defender? Many were brilliant with spotless conviction records; still a few were half-wits who couldn’t hack it in the larger firms.
As Oscar practically tripped out the door, a group of people large enough to crack the fire code had gathered outside the office, looking inside the glass walls that in times like these were a mistake. Some had their hands over their mouths, others were crying. My eyes fell into the middle of the crowd to a wide-eyed Eddie Lopez and hard-as-nails Jinx King. While Eddie pulled her hoodie down over her face and turned away, Jinx’s face was hard, in a disturbing display of a lack of compassion. The scar running down his cheek made my mind work overtime wondering how he’d gotten it. I looked him square in the eyes and mouthed, “I’m coming after you.”
Jinx narrowed his brown eyes, shifting his weight from foot to foot, reminding me of a boxer in the corner anxious for the bell to ring. A few heartbeats went by where we told one another our intentions. Mine to take him down; him to give me a dirt nap. If we weren’t enemies before, I guess we were now.
I slid down the wall, my hands shaking so bad I sat on them.
Hamlet: Why then 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison.
Hamlet Act II, scene 2
10 HUMBLE PIE
JUST WHEN YOU think you can’t eat another piece of humble pie, the universe will serve you up another slice. I got a C on my test, a pimple on my chin, and now was listening to Ivy berate, degrade, and stomp all over what pride I had left.
“I’m sorry, Darcy, does Oscar’s arrest break up any long-term plans of yours I hear prison relationships are hard to maintain but that’s what happens when you date guys that are questionable you should know that didn’t your dad tell you?”
“Run on sentence,” I mumbled; unfortunately, she never heard me.
“I just care,” she continued, “and want the best for someone who’s not had the privileges that I was born with that’s what good people do and I’m striving to be a better person.”