Unfriended (23 page)

“So,” my father said in what I’m sure he thought was an offhand voice. He had brought home Putnam Pizza for dinner, and I had been setting the table, getting out the plates and his hot-pepper flakes, but paused when I heard this.

“What?” I asked. There was something in his tone that put me on the offensive. My father had seemed so relieved when he’d come home and seen me upright and mobile and not back in bed that I thought I was off the hook.

The rest of the day at work had been fairly uneventful, except for when Daryl had accidentally locked himself in the freezer (since turned on). But rather than trying to get out, or calling for help, he had decided instead to pass the time until someone found him eating all the frozen raspberries. He’d gone home early with
a stomachache, and we’d had to explain to customers for the rest of the day that the Razzle-Dazzle Raspberry was no longer available. I had gone through the motions of my job, but I hadn’t been able to stop my mind from circling around what Kittson had said. And the expression on her face when she had stared at me, like she was disappointed in me.

“When I was picking up the pizza tonight,” my father said, taking the seat and opening the lid of the pizza box. He motioned to me to take the first slice, and I saw that there was, in fact, pineapple on half the pie. This was never a sure thing, as Putnam Pizza’s owner, Big Tony, looked askance at pineapple on pizza. The other half appeared to contain every meat topping that Putnam Pizza offered. Clearly, my father was taking full advantage of my mother’s absence. “Your friend David was working,” my father continued, taking a slice of his own and raising his eyebrows at me. “He asked if you were all right and said to tell you hello.”

“Oh,” I murmured, looking down at my pizza. I took a breath and tried not to let any of the emotions that I was currently feeling show on my face. “That was nice,” I said as brightly as possible, then took a bite, to buy myself some time in case he wanted to follow this up with questions I wouldn’t be able to answer.

But my father just looked at me, concerned, before hot-peppering his slice and changing the subject to the research trip to Cooperstown that weekend. He thought that in light of my recent illness, he should cancel—or, better yet, I should come with him. Not thrilled with
either of those prospects, I drew quickly on any acting ability I possessed to assure him that I was fine. I had a strong suspicion that unless I could get him to believe me, I would find myself spending a lot of time in a museum devoted to baseball. It took some convincing on my part, but my father finally agreed to go—alone—with the stipulation that he’d be calling frequently and checking in on me.

After dinner, my father headed into his study to work on the book, and I ended up in front of the television, primarily so that my father would see I hadn’t immediately retreated back to bed, even though the idea was incredibly appealing. I was just flipping channels until I ended up on a marathon of
Man vs. Mountain
, a reality show where contestants are dropped in a hostile mountain environment and have to win competitions and occasionally eat rats to survive.

When the rat eating got to be too much for me, I started flipping channels again, and ended up on
Network
, an old movie that Nate and I had seen at the drive-in a few weeks ago, incongruously paired with
Legally Blonde
. Even though watching it reminded me all too much of Nate, I didn’t flip past it. I was just in time to see the movie’s famous scene, in which the newscaster has a meltdown on air, screaming into the camera that he was “as mad as hell, and not going to take it anymore.” I watched the scene unfold, then paused the movie. The lines were still reverberating in my head, even though I didn’t know exactly why.

I flipped back to the reality program, where the two contestants who had been at bitter odds all season were now huddled behind a yurt, forging a secret pact. “Nobody will suspect it,” the more devious of the two (he was widely suspected of faking his vegetarian beliefs to get out of the rat eating) was saying. “But in order to survive, we’re going to have to work together. An
alliance
. Are you going to eat that gruel?”

I flipped back to the movie and unpaused it. The newscaster, sweat running down his face, repeated his line over and over again, and I found that I was unable to look away from the screen. He was as mad as hell … and not going to take it anymore.

I turned off the television and sat in the quiet room, my mind whirling. I thought of Kittson’s expression when she had asked me just who I had become. About Schuyler talking about what I’d done for her in the spring. About how my friends had looked when I’d told them goodbye. How satisfied Isabel had been when she’d played her trump card. And how, really, I’d just gone along with it. I had believed Isabel when she’d told me that I had to do what she wanted. I hadn’t seen any other way out.

But what if that actually wasn’t true? What if there was another way out, one I hadn’t even considered? What if I didn’t have to just accept that this was the way things had to be?

My thoughts were racing, and it felt like I was finally waking up after all those days asleep, like my head was just now breaking the surface of the water that had pulled me under. It had been peaceful down there, yes,
but I couldn’t stay there forever. Especially not when there were things to do.

I jumped up from the couch and yelled a good night to my father. Then I headed up to my room, my heart pounding. I closed the door and paced the length of my room, thinking. I didn’t have a plan—I didn’t have anything anywhere near the same vicinity as a plan—but I had an idea. And it was better than nothing. But mostly, I was angry. Angry at Isabel, and at Justin, but mostly at myself, for going along with their little scheme.

I grabbed my phone and scrolled through my contacts until I reached a certain number—a number I had never thought I’d end up calling. But I couldn’t think of anyone else that I could turn to. Isabel had said I could no longer be friends with my friends. But she hadn’t said anything about my enemies.

My phone still in my hand, I logged on to Constellation. Once there, I changed my screen name and my photo and I updated my status.

I smiled for the first time in days as I looked at my status. Then I took a breath and placed the call.

He was already waiting for me in Putnam Park when I arrived the next morning. I could see him as I
approached the park’s entrance, sitting on one of the benches, a lone figure all in black, contrasting with the bright pastel warm-up suits of the senior power-walkers doing laps around the lake.

He had sounded shocked to hear from me, which made sense, considering that I had been pretty surprised to find myself calling him. When I’d suggested Putnam Park—for old times’ sake—as our meeting place, there had been a long pause. But he had agreed and we’d settled on a time.

I took a breath, gathered my thoughts, and walked over to his bench. He glanced up at me as I approached.

“Hello, Dell,” I said, sitting down next to him. “Fancy meeting you here.”

We had changed locations almost immediately, when Dell started getting some kind of allergy attack from the freshly cut grass. He’d suggested we adjourn to Stubbs, but I had a feeling that I would run into someone I knew—and wasn’t allowed to hang out with—there, so I’d suggested the coffee shop in Stanwich. I did this only after I’d remembered that Nate would be tutoring at the
library so I could be sure we wouldn’t run into him. Nate was the one who had introduced me to Stanwich Sandwich & Coffee, and the last thing I wanted to do was bump into him post-breakup on his home turf.

Dell and I took separate cars, but arrived at almost exactly the same time. As I watched Dell climbing down from a big black SUV, it took me a moment to place why his car looked so familiar. Then I realized I had seen the car ferry Isabel away after she’d convinced Schuyler to hand over the Hayes crown. It was memories like this one—coupled with the realization that I’d seen Dell once before at SS&C, when he and Ruth had met to discuss strategy after my hacking—that made me wonder if coming to Dell for help was really the best idea. But it was the only idea I had at the moment. So, despite some misgivings, I’d joined him inside the coffee shop.

Sitting across from him in the back booth, I picked up my unfamiliar, non-Stubbs latte and took a careful sip. It wasn’t bad. It just wasn’t what I was used to. Over the rim of my ceramic mug—SS&C was funkier than Stubbs, and much less corporate, and if you were staying, they gave you real mugs—I glanced across the table at Frank “Hold the Frank” Dell.

He looked the same as he had when I’d seen him at the prom. His dreadlocks were still gone, and his dark hair was buzzed short. He was still pale and on the short side, but he seemed less tightly wound than I remembered. But this might have had something to do with the fact that the last two times I’d seen him, we’d been batting threats and ultimatums back and forth. I was
sorting through the events of the past week and trying to decide where to begin, when Dell started speaking.

“I haven’t done anything, Madison,” he said, a little testily. He looked up at me from his quad-espresso, extra foam, and sighed. “I’ve been keeping to our agreement. So I don’t know what this is all about.”

“You don’t?” I said, looking at him closely. It was the one thing I just wasn’t sure of. Isabel had seemed very convincing when she told me Dell wasn’t part of this, but I wasn’t entirely sure I wasn’t about to show my hand to the mastermind of this whole thing.

“No,” he said, staring at me, looking baffled. “Should I?”

“I’m not sure,” I said slowly, watching his reactions carefully. “It involves your cousin.”

Dell blinked at me. “Isabel?” he asked, frowning. “That’s weird. What did she do?”

It looked to me like Dell was telling the truth. Being in Thespians had given me access to seeing a
lot
of bad acting, and I didn’t think that Dell would have been able to fake that kind of reaction if he was the one pulling the strings. And the truth was, I really had nobody else I could turn to for this. Unbelievably, Dell was my only hope. “Well,” I said, taking a breath and preparing to launch into the story, “she—”

I stopped short when the door to the coffee shop flew open with a bang that rattled the panes in the windows. I looked over and saw a petite girl dressed all in black, wearing a motorcycle helmet. She took it off and shook out her long blond hair as she scanned the coffee shop.

I started to turn back to Dell, but there was something about the girl that seemed familiar. I glanced back at her, and saw to my surprise that she was looking directly at me. She was holding up a phone, and looking from it and back to me. Then she nodded, put the phone in her pocket, and to my shock, headed toward me.

Dell cleared his throat, and I looked across the table and realized he hadn’t noticed the girl’s arrival. “Well?” he asked impatiently.

I opened my mouth to say something at the same moment that the girl arrived at our table. She slammed her helmet down on the surface, making both Dell and me jump.

“So,” she said, glaring at me through long, swingy blond bangs. “Madison MacDonald.”

I stared at her, confused, until I suddenly remembered who she was. And I was not quite able to stop myself from letting out a small groan, since things had just gotten much worse.

Peyton Watson, Schuyler’s stepsister and the scourge of Europe’s best boarding schools, had decided to drop in.

“Hi,” I said faintly, feeling a little like I had just walked into one of my nightmares. I had only met Peyton once before, but that had been enough for me. Her presence at the Watson house had been the reason that, earlier this summer, I had refused all of Schuyler’s invitations to come and hang out, even though she had a really great pool. The last time I had seen Peyton, she’d been fully Gothed out. She’d since changed her look, I saw now as
I took in her ripped black jeans, black tank top, leather jacket, and black Converses—but I don’t know if I could have said, exactly, what this look
was
—besides, that is, something to annoy Schuyler’s father.

“What,” Peyton said, glaring at me through her heavily mascaraed eyes, “do you think you’re doing?”

Not having expected this question, I glanced across the table at Dell, then down at my mug. “Coffee?” I ventured after a moment.

Peyton turned to Dell and sized him up. “Who are
you?”
she snapped, sounding annoyed. But from what I knew of Peyton, this wasn’t exactly abnormal, as annoyance seemed to be her default setting.

“Hhhegh,” Dell choked out. He blushed bright red, then cleared his throat and tried again. “Hi,” he said, more successfully this time. “I’m Frank Dell. But you can call me Dell. Or Frank. Or something else altogether, if you don’t like those options …”

I stared at Dell, shocked, since generally the first thing he did upon meeting people was lecture them about never calling him by his first name. But then I saw the way that he was looking at Peyton. It was the way I’d only before seen him look at expensive electronic equipment—utterly besotted. Which was actually pretty surprising. It wasn’t like Peyton wasn’t pretty—she really was, underneath all the scowls and mascara—but she was not exactly giving out a flirty and interested vibe.

Peyton frowned at Dell for a moment longer, and he gave her what I’m sure he thought was a suave smile,
but actually just made him look confused and slightly in pain. After a moment, Peyton turned her attention back to me, plunking herself down on my side of the booth, forcing me to slide over and make room for her. “I don’t know who you are,” she said, pointing across the table at Dell, “but—”

“Dell!” Dell jumped in helpfully, looking thrilled to be spoken to directly. “Or Frank. Or something else—”

“But I’m here to talk to Madison. So …” Peyton tipped her head toward the front door. “Scram.” Dell jumped to his feet, but then paused and started to sit again. Hovering over the bench, Dell looked over at me, then back at Peyton, clearly in the grips of indecision.

“He’s staying,” I said, annoyed. Maybe Peyton’s demeanor was rubbing off. “We have things to talk about.” Dell smiled and sat down the rest of the way.

“So do we,” she said, frowning at me.

“Since when?” I asked, still not able to wrap my mind around what she was doing here—and how she had tracked me down in the first place. But a moment later, the answer to the second quandary hit me. I had, per Isabel’s orders, made my Constellation feed public. Anyone could see where I was. Including, it seemed, my former friend’s slightly unhinged stepsister.

“Since you totally ditched Schuyler,” Peyton said, narrowing her eyes at me, “she’s been upset all week. You can’t just dump your friends for no reason.”

Dell leaned forward across the table. “You ditched Schuyler?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Not just her,” Peyton said, looking across at Dell.
“All her friends. And her boyfriend, apparently. No explanation given. So that’s what I’m here to get.” She turned back to me and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Is this the reason?” Dell asked, looking from Peyton to me. “Why you wanted to meet?”

“Yes,” I said. “It is.” I took a sip of my latte and looked from my former foe to Schuyler’s stepsister. These were not the people I ever would have chosen to bare my soul to in normal circumstances. But normal circumstances had, it seemed, long since decided to depart. “Okay,” I said, pushing my mug to the side and taking a deep breath. “Here’s what happened.”

I finished telling the story and took a restorative sip of what was left of my now very cold latte. Recounting the events of the past week had been more difficult than I’d anticipated, and it had forced me to relive some very painful moments. But I had gotten through it, and I suspected the next time I had to tell the story—if there was a next time—it would be easier.

Neither Peyton nor Dell spoke immediately. Dell was looking across the coffee shop, lost in thought, fingers tapping on his chin. Peyton shook her head and downed the last of the espresso shots that Dell had been fetching for her. “Here’s what I don’t get,” she said. “Why did you agree?”

“Because,” I said, a little testily, “I didn’t think I had a choice. And she was threatening to get my
boyfriend—” I stopped short, realizing that this word choice was no longer true. “My ex-boyfriend,” I corrected, forcing the word out around the lump in my throat. “She was threatening to get him kicked out of school.”

“So?” Peyton shrugged. “Do you have any idea how many schools I’ve been kicked out of? Believe me, it’s not the end of the world.”

“But this is
college
,” I said, feeling that Peyton had missed the point. “And it would have been the end of the world, for Nate.” It still hurt to say his name, but I made myself go on. “I couldn’t let something like that happen to him, and have it be my fault.” I looked across the table at Dell, who still had not spoken. “You swear you didn’t know anything about this?” I asked.

“I had no idea,” Dell said, looking back at me. He frowned and shook his head. “Believe me, if I’d known Isabel had been stealing information off my computer, I would have done something of my own.”

“Right,” I said, feeling that we shouldn’t lose track of this piece of information. “You know, Dell, this whole thing is pretty much your fault.”

“I told you, I didn’t do anything,” he said, raising his eyebrows at me.

“No,” I said, “but if you hadn’t had all that information there to begin with, Isabel couldn’t have gotten it.”

“Yeah,” Dell scoffed. “Like that was an option.”

“Compiling information on those who might wish to do you harm for counter-negotiation purposes,” Peyton said, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Totally standard.”

“Yes,” Dell said, looking across the table at her, smiling dreamily.

“So what now?” Peyton asked, turning to me. I blinked at her. I had thought that once I’d given her the explanation she’d demanded, she would be on her not-so-merry way. But it seemed that she was settling in, as she slipped off her leather jacket, revealing just her black tank top underneath. Dell, seeing this, turned even paler than usual, and missed his mouth the first few times he attempted to take a sip of his drink.

“I … don’t know,” I said slowly. I had no plan, other than to share this information with the most devious person I knew in the hopes that he might help me come up with one.

“Well, what do you want?” Dell asked. “What’s your objective?”

What I really wanted was to go back in time, before any of this had happened, and my life had still made sense. But I had a feeling that wasn’t going to happen. “Well,” I said slowly, thinking, “I want to take away the hold that Isabel has over me,” I said, “and I want to be able to tell my friends what happened, without her finding out.” I also wanted to be friends with them again, but wasn’t sure that was going to happen—not after the way I’d ditched them. “And I want to get the proof she has against Nate.” I knew it was too much to hope for that Nate and I might be able to be together again. Not after how hurt he’d looked at the Bluff. I had a feeling there was no coming back from that.