Trouble is a Friend of Mine Read online

  “With what? All you have is a piece of tape which, hello, isn’t even on the camera anymore,” I said.

  “Yeah . . . yeah . . . you’re right. Of course we can’t call them now, but I’ll bet we can after I get into these encrypted files.” He scribbled in his notebook. “We should definitely go back for another look.”

  This time, I did hit him in the nads.

  FIVE

  Obviously my mother couldn’t go back to Schell. But Mom isn’t big on confronting reality, not even when it’s right in front of her face. For days, I worried about it, saddled with the whole burden of knowing.

  This wasn’t new for me. I’d had to do it before—with my father’s cheating. I’d figured it out one day, when I was doing laundry and it just came to me, apropos of nothing, that my father was having an affair. It wasn’t like any one particular thing had given him away, it was just a lot of little things. Once it occurred to me, I was sure divorce was inevitable, and for months, I had insomnia, waiting for them to tell me. Months later, when I realized that no divorce was coming, a new waiting game started. This time, I waited for my mother to catch up with me. But when more months passed, it finally dawned on me that Mom and Dad were both lying, and to the same person: Mom.

  I couldn’t believe it. I watched her go about her life, oblivious, until every mundane thing she did irked me. I mean, yes, Dad was a dirtbag. It wouldn’t even surprise me if he’d been cheating on Shereene the whole time he’d been cheating with her. But he knew what he was about and I could respect that at least. Mom chose to ignore reality. She was a coward.

  The next day, I was raking leaves before school, mulling this over, when I saw Red Plaid from the diner exit the mansion across the street. Some boys in blue plaid followed him. As usual, girls in prairie dresses were in the driveway with buckets of disgusting-smelling cleaning fluids. None of the boys were scrubbing, I noticed.

  “Typical,” I said.

  The boys piled black garbage bags into a van parked in the driveway. One hotshot kid swung his bag over his head before throwing it in. The loud crunch of glass got him boxed in the ear by Red Plaid. When he readjusted the bag, I saw it had a BIOHAZARD MEDICAL WASTE logo.

  “That’s weird,” I said.

  “Totally weird,” Digby said.

  I jumped and jerked the rake so hard, it threw a puff of leaves in the air. I hadn’t heard him come up behind me.

  “They’re supposedly running an herbal tea business.” Digby was eating one apple and holding a second. “Medical waste? Definitely weird.”

  “You scared me. What are you doing here?”

  “I thought we’d walk to school together. What are you raking for? This is upstate New York. It’ll rain leaves until November.”

  There was already a carpet of freshly fallen leaves where I’d just raked.

  “You’re crazy coming here. That guy’s gonna kill you,” I said.

  Luckily, Red Plaid walked back into the mansion without seeing Digby.

  “The Twelfth Tribe Tea Company. And you know what’s really weird? There’s no mortgage on that mansion,” he said. “They blew into town four years ago and paid cash. This is America—who pays cash?”

  “It’s a cult. They probably confiscated their members’ money. Anyway, how’d you find out about their mortgage?”

  “It’s online. All you need’s a real estate agent’s login.”

  “And you have one of those because . . . ?”

  “It’s a long story involving a box of donuts, a cup of coffee with a loose lid, and the rule that there’s no such thing as a free lunch.”

  “I’m making a mental note to never use a computer around you.”

  I guess Red Plaid saw us from the window, because he stalked out of the mansion, doing the corny roll-up-the-sleeves-to-fight move. Except, because he was doing it to beat us up more effectively, it seemed a lot less corny.

  Digby put his apples on my mailbox and took something—I couldn’t see what—from his pocket that he gripped in his closed fist.

  “Get that punch of yours ready,” Digby said. “I don’t think he wouldn’t hit you just because you’re a girl.”

  Red Plaid didn’t bother with the usual opening threats. There was no pose-down. He just ran up and hit Digby in the face. Digby went down. Instead of getting back up, Digby waited for Red Plaid to come closer and kicked Red Plaid’s shin. It was Red Plaid’s turn to go down and as soon as he hit the ground, Digby straddled him. They did what sounded like mostly open-handed slap-fighting, but somewhere in there, Digby landed two hard punches on Red Plaid’s face.

  Red Plaid managed to kick Digby off him just as his gang of plaid shirts poured out of the mansion. I should’ve called 911, but I ran into the garage and got a tire iron instead. My ears buzzed with adrenaline, and, jacked up as I was, I seriously believed our two could take their six.

  “Quit hiding behind your girlfriend and fight me like a real man,” Red Plaid said.

  “Real man? What, you learned English from a comic book?” Digby said. “And I’m not hiding. Come at me. See what happens.”

  I swung the tire iron from side to side, thinking, Do I even know how to fight? But I never found out because as the plaid shirts closed in, a huge amazon came out of the mansion. She was wearing a floor-length black dress and her thin black hair was pulled back in a tiny tight bun.

  “Ezekiel!” she shouted.

  All the fight instantly went out of Red Plaid, whose name was apparently Ezekiel. The amazon took her time crossing the street. Even though hostilities were clearly canceled, my grip on the tire iron tightened as she approached. We were all scared of her.

  “Have you completed your chores? It’s almost eight o’clock,” she said.

  She was taller than all of us, even Ezekiel, who was at least six feet. She made him look like a sulky preschooler when she grabbed his chin and looked at the shiner that was already coming in.

  “Young man, I could call the police and have you charged with assault with a weapon,” she said to Digby.

  “I’d hardly call my lunch money a weapon.” Digby revealed the roll of quarters his fist was wrapped around. “Good luck telling the story of how I got your boys to cross the street for me to assault them. I mean, they’re dumb, but is anyone that dumb?”

  The amazon stared. I was sure she was making some awful calculation about what size boxes she’d need to stash our bodies.

  Digby resumed his apple consumption, reaching past the amazon to casually photograph the mansion’s windows with his phone.

  Then I noticed her. A crying girl wearing a prairie dress, peeking out of an upstairs window. She was there just a second. Digby got two shots before an arm yanked the girl out of sight. She was gone by the time the amazon turned to look.

  “Back in the house. This instant,” the amazon said.

  As they were leaving, Mom came out of our house. “Zoe! Gotta go, babe! I gotta copy handouts for my class. Oh, hello . . . !”

  My adrenaline was still pumping, but there wasn’t so much of it that I wasn’t embarrassed by her reaction to seeing Digby.

  Mom asked, “Who’s this?” What her expression said but her mouth didn’t was: “Zoe likes a boy!” Luckily, though, Mom’s from the MTV generation and has the attention span to prove it. “My tire iron! I thought I’d lost it in the move,” Mom said.

  Never mind the huge red welt on Digby’s cheek or the leaves stuck all over his suit. Never mind that my trembling hands were still gripping the tire iron like a baseball bat.

  Mom offered Digby a ride to school and I sat there, my adrenaline rush wearing off, listening to them chat about how great it was living in River Heights. “Blah-blah-blah great school system blah-blah-blah yoga at the community center.”

  I pondered almost getting killed on my own lawn and the fact that in addition to needing to tell Mom abo
ut Schell, I needed to tell her about our pissed-off neighbors who’ll now probably murder us in our sleep.

  I wished Mom would ask some nosy parent questions already so we could get it over with, but when we got to school she, oblivious as ever, just waved good-bye and drove off to work.

  SIX

  As far as I could figure, Mom’s obliviousness was a defense mechanism that went into overdrive toward the end of her marriage, when Dad didn’t even care enough to hide the fact that he and his assistant shared a room on business trips. That all ended, though, when Dad brought Shereene home not knowing Mom and I were in the basement. From the way Shereene banged around upstairs and complained about our still-broken espresso machine, it was clear she’d hung out at our place before. A lot.

  When Dad and Shereene went up to the bedroom, Mom went upstairs and threw Dad out of the house. He moved out for real soon after. Mom had no choice. She couldn’t pretend anymore because now she knew I knew she knew, if you get my drift.

  You’d think after all that, Mom would’ve dropped the obliviousness act, but old habits die hard. Madam, your daughter seems to be getting into fistfights. Oh, really? Then I should tweet about gelato. Which is what Mom did that lunchtime.

  And speaking of embarrassing me on social media, I realized I should create new accounts before friending people at River Heights. If anyone did friend me, that is. So far, all I had going was Digby.

  Speaking of whom, here he was coming to sit with me. Digby’s tray was piled high with two of everything the cafeteria served. “So, are you aware that fries count as a vegetable?”

  “What? In wonderful River Heights with the wonderful school system and wonderful clean sidewalks and community center?” Listening to him kiss up to Mom had really annoyed me.

  “I was just being nice to Liza, Princeton. Try it sometime.”

  “Don’t assume I’m not nice to my mom. You don’t know my life.”

  “No, but I do know your mom’s scared you’re lonely. This morning she was so happy to see you with a friend, she ignored the fact that we were mixing it up with the neighbors in the yard.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about. She didn’t notice jack.”

  “Didn’t you see how fast she snatched that tire iron out of your hands? In the car on the way here, she almost hit that guy on the bike because she was staring into the rearview mirror at the bruise on my face,” he said. “And I saw her phone. She’d dialed 911 but just hadn’t hit CALL yet. She noticed a lot more than you think.”

  Last thing I needed was this guy telling me about my own mother. I was silent. I noticed that the red welt on his face had darkened into a rosy bruise. It was brutish, which, strangely, made him look kind of . . . good?

  “So, it’s a boarding school?” he said, changing the subject. “Prissy-priss academy? Sounds like a boarding school. Little Harry Potter gowns, hats, all that jazz . . .”

  “Yeah, but I’ll be a day girl and live at my dad’s. He and his wife live close by.”

  “Bet your mom loves that.”

  “She wants me to get into a good college.”

  “What’s the step situation? Stepmom or stepmother? They have kids? Is it a Cinderella situation?”

  “No.”

  “Will they be having any?”

  “Dunno. She’s young and pretty. She won’t want to get fat.”

  “Ah . . . the fairest of them all . . . potential Snow White situation,” he said. “Sounds like a happy scene.”

  After sitting alone in the cafeteria for weeks, a fresh start anywhere but here sounded like freaking bliss.

  “Anyway, yes, I knew they count fries as a vegetable,” I said. “But did you know some school boards count ketchup as a vegetable too?”

  “Wow, then I’m in luck.” He opened a pack of ketchup and squeezed the entire thing straight onto his tongue. “I can get my five-a-day this way.”

  “That’s vile. You don’t even need someone to dare you to do that?”

  “This kind of stunt’s supposed to win friends. Try it sometime for, you know, better lunchtime conversation,” he said. “Find the girl-world version, though. The popular girls here are stuck-up.”

  Digby pointed with his arm fully outstretched so the girls would see he was talking about them. One girl said, disgusted, “Oh, my God.”

  “I don’t see it working for you,” I said.

  “But you’re new—they don’t know what you are yet. There’s hope for you,” he said. “Me? I’m a known quantity. Kind of an untouchable. Doesn’t matter what cool tricks I pull.”

  “Won’t I turn into an untouchable too, if I hang around you?”

  “This town’s beef with me is pretty specific. I don’t think it’s contagious.”

  “Maybe it’s the suit. You look like an undertaker.”

  “I’m sure it doesn’t help.”

  “Seriously, what’s with the suit? I mean, you wear it all the time. Is it the same suit every day?”

  “It’s a housekeeping thing.”

  “It doesn’t fit.”

  “I like it roomy.”

  In the five minutes since sitting down, Digby had plowed through his meatloaf, which he stuck between Texas toast with handfuls of fries and, you guessed it, more ketchup. Then he ate two sad little fruit cups of brown-green grapes on half a canned peach.

  “And what’s the story with all the food? You’re always eating, but you’re so freaking skinny still,” I said. “Do you run marathons on the weekends? Is there some kind of worm issue?”

  Digby sucked down his juice box until it went supernova into a tiny cardboard ball. “It’s a housekeeping thing.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  “Heads up,” Digby said.

  Musgrave appeared. “Mr. Digby, Ms. Webster.” He said the Ms. with a hard Z to make sure I knew he didn’t like me either. “Working hard on your independent study?”

  “You know, Harlan, I find working lunches distract me from the fine culinary offerings of our hardworking kitchen crew. I understand Jojo and Barb worked especially hard on reheating today’s meatloaf.” Digby folded an entire bear claw into his mouth and smiled.

  “You call me Mr. Musgrave.” He slapped away the second pastry Digby was holding. “And surprise, smarty-mouth, your project needs two faculty members to grade it, and guess who just signed up to do it.”

  My stomach took a dive.

  “Now, I don’t know how you’ve conned your way this far into your academic career, but I can tell you that streak is over.” Musgrave didn’t care that people were staring. He pounded on our table, his neck-rolls bright red and bulging out of his collar. “That’s right. December twenty-first, last day of the semester, I expect to see that report typed up on my desk or I personally get to add an F to your transcripts. See this?” Musgrave’s index finger made a pressing motion over and over. “That’s me hitting the F key on my keyboard.”

  An F on my transcript. I was going to vomit.

  “Well, we’ll try not to disappoint you, Mr. Musgrave.” Digby gave him an extra-wide smile.

  Musgrave swiped at the apple Digby was now holding but Digby saw him coming and pulled back so Musgrave’s hand instead hit a carton of chocolate milk. One huge gush fell on my computer’s keyboard and an arc of chocolate milk splashed across Musgrave’s suit. Some kids slow-clapped. Musgrave grabbed some napkins from Digby’s tray and ran out, cursing and wiping the front of his suit.

  “Wait until he realizes there’s a bunch of gravy somewhere in those napkins,” Digby said.

  I tipped chocolate milk out of my keyboard. Maybe it would be fine.

  “That’s why I keep all my important stuff in this.” Digby waved his little black notebook. “Any idea how many times I’ve spilled chocolate milk on this?”

  “Teachers can’t pick on students. Th
at’s harassment,” I said. “Or assault . . . he hit you.”

  “Bet he rehearsed that whole shakedown in the mirror.”

  “Why does he hate you so much?”

  “Told you. People in this town have a beef with me.”

  “I don’t get that. You’re the victim.”

  I froze. I couldn’t believe I’d said that.

  He’d frozen too.

  “Digby, I’m so sorry . . . I was googling and . . .”

  “You know what? Don’t even worry about it. Small town, big story, you were bound to find out.”

  “I didn’t mean to—”

  “Bygones. Anyway, some FBI profiler told the media that in many disappearance cases, a family member’s involved. The cops couldn’t make that stick to any of us, so everyone here thinks we’ve gotten away with something,” Digby said. “Musgrave was an actual cop back then. The night Sally disappeared, he was assigned to watch me. He took me to my parents’ room, turned on the TV, gave me M&M’S, and went through the closets—illegal search, by the way. I was seven, but I knew that, so I told on him.” Digby bit his apple as if that were the end of the story.

  “Then what happened?”

  “Well. To this day, I can’t eat M&M’S without gagging . . . which is sad, because I used to love them,” Digby said. “Speaking of shakedowns . . . check it out. Behind you.”

  Digby had completely moved on to the next thing. I turned. “I don’t see anything.”

  “Beside the table of cheers.”

  Dominic Tucker and Felix Fong were the only people at the table by the cheerleaders. Dominic was a moron football player who shaved his number into his hair. He howled “Aggro!” (as in aggressive) after huddles and before every swirlie or atomic wedgie he gave some poor nerd. Felix Fong was one such nerd. Felix was the school genius whose parents thought they were doing him a favor by skipping him three grades. I heard he audited a college Electrodynamics course. I googled electrodynamics and ended up even more confused.