Pushing Perfect(58)

“I wish Justin would. I’m sure this Mark person is all magic and unicorns and hotness, but that’s no reason to give up a friendship. Or to ruin my life.”

“He sounded so convincing when he said he hadn’t told Blocked Sender about you, though.”

“That’s what he said. But he is literally the only person in the world who knew how much drama there was in my family when my uncle got arrested. It was awful, and I was completely miserable. He’s the only one who knows I still talk to my uncle and that I’m terrified of my parents finding out about that and all the poker stuff, and he’s the only one who knows what I think will happen if they do.”

“I know that too,” I said.

“But you didn’t, not when Blocked Sender started texting me. That information could only have come from Justin. The fact that he used our history to save his relationship is unforgiveable. Once this is all over, he and I are done.”

She’d reached her limit, just like Becca and Isabel had reached theirs with me. I understood, but I wondered whether that would really make her feel better. Even though Isabel and I had never been independently close, just being back on speaking terms with her was making me happy.

Despite the circumstances, of course.





22.


I picked everyone up at eight thirty that night, and by a quarter to nine we were headed over to Ridgewood Drive. No need to sit around too long, I’d figured, and we wouldn’t need that much time to get there. “I don’t see why you put the tall people in the back,” Justin whined. “Alex is tiny. She doesn’t need so much legroom.”

I didn’t tell him that Alex had insisted on sitting in front. “If we’re in the backseat together I can’t make any promises about his survival,” she’d said. “I don’t want to look at his stupid face.”

So she had shotgun. Justin was sitting right behind her, and though the very long-legged Raj had been the last person to sit in front, she hadn’t moved the seat up at all. Small victories, I supposed. I’d moved mine up as far as I could stand it to accommodate Raj, but I was sure he was uncomfortable too. I didn’t feel all that bad for him; he’d been the one to suggest taking my car, after all.

We rode over to a neighborhood I’d rarely been in before, one with houses that were older and more run-down than the ones we all lived in, houses that hadn’t been renovated in any of the real estate booms that had hit the Bay Area in the last however many years. The neighborhood was between the freeway and the train, and we could hear noises coming from either side of us as we snaked through back streets to find the house.

Finally we located it, a small, one-level bungalow covered in chipped stucco, in the middle of a street that ended in a cul-de-sac. It was dark outside and some of the streetlights were broken, so I couldn’t tell what color the house was, but it might have been pink. Hard to see how it could ever have been attractive; now it just looked shabby. Poor sweet Nora Sinclair, presumably now settled into her nursing home, had really let the place go. I wondered how she linked up to all of this.

We parked a couple of houses away, next to a house that appeared to be under construction, just far away enough to see Isabel as she drove up and got out of her car. She was wearing a trench coat and sunglasses even though it was completely dark out, hair wrapped in a scarf. She looked like a spy from some old movie—unrecognizable but completely glamorous.

Alex could barely hold back a laugh. “Really?”

“Always the drama queen,” I said. “I’m surprised she kept things so low-key when she went to get the pills.” It made me smile, though. I liked the idea that Isabel was the same person I’d always known, even though time had passed and things had gotten complicated.

Isabel dropped off the pills in the mailbox in front of the house, looked around quickly to see if anyone was there, and then got back in her car and drove away. It happened so fast, it was almost like it hadn’t happened at all.

“And now?” Justin asked.

“Now we wait,” Raj said.

“And what then?”

“Then we follow.”

We sat and watched for cars, but the only one we’d seen was Isabel’s. We could hear the sound of the train, and traffic on the freeway, but no one drove by. As I watched, though, I could see someone walking down the street, heading toward the house.

“Someone’s coming,” I said.

“A car?” Alex asked. “I don’t see anything.”

“A person,” I said. Which was weird enough—no one really walked in Marbella. The more likely option was that the person had parked somewhere else. Maybe so they wouldn’t be spotted going up to that mailbox.

We watched as the person kept walking down the street, inching closer to the mailbox. The person was wearing dark clothes and a baseball hat, like Isabel had on the video, like I had at Walmart. Apparently we had our own uniform. I couldn’t even tell if it was a boy or a girl.

Justin could, though. He started yelling as soon as the person closed the mailbox, bottle of pills in hand. “That’s Mark!” he shouted. “That’s my boyfriend!”

Before we could stop him, Justin jumped out of the car and started sprinting toward Mark. “So much for trying to follow him,” Alex muttered.

“So much for no ambush,” I said. “What do we do?”