by Dawn Klehr
“What?”
“Back off, Dez. This film of yours is making her crazy.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, remembering my promise to Riley not to say anything to Libby about the video footage.
“The makeover, Tori, boys. I want you to leave her alone. I see what you’re doing, Dez. I know you want her, but she’s vulnerable right now and I don’t want her to do something she’ll regret.”
“And by something, you mean me.” I laugh.
“Don’t be crude.” Libby looks around and lowers her voice. “Riley’s confused. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed the changes in her.”
“Change is good.” I lean against the wall and cross my arms.
“This is not good, Dez, not good at all. And I don’t want to see her get hurt.”
“What’s the real reason for this outburst, Libby? Is it because Riley isn’t hanging on your every word anymore? Or, because now she’s the hot one? Which part exactly is getting your panties in a bundle?”
“She’s confused, Dez. If you were a real friend, you’d see the situation for what it is instead of an opportunity.”
“Here we go,” I say, taking pleasure watching her blood pressure rise. “You’re not worried about Riley. Not really. You’re worried that she’s going to choose me over you.”
“Not everything is about you.” She rolls her eyes. “You egomaniac. But I wouldn’t expect a guy to understand.”
“No, I’m sure you wouldn’t.”
“Look, I know you had something to do with Emma breaking up with Riley,” she whispers. “I know it and I will find out the truth.”
Shit. Where did this come from?
I put on my best poker face and try to keep my voice steady.
Give away nothing.
“Okay, Libby, you’re on a roll. What else would you like to add to the list of things that I’m responsible for? World hunger? The Middle East conflict? What else can you blame on me, and where are you going with all of this anyway?”
“Just consider it a friendly warning. I will find out what you’ve been up to, Dez, and I will not let you take Riley away from me.”
I hold out my hand, “Well, I guess the only thing I can say is … let the best man win.”
Of course she doesn’t shake my hand. So I slowly walk away, my mind racing, trying to figure out my next move.
“Asshole!” Libby screams to my back.
RILEY
After the Halloween party, I face another dumping. This time by Tori. She comes to my locker between classes.
“I need to talk to you,” she says in a low voice. It’s odd, because usually she makes a production out of talking—like she’s performing in front of an audience.
“Okay,” I say.
She dives right in. “Dad said he caught you looking for booze at the party.”
“I wasn’t looking for booze, Tori.” I was trying to find out if your dad killed Ms. Dunn.
“My dad asked around, Riley. Marcus told him you were spiking the drinks.”
Marcus, that snake. “What? He was the one—”
“I was trying to help you,” she says, cutting me off. “Like I need any more grief from my dad. Do you have any idea how he gets?” Her lip trembles and I can’t help but feel sorry for her. This is the Tori I haven’t really seen before.
“Tori, you have to believe me,” I say. “I wouldn’t do that. And I would never do anything to get you in trouble with your parents, either. Do you want me to talk to them?” I can’t lose my connection now.
“It won’t help.” Her eyes are watery.
“Don’t you believe me?” I ask.
“It doesn’t matter what I believe, Riley. I can’t have my dad thinking that I’m hanging out with partiers and drug addicts.”
“What about the testimony? Don’t you need that to graduate from church or whatever?”
Tori blows a deep breath out of her mouth. “Yes, I still need it,” she snaps. “I was trying to help you, you know. But how do you think all of this looks? Especially to my dad?”
Ah, I knew her whole act was about good PR.
“So that’s it? We can’t be friends anymore?”
“That’s it.” She turns her head. “We’re done.”
“Tori, wait,” I call after her as she walks away. But it’s too late—she’s gone.
Throughout the day, I receive a few farewell snubs from the Rollers. The cold shoulder from Alexa really hurts, but this situation is not nearly as dramatic as my public outing was.
I guess it’s more acceptable to be a drunk than a lesbian.
When I catch up with Marcus, he just laughs.
“That was so uncool,” I hiss at him during rehearsal.
“Dude, I’m sorry,” he says. “But it’s not like you and Tori were going to be real friends anyway. You do know that, right?”
“That’s not even the point.”
“It’s exactly the point. It’s not like the good mayor would’ve ever accepted you as Tori’s friend. Not like he had a high opinion of you—or any opinion of you. Not like with me. He doesn’t care what you do, Riley. But if he found out that I was drinking, he’d have my ass and then tell my parents. See? I had no choice.”
“Yes, I see,” I tell him. “I see everything now. Thanks for enlightening me.”
I walk away pissed, mostly because I let him make me feel small and insignificant.
I let him win.
Over the rest of the week, I go back to my old ways. I swap out the boots for my old sneakers and my feet are thrilled. I also ditch the curling iron and most of the makeup since I’m no longer required to adhere to the Tori Rollers’ dress code. I use the extra primping time and the new space in my social calendar to make sense of the clues Ms. Dunn left for me. But after my botched attempt at gathering evidence in the Devlin house, Dez’s enthusiasm for detective work has come and gone. Plus, he’s too preoccupied with finishing the film to think about anything else.
I’m on my own.
I start by calling the random phone numbers in Ms. Dunn’s papers. Eventually I find the attorney Ms. Dunn hired when joining the class action lawsuit against religious discrimination in the schools.
Things start to look up, until I discover that Ms. Dunn dropped out of the class action two days after she signed with the attorney. After that, I hit dead end after dead end. Thankfully, I’ve also found no evidence against Libby.
At the end of the week, I’m stuck. So instead of spinning my wheels, I put it all aside for Dez. He wants to show me his progress on the film in the editing suite today. I try to keep up with him as he glides down the hallway. He looks over at me and slows his pace. “I’m sorry. I guess I’m just excited to show you what we’ve got so far.”
“I’m excited to see it,” I say, feigning interest. Though I do want to watch, I can’t help but see Ms. Dunn’s killer at every turn. I just want an end to it all.
At least when I’m with Dez, I feel safe.
We walk by the flat screen that hangs on the wall by the school office—a donation from the Devlins. This is where they display activity information and school news. The red letters that flash on the screen hold me in my place: All School Meeting Tonight.
The mayor will be there. I know it. He always has his hands in everything. Maybe we can find out more about his work with the school and his connection to Ms. Dunn. And why she has so much dirt on him.
I grab Dez’s hand and get him to stop with me.
He looks down at our hands, smiles, then raises an eyebrow.
I nod to the screen and he sighs.
I try to release his hand, but he won’t let go. Then his lips curl up in a smile.
“Rye.” He turns me to face him. “I’ll go with you to the meeting so that you can continue your investigation of Devlin. But th
en will you do something for me?”
“Sure,” I say, flushed a little by his intensity. “What?”
“Let me take you out afterwards.”
DEZ
INT. EDITING SUITE—DAY
DEZ and RILEY sit in front of the monitor. The camera goes back and forth, taking a close-up of each face. RILEY looks nervous. DEZ beams.
DEZ hits a few keystrokes and RILEY’S face appears on the screen.
I know I was going to wait for Riley to make a move, do the smart thing and all that. But all I could hear in my head was Wyatt Earp in Tombstone. He kept asking me over and over, “Are you gonna do something? Or just stand there and bleed?”
Well, I was tired of bleeding and decided it was time for action.
It worked. Riley said yes to my proposal. I can barely contain my excitement as we sit in the small editing suite. It’s almost too much to be this close. I want to reach out and touch her.
We sit and watch the first completed section of the film. I have to say it’s good. Really good. How could it not be, with Riley’s face in every scene?
“Shhh,” I say as she giggles at herself onscreen. “This is my favorite part.” It’s a close-up of Rye.
“Oh my God,” she squeals.
“What? You don’t like it?” My heart sinks.
“No, it’s not that. Your work is amazing, Dez.” She shifts in her chair. “I just don’t like seeing this much of myself.”
“Well, speak for yourself.” I lean into her shoulder. “I could watch this … watch you, all day.”
“Stop.”
Riley blushes, but I just shake my head.
RILEY
The room is crowded, forcing us to stand in the back. The who’s who of our high school are all here. The teachers, the school board superintendent, helicopter parents, and the Devlin family.
I knew he’d show.
Principal Bunker calls the meeting to order and they babble on about dates for this and votes for that. Dez leans against the wall as his eyes begin to droop.
“Wake up,” I say under my breath.
He yawns and cracks his neck.
“Okay, next agenda item is our humanities program.” Principal Bunker shuffles his papers around the table.
I stand at attention.
“As you know, we’d been considering getting rid of the program before the horrible tragedy struck. Before Ms. Dunn.”
“We can’t get rid of the program,” someone yells from the back, which sets off a rumbling in the room.
“I agree,” one of the teachers at the table says. “We need to advance the level of education at this school. We can’t make any more cuts to our curriculum.”
“Hang on,” Principal Bunker says. “One at a time.”
Devlin raises his hand to speak. He’s surrounded by his family. Tori keeps her head down and my stomach sinks, thinking about how Devlin must have punished her because he thought I was boozing at the party. Tori looks like a little girl now, sitting next to her dad and pulling the stuffing out of the ripped chair. Principal Bunker nods to Devlin so he can address the crowd.
“I’m all for advancing the level of education in this school,” Mr. Devlin begins. “Humanities is a perfect example of that. And we lost a great teacher this year.” He clears his throat. “One of the best. I’m sorry Ms. Dunn isn’t here tonight, because we wanted to make this proposal together.”
Together? What?
“We were working together last spring to come up with some viable and cost-efficient options to keep the level of education up while keeping costs down.”
But, what about the notes? The petitions? The papers?
I think back to exactly what we found. Nothing, really. Was I reading too much into it? I want to find her killer so badly. Am I seeing things that aren’t really there?
“We think … ” He looks down and appears genuinely saddened. “We thought we could delay the elimination of Ms. Dunn’s humanities class another year. We were planning on a phased-out approach that would slowly integrate her curriculum into English, science, and art classes. Personally, I was hoping it would buy us time to find a way to keep Ms. Dunn on board. But in any case, she’s developed the guidelines that show how her curriculum can fit into the other courses. All we have to do is give it to the teachers and have them implement it.”
Homer stands up and joins Mr. Devlin.
What is going on?
“I never thought I’d say this, but the mayor is right,” Homer says.
There are a few chuckles from the audience.
“This is the perfect solution to our budgeting problem, and one I know Rachel supported. Not only do I think it’s the right thing to do for the school and the students, but it’s a great way to honor the work Rachel did here.”
I look over at the Devlin family—together as usual. But this time Tori isn’t wearing her plastered-on smile. Neither is her mother.
We were working together last spring, Devlin said.
I think about what I’ve uncovered so far: Ms. Dunn’s letters and financial documents; all the papers with Devlin’s phone numbers and notes; the Degas; the class action lawsuit dropped.
No.
Were they together together?
Ms. Dunn and Devlin?
Ew!
As the praise for Ms. Dunn goes on, Tori’s mouth scrun-ches up, venomous.
Just like it did the next day in school, after Ms. Dunn was killed. At her father’s request, Tori organized a prayer service for the students. Dez and I both went. It felt good to be around people, to mourn together. I think it was the first time I understood why people go to church. The connection they feel. The best part about the service was that it was for students only. People got up and talked about how scared and angry they were. Others told their favorite story about Ms. Dunn. But not everyone took comfort. Marcus almost got into a brawl with some freshmen during Amanda Fisher’s heartfelt story because they were too noisy or something. Dez was just as distracting. He was all jittery—bouncing his leg and tapping his hand on his knee. I was happy when he finally decided to leave. It was uncomfortable.
And then there was Tori. She led us in prayer. She read some sort of Bible verse, but I didn’t get it. It was about redemption and the forgiveness of sins. Almost like what happened to Ms. Dunn was her own fault. I might not be intimate with the Good Book, but it seemed weird. Surely there was a better passage that Tori could’ve used. Something a little more apropos?
As I look over at Tori now—her sour face and icy eyes—my Spidey sense kicks in.
“Dez,” I whisper. “I think we had the wrong Devlin.”
THE FINAL MOMENT
INT. OLD HIGH SCHOOL SUPPLY ROOM FILLED WITH JUNK—EVENING
The camera cuts to a medium shot of MS. DUNN. She grows increasingly flustered. Her hands shake; her eyes dart around the room; her posture is rigid.
MEDIUM SHOT—MS. DUNN
MS. DUNN continues to pack her box of supplies. She hums now to settle her nerves.
CUE: MUSIC
A film cart holding an old TV and VCR enters the frame. It comes crashing down on MS. DUNN. She falls to the ground, moaning.
The dark figure slowly enters the frame and pushes the cart off MS. DUNN. At first it seems like the dark figure is there to help, but instead …
The person strikes MS. DUNN in the back. We see what the person was concealing. It’s a blade of some kind.
MS. DUNN moves and tries to struggle. The dark figure doesn’t let up.
After almost a dozen brutal stabs with the blade, MS. DUNN stops fighting.
CUT TO:
CLOSE UP: MS. DUNN
We see MS. DUNN’s eyes go blank.
But her body continues to jerk back and forth as the attack continues.
FADE OUT
D
EZ
Of course, there’s no way Tori killed Ms. Dunn. I know that. Little Tori stabbing a woman—a tall woman—dozens of times. I don’t think so, but it’s not like I can tell Riley this. How would I explain how I know the unpublished details of her murder?
And if she knew the whole story, she’d never forgive me. She’d never give me the chance to explain and all of this would be for nothing. All of it.
I try to hold her to our date after the meeting, but she’s caught a new scent and won’t give it up.
“So, I was thinking dessert at the Pie Place?” I ask as we get into my car.
“Sure, whatever you want,” she says, distracted.
“Don’t act so enthused.”
“Sorry, but food is the last thing on my mind right now, Dez. Tori may have killed someone. A teacher. Isn’t that freaking you out? How can you think about pie at a time like this?”
My mind searches for something to grab onto. Anything. Surprisingly, I’ve become pretty damn fast on my feet. I do the only thing I can think of. Throw her off track.
“Because I know it wasn’t her,” I mumble.
Now I have Riley’s attention.
“How?” Her eyes pull together.
My throat tightens. I hate what I have to do, but there’s no other choice. “I was with her that night,” I lie.
“What?” she yells, trying to mask the hurt I can see on her face.
“Please,” I whisper. “Don’t make me relive it.”
“Oh,” she finally says.
This is low. Lower than low.
“It’s a long story.” I try to salvage the situation. “Nothing happened.”
“Hey, it’s none of my business.” Riley raises her hands.
“Yeah, well, maybe I want it to be your business.”
“Dez, don’t,” she threatens. “Not now.” She scoots away from me, closer to her window. “Please, just take me home.”
Great—by giving Tori an alibi, I push Rye further away, and all I really want to do is reel her in.