Without Annette

by Jane B. Mason

  He squeezed past Sam and shined his light on the plank, walking across without hesitating. It teetered a tiny bit but seemed sturdy enough, and I crossed before I could psych myself out. While the other two followed, Hank and I studied the possible paths around the pipe.

  “Looks pretty gnarly,” he said. On one side, the cables were thickly clustered, leaving almost no room. On the other, the pipe was dangerously close to the wall.

  “I can get through there,” I announced, dropping to the ground. I wasn’t sure what had come over me, but I suddenly wanted to get to the library. I pulled my jacket over my face for protection and started to shimmy, feetfirst, under the pipe.

  “Holy shit, Subzero,” Penn said as my thighs cleared the pipe. I raised the sweatshirt off my face. “Don’t distract the guinea pig,” I said, still scooting. “We wouldn’t want her to erupt into a ball of flames.” The pipe was coming closer and closer to my chin, but the truth was that getting under it wasn’t going to be as sketchy as it looked—so far, I had several inches of clearance.

  Once my head was clear, I got to my feet and shined my flashlight around. The tunnel was pretty open up ahead, with only a single pipe running along the side. “Come on over, boys,” I said. “The tunnel’s fine.”

  Apparently, it is harder for boys to shimmy under things than it is for girls, because they hemmed and hawed the whole time, and Hank declared twice that he couldn’t do it. By the time everyone was through, Penn was tapping his watch. “Thirty-one minutes,” he reported gravely.

  We scurried like lemmings to the end of the tunnel, our beams of light directed intently at the floor. Sam had his lock pick ready when we got to the massive metal door at the end. He stood for several long moments, silent and still, listening.

  “What gives?” Hank asked.

  Sam held up a hand. “I think I saw someone, and we don’t want to be stupid,” he whispered. “Josie can’t fast-talk her way out of everything.”

  Too true, I thought. “Do we know where we’ll come out?” I asked in a low voice.

  “The library basement, right across from …” The lock clicked, and a moment later the door cracked open.

  “… The vault.”

  “What’s the vault for, anyway?” I asked in a low voice. “Brookwood’s stash of gold?”

  “No, its shrunken head!” Hank said, adding, “That’s what we’re hoping for, anyway.”

  “Shhhhh!” Sam was all business. He pulled the door inward, peering around the edge.

  We waited for what seemed like forever, mute, in the darkness. I half expected Penn to prod us onward with a time announcement.

  “Clear,” Sam finally said.

  I let my breath out in a quiet whoosh, unaware until that moment that I’d been holding it, and followed the boys into the library basement. Getting into the vault was absurdly easy—Sam just stuck the key in the lock and turned. “They really oughta upgrade security,” Hank said as we stepped inside.

  “What the …”

  Sitting in the middle of the room was a long, heavy oak table, on top of which sat a row of perfectly aligned, bright orange plastic …

  “Pumpkins?” Sam pronounced.

  “Maybe Hunter left us a little flock of enlarged plastic heads instead of a single shrunken one,” I suggested.

  “Who cares about the actual pumpkins?” Hank asked. “Look what’s in them!” The eight smirking jack-o’-lanterns were filled to the brim with an array of miniature candy bars. Hank snatched up a handful.

  “Hold on,” Penn said.

  Hank dropped the candy, jutting out his bottom lip as if a bully had just stolen his entire trick-or-treating haul. “Hold on for what?”

  “Maybe we should deliver these,” Penn said, thinking, “to various administrators …”

  Hank’s face flashed with mischievousness. “As a sort of gag,” he said, catching on.

  Sam turned from a file cabinet where he was trying to pick a lock. Aside from the table and (at the moment) the pumpkins, the vault was nothing more than a small room with safe deposit–like boxes lining the walls. “Too risky. If we take our pumpkin friends out, the administration will know we got in, and that’s not something we want to broadcast. Thornfeld wouldn’t take it lightly, especially with the board breathing down his neck. He’s supposed to be tightening the ship.”

  “That’s running a tighter ship,” Penn corrected.

  Sam shrugged. “Whatever. You get what I mean.” He went back to lock picking.

  Hank was staring longingly at the candy, and the Snickers bar at the top of jack-o’-lantern number four had started to call my name.

  “Just a few,” I heard myself saying.

  Penn clucked his tongue. “You’re a mess, Subzero,” he said, rubbing a smudge off my chin. “Have you been playing with boys again, young lady?”

  I caught my reflection in a shiny gold lockbox. I was a mess, but didn’t really care. “Who are you calling a lady?”

  “Bad news, people,” Sam interrupted. “I can’t get in—these locks are too small for my pick.”

  “Maybe security is tighter than we think,” I suggested. “Do we even know if the head is in here?”

  “No. It’s just a guess,” Penn admitted, his voice full of disappointment. He ran a hand through his cobwebby curls.

  “Guess we’d better drown our sorrows, then.” Hank grabbed a Kit Kat.

  Penn snatched up the Snickers I’d been eyeing, ripped it open, and checked his watch. “Fourteen minutes,” he said around a mouthful of nougaty peanuts and chocolate.

  We wolfed down our favorite fun sizes and stashed extras in our pockets for the road. Then we exited the vault, closing and locking the door behind us.

  The tunnels felt hotter than I remembered on the way back, and we moved fast. I was the first one under the pipe, but the boys increased their speed impressively. Before I knew it, we were back at our entrance point, and Sam was opening the door.

  I was about to follow Hank into the hall when Penn grabbed my hand and spun me around. “There’s just one little thing, Josephine,” he said. His voice was low and intense, and in the dim light, I didn’t see him duck his head. The next thing I knew, his lips were brushing against mine, warm and insistent.

  Josephine? I thought as my head swam. Did he just call me Josephine? And then, Hey, this isn’t as gross as I thought it would be. Penn’s lips were surprisingly soft, and he tasted like peanuts and chocolate. His hands rested on the small of my back, and I couldn’t help but notice their strength. How stupidly cliché, I thought, followed by Holy shit, am I really kissing a boy? I had never kissed a boy. Had never been the slightest bit interested in kissing a boy.

  And then, just like that, Penn pulled away and sort of cleared his throat. The shaft of light from the hall reflected off his face, but I couldn’t read his expression. “Okay, maybe not so little,” he admitted. “But I couldn’t pretend anymore.”

  “Pretend?” I echoed stupidly. Pretend? Oh my God. Josie, you are such an idiot! I had totally, completely missed it. Of course, I wasn’t exactly accustomed to boys swooning over me. For one thing, I was out. Well, at home I was out. For another, I basically considered myself to be one of the guys—not the girl guys fell for.

  Ugh. Was this really happening?

  “Um … are you going to say something?” Penn asked.

  I looked up at him, totally unclear about what to say while possible responses flashed in my head: (1) I love Snickers, (2) Your lips are a lot softer than I expected, (3) I’ve never kissed a boy. None of those seemed the slightest bit reasonable, so I went with (4) “That wasn’t too terrible.” Because it wasn’t too terrible—just totally alien.

  Penn sort of winced and looked away, and I felt a weird combination of relief—he didn’t look like he was going to kiss me again—and guilt—I’d just hurt his feelings. He was quiet for a solid thirty seconds.

  “Josie,” he finally said, his voice faltering. He cleared his throat. “Josie, you have t
o know I wasn’t trying to fall for you. I mean, you don’t even like guys. But from the moment I saw that crazy mass of curls, you sort of floored me. Then you fell asleep at first Vespers and laughed about it. You showed up in a tree outside my dorm room and crawled through the window like it was nothing. You play poker like a pro, but not quite like anyone I’ve held a hand with. You’re smart and outspoken and funny and beautiful. Only you don’t even know you’re beautiful, which not only makes you more beautiful but different from practically every other girl in this place, maybe every other girl, period.”

  What was he talking about? Who was he talking about?

  “You make everything more fun, more interesting, more …”

  He trailed off while I stood there, as if the oxygen had been sucked out of the tunnel—hardly any was reaching my brain. I couldn’t form a coherent thought, much less put thoughts into words or say them out loud.

  Thankfully, Penn was really moving on. He stepped back and wiped my face with a corner of his T-shirt, then pulled my hood up. He’d reverted to familiar territory for us—brotherly friendship. “I’d take the back entrance into your dorm,” he advised. “The fewer people who see you, the better.”

  I nodded mutely while he pushed open the hatch.

  “Dude, what gives?” Hank asked, pointing to the clock that hung in the basement hall. “Lights are in three.”

  “See you later,” I said, quickly brushing off my pants and heading for the door at the end of the hall. I felt woozy, like I’d just downed three shots of Absolut. Whether it was from the heat in the steam tunnels, Penn’s kiss, or his soliloquy was impossible to figure out.

  By the time I stepped through the back door to my dorm, I was certain I had the words JUST KISSED PENN MCCARTHY plastered across my forehead. I kept my head low as I darted up to the third floor.

  “Digging in the dirt, Josie?” a voice called as I passed the second floor. The voice was vaguely familiar, but I didn’t bother trying to see who it was. I could hear footsteps coming up the stairs behind me and they sounded distinctly authoritative. I hit the top stair and made a beeline for my room.

  “What happened to you?” Roxanne said as I shoved open the door.

  “Nothing,” I lied, slipping into the bathroom. The latch had just closed, when I heard Lola No’s voice.

  “Was that Josie?” she asked. “In a black sweatshirt?”

  Maybe the words were plastered across my back, I thought bleakly.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Roxanne replied. “She’s been spending a fair amount of time in the bathroom lately, what with her, um, digestive issues.”

  I pulled back my hood, surprised that Roxanne was covering for me. She’d been essentially invisible all week, spending extra time in the art studio on her new project but not saying a word. My reflection revealed a huge black smudge smearing my cheek and a netting of cobwebs glued to my head just above my ear. I swiped at the sticky threads and turned on the hot water.

  “Josie, I need to see you,” Lola No said. “Now.” What made Penn think the administration didn’t want to bust us? She certainly seemed determined.

  Trying to breathe normally, I scrubbed at the black spot with a washcloth and watched it fade. “You do?” I called as I toweled my face dry. I opened the door and stuck my head through the crack, keeping my clothing hidden. “I’m really not that attractive.”

  She squinted at my face. “Not amusing. Where have you been?”

  The scabby burn on my leg started to throb anxiously. “I was in the main building,” I half lied.

  Lola No folded her arms across her chest and waited for me to crack. My automatic response was to pretend I was having a staring contest with Josh, which I always won. After a good fifteen-plus seconds, Lola No blinked and raised her chin. “I hope that was an honest answer, Josie,” she said, equally enunciating both syllables of my name. “For your sake.” She disappeared out the door.

  The moment she was gone, I half collapsed onto the toilet. My palms were sweaty and I felt sick.

  “I was actually kidding about the diarrhea,” Roxanne said. She picked at an orange-painted fingernail and lobbed a sideways glance. “Even though you’d deserve it.”

  I looked up and saw that the hurt from the pool party was still there, just not as fresh. “Roxanne, I—” All kinds of things to say flooded into my brain—excuses, justifications, reasons. I closed my mouth and thought for a second. “I know I do,” I agreed. “I totally blew it.”

  “Good. I’m glad we agree and I don’t have to beat you up.” She smiled wryly. “And lucky for you I used the B word prematurely—I’ve been making improvements all week.”

  “I’m ready to help when you say the word,” I vowed.

  “Excellent,” she said. “I’ll be holding you to that. But you still haven’t answered my original question. What happened to you?”

  I leaned forward until my forehead was resting against the pedestal sink, my skin absorbing its cool porcelain whiteness. I turned and looked at her with one eye. “Penn McCarthy,” I said. “Penn McCarthy happened to me.”

  Roxanne squinted her response in my direction, her dark eyes so narrow they seemed to disappear into her face. She exhaled very, very slowly. “You didn’t.”

  I sat up. “No!” I squirmed. “Well, sort of.”

  Roxanne disappeared through the door and returned with our bottle of vodka. “Maybe this’ll help.” She handed it over.

  I started to unscrew the top, then reconsidered. I didn’t want it. “No, thanks.”

  “That bad?”

  “Possibly.”

  She filled a glass of water instead and sat down on the bathroom floor, drawing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. We sat there in silence for several minutes. “Wanna start at the beginning?” she finally asked.

  “Not really,” I said. “What I want to do is hit DELETE.”

  Another long exhale. “A delete button would be nice,” she agreed. “I can think of several things I’d like to erase from my record.”

  “As in school record?” She’d piqued my curiosity and comforted me with a single sentence.

  “Any record.” Roxanne lowered her knees, her legs stretching flat across the tiny hexagonal tile. “Sometimes I feel like the world is keeping a record, keeping constant track, and I just want to fall off the radar. But we were talking about you.”

  I put my forehead back against the cool sink, my opal pendant clanking against the porcelain, and let out a tiny groan. I knew I was about to spill it, because if I didn’t let some of this stuff out, I was going to explode. And also because Roxanne appeared to actually give a crap.

  “I’ve been playing poker and exploring the steam tunnels with Penn and his posse, and as we were coming out tonight, Penn whirled me around and kissed me.”

  Roxanne was focusing on a plaster crack above the toilet, but I could tell she was paying close attention. “How romantic.”

  I was tempted to take a sip from the vodka bottle, but resisted. “Which part?”

  Roxanne laughed. “All of it?” Her cadence was covered with question marks. “But seriously. Hank plays poker with Penn, and it has always been clear: No Girls Allowed. Same with the pranks and the tunneling.”

  “You know about the tunneling?”

  She took a sip of water. “Josie, I dated Hank for most of last year, before he went to France and decided it was his job to hook up with some girl named Babette. Of course I know about the tunneling. I just never knew the details.”

  So that’s the story between her and Hank. I considered telling her that boys were assholes, but what did I know? Were they any worse than girls? “They go in through hatches, and pick locks when they need to. Oh, and they have a key to the vault.”

  Roxanne practically sprayed water all over the bathroom floor, and it took a while for her to regain composure. “They have a key to the vault?”

  I nodded.

  “A vault key in the hands of the peanut gallery,�
�� she murmured with a devilish smirk. “That could really turn the administration on its derriere. But we digress from the heart of the matter, which is, of course, Penn McCarthy kissing you.”

  Penn McCarthy kissing me, I thought. Only that wasn’t in fact the heart of the matter. At all. It was what he told me afterward, about how he fell for me. It was the risk he took. Penn McCarthy saw me, really saw me, and wanted me anyway. And now, as I considered those few moments in the steam tunnel, it occurred to me that nobody, not even Annette, saw me that clearly.

  “Josie?” Roxanne said. “You in there?”

  I blinked and turned my head. “Yes,” I said. “I’m here.”

  “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  “Well, how was it?”

  The porcelain was warm now, no longer offering respite, and I sighed with disappointment. The answer was a single word.

  “Confusing.”

  Roxanne watched me carefully. “Confusing?” she repeated, letting the word roll around her tongue. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  I moved my forehead to a cooler patch of porcelain and closed my eyes. “No, it doesn’t.”

  I had absolutely no idea what to say to or how to act around Penn, so I just sort of … ignored him. Which turned out to be surprisingly easy, given that we had two classes together and generally hung out with the same people. Unfortunately, pretending Penn didn’t exist left a pretty big void, because except for Roxanne, Penn was the person I talked to most. Or maybe the person whose opinion I valued most.

  Besides Annette, I reminded myself, ignoring the little voice that questioned whether that was still true.

  Penn didn’t appear eager to talk to me, either. He seemed to be keeping a distance. I missed his banter and his antics, which he’d toned down, too. In class he didn’t have much to say.

  Professor Mannering was just the opposite—he had plenty to say. We’d further discussed the anthropologist’s paradox but hadn’t really come to a consensus about what it meant regarding anthropology itself. Everyone had their opinion, it seemed. This didn’t bother Professor Mannering, though. He seemed to like it.