I swallow hard around my gum. My mouth still holds to the sick-sweet-sour taste of vomit, and my stomach feels like there is something living inside of it, thrashing and angry and vile and scratching at the lining, trying to get out.
Did he try to leave Jacqueline and she—did something?
Or did Jacqueline find out about me?
Or maybe . . . maybe he just slept in.
Maybe that’s all.
It happens. People get tired. And Alex has been under a lot of stress lately. While we’re walking, I pull out my phone and send him a quick e-mail.
Are you okay?
But I’m not the only one worried. The school is a mess. Students are in the hallways, along with teachers. But it’s not loud. No one is yelling or running. Everyone is just staring around like they’re looking for something and speaking to each other in hushed tones.
The minutes slip by strangely, like time is folding in on itself, too fast and too slow all at once.
And still no Alex Belrose.
“Let’s walk by the office,” Neta suggests. “I’m not in the mood for fifth period.”
I nod. I’m not, either. I know I’m supposed to be toeing the line on account of my nonexistent French grade problem, but I don’t really care.
Kolbie catches up with us in the hallway, and we walk to the office together, and that’s when we see her.
“Holy shit,” Kolbie says.
“What?” Neta asks.
“That’s his wife,” I murmur.
And there she is, in high-heeled boots and a big black hat, like she just stepped off a runway, just inside the glass enclosure of the main office. She looks like a pretty caged butterfly, flapping meaninglessly inside an enclosure. She’s an homage to the reality star: all image and no substance, ready to be photographed, calm and put-together just in case there’s some dramatic tragedy. What the hell would she be doing here? Shouldn’t she be at the police station, if she’s worried? I stare at her. How convenient that she’s in all black. Already in mourning for her missing husband. She couldn’t even wait a day to soak up the attention and pity.
“Does this mean she doesn’t know where he is either?” Neta asks.
“I would guess so,” Kolbie says. “A wife doesn’t really have to be here to call you in sick, does she?”
I don’t say what I already know: she’s supposed to be in Vegas. Or at least she was, until last night.
I frown. Why is she back? Did she fly back when she heard her husband didn’t show up to work?
Is she looking for him here? Did they call her in? Or is she just here to throw her own little pity party?
Jacqueline turns toward us, and Kolbie and Neta gasp, but I don’t move. I lock eyes with her.
She pauses, her long eyelashes fluttering.
She doesn’t even look upset. She looks normal, like maybe she’s just dropping off something for him. There is no trace of concern anywhere on her radiant face.
And then she walks out of the office, like nothing happened, her heels echoing on the dirty tile. She stalks out the door and down the sidewalk, where her teal car is parked illegally in the loading zone.
But that’s how I know.
She knows more than she’s letting on.
And maybe that has something to do with me. Maybe she knows about Alex and me. Or maybe Alex had to run away to finally be free of her.
THIRTY-ONE
Nothing
He hasn’t responded. Forty-eight hours and Alex Belrose has not responded.
I stare at my phone as I walk. It’s not like this is new. It’s not like he just supplies me with attention whenever I want it. I’m obviously not that important to him anyway.
I want to e-mail him again. But e-mailing someone who is potentially missing is probably not a great idea. I don’t want them tracing anything back to me. I don’t want them finding a hair on his couch and connecting the DNA or something.
I stick my phone in my purse and keep to my route: the Belrose house. And not my normal route. It’s a long walk, but I don’t care. I’m not parking a car anywhere close. I wore an old jacket from the back of my closet and tugged on mittens, two wool scarves, and a thick knit hat, and I even grabbed two hand warmers from my dad’s hunting gear to keep in my pockets if it gets really cold. I haven’t had to use them—I’ve been walking so much that I’m not particularly chilled beyond my cheeks, which are stinging a bit.
Normally, I’d be at cheer tonight, but with the hubbub, all after-school activities were canceled. Everyone’s on edge. Everyone’s a little scared. Any laughter in the school sounds strange and alien. And they’ve brought in Mr. Anderburg, a young, twitchy man, as the substitute French teacher . . . and he doesn’t understand two words of the language, I’m pretty sure. He sort of stands at the front of the class in baggy clothes, stuttery and out of place, and the whole room feels pale and odd and scared without Belrose at the helm.
Everyone whispers. All the time.
I walk faster. I’m almost there. I think of the steps I am taking and my fitness wristband, but I don’t want anything tracking me here. My location tracker on my smartphone has been off basically since I got it. I hate people knowing where I am at all times. It’s creepy.
I like my steps untraceable.
I stop deliberately short of the Belrose house, and it looks just like it always has, like Alex is just waiting for me to slip in through the back gate and into the den, where he’ll be waiting with French poetry and a kiss. Only he isn’t. Only I’ve checked my e-mail ten thousand times and he’s nowhere, and no one knows anything, especially not me, and it hurts somewhere strange and deep in me where I didn’t know it was possible to hurt.
I study the house from as close as I dare, but I can’t see anything of note. Just the same old house, looking the same old way, and nothing to show that anyone is missing or that anything has happened at all.
I feel strange and let down. Somehow I felt like maybe if I were in the neighborhood, he’d want to come back. He’d sense I was here and pop up, and be happy to see me.
If he could.
But there’s nothing. Just the sound of the fir trees moving and distant wind chimes.
I swallow hard, resisting the urge to push through the gate and try the back door. I turn away instead, and walk through the trees, trudging back in the direction of my house.
When I get home, though, I force myself to concentrate. I sit at the desk in my room and finish my homework. I double-check all my answers even though I know I’m right. I double-check them even though I’m certain my teachers don’t care right now either.
Everyone’s mind is elsewhere.
Nothing like this has ever happened before.
Neta texts me.
COME OVER. I’M BOREDDDDDDDDDDDD.
I’m not. But I need something else to think about besides Alex. Something else to do besides check my e-mail and pace the floor of my room, wearing a path in my rug.
“You came!” she squeals at me when I walk through the door, and hugs me. She looks good. A lot better since the funeral, actually, although I suppose that’s not hard, since the funeral was pretty much the lowest I’d ever seen her. For a few days after the service she stopped wearing makeup because she kept crying it off so quickly, but she has it back on today and she’s actually sort of smiling.
“You okay?” I ask cautiously.
“Just glad you’re here,” she says, but if I look hard I can see a little bit of sadness underneath her excitement. “Come downstairs. I have TLC on and I made brownies.”
Neta is basically Martha Stewart (minus the jail time) in the kitchen, and I cannot resist her brownies. She also knows I’m not the type of girl to eat one bite of brownie and feel bad about it for a million years. I’ll eat, like, twelve and feel pretty great about it, honestly. And then I might get a stomachache and decide it was a bad idea later, but I prefer to live in the moment. And in this moment, I need brownies in my life.
I am a girl
who knows what she wants, after all.
“Do you have ice cream?”
“Rocky road.”
“You’re the light of my life, Neta Adriana Castillo.”
She flips her hair. “I know.”
We run downstairs like we’re middle schoolers again. TLC is playing reruns of Say Yes to the Dress, which we both know is staged, but we don’t care. The entire pan of brownies (minus two squares) are sitting, precut, on the floor in front of the television. Neta disappears for a moment and brings back two pints of store-brand ice cream—one fudge chocolate, one mint chocolate chip.
“Sorry, no rocky road,” she says apologetically, dropping a spoon in my lap, and we grab a bunch of old blankets and pillows and sit on top of them.
“Thanks for coming over,” she says. “I needed some distractions.”
“So did I,” I say. “This whole thing at school with Mr. Belrose is nuts, right?”
She nods. “I heard, like, he got kidnapped.” She pulls a blanket around her shoulders.
“What? From who?” I sit up a little straighter.
“Lilah Gilbert, actually. She said that he was taken by someone who was pissed about a grade. Isn’t that insane?”
I sink back down into the pile of blankets. Nothing Lilah Gilbert says is likely to be anywhere close to the truth. In fourth grade, she pulled two hundred dollars out of a Cracker Jack box, claiming it was a prize, but she actually stole it from Mr. Jeppard’s wallet, which he figured out during a spelling test when his wife came by to pick up the cash she was supposed to buy a used crib with. Of course, Elijah Piper pointed right at Lilah and mentioned her lucky Cracker Jack winnings, and Mr. Jeppard was so mad, he didn’t stop at sending Lilah to the office. The cops actually arrested her for theft. She got suspended for two weeks, and when she returned, she was transferred next door to Mrs. Dones’s class, which we were all pretty jealous about because Mrs. Dones let everyone call her Angelica and play music during reading hour.
“What do you think happened?” Neta asks. She’s mashing brownie into her mint chocolate chip ice cream.
For a second, I want to tell her everything. I want to tell her about our nights together, and how Alex kisses, all of the meals he has cooked for me, and the French poetry, and the promises to leave Jacqueline, and how we were really going to be together. I want to tell her how he betrayed me and how somehow even though I sort of hate him a little, I think I actually love him.
But that’s all ridiculous, of course.
So the moment passes. I grab a spoonful of her mint-and-brownie mess. “His wife is a little nutty, isn’t she?” I ask. “Maybe they should start there.”
Neta grabs the remote and starts paging through the guide, bored with the white-wedding-dressed women on the screen. “Maybe. Hey, did I tell you I’m talking to someone new?”
I blink at her. “No, you didn’t!” I don’t point out that I’ve been a pretty poor friend because I’ve very nearly been doing my teacher.
“His name is Chase, and he’s friends with Jamal too, I guess. After the whole Sandeep fiasco, I suppose Kolbie thought I deserved a shot—so Chase just happened to be in town just after visiting his aunt and uncle or something. So we went to a movie with Kolbie and Jamal, and then, I don’t know, I think we’re a thing or something.”
“You think you’re a thing?” I ask, trying to emulate her level of excitement while my heart is dropping. “Have you talked about it?”
“Kind of. I mean, he’s going back this weekend, and we’re supposed to hang out. He’s taking me to a nice dinner, and we’ve texted every night. See? We’re texting right now.” She thrusts her iPhone at me, showing three (3) new texts from Chase Abrams.
“You really like him.” A little of the strange jealousy that rose when I realized that Kolbie and Neta have a life without me fades. Neta really needs a distraction right now. And if that’s Chase . . . well, then, that’s good for her. And I’m glad. She needs something positive in her life.
She wiggles a little. “Yeah, kind of. I just wish he were here, you know? So we could hang out as often as RJ and I did. RJ was always just—around when I needed him.”
“Yeah. I get that.”
I wish Alex were here too. Everything feels strange now. Before Alex, I would have been fine sitting here in the basement with Neta, eating ice cream and talking about guys and watching reality shows.
And now it doesn’t feel like enough.
The doorbell rings upstairs. “Expecting someone?” I ask, but Neta shakes her head and chooses reruns of Teen Mom . . . but then Rob Samuels comes stomping down the stairs. One of his sneakers is untied and he’s grinning and holding a liter of Dr Pepper and a big brown paper bag that says SMILEY’S, the name of the local grocery store. A big tear runs up the side.
“Hey!” he says. “What’s up?”
I want to drag Neta in the bathroom and force her to explain herself, but she just points to the recliner near her shoulder. “What’s up, Rob?” she asks. “Grab a seat.”
He sits down. I shoot her a look. She could have at least told me he was coming. I feel slightly intruded upon. I thought it was girls’ night.
“I heard it was junk food time,” he says, and tears open the brown bag and leans forward to dump it out between us on the blankets. An array of candy flows out in a sugar waterfall: caramels, little packets of Sour Patch Kids and Swedish Fish, chocolate truffles, red and pink Starburst, and even fun-size packages of Skittles.
I relent a little.
“I’ll get a little ice for the soda,” he offers. “Are you done with the ice cream? I can put it back in the freezer if you want.” He collects the ice cream containers and runs up the stairs, like he knows exactly where everything is.
“What?” Neta asks innocently. “He’s helpful.”
I glower. “Helpful, huh?”
“This has nothing to do with you. I swear to God. He’s just been sweet to me at school. That’s all. So I told him he could hang out with us, and obviously he is cool because he is basically a girl, snack-wise. I mean, look at this. His sweets game is on point. There is not a Funyun or beef jerky in the mix.”
She throws herself back on the pile of candy, doing a snow angel in the mess. I giggle in spite of myself.
“I guess. But I love Funyuns. And beef jerky.”
Neta makes a face.
Rob stomps back down the stairs, three glasses filled with ice balanced in his hands. “Ladies first,” he says without any trace of irony, and fills our glasses with cold Dr Pepper.
I observe him. He does seem sort of harmless, and if Neta’s the one who wants him here, I don’t exactly care. He sinks back into the chair and grabs a chocolate truffle off the floor.
“You can’t tell my friends I’m here,” he tells me, popping the truffle into his mouth. “I’d lose major points. Oh, hey, is this Teen Mom? I don’t think I’ve seen this one.” He leans forward and scoops up a couple of Starburst.
I watch him for a few seconds longer, but he sort of seems content just staring at the TV, so I nudge Neta.
“So, Chase this weekend, huh?” I ask, and she practically bubbles over with excitement. I let her talk over the television, which normally drives me crazy. Somebody needs a little happy in their lives, and if it can’t be me, it might as well be Neta.
THIRTY-TWO
Fake
“Nothing.”
My brother shakes his head. “This is bad. I just have this feeling, you know? It’s in my gut. It feels like shit.” He puts his hand on his stomach.
“Yeah,” I say. I’m sprawled out across the couch in the living room, an old People magazine open under my arm, and Ethan is rocking back and forth in the recliner. It makes a small squeak every time he moves.
He won’t shut up about Alex.
I give up on the magazine and pretend like I’m watching some stupid cartoon, only I don’t know anything that’s going on and I think I might be sick at any second. It rises up from the top of my
stomach and sits at the base of my throat.
“There are search parties out, and they’re just not successful. They’re in all the parks and stuff, but they’re not finding anything. I mean, anything. And the cops have questioned his wife, and I don’t think she’s a ‘person of interest’ or whatever. And maybe it’s good that they haven’t found him, but you know what everyone’s saying, right?”
I don’t want him to answer. I can’t hear the answer. I don’t want him to say it.
“They’re saying that he’s dead.” He pauses, staring at the characters leapfrogging across the television. “Can you believe it? Someone I went to high school with? Just dead, just like that? Life is screwed up. I mean, I never knew anyone that died before.”
He says it like it’s final and done and inarguable and just a thing.
“I’m sure he’s not dead,” I say, but even as I say them, the words are tinny and false in my ears. I stand up, wishing I were numb, and walk to the little half bath by the kitchen, where I am very quietly ill before wiping my mouth and returning to the TV. I sink into the couch, my skin clammy, and pull a throw over my legs.
“I keep calling him, you know?” Ethan says. “I bet I called him twenty times. All of us have. It’s like I expect him to answer, but he never does.” He pauses, jiggling the remote. “Have you heard anything?”
“Nothing,” I say, and my throat clams up a little. Are they going to start combing his house for DNA? Then what? Are they going to find me? Would it even matter? I’m sure I’m not in a database or anything, on account of never having committed any real crimes.
It’s not like anyone would suspect me—anyone. No one knows I’ve ever been there. No neighbors have ever seen me enter or exit.
I don’t think.
My blood feels oddly thick in my veins, and I run to the little half bath again, but there is nothing left in my stomach.
• • •
The next day at school, the mood is tense, and I can hardly get through my classes. The teachers feel pretty much the same way, and they barely give us any homework—which is a good and bad thing, because it means my mind has room to wander, and the only thing anyone can really think about is Belrose. Unless you’re Neta, and then you’re thinking about Chase.
Such a Good Girl Page 16