The Mystery of Hollow Places(62)
“Ugh,” I groan.
“As if she wouldn’t,” Jessa points out. “You’re lucky there’s not, like, an Amber Alert about you.”
Who was called out of bed but Officer Griffin. She showed up in the early a.m. to interview Jessa and Lindy and assure them I couldn’t have gotten as far as the island. Not a seventeen-year-old without a car, not in this weather. I was probably stuck at a station in between—probably in Boston—and they would notify the police right away to look out for me. Lindy was to stay by the phone. When Officer Griffin left to set things in motion, it was after five, and I was just about to board the early train from North Station to Newburyport.
Lindy did not stay by the phone. After a restless few hours, she asked Dr. Van Tassel to babysit the landline at 42 Cedar Lane, with Jessa keeping her mother company. Lindy was presently headed east to Victory Island to cruise along the beach.
“Huh.” I struggle to take this all in while keeping an eye on Dad, now pacing back and forth in front of the curtained windows. “And where’s your mom?”
“In the bathroom. I’m in your room. I was freaking out and just waiting, so I’ve been reading that book by your bed. Rebecca? Not super romantic.”
“No, that’s the cool thing! It’s not about love, it’s about obsession. Rebecca-the-person was horrible, but Rebecca-the-mystery was this fixation that almost kept this girl from loving and being loved. It’s like a mystery about the dangers of a mystery and—” I notice Dad watching me. “Never mind. Not the time for this. Can you tell your mom we’re okay? I should probably call Lindy ASAP.”
“Wait, we? You found your dad? You actually found him?”
I smile, though she can’t see. “I did. Look, Jessa, I’m sorry I was so horrible and you were all going batshit. You’re a really great friend.”
“Me too. I am also sorry that you were so horrible.”
“Hmm. See you when I’m not grounded?”
“Yeah,” she says, and laughs. “We should be in our late thirties by then. I love you, Im.”
After that, the only thing left to do is call Lindy’s cell and ask for her help, so I do, and she yells a little and cries a little and so do I, and then I ask her to come get us and take us home.
NINETEEN
Because you can’t lie to your stepmother over and over again, break into a hospital records storage room, drive all across the state with ill-gotten funds, skip town on a Greyhound without telling anyone, spend the night in a Boston train station, strike out for the coast all on your own, and face zero consequences, I am indeed grounded for quite a while. School is allowed, as are trips to a family therapist with Dad and Lindy, and, shockingly, visits with Jessa once her own punishment is lifted. But aside from seeing the ex–Sugarbrook Sandpipers as they filter in and out of the Prices’ home, my first brush with the public comes over three months later. Prom night.
The theme turns out to be “A Night Among the Stars.” Except the prom committee must’ve reached a stalemate when trying to decide which stars we’d be spending the night among. Exhibit A: when we pull up to Crystal Peak, a big glass banquet hall that’s the second-nicest in Sugarbrook, cardboard cutouts of paparazzi are propped outside the entrance, crowded around the faux-crystal columns, hunched behind cardboard cameras. Meanwhile, gold and silver stars dangle from the ceiling of the portico overhead.
“This”—Chad twists around in the driver’s seat of his mom’s Solstice—“is the classiest goddamn soiree I’ve ever seen. You think they’ll serve Grey Poupon?”
“I bet that joke would be funny if we were old and uncool.” Jessa stands in the backseat beside me, sliding gracefully over the side without using the door, floor-length dress and all. A block back, she asked Chad to pull over and put the convertible top down for our big entrance, than coast fifteen miles per hour the rest of the way so we’d arrive unruffled. I follow through the actual door and join her, my low heels clomping on the pavement.
Chad flips his sunglasses up onto his head to look at us. “You girls are heartbreakers,” he says, sweetly and sincerely.
I blush; old habit. Jessa is beautiful, right at home among the paper paparazzi. Her plum-purple dress has a deep neckline, with a drop waist that hugs her body all the way down till just above her knees, where it flares gently out and pools around her pale gold pumps. I don’t know how she can dance in it, but as Jessa demonstrated to the seizing beats of Nicki Minaj in her bedroom, dance she can. A knotted gold chain glitters below her collarbone. Her red-gold hair, parted deep to the side, floats in finger waves over her shoulders.
I’m wearing my Suzanne’s Dress for Less purchase, wine red, with its full knee-length skirt swinging. Fabulous Aunt Annette, enlisted as our stylist for the evening, gave me a coiled updo pinned into a side bun, a dark red lip, and a light smoky eye. And because we didn’t know the etiquette for corsages versus boutonnieres when your prom date is in fact your best friend, we’re both wearing matching corsages with white roses.
“Can you pick us up at midnight? At Mackenzie Winn’s?” Jessa asks her brother. Mackenzie’s throwing a post-prom bonfire, to which the elite of mock trial—and probably half the class—have been invited.
“Anything for you two.” Chad winks and flips his glasses down. They’re mostly unnecessary now that the sun is setting, but he’s still handsome and blond and almost as perfect as ever.