Yeah, I've never been invited to one of those.
So I guess you could say I was pretty surprised by the outpouring of sympathy for my situation from a certain segment of the student population at Ernie Pyle High. Because it wasn't just Ruth and Skip and people from the Orchestra who came up to say they were sorry to hear about what had happened.
No, Todd Mintz came up, and a bunch of the Pompettes, and Tisha Murray and Jeff Day, and even the king of the popular crowd himself, Mark Leskowski.
It was almost enough to take a girl's mind off the fact that there was someone out there who wanted her dead—and who'd see that she got that way, if she came too close to the truth.
"I can't believe it," Mark said, plopping his truly magnificent rear end down on the bench beside me and regarding me with those deep brown eyes. "I mean, we were just there, you and I."
"Yeah," I said, uncomfortably aware of the number of envious glances coming my way. After all, with Amber gone, Mark was fair game. I saw more than one cheerleader nudge the girl next to her and point to the two of us, sitting there with our heads so close together at the otherwise empty table.
Of course, they had no way of knowing that my heart belonged—and always would—to another.
"At least nobody was hurt," Mark said. "I mean, could you imagine if it had happened during the dinner rush or something?"
"It would have been hard," I said to him, "for whoever poured gasoline all over the place, to have done so without anybody noticing during the dinner rush."
Mark's dark eyebrows lifted. "You mean somebody did it on purpose? But why? And who?"
"My guess would be whoever killed Amber and then beat up Heather. And they did it as a warning," I said. "To me. To back off."
Mark looked stunned. "God," he said. "That sucks."
It was more or less an adequate representation of my feelings on the matter, and so I nodded.
"Yeah," I said. "Doesn't it?"
It was right after that that the bell rang. Mark said, "Hey, listen. Maybe we could get together or something this weekend. I mean, if you're up for it. I'll give you a call."
Okay, I'll admit it. It was kind of cool to have the best-looking guy in school—vice-president of the senior class, quarterback, and all around hottie—say things to me like "I'll give you a call." I mean, don't get me wrong: he was no Rob Wilkins or anything. There was that whole "unacceptable" thing, which was a little, I don't know, militaristic for me.
But hey. He'd asked me out. Twice now. All of a sudden, I had a clue as to how my mom must have felt, when she was in school. You know, Little Miss Corn Detassler and all of that. I could see why she'd been so excited for me when Skip had called. Being popular—well, it's pretty fun.
Or at least it was, up until Karen Sue Hankey came up to me on my way to my locker and went, in her snotty Karen-Sue-Hankey voice, "Missed you at chair auditions this morning."
I froze, one hand on my combination lock. The auditions for chair placement in Orchestra. I had completely forgotten. After all, I had been dealing with some pretty heavy stuff lately … threats to my life, and the destruction of a large portion of my family's business. It wasn't any wonder I hadn't been able to keep my schedule straight.
But wait a minute . . . the winds had been scheduled for Thursday.
Which was today.
"I suppose, since you missed them," Karen Sue said, "you'll have to be last chair until next semester's tryouts. Too bad. Mr. Vine is posting the placements after school and I'm betting I'll be—Hey!"
The reason Karen Sue yelled "Hey" is because I pushed her. Not hard or anything. I just had to get somewhere, and fast, and she was in my way.
And that somewhere was the teachers' lounge, where I knew Mr. Vine spent fifth period, decompressing after freshman Orchestra.
I tore down the hall, bumping into people rushing off to class, and not even saying excuse me. It wasn't fair. It totally wasn't fair. A person with an excused absence like mine—and my absence was excused—should be allowed to audition like everybody else, not relegated to last chair just because some psycho had burned her parents' restaurant down.
The thing was, I had totally learned to sight read over the summer. I had had this big plan of blowing Mr. Vine away with my awesome new musical abilities. I didn't want to be first chair or anything, but I definitely deserved third, maybe even second. No way was I going to take last chair. Not lying down, anyway.
I skidded to a halt in front of the door to the teachers' lounge. I was going to be late for Bio, but I didn't care. I banged on the door.
As I was doing so, somebody touched my shoulder. I turned around, and was surprised to see Claire Lippman, who hardly ever spoke to me in the hallways. Not because she was snotty or anything, just because, usually, she had her head buried in a script.
"Jess," she said. Claire did not look good. Which was also unusual, because Claire is one of those, you know, raving beauties. The kind you maybe don't notice right off, but the more you look at her, the more you realize that she is perfect.
She didn't look so perfect just then, though. She'd chewed all the lipstick off her lower lip, and the pink sweater she'd flung around her shoulders—she was wearing a white sleeveless top—was in grave danger of slipping off and landing on the floor.
"Jess, I …" Claire looked up and down the hallway. It was clearing out, as people darted into class. "I really need to talk to you."
I could tell something was wrong. Really wrong.
"What's wrong, Claire?" I asked, putting my hand on her arm. "Are you—"
All right. Are you all right. That's what I'd been going to ask her.
Only I never got the chance, because of two things that happened at almost the same time.
The first was that the door to the teachers' lounge opened, and Mr. Lewis, the chemistry teacher, stood there, looking down at me like I was crazy, because of course people aren't supposed to bother teachers when they are in the lounge.
The second thing that happened was that Mark Leskowski emerged from the guidance office, which was across the hall from the teachers' lounge, holding a stack of college applications they'd evidently been keeping there for him.
"What may I do for you, Miss Mastriani?" Mr. Lewis asked. I had never had Chemistry, but he apparently knew my name from last spring, when I'd been in the paper so much.
"Hey," Mark said, to Claire and me. "How you two doing?"
Which was when Claire did an extraordinary thing. She spun around and took off down the hallway, so fast that she didn't even notice her sweater slip off her shoulders and fall to the carpet.
Mr. Lewis, looking after her, shook his head.
"Drama club," he muttered.
Mark and I—staring after Claire, who disappeared around the corner, heading in the direction of the drama wing, where the auditorium and stuff were—glanced at one another. Mark rolled his eyes and shrugged, as if to say, "Dames. What can you do?"
"See ya," he said, and started off in the opposite direction, toward the gym.
Not knowing what else to do, I bent down and picked up Claire's sweater. It was really soft, and when I glanced at the tag, I saw why. One hundred percent cashmere. She was going to miss this. I'd hang onto it, I decided, until I saw her again.
"Well, Miss Mastriani?" Mr. Lewis said, startling me.
I asked to see Mr. Vine. Mr. Lewis sighed, then went and got him.
Mr. Vine, when he came to the door, seemed to find my concern that I would be relegated to last chair in the flute section very amusing.
"Do you really think," he said, his eyes twinkling, "that I'd do that to you, Jess? We all know why you weren't there. Don't worry about it. Meet me right after last period today and we'll hold your audition. All right?"