Trouble Makes a Comeback

by Stephanie Tromly

  “Sure, why not?” she said.

  “It’s just getting crazier, Sloane.”

  “What’s crazy about my knowing who I belong with?” Sloane said. “Why should I be surprised you don’t understand that? You’re dating Austin and bickering like wifey with Digby.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” I said.

  “It means you’re kidding yourself if you don’t think this thing with Digby is a problem,” she said.

  I had a brief flash of panic. She decoded my grimace.

  “Oh, don’t worry. I’m not going to tell anyone about ‘the kiss.’” She put the words in wiggly air quotes.

  “Thanks.” I took off Sloane’s boots and laid them by her feet. I heard my mother’s phone get a message in the other room.

  “No, I was serious. Take them,” Sloane said.

  “I was serious too. I can’t take your boots. They’re way too much. It’d be taking advantage,” I said.

  “I’m telling you, I don’t want them,” she said.

  In the next room, Mom’s phone got another message.

  “I’m saying it’d make me feel weird accepting such an expensive gift from you. Like I was just letting you buy my friendship—”

  “Excuse me? ‘Letting me buy your friendship’? Are you insinuating I buy my friends?” she said.

  “What? When did I say that?”

  “You don’t have to say it to say it—”

  “Actually, I think I do if you’re accusing me—”

  “Besides, why would I need to buy you? I have plenty of friends,” Sloane said.

  My brain formed a catty response that went something like, “Then why the heck wasn’t one of your friends driving you around town spying on your boyfriend?” But before I could deliver my put-down, I heard my mother’s phone get a message. And then another one came. I thought that was weird because with me and Cooper both home, there wasn’t really anyone else who’d be messaging mom with this back-to-back urgency unless it was a legit emergency.

  “Excuse me,” I said.

  More messages came and I followed the pings to the phone in the pocket of the sweater she’d worn that day.

  I hesitated for the obligatory three beats before turning on the phone and fully invading Mom’s privacy. I hit the home button and saw the screen was filled with messages from my father. They were all variations of “Are you OK?” and “Hey, where are you?”

  “What. The. Hell,” I said. I punched in Mom’s password, but to my surprise, she’d changed it. She’d been using the same four-digit number for everything from her ATM to her gym locker padlock since forever, so her having changed it now was weird.

  And then, a new message came in.

  It said: “Bora Bora?” The next one said, “Let’s do a reunion trip.”

  I didn’t have to call back the number it had been sent from. I rewound and relived the most recent fights between Mom and Cooper and discovered my father’s flame bait style of argument embedded in every single one.

  Before I could scroll further back into the texts, though, Mom popped into her closet and found me. “Zoe? What are you doing?”

  “What are you doing, Mom?”

  “Imagine the fit you’d throw if I did this to you,” Mom said. “I cannot believe you went through my phone.”

  “I cannot believe you’d make me go through this crap with you and Dad again.”

  “Through what? It’s nothing,” she said. “We’re trying to be friends,” she said.

  “Dad doesn’t have friends,” I said. “And Bora Bora? Does Mike know about your friendship?”

  “Don’t take that tone with me,” Mom said. “Not when you’re doing the same thing to Austin, only it’s worse because Mike’s an adult and Austin is just some poor dumb boy who doesn’t have a chance because what you’re really attracted to are brilliant sociopaths—”

  “Like the brilliant sociopath you’re texting with?”

  “Twenty years don’t go away just because you get divorced.”

  “Wake up and smell the crap, Mom.” Even I was surprised by the finality of the sound of shattering glass when I smashed her phone against the wall. I handed her the completely ruined phone. “Trust me. I just did you a favor.”

  When I went back to my room, Sloane was putting on her coat.

  “You’re going?” I said.

  “My driver’s coming. I’ll wait downstairs,” she said.

  “You can keep my boots, Sloane,” I said.

  “No, thanks. Fifty dollars, right? I’m sure I can get my own pair of crap boots,” she said.

  I followed her into the hall. “Hey, Sloane.”

  Unlike in the movies, she didn’t stop walking when I called her back. And then, just to ratchet up the level of drama, my phone rang. “Austin . . . can I call you back?”

  My mother walked out of her room, nodded at my phone, and said, “Need me to return that favor?”

  • • •

  Mom followed me into the kitchen. She watched me make a sandwich. Finally, she said, “It isn’t what you think.”

  “Of course it is,” I said. “And please don’t try to tell me how complicated it is, because—barf.”

  “Well, Zoe, it isn’t as simple as choosing between awesome high school boy number one and awesome high school boy two,” Mom said. “Your father and I share a history.”

  “You realize he’s only into you again because now it’d be cheating, right? Cheating on Shereene. With you,” I said. “And you’d be cheating too. How does it feel?”

  “Why don’t you tell me? How does it feel, Zoe?”

  “God, Mom. How’s that the same thing?”

  “What’s not the same about it?” she said. “What special ethical pass do you carry while you gallivant around town with Digby?”

  “He’s dating someone else.” I hated saying it. “Digby’s dating someone else. He doesn’t like me that way.”

  To her credit, Mom snapped out of it. “Oh, Zoe, I’m sorry—”

  Mom and I jumped when Cooper walked into the kitchen and said, “Sorry for what?”

  Nothing looks guiltier than two people saying “Nothing” and running in opposite directions. Which is what we did.

  SIXTEEN

  I woke up and started messaging everyone to get my bearings. Henry had been sent home after the ER patched him up. He said he was all right but he couldn’t resist sending a selfie of the horrifying bruises on his face. Henry also told me that Digby was still under observation in the hospital because even accidental mishaps with psych meds got a lot of follow-up care. Meanwhile, Austin’s responses were short and his phone did that annoying thing of autocorrecting my name to Zero again. Charlotte answered my messages entirely in single emojis. Allie then confirmed Charlotte was still annoyed that I’d blown them off to hang out with Sloane the night before. Thankfully, Allie seemed to be okay with me; she even reassured me that they actually had fun at dinner.

  At this point, it occurred to me that I could just stay home from school. I mean, it was Wednesday, the SATs were just three days away, and I wondered if my time might be better spent studying at home. Plus, then I wouldn’t have to deal with all the drama. And then I recognized the kind of seductive giving in to laziness that had gotten me in truancy trouble my sophomore year at my old school. I propelled myself out of bed and got ready for school.

  • • •

  I was in the kitchen wrapping up a sandwich when I looked out the window and saw some jerk had tipped over our recycling bins. Pieces of paper were blowing all over the place. Our neighbor Helen Breslauer was staring right at me from her kitchen window when I looked up. When she saw me seeing her, she pointed at me and mouthed, Yours.

  I mouthed back, I know, Mrs. Breslauer, I know.

  It took forever, but I finally got it all back i
nto the bins. Through the window, I caught a glimpse of Digby skulking around inside cradling a thick stack of old file folders with the blue River Heights Police Department logo on their covers. Clearly, he’d caused the huge mess I was now cleaning up when he’d stolen them out of our recycling. I then saw him unwrap and start to eat the sandwich I’d just made and take a big pull straight from our milk jug.

  None of this would’ve been particularly weird if he hadn’t messaged me just minutes before to say he was still in the hospital, waiting for the attending psychiatrist to sign off on his mandatory psych evaluation.

  I messaged him, “Hey, what r u doing?”

  I watched him type his response as he headed to the back door, still carrying the milk: “Waiting hosp cafeteria. [Pizza emoji.]”

  I messaged back, “Liar.”

  I was typing my follow-up elaboration on how busted he was when he messaged back, “Gotta go doc’s here.” Then I watched him turn off his phone, go out the back gate, and down the back alley.

  It was equal parts confusing and annoying that he was lying to me. School was starting in twenty minutes. It was time to make a decision. “Dammit.”

  I snuck out into the alley and hung back far enough so Digby wouldn’t spot me behind him. There was one close call when I had to duck behind a trash can but otherwise, I got all the way to the mini-mall bus stop without his catching me. I was hiding in a storefront doorway still formulating a plan when the bus rolled up.

  “Now what?” I watched Digby get on and sit near the front. I barely knew what my feet were doing, but I ran to the bus and jumped in through the back doors right as they closed. I sat waiting for the driver to yell at me to pay my fare and it wasn’t until the bus had traveled a few blocks that I let myself breathe again. I pulled up my hood and ducked down low.

  Stop after stop went by and Digby never once turned around. After a while, I relaxed and noted we were headed south toward the newly constructed business parks. I was relieved he wasn’t on his way to Bill’s place. I hadn’t considered the possibility until the bus was already under way.

  I didn’t realize I’d been daydreaming when suddenly, I looked up and saw Digby wasn’t in his seat anymore. I went up the aisle, checking people’s faces, and when I confirmed that Digby was, in fact, gone, I rang the bell, got off the bus, and ran back to the previous stop. We were in an area called Smart Park, which was some River Heights developer’s attempt at making the industrial park sound more modern and tech-y than it probably was. I searched the streets near the bus stop but I didn’t see him. All around me were groomed lawns, stylishly anonymous glass-and-concrete boxes, and electric vehicle charging stations. But no Digby.

  I approached a man in a suit smoking a cigarette in one of the doorways. “Excuse me, have you seen a guy . . . tall, skinny, my age . . . wearing a suit?”

  He laughed. “Yeah, sure. Like, seven hundred times today.”

  And sure enough, the place was full of young working types in suits.

  I wandered off and walked about a minute when it dawned on me where Digby was headed. I scrolled back to the e-mail from Barbara and mapped the address of the lawyer’s office. It was around the corner from where I was standing. I headed off and was a block away when I heard Digby call out, “Hey, Princeton.”

  Digby emerged from between two buildings still holding the stack of Cooper’s folders he’d fished out of the recycling.

  “Pro tip, Princeton: When you’re tailing someone, don’t stare off into space and daydream,” Digby said. “What are you doing here? Are you worried about me?”

  “You have an OD drama and then I catch you sneaking around my house while you’re lying about where you are . . . it’s all very erratic. Of course I’m worried,” I said. “And why are you so chipper?”

  “Nothing like spending the night under involuntary psych hold to make you count your blessings,” he said.

  “What actually happened?” I said.

  “I accidentally took too much Lexapro, which caused something called serotonin syndrome . . .” he said. “They gave me cyproheptadine. No biggie.” He did a weird rolling thing with his eyes.

  “What was that?” I said.

  “There’s maybe still a little double vision,” he said. “Side effect.”

  “Do you think you should be running around like this?” I said.

  “Yeah, sure. Besides, you’re the one who’s shivering.” He took off his jacket and put it around me. And then he was standing really close to me and I started to feel like I was forgetting something. Besides my coat, that is.

  “We should get you out of this cold,” he said. His face was just inches from mine, and he was staring at me. Although instead of feeling exposed like I usually do when Digby stared at me, this time, I just felt like he was letting me see into him too. I didn’t want to break the spell, but I was dying to know what was going to happen next.

  “Digby . . . ?” I’d started the sentence not knowing how I’d complete it. Thankfully, a text alert sounded.

  We both dug for our phones. “Mine,” Digby said. He started typing a message. “Let me just tell Bill I got out okay.”

  “You don’t have to ask me for permission,” I said.

  “I wasn’t,” he said.

  I pointed at the bag of papers he was carrying. “Why do you have Cooper’s garbage?”

  “I’m going to use it to con my way into the lawyer’s office.” When I didn’t say anything, he said, “You’re not going to try to talk me out of it?”

  “Would I succeed?” I said.

  Digby shook his head and pulled out a walkie-talkie. He looped a blue RHPD lanyard around his neck. I was shocked to see he had official RHPD credentials.

  “Why do you have that?” I said.

  “They needed interns. I went in on Sunday after I talked to Cooper,” he said. “One last thing. Smoothies.”

  Digby used our time in line at the juice place to explain to me his plan to pretend to deliver packages and somehow cause a diversion that would get him time alone in the office.

  “Wow. That plan sounds majorly half-assed,” I said.

  “The best ones always do . . . if you go in with the whole thing planned out and with dialogue and stuff, you’re just gonna trip yourself up when it doesn’t go exactly the way you planned. And it never goes exactly the way you plan.” When I still looked dubious, he said, “Just go with it, Princeton.”

  By the time we got to the lawyer’s office, my hand was numb from the strain of balancing my stack of envelopes and my smoothie and I was as stressed about keeping all the stuff from falling as I was about getting away with the scam we were about to perpetrate.

  The office door didn’t have anything like a nameplate announcing its occupants, merely a magnetic key pad, a camera lens above it, and a sign that said PLEASE RING BUZZER. When Digby did, a voice said, “Yes?”

  “Courier for J. Book?” Digby said.

  There was a gasp, the sound of frantic scurrying, and a buzz as the door opened.

  The room we stepped into was aggressively nondescript and bare: just a desk, two chairs, and a bookshelf. Except for the computer, printer, paper, and scattered office supplies, there was hardly any indication that actual work took place. A door off to the side hinted at an inner office where the boss might sit.

  The assistant who’d buzzed us in was rummaging around and throwing documents into envelopes and then piling them into a delivery crate. “Is it Thursday already?” she said. “I don’t have all the stuff ready for you to pick up. Can you wait while I print the rest? Wait. Where’s Dex? Has he been fired?”

  Digby held up his police ID. “Um . . . it’s Wednesday and there’s no Dex where I work.”

  The assistant sighed and relaxed. “The police? What’s all this?”

  Digby shrugged. “I just deliver the stuff,” he said. “Can you
sign for this? Or do we need to wait for your boss? Is he coming?”

  “Oh, he doesn’t . . .” she said. “I can sign for it.”

  Digby took a step toward her, tripped, and dumped his smoothie all over her front. When she finally stopped screaming and cursing, she said, “Okay. Out. Please wait in the hall while I run to the ladies’ to get cleaned up.”

  “Seriously?” Digby said.

  “Yeah, seriously,” the assistant said. “Sorry. I can’t leave anyone alone in here.”

  “Okay,” Digby said.

  The assistant pulled her handbag off a hook by the door, took a key card off her desk, and put it in the pocket of her blazer. “I’ll only be a second.”

  Digby and I went out into the hall ahead of her but just as the door shut behind us, Digby abruptly turned around and bumped into my hand so my smoothie spilled over the assistant.

  “Holy crap, what is the matter with the two of you?” she said.

  “I’m so sorry. I was just going to ask where I could buy another smoothie,” Digby said. He dropped the envelopes and started wiping her jacket with the napkin he’d had wrapped around his cup. I saw it, but the assistant never even felt Digby slide the key card out of her pocket.

  When he started focusing on her chest, she slapped away his hand and said, “Okay, thank you. That’s enough.” She trotted down the hall toward the bathroom.

  As soon as she went around the corner, Digby used her key card to open the door. “We don’t have much time,” Digby said.

  “What are we looking for?” I opened the door to the inner office to reveal that it was an empty room.

  “Wow. This is the weirdest lawyer’s office I’ve ever seen. There should be files everywhere. Where’s the work?”

  Digby inserted a USB key into the assistant’s computer and started copying. “Check it out.” He pointed at the folders on the screen. “Look at the names on this. EverFries, Corner Bay Corp, Gilder Bay. And look at the amounts attached to these accounts.”

  The figures on the pages Digby scrolled through were at least in the tens of millions.

  “These are kind of big companies . . . do you think one of these has something to do with Sally’s kidnapping?” I said.