Spies and Prejudice (4 page)

I reach for my latte, still sitting in the cardboard container on the wall. “Hitting on his royal hotness, what else?”

Tanner’s voice is low and warm next to my ear. “You know I can hear you, right? I’m standing right here.”

I clutch the latte to my chest, creating a makeshift shield. “So you are. What’s the matter? Yogurt not your thing?”

“Something like that.” He starts to smile. “You think I’m hot?”

“You think you’re hot. There’s a difference.” I spin away, heading in the opposite direction even though it’s nowhere remotely near my first class. At least I don’t have to see his smile.

T
he rest of my morning passes in an unending barrage of not-so-sly glances and hushed whispers. I do my best to ignore it. Tanner hasn’t shown up in any of my classes. By the time lunch rolls around, I can almost pretend he’s not here.

I’m nearly to our spot on the wall, when I see Ryan and Tanner chatting up Jason. There’s no known universe where Jason will side with me when it comes to kicking the eye candy to the curb. And from the way Mary Chris hit it off with Ryan, I’m pretty sure that I’m going to be outvoted on this one.

I turn down a row of lockers and slip into a crowd of seniors headed for the parking lot. I turn left at the library and send Mare a quick text. “Have some work to do. Will catch up after school.”

I duck into the library, where at least I’ll have free Wi-Fi. That’s what I tell myself anyway. The truth hovers in the thin space between consciousness and denial, waiting to leap up and bite me in the back.

I don’t stop at any of the empty tables in the main room. Instead, I head through a small corridor and take a deep breath. The random
squeak of my sneakers on the linoleum is the only noise, a sound that seems to echo despite the narrow walls.

I stop at the tiny periodical room at the end of the hall. Old newspapers and magazines are great places to find information on a mark’s past, especially if you’re researching people with pre-Internet lives. But I’m not here to look up someone’s loser husband. I’m here to read about her. The woman formerly known as Mom.

I should let it go.

Whatever the letter in Mr. Moss’s folder says, it can’t change anything. The ending will always be the same.

A short, square woman with black hair cropped close to her scalp sits behind the high desk. She’s not much of a talker, which works well for both of us. I rattle off two dates. She doesn’t even need to write them down. She probably knows them by heart.

She reaches under the desk and wordlessly hands me a CD. I say thanks, but her expression stays blank. Part of me can’t help wondering if she knows why I always ask to see the same two days of the
San Diego Union
from eight years ago. She probably thinks it’s for a school project. Worst case, she knows what’s on the disk and thinks I’ve got some weird obsession with my mother’s death. So what? It’s kind of true.

I find a desk in the farthest corner, popping the CD into the drive of an ancient computer. Dust clings to the monitor. Thick particles hang in the air, coating my lungs as my breath comes faster.

I know what’s coming and that somehow makes it worse. I click on May 15. The day after. The front page flashes on-screen. I skip right past it. What I’m looking for is on page B-2 of the Metro section.

There are two pictures. The first is a professional photograph of my mom wearing a dark business suit. The second is of a car being pulled from the San Diego harbor on a giant hook.

The woman in the picture has long brown hair and a slightly crooked smile. She looks exactly like I remember, but I can’t tell if it’s because she really looked like this or because all I have now are the pictures. It’s as though all my memories are two-dimensional.

The second picture is the one that makes my stomach fold in on itself, crushing my insides until I want to double over. I spent every morning of the second grade crawling into the backseat of that white sports car, setting my purple backpack in the small seat next to me. I can still recall the smell of the gray leather, always stronger when it was warm. I know exactly how my neighborhood looks through the small triangular back window, bigger and prettier than it really is.

In the picture, the little car is suspended by giant wires, water pouring from its doors. The front right corner is smashed, the windshield cracked. I wipe my cheek with my palm and mentally focus. I feel like I can’t breathe, which only makes me guilty, because of course I can. It was the car that drowned. Taking my mother with it.

I read the article once, then slow down and read it again. She was driving back from a lunch meeting at the Hotel Del with some soda magnate that she was helping with field tests on a new energy drink. A woman saw the car accelerate into the turn, but then never even try to make it, launching itself at full speed at the guardrail. The right front wheel hit the corner of the steel rail, flipping it at an angle, right over the guardrail and into the bay below. The car was recovered. A body was not. The end.
I write down the witness’s name even though I memorized it years ago. Heather Marrone. Writing her name down at least makes me feel like I’m doing something. The paper calls the whole thing an accident, and I read the article a few more times as if doing so will make it true. An accident means she didn’t leave me on purpose.

I finally flip ahead to a date three days later, to the write-up announcing my mom’s funeral service, which basically consisted of three hours of fending off sympathetic stares from my parents’ friends and relatives. I’ve seen the same expression a million times since, from teachers, neighbors, even my dad. The memorial was the first time people treated me like I was the one who plunged off the Coronado Bridge.

I suck in a breath. Still here. Still breathing.

So Mr. Moss has a piece of paper with my mom’s name on it. It doesn’t matter. It’s not like she wrote it yesterday. Have I learned nothing from my dad’s business? The truth is a dangerous thing. No one really wants their worst fears confirmed. They just think they do.

She didn’t do it on purpose. It says right in the newspaper.
Accident
.

The air is impossibly thicker. I can’t stay here any longer without choking on it.

I take the CD out of the computer and return it to the woman at the counter as quickly as I can. I race down the hall.

I am going to let this go. I have to. Dad always says we already know the truth. We know it in our hearts. That should be enough.

It should be.

As I press down the hall, I nearly collide with a guy coming the
other way. He puts his hands out to catch me before I crash headlong into his chest.

“Watch it,” he says, grabbing my arms to push me away. The annoyance that flashes in his eyes disappears in a heartbeat. “On second thought, you can run into me anytime.” He is close enough that I smell his breath, a blast of peppermint Altoids.

“You can let go now.” I give him the stare that has chased away a hundred boys.

He doesn’t move. “I could.”

I back up, breaking the contact. He wears a long-sleeved tee that says “Dog Is Truth” and black swim trunks. His brown hair holds a hint of red that’s probably more pronounced in better light. He’s cute in a nonthreatening way that would be perfect for the Disney Channel. I recognize him immediately, since he caused a stir of his own when he started at McHenry at the beginning of the year. Drew Mattingly, a senior who keeps to himself despite the best efforts of McHenry’s finest.

He laughs, crossing his arms across his chest.

“Did I miss something?”

“It’s just that I came here to be alone, and I’m suddenly very glad that I’m not.”

“You came here on purpose?” The hallway is dark and narrow. This is not the kind of place people come to hang out.

“That’s the beauty of this place. No one thinks to come here.”

“Except I’m here.”

“Beautiful girls are always welcome in my world.” He smiles again.

Save it for someone who hasn’t figured out the algebraic equation
for adultery: good looks plus false charm equals betrayal. “Has that line ever worked?”

He puts his hand over his heart. “You wound me.”

“You’ll recover.”

He grins easily. “Maybe.”

“Trust me, if I wanted to hurt you, I could.” Six years of judo did not go to waste. “What are you doing here anyway?”

“I have a standing date with a small study room down the hall.”

Okay, Drew doesn’t look like the type that hangs out in libraries, period. He’s got a tan that suggests he spends a lot of time outdoors and his arms have definition that only comes from lots of physical activity. Why don’t I know more about him? “I haven’t seen you around much.”

“Maybe it’s because I’ve been hiding in the library so I can use the free Wi-Fi to connect with my friends at home.”

Okay, that’s kind of pathetic. And just the slightest bit endearing. The rumor is that Drew moved here from San Jose over the summer, and I’m guessing he still considers San Jose home. “You don’t have friends here yet?”

He shrugs. “What’s the point? I’ve got enough credits to graduate in December anyway. It was bad enough saying good-bye to one set of friends when we moved down here. I’m Andrew Mattingly by the way. I go by Drew.”

I understand him completely. Good-byes bite. But only if you let yourself get too close. I smile before I can think to stop myself. “I know who you are. I’m Berry.”

“I know who you are.”

“You do?”

He shakes his head, like I’ve just said something stupid. “Pretty girl with an attitude and a reputation for beating guys up? You might be the one person in this school I don’t mind meeting.”

My face gets warm. “For the record, I haven’t beat anyone up since the sixth grade, and that was only because Mark Holberg hit on my best friend.” I don’t mention the fact that I got kicked out of my dojo as a result. I never understood that one. What was the point of teaching someone how to take out a knee if you weren’t actually allowed to do it?

“Did you really mace some guy at a party?”

“Does no one have a life at this school? That was three years ago.”

He laughs. “Don’t worry. I think it’s hot.”

My cheeks burn with a combination of embarrassment and something I’m afraid to put my finger on. “You have some issues, don’t you?”

“I’m the one with issues?”

I laugh with him. As distractions go, Drew Mattingly is hitting it out of the park.

J
ason doesn’t wait for me to sit down at our lab table during fifth hour. “Where were you at lunch?”

“Had some research to do in the library.” I take a breath, hoping that he won’t ask what I was looking into. I don’t want to lie to my friend, but I can’t tell him the truth either. He would tell Mary Chris and then they’d try to get me to do something lame like talk to a counselor, or worse, my dad.

“Today? Are you insane? Tanner and Ryan hung out with us the whole time.” He raises an eyebrow at me. “Tanner said you guys met yesterday. Is there something you want to tell me, Strawberry?”

For the first time, I’m grateful for the diversion Tanner provides. “It’s nothing. I met him at Sconehenge yesterday, while I was tailing a mark.”

“And when were you planning to tell me that a Greek god is crushing on you?” Jason waggles his eyebrows.

Of one thing I’m certain. Mr. Nothing Amazing is not crushing on me. “It’s not like that.”

“So spill.”

“I talked to him for about five minutes. He almost blew my whole surveillance.”

“Can you spell denial?”

“Please.”

“I always figured when you finally caved, you’d go for some quiet intellectual. I should’ve known you’d take it to the other extreme.”

I hold up my hand in the universal sign to stop. “I don’t even like him. He’s a complete egomaniac.”

Jason tosses a bleached blond strand of hair away from his face with an exaggerated flip. “You say that like it matters.”

“It does. Next you’re going to tell me that I should be dating Collin.”

“Why not? I like him.”

“You like Collin Waterson?”

Jason shrugs. “He’s cute.”

“Huh.” Collin is too obnoxious to be considered remotely cute. “What do you know about Drew Mattingly?”

Jason raises his eyebrows. “Seriously?”

“What?”

“I don’t know. He’s kind of weird. He doesn’t really talk to anyone.”

“He might’ve talked to me.”

Jason’s mouth drops open. “Wow, girl, when you decide to get in the game, you don’t mess around.” He narrows his eyes playfully. “Or do you?”

I punch him lightly in the shoulder. “No!”

“Your loss.”

Before I can respond, Mr. Browning stands in the front of the class and launches into a lecture on bonded pairs.

“Pay attention,” Jason whispers. “It’s all about chemistry.”

By the time school is over, I’m completely drained. I’ve managed to avoid Tanner Halston, but the more I think about it, the less I think he’s even worth the effort. Why should I care if my friends want to hang out with him? It doesn’t mean I have to like him. I’ve put up with worse. Like the time Mary Chris took in Tamberly Lydon after she got kicked off the cheerleading squad. Tamberly ended every sentence with the words “you know?” and made it her personal mission to get me to bring more pink into my wardrobe.

I throw the last of my books into my locker and head in the general direction of the quad. I’ve barely made it two steps when Collin Waterson sidles up next to me.

“Rumor has it we’re breaking bread on Thursday.” Long strands of brown hair nearly cover Collin’s eyes. “Have you been thinking about it?”

“If you mean, have I been dreading it, then yes.”

Collin laughs, leaning closer. “Come on, Berry, you know you’re hoping that we’ll get a chance for some alone time.”

“Yeah, no, I’m kind of over your
Star Wars
action figure collection.” The irony is not lost on me. I maced Collin Waterson in the eighth grade and managed to scare off every boy in school
but
him.

“No worries. We could just make out.”