The Festival of the Moon (Girls Wearing Black: Book Two) (21 page)

Jill laughed. “I should let you get back to your drawing,” she said.

“No, please don’t. I only have this notebook because…well, let’s just say you’re a lot more interesting than my notebook.”

“Really?” said Jill. “What’s interesting about me?”

“Are you kidding? You’re like a total enigma. It’s fascinating.”

“An enigma?”

“Yes! You go to Thorndike, but you’re sitting here at Riverwinds, and you seem like…forgive me for saying—you seem like a normal person.”

“Thank you,” said Jill. “I think.”

“Oh, it is definitely a compliment,” said Zack. “I mean, I don’t have anything against your school and all, but I never in my life thought I’d be speaking to someone who goes there. Seriously. Thorndike. It’s like the future Presidents academy. I heard--”

He leaned in closer and spoke more quietly. “I heard that the immortals come to your school dance. Is that true?”

“It is, and you don’t have to be quiet about it,” said Jill. “Thorndike is their little playground. That’s why people pay the big bucks to go there.”

“Yes, totally,” said Zack. “May I ask, if it’s not too rude, what do your…I mean, your parents…”

“What do my parents do?”

Zack nodded vigorously, and Jill found herself giggling at his goofiness. There was something endearing about this guy, more than just his pretty eyes.

“My dad owns a software company,” she said. “And my mom is the lead programmer.”

“So you’re like…really, really, really rich, aren’t you?”

Jill shrugged her shoulders.

“Say no more. I’m being rude,” said Zack. “I shouldn’t be asking about your parents. I should be asking about you. Tell me something about yourself.”

With that line, Jill knew she was in the middle of a game this guy played with girls all the time.
Tell me something about yourself
, he says, then the girl, mesmerized by the blue of his eyes, starts babbling and he asks her to tell him more and she babbles some more and before you know it, he’s taking her back to his place for the score.

Not that she minded. She would know when to quit. It was nice to just sit and have fun with a guy, to do this little dance that she could have done all through high school if she hadn’t spent so much time at a computer.

“I don’t really know what to tell you,” she said. “I’m actually quite boring.”

“I don’t believe that for a second,” said Zack. “You could start by telling me what you like to do.”

“I like…”

Illegal hacking?
Spying on the immortals? Being a covert agent for the resistance?

“I like hanging out with my friends,” Jill said.

“What do you guys do when you hang out?”

“What is this? Twenty questions?”

Zack laughed and again those gleaming teeth popped up. They were such a contrast to his jet black hair.

“I’m curious, that’s all,” said Zack. “You’ll find I can be like that.”

You’ll find
. It was a phrase that suggested long-term interest, as in
After we’ve hung out and gone on many dates and I’ve taken you to dinner and to the movies and held your hand and kissed you under the moon
you’ll find
I’m just a curious guy.
Jill was impressed. He was good. Even as she thought about what a player he was, she couldn’t help but imagine herself sitting with him in a movie theater, holding hands, then walking outside and kissing under the moonlight.

She smiled to herself, thinking that this was exactly what she needed today. She wished she could put Zack in a bottle and take him home so that every time she felt down she could turn to him and say, “Hey, hot guy. I’m feeling blue today. Can you come hit on me for a while?”

They talked for the next hour. Jill learned that Zack graduated from Lincoln High the year before. He was nineteen. He worked for a landscaping company by day and played drums in a band by night. He described his band’s music as “a cross between epic prog and seventies punk,” to which Jill responded, “I’ll take your word for it.”

It had been so long since Jill had allowed herself the luxury of an extended flirting session that she didn’t know where it was supposed to go. Were they going to be exchanging phone numbers soon? Would he be asking her if she wanted to leave the coffee shop and go someplace together?

Her phone buzzed with an incoming text. It was from Nicky.

Where are u?

The rest of her life was calling her back. Brawl in the Fall was tonight. She was supposed to be writing a program that found and tracked Melissa Mayhew.

“Excuse me for a second,” she said to Zack. She typed a response to Nicky that said:
In DC, talking to a friend.

“You know, I never could get into that,” Zack said.

“Get into what?”

“Texting.”

“Texting? What’s there to get into? You read messages people send to you and write messages back.”

“I understand the mechanics, and it’s not that I haven’t done it. It’s the content that escapes me. I see people sending messages all the time. What are they saying to each other? What’s worth saying in short, stubby sentences? If someone sends me a text, I call them back.”

At that moment, Jill’s phone buzzed again with another text from Nicky.

Rockwell Transport is giving me a limo for Brawl in the Fall tonight. Want me to pick you up?

Jill sighed.

“Bad news?” said Zack.

Terrible, Jill thought. Nicky’s texts had shaken her out of this little fantasy she got to live for the past hour, where she wasn’t a Network agent on assignment, but instead was a normal girl who could hang out in the coffee shop and talk to a cute guy.

“I have to go,” she said. She started packing her laptop.

Zack sat up straight and leaned forward, as if on alert. “You have to go?” he said. “No, we were having fun. Where do you have to go?”

He was so sincere when he spoke—could it be that this guy was genuinely interested in her? Jill had assumed that Zack was flirting with her because it was what he did, that because he was beautiful it was his habit to smooth-talk all the girls and let them fawn over him.

“I have..” Jill said, feeling flustered. She pointed at her phone, as if the answer to Zack’s question came from the text messages he so reviled.

“You have plans,” Zack said.

“Yes, I have plans.”

“How about your phone number?” Zack said. “I want to talk to you some more.”

Yes, give him your phone number
, Jill thought, even as a more reasonable part of her said, “I don’t think so.”

“Email?”

Jill let out a nervous laugh. “Zack, it’s time to say goodbye. It was nice meeting you.”

He sat there for a second, watching her put her laptop away and saying nothing. When he did speak again, his voice was more quiet and reserved than it had been all evening. “Okay, Jill. Maybe I’ll see you around.”

“Maybe you will,” she said, then she turned to leave.

She yanked on the heavy door, and an electric doorbell let out a sharp ding half a second after she stepped through.

Jill moved quickly to get to her car, which was parked at the far corner of the lot. The back bumper was all that was visible from behind the truck parked next to it. Right away she knew something was off. The bumper was sitting at an odd angle, like the ground beneath it had cracked and shifted.

She reached her car to find that both tires on the driver’s side were completely flat. Getting in closer to the rear tire, she saw a long puncture wound on its face. Someone had poked a big hunting knife in there.

“What the hell?” she said.

She walked back and forth, looking at both tires carefully, as if they were some mystery she could solve. She circled the car, looking for other damage, or at least a clue as to why this happened.

She found the clue in the bottom corner of her windshield. A little black and white sticker with a logo and a bar code. Her parking permit for the Thorndike senior lot.

This wasn’t a random act of vandalism. This was a message to Jill that she and her Mercedes with its Thorndike sticker didn’t belong here. It was an anonymous bit of anger directed at the ruling class, of which Jill was very much a member, regardless of any secret double life she led.

She called the towing service her family subscribed to. Apparently they were having a busy night.

“Friday at rush hour,” said the dispatcher on the phone. “I’ve got wrecks all over the place. Might be an hour before I get to you.”

“An hour?” Jill said.
 
She was unaccustomed to hearing bad news from anyone who was supposed to provide her customer service. Families like the Wentworths got first class treatment wherever they went.
 
And her initial response was to tell him to buzz off, that she’d have her driver come down with two tires and take care of this for her.

But she imagined the party back at her house and thought better of it. Calling for help now meant her dad would hear about it, and the last thing on earth she wanted to do was explain to her dad how she got trapped in Columbia Heights with two flat tires.

Jill looked at the clock. Five-forty. She wondered how long tire shops stayed open. She wondered where the nearest tire shop even was. She laughed at herself, realizing that she had never once set foot in a tire shop in her life and had never expected she would have to.

“Okay, I’ll wait,” she said to the dispatcher.

“I’m sorry we’re so behind, ma’am. I’ll have someone to you in an hour.”

Jill gave the dispatcher more detailed instructions about where to find her car, then she ended the call. Ten seconds later, she was pushing open the heavy glass door at Riverwinds. The wonky doorbell decided this time to let out an unusually loud
ping
, as if notifying everyone inside to take notice of her entrance. As Jill stepped inside, she felt like the entire coffee shop was looking at her.

She ignored everyone and went back to the empty seat she had left behind at the bar.

“You’re back!” Zack said with a big grin on his face.

“I’ve got car trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?” he said. “You need a jump? I’ve got cables.”

“No, it’s more complicated than that. I’ve got a tow truck coming in an hour.”

“An hour, huh? Can I buy you a cappuccino?”

Jill nodded.

“I’ll be right back,” said Zack. “Don’t go away.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere.”

Chapter 19

The tow truck took an hour and a half, but Jill barely noticed. She and Zack were having too much fun. Riverwinds had a shelf of old parlor games and they partook of all of them, playing Parcheesi, Checkers, Hearts, and Backgammon. As they played, Della brought them sandwiches and coffee.

“On the house,” Della said. “I heard about what happened to your car and I’m embarrassed for my neighborhood. Why would somebody do that?”

Jill shook her head and said it was alright, that she’d get it taken care of.

“It’s not alright,” said Della. “Times are tough but we’re all in this together. If people would just figure that out the world wouldn’t be such a nasty place.”

When the tow truck arrived, Zack accompanied Jill to her car and helped the driver get it out of the tight parking space and onto the truck.

“Where are you gonna take the car?” said Zack. “All the shops in the neighborhood are closed.”

“I’ll have it towed back to Potomac,” Jill said. “I’ll leave it at the dealer. Let’s go inside. I need to…”

Jill was about to say she needed to call a cab, but at that moment, she noticed that her phone was dead.

“You need to what?”

“My phone’s dead and the charger is getting towed away with my car.”

“You need to use my phone?” Zack said, reaching into his pocket.

“Can I? I need to call a cab.”

“You don’t need to take a cab,” Zack said. “I’ll drive you where you need to go.” He pointed at a big red boat of a car parked on the other end of the lot.

“That…thing? You want to drive me somewhere in that?” Jill said.

“What?” said Zack. “It’s a classic. Come on. You’ve got to check it out. They don’t make cars like this anymore.”

“There’s a reason for that.”

“Just come on. I can’t let you take a cab. We’ve had too much fun for me to put you in a taxi and say goodbye.”

Deciding this was a fitting end to a strange afternoon, Jill followed Zack to his car and climbed inside. The car was old, as in made before Jill was born old. The seats were a mix of old leather and scratchy fabric. The radio was a long, straight line of numbers with a red plastic arrow that marked the station. The windows were hand cranked. The front seat was a giant bench. As Zack crawled inside and pulled the door closed behind him, it crashed with the weight of solid steel.

“What kind of car is this?” said Jill.