Abandon (17 page)

He’d gone on to say, “I can assure you that you won’t have to worry about me showing up and acting like
such a jerk
anymore,” just before sending his foot crashing into the Isla Huesos Cemetery gate. The noise had sounded like a sonic boom.

“Chickie. Chickie.
Pierce.”

I glanced at her. “I’m sorry,” I said, blinking. “What?”

Kayla rolled her eyes. “What is
wrong
with your cousin, Alex?”

“She’s on medication,” Alex muttered. “But she supplements it with high doses of caffeine, even though she’s not supposed to.”

I glared at him. “Wow,” I said. “I can see someone’s been listening to Grandma.”

He didn’t even bother answering. He was looking around at everyone in the line ahead of and behind us, almost as if he were trying to find someone or dreading seeing them.…

Only, who?

This wasn’t exactly what I’d been expecting when I agreed to come with them to get ice cream after school. I’d just wanted
to look like I was normal — like I had friends, like I was one of the crowd — in front of my mother, since that seemed to be the only part of her visit to the New Pathways office that had made her happy, after that whole exchange with the cemetery sexton about Uncle Chris.

What
had
that been about, anyway? I’d never been too clear about what Uncle Chris had gone to prison for. Something about drugs…possession with intent to distribute. Nothing violent, anyway. I knew that. I was the only one in the family with that kind of thing on my record. Or at least I would be if Dad’s lawyers didn’t do what he was paying them to do.

“Have fun,” Mom had kept on saying, as she waved good-bye to me back in the New Pathways office.

Please
, her eyes seemed to be pleading.
Please, don’t mess this up for us, like you did back in Westport.

So I was trying not to mess this up, like I had back in Westport.

But so far the only fun thing about going to Island Queen was watching my cousin and Kayla fight.

“Well,” Kayla was saying to Alex, “it’s not like she’s Little Miss Innocent.”

“Kayla,” Alex said, an edge to his voice.

“What?” she demanded. “It’s true, isn’t it? Everyone’s talking about it. It’s on Google if you put her name in there.”

“Kayla,” Alex said.
“Drop it.”

She shot him another indignant look. “It’s all going to come out in group this week anyway, Alex, so she might as well just admit it now.”

“Uh,” I said. “What are we talking about?”

“You,” Kayla said. “Did you, or did you not, kill a teacher at your last school?” Alex buried his face in his hands.

“Wow,” I said. “Really? Not.”

Kayla looked disappointed. “Oh. Everyone says you killed him.”

“Well,” I said, “I didn’t.”

“But you hurt him real bad,” Kayla said. “Right?”

Before I could reply, one of the girls who’d been giving me dirty looks in the auditorium — I recognized her by her incredibly straight hair — walked by.

“Oh, my God,” she said, stopping and coming over to me. “Wait. You’re Pierce Oliviera, right?”

I had never seen this girl before in my life except when she’d snubbed me, then had an apparent change of heart, back in the auditorium.

But she came over with a smile as big as if we were long-lost BFFs.

“Uh,” I said. “Yes?”

“Oh, my God,” she cried again. She actually gave a little jump into the air. “I’ve been wanting to meet you! I’m Farah. Farah Endicott? Seth Rector’s girlfriend. Seth told me he met you today and that you were so cool.”

At first I had no idea what she was talking about. Then I remembered the guy who’d helped rescue my runaway class schedule and who’d later calmed everyone down at the assembly. Seth Rector, of Rector Realty. And probably the Rector mausoleum in the cemetery.

Well, one day. He obviously wasn’t of it now.

“Oh,” I said, not really sure how else to respond. “Hi.”

“What are you doing, standing way back here?” Farah asked, looking appalled. Her voice was so loud, everyone in line had stopped looking at me — the girl who’d allegedly killed a teacher at her last school, at least according to Kayla — and was staring at her instead. “This is, like, insane.”

“Uh,” I said, glancing at Alex and Kayla, whom I couldn’t help noticing Farah had completely ignored.

But that seemed to be okay, because they were ignoring her back. Alex was staring stonily out at the water. The beach was only about a hundred yards away, across the parking lot and beyond the three-foot seawall. And Kayla had gotten her cell phone out and was checking her text messages.

“I guess we just got here a little late,” I said. “We had to make a stop after school, on our way here.”

I didn’t mention that the stop had been to the New Pathways office to pick up my cell phone, which I was not allowed to carry in school, due in part to my neurobehavioral developmental disorder.

“Well, come sit with us,” Farah said with a great big smile, reaching out and grabbing not my arm but Kayla’s…a gesture that seemed to surprise not only me but Kayla as well. I saw her tense up and then exchange a quick, astonished glance with my cousin Alex. “We’ve got tables over on the beach — with umbrellas, so they’re in the shade. And Seth is almost to the front of the line. Just tell me what you want, and I’ll go add it to our order.

Then we can all go sit out by the water. It’s sooooo much nicer over there, you can’t even believe it.”

“No,” Kayla said quickly. “That’s okay, Farah. But thanks.”

“Yeah,” Alex said. “Thanks, but we’re good.”

I looked from Alex to Kayla and then back again. Something weird was going on.

True, the only thing in the world I wanted to do at that moment was get my stupid Stomach Buster or whatever it was, eat it, then go home and wait for Mr. Smith to call so I could find out what he wanted.

I wasn’t exactly looking forward to being accused of yet another crime I did not, in fact, commit.

But since it was going to happen anyway, I wanted to get as much of my waiting over with in air-conditioning, or at least shade.

Even if Kayla and Alex didn’t have the exact same problems as mine, it still seemed a bit strange that they preferred standing there sweating for another hour to accepting Farah’s invitation.

“But we have a great table,” Farah said, looking downcast. Her lips — glossed to a cherry red sheen — puckered. She pointed at an assortment of bright blue metal picnic tables out by the beach, all shaded by huge yellow umbrellas. There were only a few seats left at any of them, and apparently these were reserved for us. “You can’t feel it here, but there’s a totally nice breeze over there. And I swear, if you tell me what you want, I’ll make sure Seth orders it for you. What have you got to lose?”

I glanced at Kayla and my cousin. What
did
they have to lose?

Fear. I could see it in Kayla’s exotically made-up eyes. For some reason, she was afraid of Farah.

Or at least of someone who might be at Farah’s table.

And Alex? Well, from Alex’s dark eyes, I could tell nothing.

I knew Alex had an issue with Seth Rector. I knew the diamond from my necklace had turned a stormy gray when I’d stood in front of the Rector mausoleum that day with Mom in the cemetery, just like I knew it had turned purple when I first saw Kayla in the New Pathways offices.

I didn’t know why these things were happening.

And the truth was, I was keeping a few secrets of my own. So who was I to judge Alex or Kayla?

But I also knew, standing in the parking lot of Island Queen after the night I’d had — after the
day
I’d had — I just couldn’t do it anymore. The whole point was that I was making a new start: I wasn’t going to be the girl who just watched while the people around me got hurt.

So whatever issues Alex and Kayla had with Seth and Farah — or whoever was sitting at her table out there on the beach — I was going to get to the bottom of them. This time, I was going to protect my friends from the evil.

And the only way I knew how to do that was to find out what that evil was.

“I’ll have a Coke float,” I turned and said to Farah. “That’s a large Coke with a scoop of vanilla ice cream in it. And use this” — I thrust a twenty-dollar bill into her white-nail-tipped hand, then jerked my head back towards Alex and Kayla — “to get them one
chocolate chocolate-chip cookie dough Gut Buster and one vanilla Butterfinger bits and M&Ms Gut Buster.”

Farah’s glossy, puckered mouth broke out into a wide smile, revealing a set of perfectly straight white teeth. They were amazing, just like her boyfriend’s.

“Fantastic,” she said. “I’ll meet you guys over at the table.”

I noticed that most of the guys around us in line seemed to enjoy the way Farah sashayed — not walked — away, the pleats of her dark green plaid mini swaying behind her (they were definitely more than four inches above her knees).

Most of the guys except my cousin Alex, that is.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” he spun around to say to me.

“It’s okay,” I said, shouldering my bag. It was heavy because I’d filled it with all the books I’d need if I were going to do my homework. I don’t know why I hadn’t left it in the car. I never think things through. Obviously. There was no way I was going to be doing any homework. “You can pay me back la —”

“You think by buying me a Gut Buster,” Alex said, his anger hurtling down on me like one of John’s thunderclaps, “I’m going to go over and sit with those A-Wingers, and we’re all going to learn, despite our apparent outward differences like that they all wear designer labels and drive brand-new cars their daddies bought them for their birthdays, and I wear clothes from the Salvation Army and drive a rusted old junk heap, that we have something in common? Like maybe we can all sing and dance, and then we’re each going to get parts starring in Isla Huesos High School’s
musical, like this is some kind of damned Disney movie? Well, I’ve got news for you, Pierce. That’s not going to happen. And no matter what Grandma says, you’re nothing like your dad. You can’t just throw money at the problem to make it go away. In fact, you know what you can do with your money, Pierce? You can stick it up your —”

“Whoa,” Kayla interrupted, trying to keep the peace. “What is this? I thought we were just here to get ice cream.”

“Thank you,” I said to her gratefully. I’d never seen Alex so mad.

“Don’t thank me yet,” Kayla said. “Who orders a Coke float instead of a Gut Buster? That is just crazy.”

“Oh.” Mom had told me to be careful about inadvertently insulting the locals. I tried to think what Jade would do in my situation. “At least I didn’t ask for a
Diet
Coke,” I pointed out.

Kayla looked at me and shook her head slowly. “Are you sure she didn’t kill that teacher?” This was directed towards Alex.

“It’s not a joke,” he said. But he wasn’t looking at Kayla. He was looking at me. And he wasn’t talking about what I’d ordered, either. “Some of us actually live here, you know.”

It was what he’d said about the tourists on the way to school that morning.

And it hurt — exactly as he’d intended it to — because I knew it meant that’s how he thought of me…and Mom, too, probably. Like we were just passing through and didn’t care about the locals and their problems.

And it wasn’t even like we didn’t deserve it. Where had we been the whole time he’d been growing up without a mom
or
a dad, just crazy Grandma?

Of course we seemed like tourists to him. Even Richard Smith, the cemetery sexton, had pointed it out. Mom had never come back to Isla Huesos after I’d been born and Uncle Chris got arrested. I’d never met my grandfather. Not until his funeral. Where I’d met John.

Who, like Alex, just wanted me to leave him alone.

“I’m sorry,” I said to Alex, meaning it. “I know they only invited us because they want to play Check Out the New Girl. But who cares? They’ve got seats in the shade, and we won’t have to wait in this line anymore —”

“Maybe
you
want to go sit in the shade with them,” Alex said, practically seething with rage. “But the whole world doesn’t revolve around you, Pierce. Some of us might have issues with them.
Real
issues. Did you ever think of that?”

“What issues?” I asked. Now we were finally making progress. I’d been wondering this all afternoon. “What did Seth Rector ever do to you, Alex?”

“Just stay out of it, Pierce,” he said, scowling. “You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into, believe me.”

“Hey, you guys!” Farah, holding a tray loaded down with tall cups, waved to us from up near the front of the line. “You coming?”

“Uh,” I said, waving back. “Yeah! Hold on.”

I turned back towards Alex. “I don’t know what I’m getting myself into?” I asked him. “Are you kidding me? Do I have to
remind you that I died? So whatever’s going on with you and Seth Rector, I highly doubt it’s worse than that.”

Kayla’s eyes got very large. “She
died?
Alex, you never told me
that
.”

Alex continued to glare down at me for a heartbeat or two. For a second, I thought he might actually tell me the truth. I could see his Adam’s apple moving up and down. Sweat was glistening all over his forehead and temples. He seemed to
want
to tell me…which would be convenient, since once I knew, I could begin to work on solving the problem.
Some
people might not want my help…

But disappointingly all he ended up saying was, “Screw it. You want to hang out with your new A-Wing friends, Pierce? Have fun. Have a blast. I’m out of here.”

Then he turned around without another word and headed across the parking lot towards his car.

“Crap,” Kayla said, watching him go. She turned to look at me. “All my stuff is still in his car. My books and everything.”

“It’s okay,” I said to her. “Go after him.”

Kayla hesitated as she looked past me, towards the table of stunningly attractive A-Wingers, all grabbing at the Gut Busters Farah and Seth had brought to them on trays.

“I don’t get it,” she said.

I raised my eyebrows. “Get what?”