Truly Devious

by Maureen Johnson

  “After you,” he said.

  “I will kill you,” she said in a low voice.

  “I’m telling you they are serious about that policy.”

  She walked around to the other side.

  All four of them were off together in the Bell family minivan, down I-89, as the dark fell over the land. The ride into Burlington was quick. They rode through the university section, got stuck on the waterfront road along Lake Champlain, and turned back onto one of the many small and charming streets.

  The entire order of the world was now thrown. There should be no David here, with her parents, in this place. Though the volume was turned low, Stevie could hear the familiar mumble of her parents’ favorite talk radio show—the one that always talked about how “those people” were trouble, the one that proselytized about Edward King. They switched it off, which was something.

  There were many fine restaurants in Burlington, and fine restaurants tend to be expensive. Stevie had looked up a place off Church Street, the main shopping and social area, that looked like it had good sandwiches and salads and didn’t cost too much. There were free places to park as well. The restaurant was the kind of place where you ordered at the counter and paid and took a number back to any table you liked.

  Stevie’s mom and David ordered first. Stevie’s dad took longer to examine the menu, and Stevie considered impaling herself on the potato chip display rack.

  “Vegetarian roast beef sandwich,” her father said. “I wonder how that works.”

  “They use a substitute,” Stevie said in a low voice.

  “Then it’s not roast beef, is it?”

  Stevie’s eyes fluttered closed for a moment.

  “Don’t make that face,” he said. “I’m just making a joke. Can’t I make a joke?”

  Don’t make that face, Stevie. Don’t be smart, Stevie. You think you know so much, Stevie, but wait until you get into the world you’ll see things don’t work that way. . . .

  “We came up to see you. Can’t we make this a good visit? We can always take you right back home.”

  Don’t react. Don’t give in. Just get through this, go back.

  The moment settled.

  “I like him,” her father said. “Very polite. Opened the door for you.”

  “He’s a treasure,” Stevie said.

  At the end of the line, down where you picked up your order, David appeared to be entertaining her mother to no end and . . . oh no. He was getting out his wallet. He was insisting, clearly insisting that he pay. There was the credit card. Another joke. She was laughing away, charmed half to death.

  Stevie distinctly felt part of her soul die. She hoped it wasn’t an important part.

  They took a table by the window. The cold air penetrated the glass, and Stevie invited the chill. It suited her mood. She examined her overstuffed chicken sandwich, found it was too heavily stuffed to ever pick up and eat, and so tipped it to the side and ate the component pieces with a plastic fork while her parents quizzed David.

  David, for his part, was all dark hair and eyes and waggling eyebrows on the other side of the table. He managed to get his massive sandwich in his mouth and conduct a conversation at the same time. His speaking voice was clearer, she noticed, like he was putting on a show.

  He was messing with her head.

  “So what do your parents do?” Stevie’s father asked.

  “My mom is a pilot,” he said between bites.

  Stevie looked up. David calmly ate a fry and then stacked the remainder into a Jenga pile.

  “A pilot?” her father repeated. “That’s very impressive. Must be hard to have a family when you do that kind of job. What does your father do?”

  “Well,” David said, breaking a fry in half and examining the fluffy insides. “He runs a fertilizer plant.”

  Stevie looked up at him sharply. Was he making fun of her parents? A pilot and someone who ran a crap plant? Stevie felt a wall of rage building inside of her. She may not have agreed with her parents on things, but they were her parents, not for anyone else to taunt.

  “Very impressive,” her dad said.

  Her face was burning. She put her cup on her cheek for a second to cool her skin.

  “So,” her mother said, “we need to talk about what happened. This is a pretty serious conversation we need to have with Stevie, David.”

  “Sure,” David said. “I had it with my parents too.”

  “And what did they say?”

  He leaned back in his chair with that ease that only guys are supposed to possess and that Stevie intended to master.

  “It’s horrible,” he said. “But accidents happen.”

  “How did the school let this happen?” her mom said. “That stuff should have been under lock and key.”

  “It was,” Stevie said. “He broke in.”

  “Couldn’t have been that well locked up, then,” her dad said.

  “Some people go to a lot of effort to get into locked places,” David said with a long, steady look at Stevie. “He stole someone’s pass.”

  “He was famous,” her mom said. “The news is making him out to be a nice kid.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” David said. “The news can’t tell you what people are really like.”

  “That’s the truth,” Stevie’s dad said.

  Stevie tensed. Please don’t start.

  “Stevie and I don’t see eye to eye on some things,” her dad went on. “But the media . . .”

  She felt her resolve slipping. Her eyes were going to roll back into her head and she was going to exit via the window and escape. She could live in the mountains and eat rocks.

  “. . . tells us what we want to hear, generally,” David said.

  Stevie felt her heart stop for a moment. Also, now her father was going to go for him, which would be something to see.

  “Interesting,” Stevie’s father said, nodding. “You’ve got a smart one here, Stevie.”

  It was like she’d been punched in the gut. Stevie said stuff like that all the time and was told she was wrong. David said it once and he got a nod and a compliment.

  Oh, the magic of dudes. If only they bottled it.

  “We got a call, Stevie,” her dad said, picking a bit of tomato out of his sandwich. “Edward King called us. Well, his office. His people.”

  “Edward King is our senator,” her mom explained to David. “He’s a great man. But Stevie is not a fan.”

  Stevie clasped her hands together into a knot and pressed them into her solar plexus.

  “We’ve been asked to become the volunteer coordinators for the entire state,” her dad said. “I know you won’t like this, Stevie . . .”

  Turn to stone, Stevie. Become a mountain.

  “That’s amazing,” David said, slapping on a huge smile. “Congratulations.”

  Her parents were both looking at her. This was the test of fire. She could explode. That was her instinct. That mountain she had become was really a volcano. But . . . if she could swallow it—if she could handle this—she would appear to be changed in a way they liked. And if she could do that, then maybe the door was not shut. Maybe, just maybe . . .

  It hurt. It genuinely hurt. The muscles of her face resisted. Her throat wanted to close.

  But she pushed. She forced herself into—if not a smile, then something that sort of resembled one. She pushed the air out of her lungs, up her throat, and out of her mouth.

  “That’s great,” she said.

  Two words. That’s great. The worst two words she had ever uttered. Her parents looked at her. They looked at David in his dress shirt. This whole strange little drama had an effect. And she knew at that moment that they would let her stay.

  So why did it feel like she’d just lost the game?

  23

  THERE WERE ONLY TWO SEATS LEFT ON THE RETURN COACH WHEN they reached it, so it was David and Stevie together again. Stevie felt the tightness in her chest and realized that she was balling her fists so ha
rd in her pockets that her nails were cutting into her palms.

  “They seemed to like me,” he said.

  “What the hell was that about?” Stevie said.

  “You’re welcome,” he said.

  Stevie got out her phone and stuck in her earbuds. David pulled one out.

  “What? You get to stay. Why are you so mad?”

  “Because,” Stevie said. “I don’t get to stay because of me. I get to stay because of you. Because they think we’re dating. Because they probably think I’ve landed some rich, preppy boyfriend. I get to stay because there’s a guy.”

  “I know,” he said, his brows angling in annoyance. “That’s why I did this. You said they thought that was important. That’s why I came along. If you want me to learn my valuable lesson, you have to spell it out.”

  “Dating,” she said coolly, “is what my parents think girls do. They date. So I have now achieved all they expect from me. Also, the Edward King thing? Yeah. I had to sit there and swallow that whole.”

  “Seems to have worked out,” David said. “Again, not seeing why you’re mad. You’re here, they’re far away.”

  “Because again, it’s not me. It’s Edward King, the guy who represents literally everything I hate. The guy is racist, fascist scum and now my parents run his goon army for the state, and I had to smile.”

  “I just want you to know, you didn’t smile . . .”

  Stevie was too enraged for a moment to speak. She breathed heavily until she found her voice again.

  “Also, your mom isn’t a pilot, you lying freak,” she added.

  “How do you know? She might be.”

  “And your dad runs a fertilizer farm?” she asked.

  “That one is true,” David said.

  “Near the beach in San Diego?”

  “Never swim there,” David said, gravely shaking his head.

  “I know one thing that is full of shit,” she said. “And it’s you.”

  He shrugged as if to say, Fair enough.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” she asked.

  “Lots of things,” he said.

  “You’re a liar,” she said.

  “Maybe we both are a little sensitive about our parents. I just wanted to help you solve your problem. Problem solved. You want to be mad, be mad. Here.”

  He picked the dangling earbud back up, and she reinserted it. But she didn’t turn anything on. She looked out the window, and at his pale reflection in the glass. She found herself annoyingly transfixed by the line of his jaw. At first, it had looked so sharp to her, like his face was coming to a point. It wasn’t that sharp after all. He must have been tense before, jutting it out.

  He was looking at his phone now, paying her no attention.

  Except he had made his hand into a little spider and was dancing it along his thigh. She watched it, as she was surely supposed to, and it crept closer to her leg . . .

  . . . then backed off.

  . . . then it approached again, with one tentative spider-leg finger hanging over hers but not touching, not touching . . .

  . . . just the very tip touched; was it even touching?

  Her entire body was static, anticipatory.

  The coach made the violent turn into the drive, jolting them and washing the spider away.

  Stevie walked ahead of David when they got out on the drive. When she was halfway to Minerva, she slowed, expecting his footsteps behind hers. He was nowhere in sight. She entered the common room a ball of frustration.

  “How was it?” Janelle said when Stevie passed her room. Janelle was in the middle of a pile of math books and wires and an open computer playing a TV show.

  “Good,” Stevie said, taking as casual a stance as she could. “Good. I think it’s okay. I’m staying, for now.”

  Janelle made an excited squeaking noise.

  “Come sit,” she said.

  “I’m just going to . . .” Stevie tilted her head toward her room. “I just need a few minutes.”

  Inside her room, she paced around with her coat on. She looked at herself in the mirror. Her cheeks were bright red from the cold. Her short hair was pressed flat against her head from the pressure of her knit hat.

  It was time to ask herself something she had never seriously considered—was she attractive? What was attractive? What did other people like? She knew what she liked—the short hair. She liked the way she looked when she narrowed her eyes, because it was sharp and penetrating without being too squinty. She liked the fullness of her mouth, because she was not afraid to speak up. She felt solid in the fullness of her hips.

  Was this what pretty was?

  Who knew. This was what a Stevie was, anyway.

  She grabbed the top edge of the bureau and stretched her arms out, looking down at the floor. Stevie knew about panic. What she didn’t understand as much was this new hormonal cocktail her body had on the menu and what it meant for her plans. She wanted to go upstairs. She wanted . . . David.

  She wanted him. David, who had just made her madder than anyone else aside from her family. David, who she had to see every damn day. Someone who came in from a run smelling rank and appeared again in the common room all spicy and clean and . . .

  Why him? Out of anyone, why did the hormone gods pick him?

  She heard him come in. Heard him come into the hall. Was he going to stop?

  No. There was the loud creak of the steps.

  She had to go and talk to him, maybe. She wasn’t sure what about. She slipped out of her coat, paced the length of her room, and found herself leaving and heading upstairs.

  Once at his door, she stood there uncertainly. She didn’t come up to this floor that often. The guys had to come down, but this place was optional. It was darker up here. The wind made more noise. She raised her hand to knock and held it in place for a full minute before bringing it timidly down on the wood.

  When David opened the door, he did not look cocky. The heat collected up here, so it was extremely warm. The only light on inside was a small bedside lamp.

  “You want something?” he said.

  “I want . . .” What did she want? “. . . to understand.”

  “What? Life? The universe?”

  “I want to know what your deal is,” she said.

  “My deal? What’s a deal?”

  “There’s something you’re not saying,” she said. “There’s something . . .”

  “There’s something you’re not saying either,” he replied. “Why won’t you mention that we made out?”

  “What am I supposed to say about it?” she said, her face flushing.

  “Wow, you’ve got real blushing issues. You gotta work on that.”

  She tipped her head up angrily.

  “What is it we are supposed to talk about?” she said. “Technique?”

  “We could. I thought yours was good. You really like to explore with that tongue. Every part of you is a detective, I guess . . .”

  “Okay,” she said, turning to the door. “Good-bye.”

  “I annoy people,” he said. “Believe me. I’m aware. It’s an effective way to communicate if you don’t have any other options. If you can’t get in through the door, throw a rock through the window. And I think maybe you’re the same way.”

  This grounded her for a moment. It made sense, and she was always willing to grant when someone else made sense. He left the door open and moved away from it. She went toward it hesitantly, pushed it open a bit more, and stepped inside. He was sitting on his bed.

  “She comes in,” he said.

  Stevie tapped the doorframe nervously.

  “I think maybe I’m embarrassing you by talking about what we did the other night,” he said. “I actually don’t want to embarrass you. That’s not my goal. Maybe I’m more comfortable talking about that stuff. I guess there are some things I just don’t give a shit about, for the right reasons. I can tell you I liked what we did.”

  Her wrists were throbbing. Her pulse was going
to make her hands balloon up, maybe explode from the pressure.

  “The fact is,” he said, “I liked you from the first moment I saw you, when you looked like you wanted to punch me in the face for just being alive. That probably says something dark about me. And I think you like me because I annoy you. Both of us have real problems, but maybe we should make our weird personalities work for us.”

  Stevie had often wondered how these conversations worked, when people talked about feelings and touching and all of the stuff she thought was meant to be kept carefully bottled inside her own personal apothecary. Now someone wanted in, to take the lids off the vials, to peer at the contents. Stevie was unaware that people were even allowed to talk about emotions this frankly. This was not how things happened at home.

  She shut the door. Her hand shook as she did it, but that didn’t matter. She took the few, nervous steps to the bed and sat gingerly on the edge. Sitting on his bed. This was new, dangerous territory.

  He didn’t move.

  “So?” she said. “What do we do?”

  “What do you want to do?”

  Her eyes were going in and out of focus. She moved over toward him and reached around, putting her hand on the back of his head and pulling him closer. She wondered if he would strain against her hand, if this was all wrong, but his head moved forward. She pressed her lips to his.

  This time, the kissing was slow as they delicately balanced on the very knife edge of the bed. Their lips met and they would be together for a minute, then they would both stop and stay where they were for another few seconds, faces together, before doing it again. There was no pressure, no anxiety. It was like they were talking easily through the kisses. Her hand slid down his chest and she felt his heart beating hard. He was stroking her hair, running his fingers up the short strands. He leaned back against the bed, and Stevie rested on top of him gently.

  And then, a knock.

  “David?” Pix called.

  Everything stopped dead. Reality came down with an audible thump. This could not happen again.

  “Closet,” David whispered.

  Stevie found her legs were wobbly when she went to stand. She stumbled over to the closet and climbed in with a pile of shoes and bags and ski equipment, all jumbled and smelling (not overpoweringly, but still) of use, pants and shirts crowding her head. She shut the door, closing herself in. David greeted Pix.