“I thought you can’t control who you get.”
“True, but the game is getting exponentially smaller.” I had the fleeting thought that I might be using the word exponentially wrong and also that, in front of Conchita, it was okay; she was not judgmental. “The more people I kill, the better my chances of getting to him.”
“You’re assuming he won’t get killed by someone else.”
“I think he’s watching out. Anyway, aren’t you impressed by how I’m using Assassin as a means to an end? I’m being Machiavellian.” In the fall, all freshmen had read The Prince.
“Mr. Brewster would be proud,” Conchita said. “And just think if you marry Cross-maybe he’ll give you extra credit.”
I looked at her, and she was smiling. And we both were sweating from the activity of the bike, and I could feel then how I had capitulated to Conchita. We were friends. She must have felt the same thing, because she said, “There’s something I want to ask you.”
I knew what she would say. But I feigned oblivion. “What?”
“I was thinking maybe we could room together next year.”
I could picture it easily. In fact, I already had: Our room would have ruffly pink curtains, and I would eat all her food, and we’d listen to Bob Dylan while we studied. It wasn’t the worst scenario imaginable, but it made me uneasy. There was what we already had in common-our dorkiness, our scholarships-and also what we might grow to have in common. (I feared my own malleability.) I saw us staying in the dorm on Saturday nights, donning our pajamas early, ordering Chinese food, throwing water balloons at each other-spazzing out. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to spazz out. I wanted to have boyfriends, I wanted my life to be sorrowful and complicated and unwholesome, at least a little unwholesome. “Wow,” I said. “I hadn’t thought about it. I’d have to check on some stuff before I could say for sure.”
“Stuff with Sin-Jun?”
I nodded. “What about Martha Porter?” I said. “Aren’t you guys pretty good friends?”
“Martha is great. But her roommate, Elizabeth, was bulimic, and she didn’t come back after Christmas. Martha said she’s gotten so used to having a single she’ll probably request one again for next year.”
So other people shared my ambivalence about rooming with Conchita; I wasn’t surprised.
“Just let me know,” Conchita said. “The forms still aren’t due for a while. And in the meantime, my mom is coming to Boston this weekend, and I wanted to invite you to lunch with us on Saturday. I invited Martha, too.”
Oddly enough, given that it was less than an hour away, I had never actually been to Boston-I’d only passed through the city on the way to and from the airport, riding on an Ault bus. But now, when people back home asked how I liked it, I’d be able to give a real answer.
“I’ve told my mom all about you,” Conchita said, and I couldn’t help wondering why Conchita was such a fan of mine, especially when no one else was. How had I charmed her so effortlessly, or less than effortlessly-unwillingly even? Had it been my lack of interest, was the explanation really that simple and obvious?
“I’ll try to live up to her expectations,” I said.
Killing time in the room before curfew-Sin-Jun wasn’t there, and Dede was napping, which probably meant she was planning to stay up late studying for a test-I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror over Dede’s bureau, and it struck me suddenly that I didn’t look like someone who could win a schoolwide game. I wasn’t sure what such a person looked like-just not like me. I had wavy brown hair and thin lips and thick eyebrows (not man-thick but thick for a girl) and I knew I had an overly intense stare. “What are you looking at me for?” my mother would say when she was driving, or, at the kitchen table, “What? Is something in my teeth?” Sometimes I could even feel myself doing it, inspecting another person’s face when we were close together, but it was hard to stop-where else was I supposed to set my eyes? It was even weirder if you never looked at the other person at all.
I stepped closer to Dede’s mirror and peered at my skin, inspecting it for potential breakouts. I had turned my head and was scrutinizing the left side of my jaw when Dede said, in a muffled voice, “What are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
“If I don’t finish Latin,” she said, “it’ll be all watery.”
“You’re asleep, Dede,” I said. “Go back to sleep.”
At curfew, Sin-Jun and I stood in front of the kitchenette eating raw cookie dough. By the time everyone had checked in and announcements were finished, we were two thirds through the package, and I was beginning to feel sick. Amy Dennaker approached the refrigerator, took out a Diet Coke, and, while not looking at me, said, “McGrath thought it was really funny how you tried to kill him in chapel today. He’s so cocky.” There was something uncharacteristically conversational, almost friendly, in Amy’s tone. “Did you know his room is right below Alexis and Heidi’s?” she added, and I could tell because of how her voice had a bubble of happiness in it: Amy had a crush on McGrath.
I passed the cookie dough back to Sin-Jun, and she hesitated. “Maybe I’m not eating no more.”
Amy was watching us.
“Did you want some?” I asked and, even though it was Sin-Jun’s, I held out the package.
Amy dug out some dough with her middle finger and forefinger, and it struck me-I had never considered it one way or the other-that she was probably a person who did not wash her hands after going to the bathroom. “I’m on your side,” Amy said. “I say bring McGrath down.”
So then she’d have something to tease him about, I thought. I wasn’t unsympathetic-I understood machinations, the need for an excuse.
“The problem is that his friends will be like bodyguards now,” I said.
“True.” Amy nodded.
“Maybe you crawling through his window while he sleeps,” Sin-Jun said. “At night he has no bodyguard.”
I laughed, and then my eyes met Amy’s. “I’d be breaking visitation,” I said. “I’d have to go before the disciplinary committee.”
“You shouldn’t go in there-” she began, and then I knew, I said, “Oh, like send down a threat? Or dangle something?”
“Yeah, just make him nervous.”
“I know what,” Sin-Jun said brightly. “We use fishing pole!”
“Where the hell would we find a fishing pole?” Though Amy sounded was scornful, I reminded myself that she was talking to us of her own volition.
“There is some in basement,” Sin-Jun said. “I have seen in storage.”
“I know what you’re talking about,” I said. “Back by that metal locker.” The basement ran beneath several dorms, creating a through-way rumored to be used by students who made illicit night visits to members of the opposite sex. “But we can’t go down there after curfew,” I said.
“We ask Madame,” Sin-Jun suggested.
“Ask her?” Amy said.
“It can’t hurt to try,” I said.
When we knocked on the door to Madame Broussard’s apartment, she answered quickly. Neither Amy nor Sin-Jun said anything, and I realized I was the leader by default. “Hi,” I said. “We have a question. This is kind of weird, but you know Assassin? And you know McGrath Mills? He’s my target, and we want to make him feel scared. Just as a joke. So I know it’s after ten, but we’re hoping-”
“We need to go down to the basement and get a fishing pole,” Amy said. “For two minutes. Can we?”
“For what reason do you need a fishing pole?” Madame asked. Overall, she seemed far less surprised by our appearance at her door than I’d have anticipated.
“We want to send something down to McGrath’s room, like a note,” I said. “He lives underneath Heidi and Alexis. But we’ll be quiet, and we won’t take very long.”
“But if you do such a thing”-Madame began, and I thought she was going to say, you will violate curfew. What she said instead was-“McGrath will know he is your target.”