Rhythm & Clues: A Young Adult Novel (21 page)

But I hadn’t said which family.

Gavin told me to act normal, but I’d almost forgotten what normal was. At least normal in the vicinity of his parents. I settled for what I was already wearing: a simple t-shirt and ripped jeans I’d mended with over one hundred safety pins. Cut into pieces and put back together: how I always felt. It made a good statement.

I pulled up to the Tully house at noon sharp. I wanted to impress them with my punctuality, plus my boss had let me off work immediately after I told him about my fake family emergency. Isla’s car wasn’t there. The white Volvo sat in the driveway, its trunk popped open. Josephine carried a picnic basket to the car but approached me instead, a tight smile stretched over her lips. “Moxie, I’m so glad you could join us.” She juggled the picnic basket to one arm and placed her other palm on my shoulder. “I hope we can start over.”

I nodded, too aggressively at first, and then slower and more controlled.

She tilted her head at me. “How’s your mother doing?”

“She’s…fine,” I said warily, hunching my shoulders in defense in case this was a trap.

Josephine squeezed my shoulder. “I’m so glad.” She broke away from me and circled the house to the backyard.

“Hey!” Gavin ambled out of the garage and lifted his chin at me as he heaved two coolers. He placed the coolers into the trunk, and then came over to grab my beach bag from my hands.

“Did you pass?” I asked as we walked back to the car.

“Nailed it.” He fist-pumped the air and dropped the beach bag into the trunk.

“Do you need help?” I craned my neck at the mostly full trunk.

“Nah. We’re almost done packing. Stay here.” He strode back up the driveway to get more stuff, leaving me alone.

A moment later, Sabrina emerged from the house and sat on the steps, braiding her sandy brown hair into pigtails. She didn’t acknowledge my existence, and I extended her the same courtesy by turning my back on her.

Chunk sidestepped around Sabrina, adjusting the fisherman’s cap that had fallen into his eyes. “Hi, Moxie. Glad to have you.” He shook my hand. “We’re just waiting for Isla. The scavenger hunt begins the minute we leave the driveway. You and Gavin are a team. Got it?” He wore a smile but something in his voice sounded threatening.

“I’m ready.” I raised my fist to half mast.

I was in the twilight zone. The Tullys were trying to keep things friendly. Isla and Sabrina were bffs. And Gavin seemed to be controlling his parents instead of the other way around.

Isla showed up about ten minutes later, rushing out of her car and joining Gavin in a chat by the trunk. They both laughed at the same time. Her hair had been scrunched into beachy waves despite the fact that we hadn’t yet arrived at the beach and she’d replaced her usual natural make-up style with far too much glitter. When Gavin left to go back inside, she plopped onto the steps beside Sabrina. They spoke in low voices, but Isla kept sending sidelong glances in my direction.

Chuck handed Sabrina a sheet of paper—the surface glistening in the sun, obviously laminated. The Tullys meant business. The girls headed over to Isla’s jeep wrangler…which meant we were stuck riding with Gavin’s parents.

Ugh.

But at least we weren’t riding with the enemies. I’d consider that a win.

Inside the car, Gavin folded his arms on the back of Josephine’s passenger chair. “Please?” he pleaded, flicking his hand toward the radio. An expression of discomfort traced her face. She reached out her hand and cupped Chuck’s bicep. He sighed, but then peeled his hand off the steering wheel and flipped through the radio dial, passing over pop songs until he settled on a classical music station. “We’ll compromise,” he said to Gavin without taking his eyes off the road.

Gavin leaned back in his seat and relaxed. “Fine.” He smiled at me, triumphant, but his leg shook faster than someone having a seizure. Was he worried about something?

Josephine spun around and handed over a sheet of paper, laminated like Sabrina’s. “Did Gavin explain the rules to you this morning?”

“There are rules?” I raised my eyebrow at him.

“Only one rule,” Josephine told us. “We’re competitive, but fair. No sabotaging other teams. First team back at the picnic site wins. By the time you’re finished, we’ll have dinner ready.”

Gavin inspected the scavenger list before handing it off to me. “I see you went easy this year.”

“We don’t want to scare off Moxie and Isla,” Chuck said, spinning the wheel and turning onto the highway.

I scanned the scavenger list.

-Win a stuffed bunny at Skee ball

-Find three conch shells in the sand

-Get a print-out from the matchmaker arcade game

-Win a drop claw toy

-Copy down the recipe for either chocolate fudge or strawberry saltwater taffy

For the entire drive, Gavin bopped his head to the music, and the rest of us peered out the windows in silence. Chuck entered the parking lot, but idled the car in the middle of an aisle instead of a spot. “Gavin, why don’t you practice your parking?”

“I already have my license, Dad.”

“I know. But it couldn’t hurt. The girls can get a head start to the beach.”

Great, just what I wanted, a chance to hang one on one with Josephine. While Gavin and Chuck switched places, Josephine and I each grabbed items out of the trunk.

We trudged out of the parking lot, making awkward small talk about school. Once we reached the picnic site and unloaded our items, Josephine pulled out a thick business envelope from her purse. “For any expenses you need.”

“Thanks.” I opened the envelope. A thick stack of bills sat inside, folded in half and rubber banded. The top bill wasn’t a single, like I’d expected, but a twenty. I brushed against the rest, animating them like a flip-book. All twenties with a few fifties in the center. There had to be six hundred dollars here.

My jaw clamped tight. I looked up to find Josephine watching me expectantly.

“This is way too much.” I shoved the envelope back at her.

“Keep whatever you don’t use.” Her face became serious. “I know how hard you tried to keep the truth about your family situation from us. You’re mature enough to realize every family needs their privacy.”

Josephine pushed the envelope back into my hand in a move that screamed of desperation. And I understood.

She wanted to pay for my silence, probably worried Gavin would tell me whatever secret he had uncovered. This wasn’t a family outing.

This was blackmail.

G
avin’s feet sunk into the sand as we ambled toward the boardwalk. Nearby, children dug sloping sandcastles and bikini straps dangled from a few girls sunbathing face down. The hot sun beat down on my shoulders and I tilted my face up to catch more rays. I rarely got to indulge in doing absolutely nothing.

“By the way,” Gavin said. “I got my schedule and locker number in the mail. Is 712 a good location?”

My heart deflated a little but I wasn’t sure why. “It’s not near mine, but it’s not terrible. At least you’re in the junior wing and not stuck in the gym hallway like I am with shitty 317.” I hopped onto the steps that connected the beach to the boardwalk. “What classes are you taking?”

My breath stilled as I waited for his answer.

He kicked up a cloud of sand. “Not music, unfortunately. But I plan on switching in the first day.”

We compared memorized schedules and discovered we had three classes together: English, Physics, Poetry elective, plus lunch. “English! Maybe our book club ruse will hold up after all.”

He tucked his hands in his pockets. “Please tell me Pride and Prejudice is on the junior curriculum, because I’ve had to read it like twenty times.”

I laughed. “Sadly, we read it last year. But this year you get Macbeth. Yay death and family disloyalty!”

“Speaking of family disloyalty…” Gavin scanned the laminated list. “My parents are really coddling us.” He rolled the laminated list and shoved it into one of the deep pockets of his cargo shorts. He jutted his chin toward the boardwalk steps and then skipped up them. “Half these are places I’ve been to before. The hardest will be Skee ball. I’m not sure how many tickets we need to win to get the bunny.”

Up ahead, blinking lights announced the arcade and zips and bob sounds filtered over the din of the roaring ocean. My flip-flops thwacked against the wooden planks as I skirted around people moseying along, licking ice cream cones. A couple swinging their joined arms strolled by us. “Do you think your sister will go for Skee ball first?”

“Nah. Sabrina’s very pragmatic. She’ll do the easy ones first, get them out of the way,” he said. “Besides, she knows I like to do things in order. She’ll keep her distance. I doubt she’ll risk any kind of squabble before she leaves for boarding school tomorrow.” He smiled at me as we entered the arcade, blinking as our eyes adjusted to the dim light.

Gavin stopped short just ahead of Skee ball. He pulled out his mp3 recorder and held it high in the air, taking samples of the bleeps and blips and snatches of music that became our background music. He turned the device over in his palms for a moment, as if he were savoring the new sounds, before shoving it back in his pocket and glancing up at the prize array. “Dang. We need two hundred tickets to win. My parents are evil.”

I shrugged. “We knew that already.”

Above us, pink bunnies hung from the ceiling, swaying in the slight breeze from the open air entrance. They were small, not worth the money it would take to win them.

“Better get started then.” He plucked a twenty from his wallet.

“Wait, I have—” I started to dig into my purse.

Gavin held up a hand. “No worries. My parents gave me money to spend today.”

I froze, heart thudding. The envelope really
was
hush money.

Gavin returned from the ticket machine with a bucketful of tokens that jiggled like change. “Ladies first.”

I shook my head, suddenly wanting no part of this. Gavin shrugged. The first token dropped into the coin slot with a plink that sounded like the final note in a movie. He pulled his arm all the way back, and then sent the ball flying up the ramp, under the glass coverage that blocked people from just dropping the ball in one of the higher holes. It rolled with a sound like thunder before it dropped into the ten-point hole.

“Oops.” He gave me a sheepish grin. “We may be here a while.”

My anger flared at those words, every second of this reminding me that Josephine had tried to buy me off.

Gavin’s next two tries yielded the same result. Three measly tickets popped out of the machine. “Yep. Long day.” He met my eyes. “But I don’t mind.”

His grin made my anger melt. Seething here would only spite me. I could still have fun, at Josephine’s expense. And at the end of the day, I’d leave the envelope in the car to send the clear signal that I wasn’t someone who could be bought.

Our fingers brushed against one another as we both reached for the token slot. “Sorry, I was going to put on in for you,” he said.

I let him win, and three more balls came out of the shoot.

The first one I sent with too much power. It ricocheted off the top of the glass case with a loud sound that made the other Skee ballers turn around. The ball rocketed back toward me with a force that seemed almost poetic, like the universe was trying to tell me that everything I sent out came back to me stronger. We both jumped out of the way just in time to avoid a ball to the stomach. It landed with a thud on the ground and rolled halfway across the room before Gavin retrieved it.

“Less power next time. Here, let me show you.” He placed the ball in my hand, wrapping his palm around it. Taking control, he pulled my arm back in a slow arc and then pushed it forward again, showing me the speed and angle needed. He trailed his fingertips along the side of my thumb before he let go.

My skin still tingled in the wake of his touch.

“Like that.” He stepped back from me.

My eyes landed on the spot he’d just touched and not the game in front of me, as if our connection was so strong, it might show as a scar. In my peripheral vision, I caught Gavin raising a brow at my hesitance. I took a deep breath and told myself to snap out of it. This was Gavin. He’d touched me before, held my hand…so why was I getting chills now?