Plagued: Book 1 (29 page)

“You mean like a school club?”

“No, no. A social club. Club with a capital 'C'. Sophisticated and sexy.
Tres
sexy. Nothing childish.
Non
. We are leaving behind childish things. We must try online! Activities, clubs, associations. You try too, Lexie.”

Isobel had grown up all over the world. Both her parents were in the French Foreign Ministry and had been posted to embassies from America to Mozambique. That was why Isobel was at an international school. They wanted her as fluent in English as French. Brianna's dad was American, her mom French. They planned on sending her to America for university and our school in Paris offered both an American and European-style curriculum to make it easy for transfers.

Brianna's game plan for university and career was firmly in place. The profs at MIT wouldn't know what hit them when she started. She had no doubt the school would accept her. Isobel, too, knew what she wanted, declaring her intention to follow
maman
and
papa
into the Foreign Service. Deciding, in a very Isobel-way, that her psychic abilities could help
La Belle France
in the great game of international politics. I admit I was toying with the idea of a diplomatic career as well, with a plan to study International Political Science at one of the University of California campuses. I mean, why not? Put some of my experience globetrotting to good use. I couldn't imagine actually staying in one place for four years while I got my Bachelors'. Longer if I went to Graduate School. Half of me
wanted
to put down roots. The other half thought, maybe I didn't know how anymore. It all still seemed unreal – college and a life without Dad. Though it shouldn't. I'd taken the SATs once in January and they were looming again with stomach-churning reality at the start of April.

I switched on my iPad so I could leave the video chat on my laptop full-sized. It made my friends feel more like they were in the room with me instead of thousands of miles away on the other side of the world. Isobel and I both googled “meeting people in Tokyo” and “clubs in Tokyo” on our machines.

Most of the links led only to sketchy sites for “Asian Brides” and things like that.

Brianna slid back into view on the bed. “What about Meetup.com?”

Why hadn't I thought of that? I was just going to type it in, when Isobel shouted, “Wait, wait, look here. This is it. Japan Online Classifieds. They have a digital magazine.”

She sent me the link and I brought it up on my screen.

“These are personals. I don't want to date online.”

Isobel made a snorting noise. “
Naturlich nicht,
of course not. Look closer. There is one section for 'friendship and clubs'.”

Brianna and Isobel crowded together, looking at their screen.

“
There
,” Isobel pointed as though I could see. “Scroll down, I found one, this
must
be the one from my dream, it must! An international club for friendship. Open the link and scroll down to the bottom of the page.”

Isobel tapped the screen; “Click the link,
cher.
Click it, click it! This is the one. I know! This will change your life!”

Brianna closed her eyes and adopted a mock meditation pose. “Our clairvoyant sister has spoken, you must obey.”

There were some muffled voices in the background. “
Oui, Maman!
” Brianna smothered a huge yawn, “
Maman
says if we do not be quiet she will turn the power off.
So,
we must sign off now and be like little white mice making no sounds and watching our movies with earphones on while we fall asleep in a heap among the pillows.”

“I'll talk to you really soon, okay?” I sounded pathetic and knew it.

They blew me kisses. “Don't lose heart.”

“And click the link,” said Isobel putting her face right up to the computer screen. “Remember my words.” She measured them out, “
Club with a capital 'C
'
will-change-your-life
.”

“Personal classifieds: friendship,” sat there daring me to open it. Sliding off the bed, I lifted the beach towel I kept over the big mirror (to hide the ghosts that might or might not be lurking) and stared at myself. The sad-faced girl reflected back this afternoon was not the person I wanted to be. The skin under my eyes was smudged and bruised from crying and worry. I looked awful.

Climbing back on the bedspread, my fingers hovered over the touchpad of my iPad.

“Clubs and Friendship.”

I could sure use some friendship.

And I did it. Just like that. Scrolling through the postings looking for “international club” like Isobel said.
Hmm
, language exchange; language exchange; more language exchange; looking for Spanish speakers; Harvard alumni; fluid exchange.
Fluid exchange?
WTF? Shuddering, I scrolled further. Nope, couldn't seem to find anything like she described.

I tried again and again and
again
, thinking how much I needed friends, distraction. Something beyond a lonely life on a scratchy rented bedspread.

I'd do
anything
!

Give
anything!

And then, there it was. Just like that. Wedged between “glee club” – I can't sing – and “mountain hiking club” – I don't hike – was the one Isobel must mean. How could I have missed the heading? I must have scrolled right by it like ten times. Weird.

“
International Pleasant Club: We are a global group of young people gathering together for pleasant times and company around the world. Won’t you join our Club here in Tokyo?”

Club with a capital “C” just like Isobel predicted. Pleasant Club. I liked the way that sounded. Friendly, no pressure.
International,
not just American. My finger hesitated over the
reply
button. How desperate was I? Finding a club over the internet to join? Thinking about the day, the sneering faces of Amber Lynne and the boys, I nodded, “Yep, pretty desperate.”

I hit
reply
.

“Hi!”
I typed. “I
am an American, new to Tokyo. Have lived all over the world and would love to make some friends here. Cheers, Lexie”

No, wait. Lexie sounded young and immature.

Deleting
Lexie,
I
keyed in,
Alexandra.

That was better. I read the reply through again, which, admittedly, didn't take much time. Short and to the point. Cheerful. Not desperate. Definitely not horribly, achingly desperate.

I tapped
send
and it was done.

I've wondered so often since that day if, given the chance, would I go back and do it all differently.

Or exactly the same?

Chapter 6

The Spit Hits the Fan

The next day my inbox was packed with lewd emails thanks to Tony Le Blanc and Tommy. Despite the virus, a whole group of boys, and maybe girls, had already copied and pasted pictures before Brianna booby-trapped the web page, so my new career as a porn star was still partially active. How did these students even get my email? Amber Lynne probably had access to her mom's files and gave it to Tony. Desperate to get out of the apartment, I picked up my laptop and went to a coffee shop/bakery/bookstore down the street.

Where we lived was a total mash-up of commercial and residential and I liked
that
a lot. On the way to the bookstore, I passed the local stray cat that seemed to live in a little parking lot on the corner between our apartment and the station. I nicknamed it Siphy Cat, short for Syphilis Cat, because it looked like it was in the last stages of some horrible disease. Brianna and Isobel agreed it was the perfect name for the beast after I emailed them some pictures. The thing had to be both the biggest and ugliest cat in the world. I didn't know if it was a he, she or an
it.
Patches of fur were gone, it was scarred and bitten and had only one ear. The animal gave the funniest little yodel-like meow that – despite its enormous size and awful appearance – endeared it to everyone in the neighborhood. People were always leaving bits of fish in different corners of the lot for the cat. I picked up a little piece of grilled chicken from the fridge and dropped it off for Siphy Cat as I headed to the coffee house. There, I comforted myself with fresh croissants and cafe mocha and did my homework.

Meanwhile at school, the spit hit the fan.

My father brought along his company's six hundred dollar-an-hour lawyer plus the information on the source of the site and who had signed up for it, cleverly supplied by Brianna. The boys were called in. When confronted with the evidence, they each accused the other of starting it.

With the
URL
from Gemma, I followed the whole story via gossip relayed fast and furiously over Cougar Snarls. According to the postings, the porn site would be taken down and an apology issued in the school newspaper to me admitting the pictures had been doctored. Tony Le Blanc received a three-day suspension from Mrs. McCarthy, conveniently timed to start on Monday so he wouldn't miss today's big game of the semi-finals against ITA arch rival, St. Xavier's. The basketball coach, however, over-ruled that, imposing his own punishment. Despite Mrs. McCarthy's vociferous objection, Tony would sit out the game.

“I will not have my players acting like they are God's gift to mankind.” He was quoted as saying. “You cannot humiliate people with impunity, not like this, not on my team. The reason there is no 'i' in team is because we don't want any
idiots
on the court
!”

Thank you Coach Schulman! Maybe
he
would have lunch with me.

Ultimately his condemnation of Tony and Tom's trick did nothing to help my isolated social position. ITA lost the game without Tony's scoring skills, forcing the team into a sudden-death playoff later in the week against one of the U.S. Military Base schools for a spot in the upcoming finals. So now, not only would the Awesome Posse make my life miserable, most of the student body that mattered knew it was somehow my fault Tony was not allowed to play.

I didn't think life could get any darker.

It could.

It
so
could.

Stomach in knots, I went back to school Monday. Instead of cranberry juice, a little St. Xavier's booster doll started showing up on my desk. They were pinning the blame for Friday's loss on me. Great. Just what I needed. More stress. The one thing I had to look forward to, hope for,
pray for
,
was a reply from the Club.

A reply which did not arrive that day. Or the day after that or the one after that. Not that there wasn't plenty of digital mail arriving lined up vertically in my inbox and talking about nothing but getting horizontal – right here, right now, baby!

Oh, my
Gawd
.

And the photos! Why do boys like to take pictures of their, well,
that?
And pictures and pictures...

I couldn't just change my email. This was the address I'd given the Club. Which meant I was stuck with it for now. Plus, I kept having to open the emails since I had no idea what the reply, if it ever came, would look like or who it would be from. My initial reply had been routed through an anonymous email box provided by the Japan Online Classifieds.

I don't think I ever felt so alone. Skyping with Brianna and Isobel provided only small comfort. Digital friendship was better than no friendship at all, but it wasn't nearly the same.

Finally, it happened. Sitting there at the top of my inbox when I came home: From Pleasant Club.

They'd replied.

With a
click
, it was open.

“
Hello Alexandra, how lovely that you contacted our Club. We are so flattered you chose us out of all the other groups online. Won't you please tell us a bit more about yourself? Oh, wait, what am I thinking? My name is Vanessa, from New York, Manhattan. So not a snob though, LOL. I'm 20, only just, and doing an internship in fashion here in connection with NYU. Having a lovely time. Tokyo can be a bit daunting until you meet people. The Club is a great place to find new friends. Write back soon.

Ciao! V”

They'd answered! Or she had, for the Club. Fashion internship. Wow. Vanessa had survived high school and gone on into that mysterious real life world. What should I say? She sounded cool. I had to sound cool, too. How to do that?

My life
had
been, well,
at the very least
diverse
in a l
onely, soul-searing way. Definitely not your average suburban teen's.

Okay, I could do this.

“Hello Vanessa,”
I typed.
“Thank you so much for the reply! Your internship must be fascinating.”
That sounded mature. No gushing, keep gushing to a minimum.
“I have lived all over the world: London, Rome, Beijing, Bangkok, Singapore, Paris and now here in Tokyo. My father is in finance. Let's see, what can I tell you about me?”

What
could
I tell her, them, the
Club
, about me that would be interesting? Was I interesting? Or just weird? The fact that I still loved old Saturday morning cartoons seemed like something to leave out. Nor that in order to sleep I had to have somewhere on the bed, Coco, the stuffed dog Mom and Dad gave me on my first birthday – or so the family legend went.

Mom. I cringed, I wouldn't think about her. Nor mention to the Club how she just walked out on us one day when Dad and I were at the beach. We came home to our house in Santa Monica with a bucket of shells and our shoes full of sand to find her closet empty and her keys on the kitchen counter. No note. No nothing. The one thing that gave my Dad hope in those early days – months, years – was that she took the broken heart key ring charm with his name on it. They'd had those charms (the two broken halves fit together) made when they were dating and carried them everywhere. In the long run though, the charm meant nothing. She never came back.

Yeah, the Club did not need to know that. Even I didn't want to know it most days.

So, what was left about me that wasn't weird? Vintage! That could work. Make it sound cool and adult. “
One of my favorite things to do in a new city is locate the vintage stores. I love vintage Vuitton and Gucci and can spend hours combing through little boutiques looking for something rare or unique. It would be great to find some here in Tokyo. Frankly, I don't even know where to begin to look!”

Not too shabby. I did love vintage bags and sunglasses. The three of us used to haunt the shops in Paris on the weekends. Of course, we couldn't afford to actually
buy
anything ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the time, but we looked! Once I found an old double-saddlebag Vuitton in the classic brown logo print that I now used as my carry-on. I loved it desperately despite the indelible ink stains inside one half that made it affordable. (I kept that side always turned towards me.) So it was not a complete lie.

Keep it short and simple.

I pushed
send
.

The following day, I barely noticed the girls at school tapping up and down the halls in their high-heeled sandals despite the sleet falling in sheets outside, hips and hair swaying. Amber Lynne sneered something in my direction and I just turned away. Classes passed in a blur of clock-watching, my note taking on automatic. The 3:30 bus seemed to take forever to get home. Traffic was slow on the overhead expressway. I stared out at the skyscrapers and endless lines of apartment blocks and squat office towers washed out in the winter twilight to a sepia sort of haze. This was how the children of so many executives posted overseas lived, skimming above the real world, wrapped tightly in their silken-textured, privileged lives. They slipped and slid over the city's skin, never knowing what lay beneath.

Did I live that way? Staring out the window at life? Shivering inwardly, I realized I stepped behind a much more opaque sort of barrier years ago after Mom walked out. In Paris, Brianna and Isobel helped me break through that looking-glass world. Now I was slipping back. I could feel it. That was bad. Somehow the Club could be,
would be
the stimulus I needed to know more about this city and myself. A world of complicated relationships that were, nevertheless, about people. Interaction, not reaction, or no action at all. Too often my chosen path. Someone called my name laughing as I made my way down to the doors of the bus. I didn't even turn around. Would Vanessa write back? She must, she,
they
had to. I needed something to look forward to.
Please
.

Throwing down my books and switching on the computer, I saw it. Another message from Pleasant Club.

“Salut Alexandra,

Are you frozen on this chilly day? Or keeping warm and snug? Sleet? Why am I living in a city where sleet falls, I ask myself. My name is Savan and, along with Vanessa whom you have already met – at least digitally – form a very small part of the Club. Vanessa tells me you like classic Vuitton and Gucci. Hard for a woman to go wrong with either of those names. Though I am, of course, partial to the latter. Oh wait, you do not know why. Ahem...I am clearing my throat...I am Italian. Just like Gucci. Well, not just like. I am from Firenze, Florence as you say in America. Grew up a bit of a vagabond following my parents. Like you perhaps?

May I ask you to tell us more about yourself? Where you work or attend school? What sort of music and art you enjoy. Ah, I know! What is the last book you read? That sounds like a smart question, doesn't it? You can't see that I am laughing at myself. The last book I read was on overcoming phobias because I am terrified of spiders. That is a pathetic thing for a man to admit! I am cringing in embarrassment. Let me face lions, tigers, zombies! Anything except arachnids.

The reason I ask such silly questions is that we strive to keep the Club a pleasant, while at the same time challenging gathering for all our members. We wish for everyone to thoroughly enjoy our time together at restaurants, clubs, and galleries here in Tokyo.

I love art very much. Though I am majoring in art restoration, right now I am taking some independent study to research sculpture here in Asia. I did not expect sleet...

We so look forward to hearing back from you.

Cordially, Savan”

He called me a
woman
. Nobody had ever called me that. I was a girl. Rather a dismissive term even if true and, I sighed inwardly, it was true. I read the text again and then one more time. Oh my. I couldn't tell them I was only sixteen going on seventeen, still in high school. They would think me a baby, they wouldn't let me join. Maybe I could be twenty? Like Vanessa.

Hopping off the bed and tossing back the towel over the mirror, I stood in front, staring critically at myself, pulling my long hair this way and that. I was cute rather than pretty, I thought. Just five-foot-four if I stood up very straight. My heart-shaped face and large eyes made me look young. With some dark eyeliner... Okay,
lots
of dark eyeliner like the girls in London did their eyes and an equal amount of black mascara, maybe I could pull it off. Pass for twenty. Yeah. Wear my hair down. Like Savan, I could be taking a year off as well. Staying with my dad. Or, I could be nineteen
going on
twenty, that was only a tiny lie. My birthday was coming in May. Turning seventeen. Seventeen is very close to nineteen. Sort of.

Sitting back down, I grabbed Coco and with him looking on from my lap, typed:

“Hello Savan,

I don't mind the cold. It would be so great if it snowed, really snowed. We are originally from Los Angeles, Santa Monica, by the beach, and I find snow endlessly fascinating.

Well, I am not afraid of spiders. For me, it's sharks. Absolutely terrified of them. Why, oh why, did I ever watch Jaws on TV? Luckily I don't often meet sharks scrambling around in the bathtub like your arachnids. Did you know crabs are arachnids? Oops, perhaps I've put you off steamed crab forever.”