Unfriended (32 page)

“Are you friends with Justin?” she asked Tricia, her eyebrows raised. I looked over at her and saw what I knew all too well as her “scientist expression.” She had encountered an anomaly and would not let it go until she discovered the answer. “I’m surprised you know him.”

Tricia blinked once, then cleared her throat. “I don’t,” she said quickly. “I just … um … think he’s cute, so I follow him on Constellation. That’s all. Don’t tell, okay?” she asked, giving us a smile. “So is he here?”

“No,” I said quickly. “I mean, he was, but he just left.”

“Oh,” she said, nodding. “Got it.”

Ruth met my eyes, and we had a moment of nonverbal communication, with her asking me,
How are we going to get rid of Tricia?
and me replying,
I have no idea. But OMFG
.

“Well,” I said, glancing down at my phone, all too
aware that time was ticking by, and I really needed to be getting on with Phase 3, “I should probably close up.”

“Right!” Tricia said, giving me another smile. “Well, Madcap, I’m just so glad you’re back!”

“I know,” I said, just as another muffled voice sounded from the freezer. Tricia frowned, looking over at it again, and I took a small step to the right, trying to block her field of vision. “I would have called but things have been … crazy,” I said.

“I’m sure,” she said, looking back to me sympathetically. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“That’s okay,” I said, keeping a smile on my face, but wondering where this was coming from. I liked Tricia, but we didn’t exactly share our deep feelings. I was suddenly starting to understand Lisa’s “clingy” comment.

“Well, I just want you to know that if you want to talk about it, Mad—” Tricia started, when the bell above the door jangled again. I looked over and saw Sarah Donner, also dressed all in black, standing in the doorway.

“Sarah?” I asked, unable to fathom what she was doing there.

“Hey,” she said, walking toward the counter. “I was just—” She stopped when she saw Tricia, and frowned, as though trying to place her.

Tricia had turned pale when she’d seen Sarah, and seemed to now be looking very fixedly at the ground. “This is Tricia Evans,” I said to Sarah, “and that’s Sarah Donner.”

“Hi,” Sarah said, trying to get a closer look at Tricia,
who seemed to be looking anywhere but at Sarah.

“Hey,” she murmured. “You know, I’ve got to get going. Bye, Ruth. See you, Mad.” Tricia said this very fast, and still mostly looking at the floor. As I watched, trying to figure out what was happening, she turned and hustled out the door.

I waited until the door had closed behind her and Tricia was out of sight before I turned to Ruth. “Close one,” I said.

“Yeah,” she agreed, still looking at where Tricia had gone, frowning slightly.

“Hey, guys!” Sarah said, leaning over the counter and giving me a hug, then giving Ruth one. Theater kids hug a
lot
, even, apparently, when school is no longer in session.

“Sarah, what are you doing here?” I asked.

Sarah shook her head dramatically, as was her custom. But I was happy to see that, even after being immersed in a theater camp, she hadn’t reverted to wearing overalls and a bandanna. “They were stifling my creative vision at that camp,” she said. “And I will not work where my creative vision is being stifled! It’s just—”

“No,” I said quickly. “I mean, what are you doing
here?”

“Mark said something was going on tonight,” she said. “You know,” she said, raising a conspiratorial eyebrow at me, “something on the
down low
. And then I saw on Constellation that Ruth and Glen and Dave had all aligned here, so I thought I’d drop by. I thought you might need my help!”

“That’s really nice of you to offer, Sarah,” I said, wondering what part of “confidential” and “let’s not tell Sarah” Mark had had trouble grasping. “But …”

“It’s kind of complicated,” Ruth finished, glancing at me.

At that moment, more muffled voices came from the freezer. Sarah looked at us, eyebrows raised. I sighed and decided just to tell her, figuring that if Mark had already spilled most of the beans, there was no point in trying to cover up what was happening. “Here’s the thing,” I said. “Justin Williamson’s in the freezer.”

It was maybe a mark of how much we’d all been through together that Sarah didn’t ask why one of the most popular guys in school was currently in the walk-in freezer. Or if this was a good idea. Or even if the freezer was off. Instead, she just nodded. “Gotcha,” she said. “So what’s going on? Can I help?”

“Yes,” I said, realizing that we needed to prevent more customers from wandering in. “Could you lock the front door?”

“On it,” she said, heading toward the door as Ruth and I walked up the stairs to the freezer and unlocked it.

“Madison, you’re running late for Phase 3,” Ruth said, looking at her watch.

“I know,” I said, heading to the freezer, well aware that I had a narrow window of time. I was especially nervous about this part of the plan, since it was contingent on the participation of people who occasionally couldn’t remember my name and had irrational phobias about berries.

I pulled open the walk-in. Turtell and Dave were clustered by the door, talking intensely about something, and stopped immediately when they saw me. Justin was sitting on the floor by the boxes of energy powders, with Kavya sitting next to him. And even though the freezer was a pretty small space for four people to share, they seemed to be sitting
very
close together.

Justin looked up at me as the door opened. “Can I leave now?” he asked, even though, maybe due to the fact that Kavya was in such close proximity, he made no move to get up.

“Almost,” I said. I looked at Dave and Turtell, and tipped my head toward the door. They followed me out, and I looked back at Kavya, who was also making no move to leave the freezer.

“I think I’ll stay and keep Justin company,” she said, moving even closer and brushing an invisible piece of lint from his shirt. “He’s having such a traumatic evening, after all.”

I rolled my eyes at that, but couldn’t help noticing that Justin no longer looked at all upset about being there. Dave and Turtell stepped outside, and I closed the door behind them. I started to lock it, but Dave shook his head.

“I don’t think that’s necessary, Mad,” he said. “That guy’s not going anywhere.”

I looked back at the closed freezer door and realized that now I couldn’t hear anything—not even any voices. “Really?” I asked, looking back to Dave.

“Oh, yeah,” Turtell said as he walked down the
steps. “The makeout vibes in there were crazy. They both totally wanted us to leave. Except, you know, we were locked in.”

“Hey, guys!” Sarah said as we all arrived back behind the counter. “I came to help. I hear that there’s a operation going on tonight.”

“We’ll explain,” Ruth said quickly, before either of the boys could launch into an explanation. “Mad, you really have to leave.”

I checked the time and saw that she was right. “Crap,” I muttered, heading for the side door. “I’ll text when we’re set and you can let Justin out,” I said as I hopped over the counter.

“Good luck,” Turtell said.

“I second that,” Ruth said. “You’ll be great.”

“Thanks, guys,” I said, reaching for the doorknob.

“Mad,” Sarah called, and I looked back at her. “That girl who was here,” she said, “looked
really
familiar. But I can’t place her. And I could have sworn her name wasn’t Tricia, either.”

“Probably from the prom,” I started, as Ruth checked her watch again.

“I’ll fill Sarah in,” she said. “You have to
go
, Mad.”

“Gotcha,” I said. “I’ll see you guys a little later.” Everyone nodded, even Sarah, who had apparently decided she was in on this plan, despite not knowing what it involved. I started to head out the door, but turned back when I realized that none of them were talking. Everyone just smiled at me and waved. I smiled back, and pushed through the door, trying to shake the very odd feeling
I’d just had. It was almost like they’d been waiting for me to leave before telling Sarah what was going on.

But that didn’t make any sense. And I didn’t have time to try and figure out alternate scenarios now. I speed-walked to Judy, started the engine, and pulled out onto Putnam Avenue, aiming the car toward the Stanwich Yacht Club.

I swerved into the employee parking lot of the Stanwich Yacht Club at five minutes to seven, hoping against hope that Isabel had not already arrived. Thankfully, I hadn’t had any problems getting in, as the TV-watching guard at the employee entrance had only glanced at Schuyler’s hangtag and waved me through without question.

I put Judy in park and pulled out my phone, ready to call John, hoping that I hadn’t missed the window. But before I could dial him, the phone rang with an incoming call, from Daryl. I answered, but didn’t say anything, hoping that Daryl would have remembered to put the phone in his shirt pocket and
not
his pants pocket (there
had been some confusion over this when we’d been going over the plan).

“Welcome to the Stanwich Yacht Club,” I heard John say. His voice was slightly muffled, but I could still make out what was being said. “May I take your car?”

Despite the circumstances, I felt myself smile at that, as it seemed like maybe he was getting the lingo of the two jobs mixed up.

“Be careful with it,” I heard a familiar voice snap. “The last time I picked it up from valet, there were all these
scratches
on it.”

It was unmistakably Isabel. I sank down lower in my seat, as though she could somehow see me, even though the employee parking lot was on the other side of the club from the valet area.

“Bummer,” I heard Daryl say, his voice much clearer than John’s had been. “Did you park it next to a bush or something?”

“Not scratches from me,” Isabel said, and it was like I could practically see her rolling her eyes as she said it. “Scratches from
you
.”

“Me?” Daryl asked, sounding surprised. “What did I do?”

“Not you, specifically,” Isabel said, and I could hear the frustration rising in her voice. “I meant from the valets in general. So be careful with it. Okay?”

“Okey-doke,” Daryl said.

“You got it,” John said. Then I heard the sound of doors opening and closing, and the sound of a car moving.

“Guys?” I asked, after there had been silence for a
few seconds and I was pretty sure they were alone.

“Hey, Mad,” John said. “You know, that girl is not very nice.”

“Tell me about it,” I said.

“Well,” Daryl started. “First, she was all blaming me for the fact that she parked next to a tree or something, and then—”

“I didn’t need you to actually tell me about it,” I said, jumping in before Daryl could keep going. “Because I could hear it all, remember?”

“Then why did she ask?” I heard John mutter.

“Guys,” I said, getting a little worried that I hadn’t seen them yet, “you are coming to the employee parking lot, remember? Not the valet drop?” There was a worrying pause.

“Oh, right,” John said after a moment. “Totally. We’re heading there now. Just give us a second to, you know, turn around.”

“See you in five!” Daryl said, and the line went dead.

I put my phone on the seat next to me, and placed Justin’s next to that. I had been worried that Isabel might have called before now to check in, but luckily there hadn’t been any communication from her after the final text.

As I watched in my side-view mirror, a low-slung red sports car veered into the employee parking lot and parked in the space next to my driver’s side. I rolled down my window, and the passenger-side window rolled down as well.

“Hey, Mad,” Daryl whispered. The engine of the car
stopped, and through the window, I could see John hand Daryl the keys. Daryl held them out the passenger-side window, and I reached out and took them.

Heart hammering, I turned on my car’s interior light and flipped through the contents of the key ring. There was a leather key fob, the car key, what looked like a house key … and a flash drive. I let out a long breath as I looked at it, relief flooding over me. Our whole plan hinged on this flash drive, and I was just glad Ruth had been able to figure out where it most likely was. And that the valets that Stanwich Yacht Club employed were not above being bribed with munchies.

I slipped the flash drive off Isabel’s key ring and looked at it. It was silver, and unremarkable. The one I had to substitute for it was slightly smaller, but I was betting on the fact that Isabel wouldn’t notice. I threaded the replacement onto the key ring, placing the real one carefully in my purse. I passed the keys back to Daryl, along with a huge bag of Fritos.

“Oh, awesome!” Daryl said. “Thanks, Mad!” Daryl passed the keys to John, but the car didn’t start up again.

“Guys?” I asked. I could see John frowning down at the dashboard.

“Just a second,” he said. “I think the car might have automatically locked when I took out the keys. And with some of these, the alarms go off because of the smallest things. And it would be uncool if the alarms went off now.”

“Yeah,” I murmured as my heart began to beat faster.
It would be very uncool if an alarm went off, since Daryl and John were currently on the other side of the country club from the valet drop. I had a feeling if alarms started going off, there might be some questions to answer—not the least of which would be where the Fritos had come from.

“Okay, let me try this,” John said. I held my breath, and a moment later, the car started up again, without a problem.

“We’re good,” Daryl said, giving me a thumbs-up out the window.

John shook his head, but he looked very relieved. “These people with the security. But it makes sense. I mean, you want to protect what’s most important to you, right?” I nodded, even though something he had said was starting to ring a bell for me.

“Thanks a million, guys,” I said. “See you at work.”

“See you!” Daryl called. A moment later, the car roared to life and peeled out of the employee parking lot at what was probably a much faster speed than Isabel would have been comfortable with.

I turned off the interior light and started Judy up, checking the time on my dashboard. I had about fifteen minutes, and I wanted to get as far away from the Stanwich Yacht Club as possible in that time.

I had managed to make it to Putnam High School in record time—and, well, by speeding a little. I pulled
into the parking lot by the sports fields, put the car in park, and killed my engine. Then, using Justin’s phone, I dialed Isabel’s number.

“Hi,” she said right away, managing to sound equal parts relieved and annoyed. Without waiting for a response, she jumped right in. “Justin, where are you? I saw on Constellation that you’re here, so it’s ridiculous that you haven’t gotten to the restaurant yet. Did you get lost or something? I have just been
waiting
here. Did you not make a reservation? Because they don’t have a record of it, and at this point—”

“Sorry,” I cut in, and I could hear Isabel draw in a sharp, surprised breath. “Actually, it’s Madison. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Justin’s not going to be able to make it tonight.”

“How do you have Justin’s phone?” Isabel asked after a moment, her voice clipped.

“It seems,” I said, remembering her earlier phrasing, “that he should really learn not to leave his phone lying around when he’s at work.”

“What do you want, Madison?” Isabel asked, and I could hear a low, simmering anger in her voice.

“I’m going to have to renegotiate the terms of our agreement,” I said. “If you wouldn’t mind meeting me on the lacrosse field at Putnam High School, I’ll explain it all to you.” And then, before she could say anything else, I hung up.