Pushing Perfect

by Michelle Falkoff

  “I wish you guys had just talked to me,” he said. “But those text messages are scary. I can’t really blame you for not telling me.”

  “If it helps, it was partly because we didn’t want to get you in trouble,” I said, which was sort of true.

  “Too late for that now. But maybe I can fix this. I’ll start selling again, and then maybe this Blocked Sender person will leave us both alone.”

  “No way,” I said. “You didn’t want to get into this in the first place, and now you’re out. Staying out is good. Besides, do you really think Blocked Sender is going to drop all this, just because he’s got you back? He’s got another person on the hook now.”

  “He’ll probably just come back to me anyway. Why settle for just one dealer when he can have two? Or more?”

  He was right. Once Blocked Sender had us, there was no reason for him to let us go. “What are we going to do? At least you have the option of just getting back in if he forces you to. I’ve been given this mission and I’m not going to be able to complete it.” I didn’t want to remind him that it was because I’d failed to steal from him.

  “Will this help?” He reached behind him and got his wallet out of his back pocket. Inside, folded up into a tiny square that he opened like a paper flower, was a prescription. For Novalert. Already signed and everything.

  Relief swept over me, followed by guilt, followed by the knowledge that he’d brought it with him, even before he’d heard what I had to say. He was a better person than I’d given him credit for, and a much better person than I was. But I knew I shouldn’t take it. “You said you weren’t going to do that anymore.”

  “I’m not doing for it myself,” he said. “I’m doing it to help you. You’re right that even if I started selling again, it’s no guarantee that this Blocked Sender person would leave you alone, and I don’t want you to have to take the risk of finding out what happens if you don’t do what he says.”

  I looked at the prescription, with its wrinkles from where he’d folded it. Now I actually had to go through with it, whatever it was. “I’m scared.”

  “You’d be foolish if you weren’t,” he said. “How about we resolve to find a way out of this, somehow? Make it be over?”

  “Without us getting in trouble?” I asked. “Without our secrets getting out?”

  “If there’s a way,” he said. “If there’s a way, we’ll find it.”

  He reached over and squeezed my hand, like I’d wanted to before, and I really did feel better.

  Until the next day.

  Time to fill that prescription. Walmart, Redwood City, between 1 and 5. Await further instructions.

  And one more text, after that.

  Tell no one. Or face the consequences.

  16.

  “What am I going to do?” I asked. My voice sounded whiny, even to me. As soon as I saw the text, there was no question I’d ignore the part about not telling anyone; it was much too late for that. I’d called Alex and she came over right away. She’d never been to my house before, but we needed a quiet place, and her parents were home while mine, as usual, were working. We sat in the living room while I drank cup after cup of coffee as if I needed it to keep me alive.

  “I don’t see what choice you have. You do what the text says. Unless you’ve come up with some way to get around it.”

  “I’m not sure I can go through with this,” I said. “Getting the pills just for me was one thing, but this is a whole other level of trouble.”

  “I understand,” she said. “But you need to think through what will happen if you don’t do it. Get out your logic brain and let’s figure it out.”

  I sat up straight, or as straight as the couch cushions would let me. “Okay. We’ve only seen Blocked Sender threaten people; we’ve never seen him come after someone who didn’t do what he said. Although . . .” I told her about my conversation with Raj, how he’d stopped doing what Blocked Sender asked and how he assumed that was what had sent Blocked Sender to me. “I hope it’s okay that I’m telling you—Raj doesn’t know you’re involved too yet, right?”

  “No, but he should. We should get him over here.” She texted him and we waited for him to respond.

  Be there in ten.

  I had a panicky moment when I realized I was practically still in pajamas, with only enough makeup to cover the monster, but I had to let it go. There were more important things to worry about at the moment.

  “Do you think there’s a chance Blocked Sender would let it go if I just didn’t do it?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Alex said. “But if Raj bowing out sent Blocked Sender to you, then it only makes sense that the least bad thing that could happen would be Blocked Sender picking on someone else.”

  “He’d probably go right back to Raj,” I said. “Which is not what I want. Or someone else, and then someone else would be going through this and it would be my fault. That’s worse than it happening to me.”

  “He could also just follow through on the implied threat,” Alex said. “He could send the pictures to someone. To anyone. Post them online, social media, whatever. Given your rep, word would get out pretty fast. People would love to see Perfect Kara show how not perfect she really is.”

  I hadn’t realized the dreaded nickname had made it to Alex. Apparently everyone knew it. Which meant she was right—everyone would love seeing me humiliated like this. I imagined Julia Jackson laughing about it with the Brain Trust at lunch. And then I remembered my other fear, that somehow Blocked Sender had a picture of my actual face. So many ways to show the world I wasn’t perfect.

  “So I have to do it. I have no choice. I don’t even know how, though. I’ve never gotten a prescription filled by myself. Am I supposed to use my own insurance card? Isn’t that not a good idea? And how much does it cost? If I pay with a credit card, they’ll know who I am. And aren’t there video cameras at these places? Do I have to show my ID?” The more I thought about it, the more I realized that there was no way I could do this without getting caught.

  “You’re spiraling,” Alex said. “One step at a time. Raj will be here any minute—he’ll know the answers to these questions.”

  She was right. I focused on my breathing to calm myself down and drank another cup of coffee, even though it would probably have the opposite effect.

  Raj showed up even sooner than he’d said. I was relieved to see that he hadn’t gone to any great efforts to groom for us, either—he was in sweats and a heavy coat, and his dark hair was rumpled in a way that was clearly more from sleep than styling. “Thanks for coming over,” I said. “We could use your help.”

  Alex interrupted before I could explain. “Before we get to that, I just want to say I’m sorry again for what we did at your house. It was my idea, and I was totally wrong, and I’m glad you and Kara have talked it out, but I wanted you to know that she would have done things differently.”

  I wasn’t expecting that. I wasn’t sure she was right—she’d come up with the plan, but it’s not like I had any better ideas. And I’d gone along with it. She was trying to take the bullet for me, going way above and beyond what she needed to tell him. But she wasn’t done.

  “She told me it was happening to you too—not to break your confidence but because I’m in this up to my neck, just like you guys.” She explained to him about the poker, and the money.

  “The timeline makes sense,” he said. “Thanks for telling me this.”

  “Sure, yeah, but does that mean you forgive me? Us?”

  I understood her concern for saving their friendship, but I still didn’t understand why she was trying so hard to help me. Did she really want me and Raj to get together that badly?

  “I do forgive you,” he said. “Both of you. I was angry that you hadn’t trusted me, but I understand. It’s not like I told anyone when it started happening to me.”

  Sitting in the living room, just the three of us, I was suddenly reminded of hanging out with Becca and Isabel, how comfortable
we were as a trio. How nice it was to have friends. Strange to be thinking about that at a time like this.

  “So what kind of help do you need?” he asked. “Not another prescription already.”

  “No, I just need to know how to fill it.” I didn’t say that my mother had always filled prescriptions for me in the past; no need to sound like an idiot, even though I felt like one. I ran through my lists of questions.

  “All right,” he said. “I can tell you what to do. You don’t need insurance—you can just pay cash. That avoids the credit card problem too. You don’t need an ID, so no need to worry about that. You’re right about the cameras—I usually go to small places that don’t have them, but you don’t have much of a choice here. It’s an easy fix, though—just cover your hair, wear sunglasses and different clothes than you normally would, and look at the ground as much as possible.”

  With every sentence I started to calm down. Raj made it sound manageable. Scary, still, but manageable.

  “I can help with the outfit and stuff,” Alex said. “And we’ll come with you. Right, Raj?”

  “Of course,” he said.

  “No way. I’m not risking anyone else getting in trouble for this. I’ll meet you guys after.”

  “There’s a diner not too far from the Walmart called the Bayview,” Raj said. “We can meet up there. We won’t see anyone we know. I’ll drive us to Alex’s so you can change, and then we’ll wait for you while you fill the prescription.”

  Now that we had a plan, I felt better. I wasn’t in this alone.

  We went right to Alex’s house—I wanted to get this over with, so I wanted to be ready to go right at one. Raj took Alex’s massive desk chair while she and I dug through her Closet of Wonders for a disguise. We settled on all black for the pants and shirt, covered with a denim jacket and topped with a scarf to cover my face. I wore my hair in a bun and put on a baseball hat and enormous sunglasses. “Unrecognizable,” Alex pronounced.

  It only took about twenty minutes to drive to Redwood City, but it felt like forever. This will be over in under an hour, I reminded myself. Except technically it wouldn’t—there could still be more favors to come, after all. I pulled down the mirror in the sun visor and checked myself out. My face was almost completely hidden. I was tempted to get a face wipe and take off my makeup—that would make me look totally different, for sure—but there was no need to go that far. I looked a little ridiculous, but if the parking lot was any indication, the Walmart was pretty crowded. If the cameras caught me, there wasn’t all that much of me to see.

  The front of the Walmart was decorated with wreaths and holly, and there was a giant blow-up Santa waving gently in the breeze. I heard the bell of a Salvation Army volunteer ringing as the electric doors opened. The store was full of Christmas shoppers, their carts full of ornaments and fake plastic trees. I’d never been in this Walmart before, but the layout was pretty basic. Though the store was huge, there were signs above all the aisles explaining what I could find in each one, with an enormous arrow pointing toward the pharmacy.

  The thing with stores like Walmart, though, is that they rarely let you get anywhere easily. I had to zigzag through aisles of stuff I didn’t want that Walmart hoped I’d buy anyway, just because it caught my eye: consumer electronics, bath towels, hair products. But I barreled ahead, thinking about all those people on reality TV competitions who insisted they weren’t there to make friends—I wasn’t here to shop. And I didn’t want to risk the cameras or run into anyone I knew, so I kept my head down as best as I could.

  The pharmacy was in the back corner of the crowded store, of course, and there was a line. Two, actually: one for drop-offs and one to pick up. I got out my phone and started playing games while I waited. The line moved slowly; there was only one person taking orders, and he was moving between the two lines. I kept my head down until I reached the front and heard the pharmacist say, “What can I do for you today?”

  I looked up and saw someone I wasn’t expecting.

  Justin.

  I’d done a good job with my costume—it took him a second to realize it was me, and then his eyes widened in a way that probably mirrored mine. My head started whirling with so many different thoughts, I got dizzy. Did this mean Justin was Blocked Sender? Or knew who was? Or was he being blackmailed like the rest of us? Or was it possible that this was random? I had a million questions I wanted to ask him, but I had a job to do and a camera to avoid.

  “Hi,” I said. “I need to fill a prescription.” My voice shook, and my hand started shaking to match as I handed Justin the piece of paper.

  He’d recovered faster than I had. He reached out smoothly and took the paper, giving it a quick scan and a nod. No acknowledgment that we knew each other, which told me that randomness was off the table. I realized he had an assistant’s tag on, though that didn’t really clear anything up. “I’ll take care of this right away. Give me a minute.” He disappeared in the back; I could hear people muttering in line behind me, wondering why Walmart didn’t hire more staff for the pharmacy if it was going to get this busy.

  Finally, he returned, followed by a much older man—I figured that was the actual pharmacist—who handed him a little orange bottle full of pills. Justin quickly stuffed it in a bag and stapled it closed. “Cash or credit?”

  I noticed he hadn’t asked me for insurance. He knew I was coming. No, he’d been surprised to see me—he knew someone was coming, but not that it was me. This whole situation was getting weirder and weirder. “Cash,” I said, and gave him the money, which ended up being three hundred dollars for the thirty pills. Only half of what Raj had told me it was, back when I bought those pills from him, but that was the markup, I supposed. Even with the cheaper price I hoped I wasn’t going to have to do this often, because I didn’t have that kind of cash lying around. Three hundred dollars was already a big chunk of my savings from years’ worth of birthdays and allowance.

  “You’re all set,” he said. “Next?”

  “Um, thanks,” I said, then turned around and zigzagged my way back out of the Walmart as fast as I could. Once I was safely in my car, I put my key in the ignition and just sat there for a while, trying to process what I’d just learned. Yet another one of my new friends was somehow involved in all this.

  It wasn’t a coincidence. It couldn’t be.

  I waited until my hands felt under control and then drove to the Bayview Diner. It was just south of Redwood City, a few towns away from Marbella, but it might as well have been in a different world. The town wasn’t nearly as affluent, and the diner was literally on the wrong side of the tracks—it was made out of an old train car, and it wasn’t all that far from the train itself. The décor was all retro: Formica tabletops, leather booths that had once been shiny but now had holes with the stuffing popping out, waitresses who wore wrinkled pink dresses with white aprons. A waitress whose real name was definitely not PINKY, despite her name tag, pointed me to a table where Raj and Alex were already sitting. They must have come early—they had a big plate of cheese fries in front of them and were drinking shakes.

  “How did it go?” Alex asked.

  “That depends on your perspective,” I said. “I got my prescription no problem. From Justin.”

  Raj almost choked on his shake. “I’m sorry, did you just say Justin was working at Walmart?”

  Alex looked even more surprised than Raj. “He’s in on this too?”

  “He was working the register at the pharmacy. His tag said he was an assistant. He’s the one who got the prescription for me.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Alex said. “He would have told me.”

  “It was definitely him,” I said. “He didn’t acknowledge that he knew me, though. That has to mean he’s in on it too.” I paused to think. “He seemed surprised to see me, but he knew exactly what to do. He was waiting for someone. I don’t think he’s Blocked Sender, but I can’t be sure.”

  “No,” Alex said. “Besides, Justin
can barely work his cell phone. He wouldn’t know how to block his number.”

  “Besides, he’s our friend,” Raj said. “If anything, he got roped into it. Just like us.”

  “Maybe you don’t know him as well as you think,” I said. “Maybe he’s got a secret life where he’s an evil genius who knows how to hack phones. Maybe he’s not such a good friend.”

  Alex looked skeptical. “People don’t usually do a great job of hiding their inner selves.”

  I so totally disagreed with her I didn’t even know where to start, except not with myself. “What about serial killers? Or even just people having affairs? People hide stuff all the time. Big things. Fundamental things.”

  “Okay, I get all that. But Justin hates hiding things. He came out of the closet when he was like five.”

  “He’s hiding his secret boyfriend,” Raj said.

  “That’s because it’s fun.”

  “Is that really it?” I asked. “How long has he been hiding him?”

  “A while,” she admitted.

  “So why would you think he’d tell you about Walmart if he won’t even tell you about the boyfriend?”

  “Because—” She stopped. “You’re right. Maybe it was stupid of me to think that.” She leaned back in her chair and folded her arms over her chest. I was getting confused. Alex had barely seemed fazed at all when I told her Raj was involved, and she seemed to be much better friends with him.

  “We’ll never know how he’s involved unless we ask him. Can one of you guys text and tell him to meet us here after work? Blocked Sender gave me from one to five to pick up the pills, which I bet means Justin gets off work then. If he’s in this like we are, he deserves to know what’s going on. And if he’s Blocked Sender, then we deserve to know that too. You guys know him better than I do—will you be able to tell if he’s lying?”