by Brodi Ashton
Without looking at me, Raf took off his jacket and put it around my shoulders.
I inhaled. It smelled like him. Or maybe the aftershave he used, or cologne, or hell, it could’ve been deodorant. Or soap. Whatever it was, whoever made that scent should get a raise.
“Are you and my jacket having a little moment?”
My eyes shot open. I didn’t realize I’d even shut them. Raf had a crooked smile on his face.
“Yes, yes, we are. And I’d appreciate a bit of privacy.”
Raf smiled, and his eyes literally twinkled. Okay, I know it was just from the porch light reflecting off his corneas, but damned if I wasn’t sitting on a porch in the middle of the night with the world’s cutest boy and his eyes were twinkling.
Get a grip, Piper. What are you going to write a news story about? Twinkling eyes?
BREAKING NEWS: CLICHÉ ABOUT TWINKLING EYES PROVEN TO BE BASED IN FACT. TEAM COVERAGE AT ELEVEN.
Back to being a reporter.
“So what was going on tonight?” I stopped myself from asking follow-ups like Was it drugs? Illicit shenanigans? Sex trafficking?
“First off, thank you for helping me. I’m afraid most of my acquaintances have security details that are more imposing than yours.”
“My security detail consists of a phone and the option of dialing nine-one-one.” If the phone bill was up-to-date.
“Right. Well, my mom sort of had a crisis. It lasted for a few days. You saw her in her state, didn’t you?”
I felt the urge to lie and say I didn’t, but he obviously knew I had. He had that ability to intuit the truth.
“Yes. I saw her.”
“Probably with a handful of pills.”
I hesitated.
“It’s okay, Pip. It is what it is.”
I nodded. Whether he interpreted my nod as an affirmation that it is what it is, or as an affirmation that I saw her with a handful of pills, I didn’t know. But he continued.
“So my dad has this mistress. You met her at the party. The personal secretary, Lidia.”
I remembered Lidia. Impeccably dressed and mannered. Beautiful. Young.
“My mom has a hard time with it. To cope, she takes pills. At least, that’s her excuse, although she was taking the pills long before there was any mistress.”
Mistresses and drugs. This was getting into deeply personal territory.
“Wait.” I put my hand up in front of his face. “Stop. You don’t need to tell me anything else.”
Charlotte would’ve killed me. The last thing any reporter worth her weight would say was “stop talking.” I didn’t even understand why I was stopping him.
“I want to tell you,” he said. His eyes were wide and desperate. “Because you were there for me, and you deserve to know what you were participating in.”
I stayed quiet, not sure which part of me would win out next, the part that knew Raf was vulnerable, and now would be the time to pounce? Or the part of me that knew pouncing would be wrong?
Right. Wrong. Who decides which is which? The story was still just a piece of paper in my back pocket. Besides, Charlotte would say there is no right or wrong when it comes to discovering the truth.
“You can tell me whatever you feel comfortable telling me,” I said. I could live with that. I wasn’t forcing anything.
“I think I can trust you.”
I winced, and for the slightest moment, I felt I should interrupt, but I didn’t.
“My father is very protective of Alejandro. I don’t know if it’s a first-son thing or what, but he takes Alejandro’s struggles almost personally. Alex is two years older than me, but with his issues . . . Anyway, when my mom is very upset, she tries to get him in trouble. You see, he has diplomatic immunity, but he already has one strike against him for driving while intoxicated. If he gets one more, he’ll be shipped back home.”
“Wait, I thought diplomatic immunity was a get-out-of-jail-free card.”
“Yes, but it’s just one card. It’s like three strikes and you’re out, except you only get two strikes. Smaller stuff we can get away with, but not a DUI.”
That seemed unfair. I couldn’t believe I was defending one of the DI elites, but I was. “Why would your mom think that shipping Alejandro back home would get back at your dad?”
“My father would never let Alejandro go alone. He would give up his ambassadorship before he would allow that to happen.”
He leaned slightly to the right, which made his arm press against my knee a little stronger. Right then, as the wind picked up and the snowflakes swirled against the brick sidewalk and the breeze blew a tuft of Raf’s hair backward, all I could feel in the world was Raf’s arm against my leg.
“That’s why I needed someone with a car without diplomatic plates. I have some sway with my security team, but if Alejandro got caught at a bar, or worse, got behind the wheel, I couldn’t do anything.”
I nodded even though I knew nothing about the security and what they could or couldn’t do.
Raf sighed and leaned his head on my knee, and I couldn’t help but be jealous of my knee for being so close to his head, and then I remembered that the knee was actually a part of me, so I shouldn’t be jealous.
But I was. Because my knee was sort of kissing Raf’s head right now.
“Can I tell you something?” he said.
“Yes.”
“My mom got the idea about getting Alejandro in trouble from me. Because last year I wanted to get back at my dad over Lidia. So I got Alejandro a fake ID. From Mack Ripley. I’ve seen you with her. You’re friends.”
“Yeah.”
“Her dad is a spy. If you give her three hundred dollars, she’ll give you a fake ID that is so good, it works every time. So I had one made for Alejandro, and I took him bar hopping one night, even though I knew with his situation, drinking would lead to trouble. I don’t know why I did it. I wasn’t thinking clearly. It was just after I’d found out about Lidia.”
He stopped talking for a minute, and I had the urge to run my fingers through his hair and stroke his head, but I didn’t. Because Christiane Amanpour would never run her fingers through the Taliban’s hair.
“My dad lied about Lidia. To everyone. For three years. I wanted to get back at him, so I took Alejandro out, but I didn’t know there was someone following us on our bar hop. There was this girl, a public school girl, Tasha Stevens, who I’d taken out a few times. I was just playing, but she got a little obsessive. Her feelings ran deeper than mine, and I didn’t realize it. Her dad was a photographer and part-time paparazzo. He got paid by nabbing scandalous photos of politicians. Anyway, he was following us on this bar hop, and he got all these pictures. Alejandro and me chugging beers. Alejandro puking outside the Bourbon House on M.” Raf sighed. “My dad had to pay a lot of money to keep those pictures out of the paper, and even more to keep this guy away from us. The worst part was, he didn’t get mad. He asked me to do one simple thing: don’t hurt Alejandro again.” Raf sniffed. I couldn’t see his face, so I didn’t know what it looked like, but I could hear the pain in his voice. “I never wanted to run away more than I did at that moment. Do you ever want to run away?”
I thought about it. “Sometimes, maybe. I guess it would be nice to pack up and leave this life and start over somewhere fresh, in a different city, maybe in a different country, and I’d change my name to Phyllis . . . Muffler.”
Raf chuckled and then raised his head off my knee and looked at me. “That name suits you.”
“Does it?” I said.
The way he looked right now, staring at me, making my heart beat a little faster . . . he was in danger of ruining my headline.
He had a girlfriend to get home to. Or the woman from the bar. For all I knew, he had a nightly routine of going from house to house, telling vulnerable girls that they would look good as a “Phyllis.”
I stood up fast and wobbled a bit. “You have a girlfriend.”
I turned to go inside, but Raf grabbed
my hand.
“Things aren’t always what they seem,” he said. “Please stay, Piper.”
“You didn’t talk to me for months. Your dad hates me. And you have a girlfriend.”
Just then his phone started buzzing. Raf looked at the screen.
“I have to get this.” He put the phone up to his ear and turned away. “Sí,” he said. He looked at me. “No, Papa. He’s with me. We’re alone.” He paused again.
Alone. He couldn’t admit he was with me.
I pulled my hand away and shook my head.
He held up a finger.
“Sí, Papa. We’ll be home soon.” He hung up.
“Alone? You’re ‘alone’? Seriously?”
“It’s none of his business,” Raf said. He didn’t look at me.
Raf had made it clear everything in his life was his dad’s business. I pressed my lips together. “C’mon. I’ll drive you home.”
26
Charlotte: Where have you been?
The text woke me up at the crack of . . . noon. Noon. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept in so late. Except for the day after the party.
Charlotte: What’s the news? It’s been forever.
It started coming back to me in bits and pieces.
The scratching at my window.
A dark silhouette.
The rescue of Alejandro.
The porch.
My knee kissing Raf’s head.
Raf denying my existence.
How did I not realize I was in trouble at the knee-kissing-the-head point of the evening? I was pretty sure that when Christiane Amanpour secured the first interview with King Abdullah II of Jordan, she wasn’t concerned with her knee “kissing” his head.
I started to breathe fast. I felt so lost right now, especially in the light of day. I’d liked being with Raf last night. And I hated that I’d liked it. He’d confided in me. And then he’d lied to his dad about being with me.
I was talking myself in circles. I wanted to pull the covers up and over my head and spend the day in bed.
Charlotte: Did you lose your phone?
Charlotte: Am I texting myself?
Charlotte: Hellooooooooooo
Charlotte: Echo . . . echo . . . echo . . .
I rolled my eyes. Charlotte wasn’t known for her patience. She would get suspicious if I put her off any longer.
Me: I’m here!
. . .
Charlotte: Well?
. . .
I hesitated. Should I tell her? I didn’t usually talk to her about boys because up until now, there hadn’t been any. But last night shouldn’t have been about a boy. It should’ve been about a story, and the truth was, I’d gotten a lot of story last night. I’d also given a lot of my story in return.
And then he’d lied about being with me.
Raf was not a friend. He was a story. I decided the best way to make Raf a story again, and not a boy, was to talk the story part out with Charlotte. I pulled out my computer so it would be easy to text using my keyboard.
Me: Raf came to my window last night.
Charlotte: WHAT???
Me: Needed my help. I drove him to this club where he deposited his intoxicated autistic brother into my car and asked me to take him home and wait.
Charlotte: I can’t believe it.
Me: It’s true. Then we sat on my porch and talked and I told him things I’d never told anyone before.
But I didn’t send that last text. I just stared at it on my computer screen for a while. Raf was ashamed of me. Letter by letter, I deleted it so it only read:
Me: It’s true. Then we sat on my porch.
. . .
Charlotte: Is the porch somehow important to the story?
. . .
Me: Well, it’s where I got some dirt.
Charlotte: Wait! Don’t tell me any more. Write it as an article and I’ll read it as someone who isn’t familiar with the people and the story and edit it for you.
Me: That sounds great!!
Two exclamation points—I was overcompensating. In truth, I wasn’t sure how great this all really sounded.
But I started the article anyway. It was good for practice, right? And it was just going to Charlotte. And eventually I would tell her the truth, but not today. Or tomorrow. And probably not this week. Besides, Raf had denied my existence because I was poor. Did he really deserve a free pass?
Then again, did he deserve an exposé?
Just because I wrote it didn’t mean I had to do anything with it. Maybe writing it would remind me that he was trouble.
DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY: ABUSE, BRIBERY, PILLS . . . AND THIS IS JUST AT THE HIGH SCHOOL
“Don’t drink from the yellow cup,” the cute boy said to me. It wasn’t something I’d heard at any other party I’d been to, but that was because I was growing up in a normal lower-middle-class family where drugs weren’t served on a silver platter.
“Don’t drink from the yellow cup unless you want the lights to dance.”
Later in the night, fists would fly as a rich boy looked for a kind of danger that his privileged upbringing full of handlers and maids and servants and bailouts couldn’t give.
This was the life of diplomatic immunity.
It all started when I met a boy.
I wrote about it all. His mom clutching the pills. His dad’s ongoing affair. The way both Raf and his mom used his autistic brother to get back at his father. Yes, I was focusing on one family, but that’s what makes exposés intriguing: being able to follow one family in an in-depth way.
They’re the same struggles that many families endure, but when kids of privilege lash out, they have the means and the immunity to cause much more destruction, and when there are no consequences, they search for ways to be noticed. To be heard. Ways that escalate to the point of physical pain.
Mack Ripley’s secret side job of making fake IDs for the students. (Granted she wasn’t one of the elite, but she contributed to them).
Want to go to a bar for a night of underage drinking? Simply leave three hundred dollars in locker 405 in the morning, and by the afternoon, you’ll have a bona fide fake ID, courtesy of the daughter of a spy in the CIA.
The obsessive ex. Bribery of the paparazzi. Getting editors fired.
Unwanted pictures disappear under the weight of bribes, and papers are brought to their knees with the help of the Spanish mafia.
I laid the article out as if it were the front page of the Washington Post, complete with the pictures I’d taken of Raf’s mom and the pills, a couple of guys toasting with their yellow cups, Raf helping his drunk brother to the car, and a great shot of blood spurting from Raf’s face. I started to realize that what I had might do better in a magazine. Not a trashy one, like Star Lives, but maybe Time or Newsweek. Both were legit publications but also catered to an audience who wanted plenty of pictures and a personal story.
When I finished, I printed it out. I had to admit it looked stellar.
This was a story that could win me the Bennington. This was the story that only I could write.
Maybe I should change Raf’s name. Make him anonymous. Make it so that I didn’t ruin any part of his life.
But Christiane Amanpour would never kowtow to those in power. If I made him anonymous, I would be yet one more person in his life who protected him from the truth. And wasn’t that why he valued me? Because I wasn’t afraid to tell him the hard truths?
I emailed the article to Charlotte, and exactly thirteen minutes later, my phone rang.
I picked up. “Hello?”
“Shut up you cannot be serious this is awesome.” She said it all in one run-on sentence. “This is good. Like Time magazine good. Or People. Or the New York Times. I mean, I think you still have your work cut out for you. Like, for some reason, you describe everyone very well, except Rafael.”
I winced. “Really?”
“Really.”
Now that I thought about it, I had been careful not to go int
o much detail describing Raf, because I was scared my unresolved feelings would find their way onto the page.
“Don’t worry, Pip. I can help you. Let me ask you a few questions.” I could almost hear her getting out her pen and paper. “So, what’s he like?”
“Um . . . you know. He’s a boy.”
Charlotte went quiet for a second. “Oh. A boy. Thank you for that nice little tidbit. Is your second factoid going to be the revelation that he has boy parts?”
“Well, I can’t confirm that personally. But I’m sure there are plenty of girls at Chiswick Academy and the surrounding public schools, and possibly a few bars, who can attest to the existence of said boy parts.”
I couldn’t help but sound a little disappointed. I heard it in my own voice, but I wasn’t sure if anyone else, even Charlotte, would’ve been able to hear it.
“You sound disappointed,” she said.
I rolled my eyes, happy she couldn’t hear that as well.
“Of course I’m not disappointed.”
“Okay, so what else about him?”
I sighed in an exasperated way. “I don’t know. His family makes sangria. His house is crazy nice.”
“That’s about his family and his house. What about him?”
I was quiet for a long moment.
Charlotte spoke first. “I’m just trying to be a good editor. I know you don’t like what he stands for, but you still need to be able to talk about him. Remember when you said Professor Ferguson told you to write the story only you can write? You’re able to write this story because of your close relationship with Rafael. So show that.”
Charlotte seemed fine with exposing the secret life of the DI kids. Why wasn’t I there yet? Could I do it? Would I do it?
I needed to buy some time to think about it.
“Okay. Looks like I need to do some more digging.”
“That’s what I like to hear.”
That night, when I was lying in bed, my phone buzzed with a text. I was fully expecting it to be Charlotte, but it was Samuel.
Samuel: Hey, Piper! Sorry it took me so long to get in touch. I was in the Alps. I’d like to take you to a little hole-in-the-wall Italian place called Luigi’s in Adams Morgan. If you like pasta, you will spend the rest of your days thanking me. 7:00 Friday night?