My mom’s record, though, is considerably more extensive. There’s an entire family tree, linking her to all sorts of people I’ve never heard of. A copy of her birth certificate states that she was born in New York, when I know for a fact that she was born in Oklahoma. Or do I? Who is this person staring back at me with an older version of my chin?
I close the folder, feeling a little sick. It’s not like I thought I knew everything there was to know about my mother, but this indicates a huge, gaping chasm between the mother who used to braid my hair and sign my fake-illness excuse notes and the woman she actually is.
“Hey, kid,” Mike says. “Your drink’s getting cold.”
I lean on the table, trying to regain my equilibrium. What is the dean doing with all this information? What does any of it have to do with my internment at St. Aggie’s? The answer is nothing. So why is she digging into my history? Even taking into account how much she hates me, it doesn’t track that she’d want all this background on me.
“Kid, are you all right?” Mike says.
“Do you know who my mom is?” I ask him on a whim.
“No,” he says. “Should I?”
“I wouldn’t think so. But then, I don’t know her, either, and you would think I should, right?”
“What do you mean?”
I stuff the folder back into my bag, waffling between keeping it and burning it. “I wish I knew.”
“Does it have to do with whoever’s hassling you?”
“No,” I say without thinking. Then, “Maybe. I don’t know.”
“If you find out it does, you better tell me,” he says.
“I will. Thanks, Mike.”
Murphy opens the Ballou door then and, catching sight of me, comes to join us.
“Hey, Julep—got a sec?”
Mike bows out of the conversation and Murphy pulls up a chair.
“The makeover isn’t cutting it. Bryn’s not going to say yes because I got a new pair of glasses. What’s my next move?”
“Chill, Murph. We’ve got this.” I confess I’m having a hard time getting worked up over Murphy’s love life when my own life is such a mess. But a paycheck is a paycheck.
“The dance is only a week away. If she says no on Tuesday, I’m sunk.”
“That works to your benefit. She’s still dateless, and a girl like Bryn doesn’t go stag.”
“There’s got to be something else I can do.”
“There is,” I say, putting my hand over his to stop his finger from tapping. Boys are so jittery. “Two somethings, actually: the buildup and the proposal.”
“Buildup?”
“Write down all the things you like about her—the real her, and don’t say algebra—and give it to Sam. He’ll work up something fancy out of it, and then you’ll fill her locker with flowers on Monday, secret-admirer-style. She’ll be obsessing all night over who it could be. Curiosity is what we’re going for here. If she’s curious enough, she’ll say yes, no matter what her prior perceptions of you are.”
“Thanks for that, I guess,” Murphy says. “But how do I—?”
I anticipate his question and hand him a folded half-circle piece of aluminum I cut out of a soda can at lunch.
“What’s this?”
“It’s what you’ll use to pick her locker lock. Wrap it around the bar and slide it down into the lock. Pull up on the bar, and you’re in.”
Murphy eyes the aluminum scrap doubtfully. “Why am I the one planting the flowers when you’re less likely to mess it up?”
“Because if you’re the one caught rose-handed, it’ll actually increase your chances of getting the girl. If it’s me or Sam, you’re finished before you’ve even asked.”
Murphy nods. “And the proposal?”
“We’ll do something understated, classic—like lighting up the quad or hijacking the intercom system. Maybe something with a glitter cannon.”
The look on Murphy’s face is priceless. He’s such an easy mark it’s almost not even fun. Almost.
“Maybe not the glitter cannon,” I amend as the door to the Ballou opens, admitting Bryn and a few members of her entourage. Murphy, whose back is to the door, responds before I can warn him.
“Don’t push it,” he says. “Just make sure Br—”
I have to shut Murphy up before he spoils the whole con. So I grab him by the button-down and haul him half over the table for a crushing kiss. I hear several shocked gasps from the other end of the room.
Good enough. I gently push the speechless Murphy back into his chair in time to see Bryn and her friends giving us strange looks and a wide berth. It’s not ideal, him being seen with me. People know what I do, so Bryn could potentially put two and two together. But the kiss might throw enough of a curveball to keep her guessing.
Unfortunately, Bryn and her friends weren’t the only spectators. Tyler also picked that moment to walk through the door. But instead of the reproving glance and hasty retreat you’d expect, he smiles at me and shakes his head. He does leave, but he winks at me as he closes the door behind him.
“Are you crazy?” Murphy hisses at me, wiping his mouth.
“Of course,” I say, smiling.
THE RED, WHITE, AND BLUE
This is what campaign offices look like?
I check the address Tyler texted me, and then look up again at the swanky house, complete with cupola and circle drive. I guess I expected more of a grassroots, seedy-shopping-plaza kind of office. Or at least something downtown, near the federal building.
This place is deep in the heart of the Gold Coast Historic District and looks like it was built at least a hundred years ago. And there’s topiary. Honest-to-St.-Francis topiary. What this says about the senator’s campaign, I don’t know, but it says something.
There’s a doorbell pull rather than a button, and the din it makes when I tug it sounds vaguely cathedral. A uniformed maid opens the door for me, and after I state my business, she escorts me to a large library in the back of the building.
Calling it a library is a bit generous, in that the room doesn’t appear to have the function of a library. There are books arranged neatly in ornately carved built-ins all along the walls, but they seem dormant, as if their purpose is to suggest a library’s atmosphere rather than to impart any real knowledge. There’s a table in the center with chairs that match the shelves surrounding it, and a pair of tufted leather armchairs conspire over cognac near the brick fireplace on the other end of the room.
“Hey,” Tyler says from behind me.
“Your dad’s offices are pretty classy. I’d hate to see where the other guy is working.”
Tyler smiles. “These aren’t my dad’s offices; it’s our house.”
“Oh,” I say, feeling dumb. “That explains the topiary.”
“Nothing explains the topiary,” Tyler says. “Come on. I’ve set up shop in my room. It’s slightly less ostentatious than this.”
I smile and follow him to the kitchen and then up the back stairs to the third floor. He leads me down a few halls to what I assume is the apartment over the garage. It’s enormous, easily as large as the library, with its own bathroom, sitting area, video room, and office. My entire apartment could fit in his closet.
Sadly—to me, at least—it also looks staged, like a fancy new home with fake family pictures and paraphernalia to make house-hunters connect more with the room. This puts a crimp in my ability to read him, his wishes and flaws, his history.
But maybe I can read something from the utter lack of him in this room. Judging from the library, this is a house built to maintain an impression. Maybe Tyler is part of that facade. I know how I’d feel about that, but I still can’t read Tyler’s feelings about it. He doesn’t seem either proud or embarrassed as I walk into his room—just unaffected, as if I’ve been here dozens of times already.
He leaves the door open behind us, which might mean nothing or might mean everything. I can’t tell much until we start talking. If he talks too loudly
or watches the door, I’ll know it’s not safe to speak freely. If he acts like his normal Tyler self, then leaving the door open is either his way of circumventing any boy-girl weirdness or it doesn’t mean anything at all. Knowing boys, it’s probably the latter.
He’s laid out some stacks of printouts and a couple of boxes of envelopes on the artificially distressed trunk that serves as the coffee table. At the far end of the table is a post office–issue mail-carrier bin.
“So I should probably warn you that I’m a paper-cut weenie,” I say.
“No problem. I have Band-Aids. Besides, your main objective today is keeping me company. I’ll do the heavy lifting—or folding, in this case. You can do the stuffing.”
We sit on the floor between the coffee table and the couch. He folds the pages and hands the packet to me, and I stuff it as best I can into the slightly-too-small number-ten envelopes.
For an hour or so, Tyler and I chat easily about nothing and everything—school, the dean, even some old cons I pulled in middle school while I was learning the ropes from my dad. I fill him in on the odd information in my student file, Sam’s attempts at infiltrating the FBI database, my backlog of fake ID orders. In return, Tyler tells me all about the drama going down in the drama club, which I had no idea he belonged to.
“I can’t get over you being in drama,” I say. “Sports don’t take up every spare minute of your time?”
He gives me a sardonic look. “I’m more than just a pretty face, you know. ‘If you prick us, do we not bleed?’ ”
Tyler’s voice is light and easy, which ups the odds that I don’t need to worry about malefactors listening in. He’s laughing in that genuine way that warms me down to my toes. He’s too easy to believe in. So much so that I even tell him about my name.
“You mean Julep’s not your real name?” he says in mock surprise.
I shoot a rubber band at him. “Do you want to hear this story or not?”
“Definitely.” He takes a break from folding to give me his undivided attention.
“I was pulling my first solo con. I hadn’t told my dad about it, because I wanted to surprise him.”
“How old were you?” he asks.
“Ten.”
“What could you possibly pull off as a ten-year-old?”
“Honestly, pretty much anything. The con is about the outcome, not the method.”
“How so?”
“There are as many ways to pull off a single job as there are people. If you can work with what you’ve got, whether that’s age or good looks or a sports car or whatever, you can get the Golden Fleece. The trick is to know your assets, and then form the con around them.”
“Okay, I’m with you. So what happened when you were ten?”
“I conned my way into my dad’s favorite bar, sat on the stool next to his, and successfully ordered and was served my first mint julep. My dad had no idea it was me until I told him.”
“When you were ten?” he asks, stunned. “How?”
“I disguised myself as a little person of the male persuasion.”
“And that worked?”
“Of course,” I say, my mind drifting to my dad’s equally astonished expression, which morphed quickly into excitement and pride. I’d glowed under the praise, and, okay, the glowing might have had something to do with the alcohol as well. That night, my dad gave me my first lock-picking practice set and my grifter name as a congratulations gift.
“What are you thinking?” Tyler asks. “You seem a million miles away.”
“About my dad,” I say, smiling an apology.
Tyler reaches for my hand and my heart rate increases by a few beats per minute at his touch. He leans closer to me and my nerves tingle.
“He’s out there, Julep. You’ll find him,” he says, his voice low and earnest. Almost word for word what Sam said, but just as empty a promise. I can feel waterworks welling behind my eyes and start desperately thinking of baseball to keep the pipes from leaking.
Lucky for me, Tyler’s dad picks that moment to pop in.
The senator is tall, with big hands. Not freakishly big, just capable big. Tyler gets his eyes, and the cutthroat charisma behind them, from his dad. The auburn hair is similar as well, though the senator’s is shot through with the perfect amount of distinguished silver.
The two are clearly cut from the same Star-Spangled Banner. Which is why I’m a bit puzzled by the slight hardening in Tyler’s eyes when they touch on his father. I didn’t realize how much I’d assumed Tyler leads a charmed life, but now I wonder if that’s really the case. I suppose it could be your average parent angst, but the brittleness in Tyler’s smile seems more disdainful than resentful.
Then the senator turns the full wattage on me. “You must be the inimitable Julep,” he says, and I don’t notice that my hand is in his until I feel him shaking it. Firm grip, by the way. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
“Really?” I say, raising an eyebrow at Tyler. “I can’t imagine there’s much to say.”
“You’re too modest, my dear.” Ugh. Politicians. I’m pretty sure their gearshifts are stuck in patronizing. “In my experience, the most exaggerated accounts are usually the most accurate.”
“I’m still too young to vote, Senator,” I say, returning his smile and retracting my hand.
“Not too young to help the campaign, though, I see.”
Smooth.
“Did you want something, Dad?”
“I wanted to see how your project was coming,” he says.
“I’m handling it.”
“When do you think it will be done?”
“When it’s done,” Tyler says, steel in his voice. “It takes time.”
The senator narrows his eyes but doesn’t comment on Tyler’s tone, and I have to wonder what they’re talking about. The mailing is almost ready, and yet the temperature in the room has gone decidedly arctic.
Then the senator’s smile is back and his eyes twinkle at me as he says, “Well, it is very nice to meet you, Ms. Dupree. If you’ll excuse me?”
I wait a full thirty seconds after he’s left before saying anything.
“What was that about?”
Tyler looks down at the envelope he’s holding.
“Nothing.”
When I continue to stare at him, he sighs and looks up.
“He … interferes a lot. Drives me crazy.”
“It’s the parenting prerogative, I guess. Or at least, they think it is.” I lean back against the chair. “My dad’s doing his best to keep me from going to college.”
Tyler laughs. “Seriously? Why?”
“He thinks college is a scam. Actually, he wanted me out of school a couple of years ago. He thinks the foundation is all you need, and then you can research the rest as necessary.” I put on my best Dad expression, affecting his voice as closely as I can. “ ‘The only chemistry you need to know, Julep, is the chemistry between people.’ ”
I expect Tyler to smile at my silly impression, but he doesn’t. Maybe he senses the guilt behind the teasing.
“It’s an old argument,” I continue.
Tyler squeezes my hand, which he has somehow managed to regain possession of.
“Anyway, my dad thinks school is a waste of time, especially for me.”
“And you don’t agree.”
“No, actually, I do agree. For what my dad wants me to be, I need college like a fish needs a 401(k). Grifters only go into debt if they have vices.” Like gambling, I think but don’t say. “But …”
“But?”
“I don’t want to be a con artist anymore. I don’t want a life where I’m constantly running and hiding. I love my dad. I just don’t want to be him.”
“Then what do you want?”
“I’m tired of talking about myself,” I say instead of answering. “What do you want?”
Tyler shrugs. “No idea,” he says, grinning. “I want to know what I want. How about that?”
I smile back. Nice
to know I’m not the only one with issues.
“My dad insists I go to Harvard. That’s where he went, and his father before him, and his father before him. We’re a legacy family with a couple of buildings bearing our name. So of course there’s nowhere else I can even consider.”
“I can relate to that,” I say. “What is it about dads that makes them want a Mini-Me?”
“I don’t think all dads are that way.”
A companionable silence falls for a couple of minutes as we finish stuffing the envelopes.
“I want to go to Yale,” I say as I finish the last envelope on my stack. Here I go again, revealing too much.
“Why?” he asks.
I could tell him that when my dad came back after his two-week disappearance, I lost all desire for the life of a grifter. And that in a moment of existential crisis, I happened upon a rerun of Gilmore Girls where Rory was deciding between Harvard and Yale, an old dream and a new one. And that by the end of the episode I latched on to a new dream I could live with. I could tell Tyler that I stole Yale from a TV show. Instead, I tell him something more true.
“I want to be a real person—to be me. I know it sounds strange, but I don’t actually know who that is anymore. When you can be anybody, you become nobody. Does that make sense?”
He looks uncertain, so I try a slightly different angle.
“I guess I want to be ordinary,” I say, though that doesn’t feel quite right. “Actually, I want to be extraordinary. But in an ordinary way. Which is why I want to go to Yale. I want to be normal, but I want to be the best at it.”
Tyler smiles. “Well, I can’t imagine you as ordinary. But extraordinary’s not a stretch at all.”
I straighten my stack of envelopes unnecessarily to distract him from my pleased expression.
“So what is your real name, then?” he asks. “Wouldn’t going by your real name help you figure out who you are again?”
“Yes, but not yet. I have to stick with Julep until she gets me where I’m going.”
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