Lifted

by Wendy Toliver

  “Eliza, it’s me,” the voice says, and this time I hear it loud and clear. Cooper. “Eliza, you have to listen to me, the 318s and Tyler . . .” There’s a burst of static, and the rest of what he’s saying gets cut off.

  “Cooper?” I ask, and my heart starts to beat a little faster.

  Marissa and Clarice look at each other. Then in one fast springlike movement, they’re on the bed next to me, huddled around the phone.

  “Yeah, it’s me,” he says. There’s another burst of commotion on the other end of the line.

  “Eliza, listen to me . . .” he says. “You’re going to have to—” And then I hear him talking to someone else in the background.

  “What do you want?” I ask, my stomach dropping into my shoes. “If this is about you not getting into Brown, then honestly, I don’t even care. It’s all your own fault that you didn’t get into Brown, and I don’t regret—”

  “Eliza,” Cooper says. “Listen. To. Me. You have to meet me.” His voice is low now, serious and dark. “Right now. At Cure.”

  Marissa and Clarice are falling all over themselves and me, trying to get at the phone, and Clarice’s earring gets caught on my sweater. “OW, OW, MY EAR!” she screams, then reaches down and sets it free. I pull the phone away from my ear and put it on speaker in an effort to get them to calm down.

  “Cure?” I repeat to Cooper incredulously. Cure is a nightclub in Boston, and they’re notorious for not IDing. I’ve never been there. But Kate used to go all the time, and most of the kids at my school have gone at least once or twice.

  “Yeah,” he says. “Eliza . . .” I hear someone say something to him in the background, and then suddenly his tone changes. “Meet me there. At Cure. In an hour.”

  “Tell him no,” Marissa whispers, her brown eyes flashing. “Tell him that you never want to see him again!”

  “Ask him if he really turned you in to the dean’s office!” Clarice says. She picks up the letter from the dean’s office and waves it in the air in front of me.

  “Are you there?” Cooper asks, all snottylike.

  “Yes, I’m here,” I say. “Look, why do you want to meet me at Cure?”

  “Don’t ask questions,” he says. “You’ll find out when you get there. And make sure you wear something sexy.”

  I pull the phone away from my ear and look at it for a second, sure I’ve misheard him. “‘Wear something sexy’? Are you crazy?” I ask. “I’m not going.” This doesn’t sound like a “Come to Cure so I can apologize to you and make sure you forgive me for the horrible things I’ve done” kind of request. It sounds like a “Come to Cure so that something horrible can happen that may involve humiliating you further.”

  Marissa nods her head and gives me a “You go, girl” look.

  “Yes, you are,” Cooper says.

  “No, I’m not,” I say.

  “Yes, you are,” Cooper says. And then he says something horrible. Something I wouldn’t ever even imagine he would say in a million years. Something that is maybe quite possibly the worst thing he could ever say ever, ever, ever. “Because I have your purple notebook.” And then he hangs up.