My Own Worst Frenemy (17 page)

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Authors: Kimberly Reid

BOOK: My Own Worst Frenemy
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Chapter 24
I
thought that was my worst day ever, but no, it actually
can
get worse. It's Tuesday, the day after Lissa spread the story that I robbed Annette's house, and by now everyone at Langdon has probably heard about it. Despite me faking illness, pretending to cry, and for-real begging, Lana makes me go to school today, and I feel like crap. She thinks I'm paranoid, MJ thinks I'm a snitch, Bethanie acts like I don't exist, and I can't find Marco anywhere on campus. Maybe he's like Bethanie, keeping his distance in case anyone thinks he's a crook by association. The rumors are still flying about me. In one version, I'm already in jail, even though I'm sitting right here in the library during my study period, checking e-mail, hoping Lana felt some pity for me and at least looked at the police report on the burglary at Annette's house. Just when I'm looking at my empty in-box and thinking my life could not get any worse, I prove myself wrong. Someone has just deposited their soda in my lap. I look up to find it's one of the clones.
“Oh my God, I'm so sorry. I'm such a klutz.”
“You have got to be kidding me,” I say, feeling the cold liquid go through my skirt. Great, I have to walk around school for the rest of the day with wet underwear, on top of everything else.
“I'll clean this up. You'd better get to the girls' room and try to dry off. I might have a pair of yoga pants in my gym locker if you want me to bring them.” She doesn't mention they're probably two sizes too small for me, like Lissa would have. This clone is nice enough that I might think the soda incident was accidental . . . if I weren't me and didn't suspect everyone of everything, especially one of Lissa's minions.
“No thanks. I have some shorts in my gym bag,” I say, walking out of the library amid stares, whispers, and laughs that make me think it was all staged for their entertainment.
After I grab my shorts from my bag and put them on, I hide out in the bathroom of the empty locker room for way too long, pretending to rinse out my skirt. Then I manage to burn through French class by spending an hour holding my skirt under the hand dryer. I can't think of any excuse to skip my last two classes, so I fake like I don't care that the whole school thinks I'm a loser, and finally leave the locker room to accept the fact that I'm in hell. When I get to my locker, I find someone has stuck a note through the slots. I expect it to be some joke about me being an ex-con but it's from Marco. That's so romantic—he's going old school like they probably did in Lana's day. I guess I shouldn't have missed French because he was here at school after all, and seeing him was just what I needed today.
Sorry I missed you in French. Hope you aren't letting these people get to you. I want to talk, but not around Langdon. Can you meet me at 7:00 at the park on Lexington? There's a picnic table near the fountain. I'll bring dinner and a smile in case you need cheering up. I'll be there whether you come or not. Hope you come.
And just like that, the day from hell turns into the best day I could hope for.
 
Marco is right where he said he'd be, but there's no dinner, and he looks a little tired. I may be the one who has to cheer
him
up.
“So what's the emergency?” Marco says, not sounding all that pleased to see me. And hearing him hack up a lung is not quite the romantic reception I'd imagined on the walk over.
“I wouldn't exactly call it an emergency, but you were right. I definitely needed cheering up. Are we going to go somewhere for dinner? I guess I misunderstood—I thought we were having a picnic.”
“Chanti, I have no idea what you're talking about. Your message said you absolutely had to see me, that it was urgent. I really hope it is because I had to spend an hour convincing my mom to let me out of the house since I'm running a temperature of one hundred and one. Do you know how hard it is to chill a thermometer just so it says ninety-eight point six? I don't like lying to my mother.”
First, I'm incredibly touched that he was willing to lie to his dear old mom just to meet me when I have an emergency. Not only is he gorgeous, but he's sweet, too. But I only get to swim in that delicious thought for a minute, because it's clear someone has set us up. Do I tell him this now, or play along and milk this for all I can? I mean, we're here, even if under false pretenses. We gotta eat. Why not together? But no, it's never a good idea to start a new relationship based on lies. Believe me, I've tried. It doesn't work.
“Sorry, Marco, but I think we've been punked. I'm guessing you didn't put that note in my locker?”
“A note? No way—I would have texted you.”
So much for Marco being an old-school romantic.
“Besides, I haven't been to school since last Friday. Fever of one hundred and one, remember?”
“So I guess you don't know what's going on at school, all the rumors about me and Annette's house being burgled.”
He starts laughing at this, making him seem a little crazy. But still cute.
“What's so funny?”
“
Burgled.
Is that even a word?”
“It
is
a word, but that's not really the issue. I thought you called me out here to cheer me up from all the accusations flying that I broke into Annette's house and stole some stuff.”
“Hey, you may have a lot in common with Malcolm. He went to jail. Wait, I wasn't supposed to talk about that.”
So I was right about Malcolm's time off. Note to self: Marco can't be trusted to keep a secret when he's sick and doped up on cold medicine. I want to know more about Malcolm's time, but we're talking about me right now.
“Marco, I'm trying to tell you how my world is falling apart.”
“I'm paying attention. You broke into someone's house—Annette whose party you went to. Why would you steal stuff from a friend?”
“First, she's not a friend and second, I wouldn't steal from anyone. All I know is I got into it with Lissa, and stormed out. They left for pizza or something, and while they were gone, the house was robbed.”
“What did you get into it with Lissa about?”
Oh yeah, he hasn't been at school the last two days and knows nothing about my criminal record, which is not really a record. I'm thinking this isn't the best point in our relationship to lay this on him. Between his being sick, me being a suspected burglar, and his mother waiting at home for him, victim of her son's first lie, I figure that can wait.
“Oh, something stupid, not important.”
“But why do they think it's you? Anyone could have done it, someone who
burgles
professionally.” He cracks himself up with this, which makes him hack up the other lung. I ignore his question because he's probably already forgotten he asked it.
“If you haven't been at school, how did you get a message from me?”
“You sent an e-mail to my school account.”
“Around 1:30 today?” I ask.
“Yeah, I think so. I was kind of delirious with fever and Sudafed.”
“Well, now I know who punked us. But I don't know why, other than I'm apparently the entertainment of the week, not just the day.”
The nice clone wasn't so much, and must have used my open e-mail account to send Marco that message. Now I'm looking around the park for signs of a clone. But the park is empty, at least the section we're in. Dusk has fallen, but it's still light enough for me to see that the place is a ghost town. That's when I notice all the little plastic yellow flags stuck in the grass. I guess I missed them before because I was too busy thinking about Marco waiting for me with a picnic basket, all ready to cheer me up. I go up to the closest one for a read, and find a skull and crossbones. No wonder we're the only ones here. They just sprayed pesticide this afternoon. Marco is about to fall over from the flu, so I'm thinking toxic fumes could not be good for him. The love of my life is going to die before we even get to the love part.
“Marco, we have to get out of here.”
“Why? You promised me dinner. I'd really love to have dinner with you.”
While this makes me uncontrollably giddy, I'm skeptical since it could be the meds talking. Now I wonder just how much Sudafed he's had and whether he should be driving. But we do have to eat, right?
“No dinner,” I end up saying, because he's really sick and I'm not quite that selfish. “You need to get home and take care of yourself. We've given them enough of a laugh tonight.”
“Who?”
“Our punkers. Whoever thought this would be hilarious, getting you and me out here in a toxic park.”
“Maybe they were trying to fix us up. Sort of like a blind date.”
“Do you want us to be fixed up?” I ask, hoping his delirium will make him reveal secrets.
“No.”
“Oh.”
“We don't need fixing up. We're already up, right?”
I hope tomorrow when he recalls this conversation—if he can after his cold-medicine high—that he won't remember the idiotic grin I'm wearing as we walk back to his car. I hope he remembers that I drove him home just to make sure he got there okay. I even hope he noticed that before I walked home, I stood in front of his house for a minute after he went inside, wishing I was in there with him.
Chapter 25
“Y
ou know this is crazy, right?” Lana is saying into the phone the next morning.
I'm already running late for my bus and can't find the cereal bars so I guess I'm gonna go hungry because whatever is going on in Lana's world, it's probably not the best time to ask if we have any cereal bars. I wave at her as I head for the door, but she shakes her head and motions for me to stay. That's when I start getting the uneasy feeling that the craziness might be about me.
“This is my kid we're talking about. There's no way this is possible.”
No way
what's
possible? Smythe just won't get off my back, will she? Now what's she saying I stole?
“I understand procedure, Sergeant, but . . .”
Okay, that ain't Smythe on the other end of the line.
“Well, can I at least be the one who brings her in?”
WTF ? !
“Thanks. We'll be there in half an hour.”
When Lana gets off the phone, she doesn't have to say a thing because it's written all over her face. Only thing I don't know is what I'm being charged with.
 
Let me tell you that it feels a lot different when you're sitting in an interrogation room and you know everything's just a big misunderstanding than when you've been arrested for burglary, theft by taking, breaking and entering, and whatever other charges they can come up with. This time Lana isn't the one questioning me. She's on my side of the table, sitting on my right, and on my left is her lawyer friend from the firm where she actually used to be a paralegal back in the day. Across the table is Detective Bertram from the Burglary Unit. I can't believe any of this is happening.
“It all points back to you, Miss Evans,” says the detective, summing up his story as though I haven't been there listening to it for the last two hours. “So we've got these Mitchell Moving clients' home burglaries last night. We've got the break-in the night of your friend's pajama-party, when you claim you were walking around looking for a bus stop.”
“Which crime are you charging her for?” my lawyer asks. “This warrant says nothing about a pajama-party burglary.”
“That's because he's got no evidence. And it wasn't a pajama party. It was just an all-night party and I didn't want to be there all night. When did that become a crime?”
Lana clears her throat and I know I need to pull back on the smart remarks. But I can't help it. That's how I respond to stress. Being interrogated by the police for a crime you didn't commit is right up there on the stress-o-meter, if you ask me.
“So tell me again where you were yesterday, between nineteen hundred hours and twenty hundred hours. That means—”
“She knows what it means,” Lana says, more than a little annoyed. “She already told you.”
“It's okay, Mom. I was at the park on Lexington meeting a friend.” I'm glad Lana is beside me and I don't have to see her face when I say this, because I know she's thinking,
when you were supposed to be home doing schoolwork.
“Did anyone see you at this park?”
“Yeah, my friend.”
“Anyone
besides
your friend see you at this park?”
“No, because whoever punked us—I mean, set up this fake meeting between us, like I told you before—had us meet in this area that had been sprayed with insecticides and was supposed to be off-limits.”
“And you missed all the signs that said not to go into the area.”
“Because I was, um . . . a little distracted.”
What am I supposed to say? I don't believe telling Detective Bertram that I couldn't see straight because I was in lust about Marco would go over well with him or Lana. Or my lawyer for that matter. I can't even believe I
have
a lawyer. To say this day is majorly sucking is an understatement.
“Look, Miss Evans, none of this looks good. You have no alibi at the time of the thefts. You'd been in both of the houses prior to the burglary and had an inventory of all the valuables that were stolen from the houses. You knew the owners of the homes would be out of town. Your fingerprints were all over the place.”
“Because I'd been in the house! It's part of my job. I already told you, when we do the assessments, we walk around the house and figure out what needs to be packed, and what—”
“I know. We've heard all that before.”
“And you're going to hear it again until you get it that my daughter didn't do this,” Lana says, and I'm pretty sure she's finally found a home for her size nine, which is why my lawyer suggests she take a break and get some air. Now I feel a little more free to talk.
“Just call Marco, that's my friend, he'll tell you where I was. Well, sort of more than my friend . . .”
“Is that right?” the detective says, smirking in a way that suggests he just got some dirt on me, and makes my lawyer stiffen.
“Why is that an issue?” my lawyer asks.
“Because Miss Evans's boyfriend is in another interrogation room at this very minute.”
“What?” Because I'm sure I didn't hear him right.
“He's been charged, too. So you can see that he doesn't provide the best alibi.”
“What's he have to do with this?”
“I'm glad you asked, although you already know.” Detective Bertram is having way too much fun ruining my life. What's he got against me? I mean besides some incriminating evidence and a felony charge. “He helped you rob those homes. He drove the van—”
“He doesn't even own a van.”
“It was a Mitchell Moving and Storage van that he has the keys to. That's why you were able to get past the gate guard and why the neighbors didn't call the police right away. They'd seen the van there before, you'd just been there last weekend. They knew the owners always use Mitchell to move their stuff every year. It wasn't until you were long gone that they realized moving companies don't usually do night moves.”
“This is crazy. We were at the park!”
“Say the two of you.”
“So you have eyewitnesses who can place me at the scene between nineteen hundred and twenty hundred hours?” I ask, surprising Detective Bertram. Yeah, I know a little somethin'-somethin' about this game, too.
“Well, we don't have an ID on you. But the description they gave sounds too much like your boyfriend.”
“At eight o'clock? It was dark by then. Couldn't have been that good of a look.”
“Whoa, save something for me and the courtroom,” my lawyer says. He laughs, though I don't think the situation is a bit funny. I don't plan to ever see the inside of a courtroom, at least not from the defendant's table.
“You're definitely your mother's kid,” says Detective Bertram, and not like it's a compliment, either. “In which case, you'll understand how bad this looks for you.”
That's when he pulls a plastic bag from a box under the table. Inside is my wallet. That stupid no-zipper-having bag of mine.
“Recognize it? It was found on the scene. And it wasn't from your previous visit. It was in the middle of the floor where the residents would have seen it if you'd left it there last weekend.”
“This interview is over,” says my lawyer, but I already knew before he opened his mouth that it was a really good time to shut mine.

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