Shuffle: A Novel Part 13

Luke got ambushed by a couple of his teammates. Apparently all week the football players were eating lunch together in solidarity, no outsiders allowed. So Vi came over to us, face flushed with pleasure.

"Guess what?"

"We know!" squealed Britta. "Good job."

"Did I look cool?" There was a manic, dazed gleam in Vi's eyes.

"Super cool."

She sat down, staring off into the distance, as though she were looking into her own future and seeing the end of every Disney princess movie all at once. "I'm so excited." She brought a piece of steak up to her mouth, chewed on it absentmindedly. "Mmm."

"Ew." I pushed mine into the corner of my tray, stabbing it with my fork as though it were some small rodent I'd just fought off.

"So Viiii," said Britta, snapping her fingers in front of Vi's face and breaking her dreamy gaze. "Are you going to try to kiss him?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. If he tries to kiss me, I'll totally let him."

"What kind of kiss?" asked Britta. "Tongue? No tongue? We need, like, a rating system or something."

"Max tongue," said Shelby.

"Yuck!" Vi grinned at her. "I would like a tasteful, medium amount of tongue, please."

"Oh come on," said Ellen. "Life is short. Go for max tongue."

Flashback hit me, suddenly. The pale arm emerging from the window. Dead children. A devastated father. Life is short.

The bell rang. "Hey Ellen, can I talk to you?"

I snagged her elbow as we walked to gym. "Something weird happened in Latin. With Arbor." I went into an explanation, but quickly found that I wasn't sure exactly how to characterize Arbor's proposal.

"So he just said, like, come with me to Denver after school? And do what?"

"I don't know. I guess I kind of a.s.sumed he was asking me on a date or something."

"A date is going to Newman's Mini Putt-Putt and stuffing pine cones in the clown's mouth on hole 17. Not driving an hour to Denver for who knows what reason. You're not going, right?"

"No, of course not."

Life is short.

"I just wanted to hear what you thought about it."

"Well, I think he's either a pervert or a psychopath, and you shouldn't have anything to do with him either way."

We reached the locker room and changed quickly into Peaks High Athletics tees and our gym shorts. We were starting a new unit this week. Softball. The teacher handed us each a cruddy, broken down old glove out of a plastic bin and we traipsed outside to the diamond.

"A through M over here," growled Ms. Martz. "Team one. N through Z over here. Team two. Congratulations, you're all first round draft picks. Signing bonus: one beautiful fall afternoon playing the greatest game on Earth."

Yay. At least Ellen and I were on the same team, and Arbor a looking awkward yet implacable in shorts and a wrong-handed mitt a was on the other one.

"Team one fields. Team two bats. Go." She clapped her hands and pulled down an umpire's mask, squatting behind home plate.

We lined up by last name and stood behind the fence, gabbing and not paying too much attention to what was happening on the field. Ellen and I were near the end of the line, so it was a couple innings before either of us got close to batting. When it was our team's turn to field, we went and stood in far right, gloves on our hips. Softball <>

"So let's pretend I do want to go to Denver with Arbor," I said.

Ellen swung her head around and gave me a look. "What? I did not just hear that."

"Just hypothetically."

"Mm-hm. Hypothetically." She sounded dubious.

"How would I be able to do that without Callie finding out?"

Ellen rolled her eyes and shifted her weight. Her hip was stuck out so far I thought she was going to throw her spine out of whack. "Hypothetically, I guess you would have to get a friend to pretend you were at her house all evening."

"Hypothetically, that could work."

"Hypothetically, it ain't gonna be Ellen Wilson."

"Oh come on! Please?"

Ellen squared her shoulders at me. "Friends don't let friends drive to Denver to be hypothetically murdered in an alley."

I made a petulant little noise in my throat and threw my arms out. "That is not going to happen."

"How many times has a murder victim said that? And then gotten murdered?"

"I have pepper spray."

"WILD. GET YOUR b.u.t.t OVER HERE, YOU'RE UP!"

Ms. Martz was yelling at me from across the field; we'd gotten three outs apparently, and it was our team's turn to bat. Ellen and I jogged in. A batting helmet was sitting in the dusty on-deck circle. I picked it up, wrinkled my nose as I got a whiff of evaporated sweat, and stuck it on my head. It was moist. Yuck.

Martz handed me an aluminum bat. "Choke up. Keep your eye on the ball, now."

I stepped into the batter's box and stared down the pitcher. She wound up and tossed it in.

"Strike one!"

"At least take a swing, Wild."

"Swinging is a popular activity here in h.e.l.l, is it?" I muttered under my breath.

I heard a low chuckle and glanced at the catcher. It was Arbor, of course. I growled and swung hard at the next pitch. It was high, and I whiffed.

"Strike two!"

"Tsk tsk," said Arbor, evenly. "I don't understand the basic mechanics of this game yet, but even I know that was pathetic."

I stepped out of the batter's box and knocked the bat against the toe of my sneaker. "Is this how you're going to convince me to go out with you?"

Arbor only smiled that predatory, unnatural smile of his and settled back into a kneeling position, ready to catch the next ball.

"I'm growing old here," said Ms. Martz.

I stepped back into the box. This time I really concentrated. The ball came in with a little spin on it. I antic.i.p.ated its trajectory and...

WHANG!.

I connected. The ball sailed into deep left field as I rounded first base, sprinting as fast as I could toward second. It was a standing double. People even clapped for me.

Maybe softball isn't so bad after all.

As we walked back to the fieldhouse, sweaty and covered in dust, I fell into step with Arbor. He didn't acknowledge me. I could feel Ellen's watchful presence behind us. Silent. Grumpy.

"I'll come to Denver with you," I said, quickly. I wasn't planning on saying anything; the words just popped out of my mouth. But I knew I'd always regret it if I didn't go. And, like I told Ellen, I had pepper spray.

Arbor nodded. "Good. Meet me in the student lot after school. I believe you know my car."

We parted ways, and Ellen caught up with me as I headed to take a shower. "I heard that. I suppose you want me to lie to Callie for you."

"You don't have to say anything. I'll just call her on my cell between cla.s.ses and tell her that I'm going home with you to do schoolwork and watch a movie, and I'll be back before bedtime. She won't question it."

"I hope you know this is a bad idea," said Ellen.

"I can't help it!" I said. "I feel like it's impossible for me to do anything else. I have to go."

"Well," Ellen said philosophically, stepping under the hot stream of water with a tiny sigh of contentment, "If you do get murdered, don't you dare come back and haunt me."

"Deal."

The rest of the day dragged on. I got steadily more nervous about being alone with Arbor. The weird thing is, I wasn't nervous for any of the reasons I should have been. I was more worried about what to say, how to act. Whether I looked good.

Finally three o'clock rolled around and I called Callie as I headed to my locker to load up my backpack. I relayed my cover story in what I hoped was a nonchalant manner. Apparently her "cop sense" wasn't alert at that moment, because she bought it hook, line, and sinker. Even said it was good timing; she still had work to do on the fire.

"Any news about what caused it?"

"Right now the word is faulty wiring. Although we aren't ruling out arson just yet."

She went on a bit about the amount of paperwork she had to do; I made sympathetic sisterly noises and hung up, full of guilt.

Then I checked myself out in my locker mirror a no mascara smudging, hair somewhat out of control and just... extremely red a slid a couple books into my backpack and slammed the door shut. Ellen was nowhere to be seen. That suited me. I didn't want to get into another discussion re: the reckless teenage behavior I was about to indulge in.

I checked the front pocket of my backpack. Pepper spray, armed and operational.

Rows of cars in the student parking lot glinted in the warm sunlight. I squinted as I walked out the door, held up a hand to cover my eyes, and scanned the curb. There it was, idling. Champagne Mercedes-Benz CLS with all the options. Arbor was behind the wheel in aviator shades, looking bored.

I walked up and knocked on the window. Arbor brushed a control with his left hand; I heard a click and the pa.s.senger side door unlocked. I settled into the luxury leather seat. Cool, pleasantly scented air drifted out of the dashboard. He had a Bathory CD in.

"Under the Runes, right?" I smiled tentatively. "I love this song. Quorthon's, like, one of my favorite artists of all time."

The Benz pulled away smoothly, powerful engine purring.

"I met him once."

"Really?" I frowned. "He died in what, 2004? You must have been pretty young..."

Arbor didn't offer any details. Of course. He simply took Old Highway 18 up to the interstate and merged into Denver-bound traffic. The mountains were at our back. We were slipping down the Great Divide like a teardrop toward Auraria. Denver's oldest name, my mom once told me. I remember she was doing the dishes in our kitchen, and singing a song. "Hog drovers, hog drovers, Auraria air, a-courtin' your darter, so purty and fair..." I asked her what 'Auraria air' meant. She told me that before Denver was Denver, it was named Auraria, for all the gold beneath it.

I've always wondered why they changed the name, when they had one so lovely to start with. It's always sort of made me sad.

But metal was blaring now as we flashed over the plains. It crushed my eardrums and left my mother's little folk song in its screaming, guitar-filled wake. I smiled and stretched in the roomy seat. I'd never been in a car this expensive before!

"So, what are we doing in Denver?"

Arbor's expression did not change, his hand steady at the wheel. "It's a surprise."

Infuriating. Whenever I'm around Arbor, there seem to be so many questions on the tip of my tongue that I just can't ask. Do you like me? Is this a date? Are you going to kill me and grind my bones to make your bread?

"You stole those shoes," I said.

He turned briefly. I couldn't see his eyes behind the mirrored shades. "So did you."

"You haven't told me why."

He seemed puzzled that I was bringing it up again, as if it were already a settled issue between us. But if I was going to be spending time with him, I had to know what was up. Or at least have some a.s.surances that Ellen's fears wouldn't be realized.

"In the immortal words of Facebook, it's complicated."

"Oh. Well, then."

I think someone like Britta would have leaned over and touched his arm, whispered "Pretty please?" into his ear, banking on s.e.x appeal to weasel out a secret or two. But I sulked. I stared sullenly out my window at the bare, scrubby land. It was boring and ugly. The Rockies sure do dominate the scenery.

"Evangeline," said Arbor, in that deep, rich voice of his. "I can't tell you much about my life, but I can promise that you will be absolutely safe with me. Safer even than you would be in your own home."

"Boy, that's a relief," I said, sarcastically. "Seeing as just about anyone can apparently waltz into my room in the middle of the night."

"I hope you don't think I've ever trespa.s.sed on your privacy," he said.

I scoffed. "Well, where did the shoes go, then? Someone took them from me the same night I took them from you."

He just raised his eyebrows and turned off at the Colfax Avenue exit. "Tangled webs indeed."

Liar.