“We’ll take that as a yes,” Roxanne said, plopping down.
I followed suit, inhaling the rich, decaying smell of autumn as I cleared away the leaves and spread my candy on the grass. Snickers, Reese’s, Kit Kats, M&M’s, Baby Ruth, Skittles, and my favorite, Almond Joy. I greedily unwrapped one and devoured the super-sweet chocolaty coconut. Roxanne opened a small package of M&M’s, which contained a grand total of eleven colorful candies, and handed me six. “Have you talked to Penn?”
I shoved the M&M’s into my mouth and crunched on the candy shells. “Who?”
“Penn McCarthy. Captain Cold. The boy you made out with in the steam tunnels.”
“I did not make out with him!” I half shouted, shoving her sideways. “It was one kiss, and he kissed me.”
“Uh-huh,” she said, handing me the flask and unwrapping a Reese’s. “And you showed your utter disapproval by biting his tongue off.”
“He took me by surprise.”
“Good surprise?”
“Holy crap, Roxanne. Hank is right—you are merciless.” But I forced myself to consider the question, because the part that came after the kiss, the part that revealed how well he understood me, how much he liked me was, in some ways, good.
“Do you want to kiss him again?”
“No. But I can’t say I don’t like being adored.” I sighed. “Sometimes I wish I did want to kiss him. Or that I could just pretend that I did.”
“I so hear that.” Roxanne leaned back on the grass. “Sometimes I want to ignore that Hank went off to Paris and hooked up with some smoky-eyed French female. He says it was a fling, that it has nothing to do with how he feels about me. And it would be so easy to just get back together.
“But I can’t,” she said, her voice quiet. I could hear loneliness in it, and heartache. “I can’t pretend I don’t care, that I’m not totally pissed.”
“We shouldn’t pretend,” I agreed. “It just isn’t the way to go.”
Silence, and then, “Aren’t you sort of pretending with Annette?”
“What?” I asked, feeling my face flush. But I remembered that Penn had used the word pretend, too, right after he kissed me. He said he couldn’t pretend anymore. Was I pretending with Annette, or just fooling myself? Or both?
“Forget it,” Roxanne said. “I shouldn’t have said anything. We both know it’s a jungle out there.” She unwrapped a Baby Ruth and ate the whole thing in one bite.
“It’s a jungle, all right,” I echoed, chewing on a wad of Milk Duds. I lay back and looked up at the stars, listening to the hoots of Halloween while the word jungle lingered in my head. My thoughts drifted to the Shuar and their unshakable belief in the spirit world. It seemed totally nuts, but Professor Mannering had a point. Who was I to tell them what was real? Who was anyone?
When all our candy and vodka were gone and the cold got the best of us, Roxanne hauled me to my feet, and we headed across Route 6 and hopped the low rock wall. We were on the far side of campus, next to the baseball field and the boys’ dorms.
Here again, I thought as we passed first base. I found myself eyeing the elm tree outside Penn’s window, and was instantly frustrated. Maybe it was seeing Annette in that sleazy getup. Maybe it was the comment that Roxanne had made about our relationship. Or maybe it was that Penn and I had been acting like the kiss had never happened. It had happened, all right. My lips sort of burned, thinking about it happening—although to be fair, it was probably the tangy mixture of Altoids, vodka, and chocolate I kept burping up.
It didn’t matter. I was done stewing. Done avoiding Penn, avoiding Annette. I was ready to talk. I needed to talk, to both of them.
“I’ll meet you in our room,” I told Roxanne. “I’ve got something to do.” I could feel my resolve solidifying. I’d start with Penn and talk to Annette back at the dorm.
Roxanne turned to me, suspicious. “Are you sure?” she asked, throwing a glance toward Penn’s window.
I squared my shoulders as best I could, being a little drunk and in a full-length robe, and nodded.
“Lights is in half an hour,” she said. “Lola No is on.”
“I’ll be there in twenty.”
“You want me to wait?”
I waved her off. “No, please don’t. I just have to take care of this. I’ll be fine.”
She watched me from first base, looking very priestly in her robe and cross. “Twenty minutes,” she said warningly. “Or I’ll come back and get you myself.”
As my roommate disappeared into the shadow of the main building, I glanced up at Penn’s window. A dim glow emanated from the tower room. A hazy memory reminded me that climbing the tree to his window required a running start, so I rushed forward and jumped, throwing my arms around the lowest branch and inching my fingers up the sides. I felt like my shoulders were being ripped out of their sockets as I linked my fingers together and walked up the trunk, being careful not to get snagged on my robe. Finally, I was upright. Vaguely nauseous, but upright.
This is crazy, I told myself. Go back to your dorm. But I added that getting into the tree was the hardest part, and it was done. Plus, I really needed to talk to Penn.
I got to my feet and steadied myself against the trunk while I peered at the branches overhead. I had no idea which route I’d taken before, but there seemed to be several options. I chose one before I could change my mind, and got moving.
Up I went, capitalizing on my momentum and practicing what I would say when I was face-to-face with Penn. I put my foot in a crook next to the trunk and pulled myself up with a vengeance, but my robe caught and I practically choked on the collar. I sat down fast, clinging to the surrounding branches, and yanked the heavy fabric away from my throat.
Christ, Josie. Get a freaking grip. I wrapped my arms around the trunk, giving it a scratchy hug. The ground was farther away than I’d thought, and spinning a little. Clearly the stairs would have been the wiser choice. The stairs, and taking off the robe before I’d started to climb.
Better late than never, I thought as I unbuttoned the robe. I wobbled slightly, but managed to pull it over my head, getting lost for only a moment in the heavy folds. I balled the robe up and shoved it between a couple of branches.
That’s better, I thought, getting back to my feet. I was now dressed in black leggings and a T-shirt, and could climb much more easily. I swung my leg up to a higher branch, ignoring my queasy stomach, my sights set on the dimly lit top floor. Within a minute I was outside Penn’s window. I peered through the leaded glass, trying to see if anyone was inside. The only light came from the desk lamp in the corner, and the chairs around the coffee table were empty. It appeared I had climbed the tree for nothing—nobody was home.
And why would Penn be in his room? I chided myself. It’s Friday night, and Halloween!
I was lowering my leg to a branch below me when the door to Penn’s room opened and he came in, still dressed as Captain Cold minus the jacket. I steeled myself and reached forward to open the window, then pulled back. Someone was coming in behind him—someone wearing the parka.
I squinted, trying to see, and blinked. Shimmery fabric. A tail. Fire-red hair.
Oh. My. God.
Annette slipped into the room and out of the parka, dropping it onto the rickety armchair along with her shoes. She looked like she did the night of Dress to Impress, relaxed and exhilarated. While Penn shoved his dirty clothes into the closet, she adjusted her pearl-studded cups, and when he turned back, she took his hand and pulled him toward the sofa.
He didn’t resist.
Don’t look! a voice said, as if that were possible. I felt nausea crawl up from my stomach as Annette leaned into him and they started to kiss. The desk light cast its beam on them like a soft spotlight, and I could see everything in unfortunate detail—their mouths, their tongues, their hands. And Penn’s erection.
Annette pulled back a bit and laughed, wrapping one of his curls around her fingers and pulling him back in.
I l
eaned forward, bile officially in my throat. Were they drunk? Annette seemed tipsy, but also decidedly in control of what she was doing … and the situation.
Does it even matter? I asked myself as Annette stretched herself next to him, the way she’d done with me countless times. I leaned in closer, loosening my grasp on the tree trunk, horrified but unable to stop myself. I leaned farther and farther forward until …
“Shit!” I was falling, flailing my arms in an attempt to grab anything that might break my fall. My arm twisted behind me and the jagged end of a broken limb scraped across my calf. I let out a yelp and half landed on a thick branch, wrapping a leg around it, clutching at the bark with both hands. I wasn’t exactly stable, but I wasn’t moving anymore.
Above me, the window opened. Silence. And then, “Josie?” Penn’s voice called, sounding shocked and a little bit slurry. “Are you all right?” God, I hated the sound of his voice. I hated everything about Penn McCarthy.
“Now you’re talking to me?” I shouted. “Now?”
I wondered if Annette was still sprawled across his sofa, if she was waiting for him to return to her arms. I was too low to see, though, and certainly wasn’t going to look up at him.
“Josie, I—”
“Go fuck yourself!” I shouted as I started to climb. Down, as fast as I could. “No, wait. I have better idea. Go fuck Annette!”
“Josie, wake up!”
I rolled over and opened a single sticky, sugar-and-vodka-hungover eye, which revealed a very fuzzy Becca.
“Annette is missing. Josie, can you hear me?”
Of course I could hear her. She was practically screaming in my ear, for Christ’s sake. I willed both eyelids open and sat up, my body aching and bruised, and remembered. The climb. Penn and Annette. The fall.
“Annette is missing,” Becca repeated.
Good, I thought, falling back onto my pillow. I hope she stays that way.
“Josie!”
I turned to face her. “What do you mean, missing? She probably went for a run or something.” I gazed up at the Turtle Lake crack, since closing my eyes again would undoubtedly take me back to the horror movie from the night before.
“I need your help!” Becca shrieked.
Her high-pitched squeal made my head hurt, and I suddenly noticed that her usually superior-sounding voice didn’t sound the slightest bit superior. It sounded panicked.
I sat up again. “I’m listening.”
“After we saw you at the House of Horrors, we did a little trick-or-treating, and then she went off with Penn. A bunch of us were in the common room at lights, and I assumed she’d come in. I thought she must have been in our room, or Lola No would’ve gone ballistic. But she wasn’t there when I went to bed, or when I woke up.”
“Dining room?”
“Not there.” Pause. “Nobody has seen her.”
I don’t want to see her, I thought. Ever. But even as I had these thoughts, I knew they were ridiculous. Of course I wanted to see her again. I wanted to see her so I could kill her.
“Josie!” Becca was losing it.
I checked the clock. It was 7:04—our first class was in forty-one minutes. Could we figure this out in forty-one minutes?
I threw off the covers and jumped to the floor, landing hard. Ouch, my leg really hurt. I was not in good shape.
“Thank you,” Becca breathed, her face relaxing a little. “Where would she go?”
To Penn’s room? I thought. She definitely could’ve spent the night there. But Annette never overslept in the morning—she was always gone before daybreak, so she wouldn’t still be there. I had no idea where she’d be, I realized. I’d barely talked to her in days.
I was searching for some shoes when Lola No appeared at my door. “Headmaster Thornfeld would like to see the two of you,” she said. “Immediately.” I searched her face for her usual hard expression, but it wasn’t there. She looked agitated, worried. “As in now,” she added before she disappeared.
“Shit,” Becca said, her eyes flickering with fear. She moved fast—down the stairs, across the circle drive, and into the main building. I followed and waited for her to say something, to give me some advice about what to do or say in Thornfeld’s presence, but she kept her mouth clamped shut and her feet moving forward. Where was Roxanne when I needed her?
The first thing I saw when I walked into Thornfeld’s office (besides the headmaster himself) was an orange plastic pumpkin filled with candy. Its wide, toothy grin mocked me as I sat down in one of two Windsor chairs that faced his desk. I peered at the diplomas on his wall from Cornell and Yale and ran my tongue over my fuzzy, needed-to-be-brushed teeth. They were disgusting.
“I’m afraid you are not here for good news,” Thornfeld said. He took off his reading glasses, carefully folded in the temples, and set them on his desk. He seemed to be stalling, and he looked tired. Exhausted, even.
“Miss Anderson is in the hospital, recovering from alcohol poisoning.”
Becca inhaled sharply and without sound, but I was not so discreet. “Oh my God,” I exclaimed. Becca shot me a venomous look, which I didn’t understand, and pretended not to see. “Is she all right?”
“Not yet, but I believe she will be. She was found on a bathroom floor in Cortland Dormitory by Professor Franke, at two o’clock in the morning.”
I gazed at him, trying to absorb what he was saying. Why would she be on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night?
“There was also an empty bottle of Skyy vodka and, from what I understand, a large pool of vomit. She was unconscious.” His eyes bored into me, then Becca, all signs of fatigue gone. “Would either of you like to tell me how she got there?”
It took me a couple more seconds to register that Professor Franke was Lola No. I imagined her tiny frame crouched over Annette on the tiled floor. Annette with her mermaid tail, fake red hair, and purple eye shadow. With the smell of Penn McCarthy and vodka and barf all over her. Unconscious.
My whole body got hot with alarm, and I fleetingly understood why Becca had been glowering at me a moment before. We weren’t supposed to panic in front of the administration—especially when rule breaking was involved. We were supposed to remain aloof and, if necessary, calmly but firmly declare our innocence (Roxanne had drilled that much into my head). Only right here, right now, not panicking was not possible. Annette wasn’t some random student who’d blown it by having a few too many—she was Annette.
I forced myself to look directly at the headmaster while images from the night before flashed in my head. Annette at the House of Horrors, flushed and tipsy and leaning into Penn. Annette dropping her shoes onto a chair. Annette pulling Penn toward her …
I looked away from Thornfeld, wriggling uncomfortably in my seat. I reached for my opal pendant, for something solid to touch, but felt nothing around my neck. It was gone. And worse, I had no idea when or where I’d lost it.
“Josie? Do you have something to say?”
I dropped my hands into my lap. “No,” I replied, grateful that I could tell the truth. I’d laid eyes on Annette twice the night before, for a total of ten minutes, and barely got close enough to touch her. I honestly had no idea how the events of her Halloween had played out. (Except for fooling around with Penn, of course.)
“Miss Ryder?”
Becca seemed frozen in her chair, her face an impressive mask of detachment. “I’m so sorry, Headmaster Thornfeld, I don’t. I was with Annette during the early part of the evening—she came with a group of us to the House of Horrors in town. Afterward the group dismantled and I lost track of her.”
Dismantled? What were we talking about, a bomb? Ugh. In a way, yes.
“You didn’t see her at lights?” Thornfeld asked pointedly. “She is your roommate, is she not?”
“Yes. But I was in the common room cleaning up after our Halloween party. She wasn’t in our room when I went to bed, but I assumed she was in the bathroom or something.”
Thornfeld leveled
his gaze at her. “I believe she was,” he replied severely.
Becca’s face turned bright red as she realized what she’d just said. “I meant getting ready for bed in the bathroom,” she corrected.
“You have a lavatory attached to your room, do you not?”
“Yes, but with four girls, it sometimes gets crowded.”
Thornfeld looked like he wanted to leap over his desk and yank her by her pearl necklace. But what could he do? He clearly had no proof of anything—just a girl in the hospital, and probably a fair amount of fallout. Shannon was a force to be reckoned with, and there was the board I’d heard rumblings about.
“You are dismissed for now, Miss Ryder, though this is certainly not the end of our conversation. Miss Little, you will remain for a few moments.”
Remain? I watched Becca get up to leave, and tried not to let panic overtake me. I was about to be alone in the headmaster’s office, and Annette had been rushed to the hospital. Plus I certainly hadn’t been following the rules.
“Please close the door behind you.” The pumpkin jeered in my direction while the headmaster tapped a finger on his desk, and I noticed a little orange card hanging off one side. “Happy Halloween, from Linus.”
The headmaster was watching me carefully. “I don’t know anything,” I said, blinking fast. “I wish I did, but I don’t.”
“I believe you,” he said with surprising kindness. “That’s not why I asked you to stay.”
Did he ask? I wondered. I’d certainly considered it an order.
“I wanted to tell you that Annette is at Eden General Hospital and has asked to see you. Because she has been suspended and will not be returning to Brookwood right away after she is released, the administration has decided to grant her wish.” He paused, probably to let this information sink in. “Mr. and Mrs. Anderson are flying in this afternoon to take her home when she is well enough. Dean Austin will drive you to the hospital when your classes are finished for the day.” His expression was unfaltering, but the tiredness at the corners of his eyes was back. “I am sure I do not need to impress upon you the gravity of this situation. Blemishes like this do not recede quickly.”
Without Annette Page 18