Restless Hearts
Page 20
I knew he would, too. I could trust KO with anything important—even my shoe collection.
I put the last piece of tape on a cardboard box Jorge had helpfully marked “Eleganza Extravaganza.” In seemingly no time at all, KO, Jorge, and I had packed up my childhood apartment. My entire life was tucked neatly into boxes, ready to be ferried up to Washington Heights in a truck KO had borrowed from a buddy.
I couldn’t believe I was really leaving Delancey Street. Good-bye to the grooves in the floor where Mom’s sewing table had scraped it. Good-bye to the red sauce stain on the ceiling from a make-your-own-pizza-night disaster. Good-bye to the millions of memories of Mom, sewing and singing and laughing and giving the best hugs.
“She’d want you to move on, Katy,” Jorge said softly, putting his arm around me. “It’s time.”
“I know.” I snuggled into him, looking out the window, past the fire escape to the buildings beyond. “And no matter where I go, I know she’s always with me.”
“Of course she is. And now I’ll get to have you with me, too. I’m so glad an apartment opened up in my parents’ building. I get a little bit of breathing space from the fam, you get the world’s best roommate …”
“I know it.” Leaving home was a lot less scary knowing that I’d have Jorge with me.
“Even with my parents giving us a break on the rent, we’ll probably have to get a third roommate,” Jorge mused.
“Don’t worry. I bet we can find someone amazing.”
“Well, that’s one box on the truck.” KO reappeared in the doorway. “Only about … a million more to go. Are the two of you planning on moving any of them?”
Before Jorge and I could answer, my phone rang. Glancing at the screen, I saw a New York area code.
“Who’s calling you?” Jorge said. “Don’t they know how to text like a civilized person?”
“I don’t recognize the number.” I frowned as the phone continued ringing. Who could it be?
“Maybe it’s Lacy’s?” KO suggested. “Didn’t you leave them your contact information after the fashion show?
“Girl.” Jorge’s eyes went wide. “Get that employee discount!”
Maybe it was Lacy’s! This could be it—a chance to work at my favorite place in the world.
Taking a deep breath, I answered the phone, hoping whoever was calling couldn’t hear how loudly my heart was beating.
“Hello?”
“Katy Keene?” The voice on the other end of the line was cool and crisp, like a fresh bolt of linen, but with steel underneath the cultured tones. “This is Gloria Grandbilt. I’m calling from the personal shopping department at Lacy’s.”
“I know who you are,” I blurted out. Gloria Grandbilt?! The Gloria Grandbilt was calling me?! “I mean, um, yes, hello. This is Katy Keene.”
“Well. Glad we’ve established that. I may have a position available in my department. Are you available to come in for a preliminary interview?”
“Yes. Yes I am.”
I flashed KO and Jorge a thumbs-up. Jorge screamed silently with glee while KO grinned, the corners of his eyes crinkling in that way I loved so much.
“Excellent. I’ll have my assistant send over some potential times. We look forward to seeing you at Lacy’s, Miss Keene.”
“Thank you. Thank you so much.”
They looked forward to seeing me at Lacy’s!
I couldn’t wait.
STEPHANIE KATE STROHM is the author of That’s Not What I Heard; It’s Not Me, It’s You; The Date to Save; Love à la Mode; Prince in Disguise; and The Taming of the Drew. She graduated from Middlebury College with a dual degree in theater and history, and has performed in twenty-five states. She currently lives in Chicago with her husband, her son, and a dog named Lorelei Lee.
Keep reading for the first chapter of the latest Riverdale novel, The Poison Pen by Caleb Roehrig!
Secrets are like cockroaches: When you spot one, you know there are hundreds more just below the surface. And the town of Riverdale is infested. I would know.
I’ve learned a lot just by observing the people here. For example, when Archie and Betty were pretending to hook up as part of their ruse to smoke out Jughead’s would-be murderers? It was pretty clear to me that their little “spring fling” wasn’t a total sham. The way they’d sneak glances at each other when they thought no one was watching … all you had to do was catch the expressions on their faces, and you could read their true feelings like the menu at Pop’s.
I don’t mean to brag, but I figured out Veronica had something going on with Reggie while her erstwhile boyfriend was busy rotting away in juvie for murder. And Kevin Keller was so obvious about his fling with Moose Mason, back when it was still supposed to be hush-hush, that he might as well have just taken out a full-page ad in the Register to announce that they were sneaking around on the sly.
Some people might call me nosy. (And I guess there’s a little truth to that, even if I don’t really think of it that way myself.) The simple fact is, in a town like Riverdale? You have to try hard to avoid stumbling over other people’s private business. None of us went looking for news about Hiram and Hermione Lodge’s collapsing marriage, none of us really wanted updates on Betty Cooper’s creepy Silence of the Lambs relationship with her father, and we didn’t ask Cheryl Blossom to give us all a minute-by-minute update of her romance with Toni Topaz. But we got all of it, anyway, just the same.
How can a person be considered nosy when the secrets in this town practically go looking for us, rather than the other way around? Honestly, minding your own business is a full-time job in Riverdale. And I’ve got too much to do as it is.
Recently, I learned something particularly juicy—something I was definitely not supposed to know. I spotted one of those pesky little cockroaches, and before I could even think twice, I was flipping over the proverbial rock and finding dozens more. To tell you the truth, it made me sick.
And then it made me mad.
Maybe Riverdale has never been the perfect little greeting-card town people like to pretend it is, but I’m sick of wading knee-deep in metaphorical cockroaches.
So I guess you could say I’ve appointed myself our little hamlet’s own personal exterminator. Too many beautiful people are keeping too many ugly things hidden, and I’m done being a silent witness to it all. So grab your sunglasses, kids, because I’m shining a great big light into this town’s dark corners, and what comes out might shock you …
—Poison Pen
Copyright © 2020 by Archie Comic Publications, Inc.
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
First printing 2020
Cover art by Anna Dittmann
Cover design by Heather Daugherty
e-ISBN 978-1-338-70257-6
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
.