Good Girl, Dead Girl (Valencia Lamb Book 1), page 10
She sees it, and she thinks it’s him come home at last.
I’m locked into place between my best friends, breathing hard. Nothing to shield my heart as my mom steps into the doorway. Sees it’s not her lost husband. Only Portia, Destin, and me.
Her knees buckle. And finally, finally she breaks.
Calling in My Favor
Outside the window, a guy dashes past while trying to stuff a breakfast burrito in his mouth. Aside from the straggler, the quad is empty. Class has been in session for fifteen minutes, and Miss Wayne’s classroom is quiet. It’s free writing time, and I don’t know what to write.
It’s been a week since Mom caught Portia, Destin, and me in Dad’s office, and I haven't dared to step foot in there since. The look on her face when she saw the three of us… I couldn’t even look her in the eye.
Portia herded her into the kitchen while Destin made a cup of Mom’s favorite herbal tea. Mom sat at the kitchen table sobbing, the tea’s steam slowly dissipating as the drink cooled, untouched, in front of her. Once she calmed down, she’d looked at me. “I thought you were him. I thought he had come home, but now… I don’t think he’s coming home, sweetie.” She covered her face with her hands, unable to say another word.
I was the worst daughter in the history of daughters. I couldn’t sit there watching Mom’s unmasked pain on display, so I swept through the office. A girl-shaped tornado picking up my stuff and dumping it in the hallway.
Mom needs time to recover from the shock. I need to parse out the hot mess of emotions unearthed in that ten second encounter. Mom really and truly believed that Dad was coming back until the moment she saw us standing alone in that office.
My fingers tighten around my pencil, its point paused over the half-filled page of my journal. Miss Wayne is at her desk working on her laptop while the class scrawls in notebooks.
Destin is sketching an image of himself and Bert on a surfboard, catching a huge wave. The sunglasses he’s drawn on his canine counterpart are cute. Portia is working on memorizing lines. She got a bit part in the play and is determined to shine. I focus on my journal. Today’s entry is emotional vomit--it doesn’t make any sense, a current that swirls and flows.
My mom truly thought my dad was coming home until she caught us the other night. I have to wonder if she’s clinging to the damned go bag being missing, or if she knows something else she hasn’t told me. The thought rankles, like a cocklebur in my sock. I’d like to dismiss it out of hand.
I’ve tried to ask her, but every time I start, her crying face pops into my head, making me feel like a jerk for dredging it up from the riverbed of her grief. The memory of her wracking sobs stops me. If my mom knew something about my dad’s disappearance, she’d have told me. My mom wouldn’t keep something so huge from me.
The only conclusion I can make is that baseless hope broke her that night. Hope. The singular virtue driving me to investigate a case the sheriff has backed off due to lack of leads.
My eraser taps against the paper as I turn the problem over in my head.
Since I’m not ready to talk to my mom about what happened yet, I have to pursue other loose ends. The safe in Dad’s office is out, so I’m focusing on Gracia. Despite my reservations, something Janice said keeps bothering me. The crap she spewed about boyfriends and husbands being by and large responsible for women who disappear. She was right.
I maintain there is no chance Destin harmed Gracia. Seeing them together, it was clear he was madly in love with her.
Miss Wayne gets up from her desk, announcing that writing time is over. We pass our journals to the front and she collects them.
“Let’s go off campus for lunch.” Portia pokes my arm. Today, she’s woven a tangerine ribbon through her braid crown, and the color compliments her cinnamon brown hair perfectly.
Destin and I nod, him with more enthusiasm. My attention snags on his guileless smile. I’m completely sure Janice is wrong about Des, but what caliber of investigator would I be if I didn’t at least ask? A hypocrite--hating on McCandles for not doing enough while refusing to follow every avenue open to me. And I am not a hypocrite.
When I get the chance, I have to talk to Destin.
Portia leaves right after school, in a hurry to get to play practice. It gives me a prime opportunity to initiate a conversation with Des--to ask if he knew about Gracia’s journalistic pursuits. He follows to my locker before I give him a ride home.
Janice stomps into the other end of the locker row, shooting a glare at Rock over her shoulder. He tracks her, but she pointedly ignores him, flinging her locker open and burying her face inside. Rock sinks against the locker bank, curling his hands around his backpack straps. There must be trouble in their private little paradise.
Color me intrigued, but I need to talk with Des, and Portia’s absence is the best chance I’m going to get. Destin is my best friend, and he deserves any tact I can muster. A topic as tricky as the one I’m edging toward requires finesse. A trait that is not my forte. But for Des? I can be subtle.
Normally, I’d bring up something important when the three of us are together--there aren’t secrets between us--but somehow asking D about this feels more… private. I don’t know how he’ll react, and I don’t want to expose my burning questions in front of Portia.
After Gracia died, Destin and I never talked about it. At first it was because he was so deeply upset by her death. Understandably. He was a zombie for weeks.
On top of that was my dad’s disappearance. The gossip and hateful theories on why he walked out of Hacienda without looking back. Without leaving a trail for me to follow. The first time I heard someone talking about my dad’s alleged pervy reason for hurting Gracia, I’d been with my best friends at the diner. Portia had loudly said, “Excuse me? Don’t you have something non-fiction to talk about?” When the ladies got an eyeful of my red face, they scurried away.
Destin had taken my hand and squeezed. It was all I needed to know he didn’t buy into any of the crap people were slinging. After that, it didn’t come up again. We had a tacit agreement to ignore the metaphorical mud being lobbed past our noses.
But now… There are questions I should have asked. Answers I need to make progress on the hole I’m digging into this town’s dirty secrets. I sneak a peek at my best guy. He’s staring into space. The phone in his hand lights up, revealing her grinning face.
Ouch. Way to make this harder. I didn’t know this would be so difficult to spit out, even after so many months. Blowing out a breath, I go for it, not knowing if it will ever be any easier. “Hey Des, I need to ask you something.”
His lowers unsuspecting blue eyes to mine.
My tongue pushes out my upper lip. How to start.
“You got something stuck in your teeth. Right here.” Destin points a finger at my upper lip.
“You look like Bieber before he finally got a haircut.”
Rock whispers to Janice, who ignores him. She’s stuffing books and binders into her backpack.
I focus on Destin. “Your prerogative. Hey, I was wondering. Did you know what Gracia was working on for the newspaper? Before she passed?” Yep, rip that bandage right off, Valencia. Talk about finesse.
All of the warmth in Destin’s expression burns away like fog hit by the sun’s persistent heat. Blue eyes plummet down to the image of her in his calloused hand. My best friend goes eerily still. The wariness in his eyes takes my breath away. “No, why?”
Suddenly, I don’t want to know. This was a terrible idea. Abort! Abort!
My mouth doesn’t listen. What else is new? “I’m looking into it. Her death. The interim sheriff has basically given up, you heard what he said. And I’m tired of everyone blaming my dad when there’s no chance he… So. I decided to do some investigating of my own. See where it leads. I talked to Janice, did you know she’s the Herald editor this year? She told me what Gracia was working on. I’m trying to figure out if she stumbled into anything she shouldn’t have, and that’s what--you know.”
Destin looks like a turtle tucked into its shell for self-preservation in the face of an overly curious child with a need to touch and poke. The way he’s got his arms tucked around the back of his neck to cup his head tears at my throat.
Destin takes in a deep, jagged breath. Lets it out ever so slowly through puckered lips. “Sorry. Hearing her name still takes it out of me. After she died, I used to smell her perfume random places.”
My confusion must be clear, because he explains. “Geez, this sucks, but, uh, for the longest time I would be somewhere and I’d smell it. I thought she was right around the corner. I must have looked like a weirdo, sniffing my way down Main Street.” He laughs, but there’s no mirth in it. Instead, it drops to the floor like a stone. I look down at his shoes, expecting to see a shriveled, desiccated husk.
Several weeks after Gracia’s body was found, I remember Destin stopping on the sidewalk, looking bewildered. At the time, Portia and I were worried about Zombie Des. We knew it would take a long while for him to grieve--you can’t put a timetable on grief--but we didn’t want him to become a recluse, so Portia and I dragged Destin out of his house intending to take him for shakes at the diner. We got halfway there before he froze mid-step. He looked around with glassy eyes. Didn’t respond to questions. Then he’d slumped, plunked Bert on his longboard, and ridden home. It had been unnerving. Eerie.
I shake my head, sorry I brought it up. I swap a couple books in my locker for those in my bag. “No one would ever describe you as a weirdo. You don’t--Forget I said anything, okay?”
Destin shakes his head, his blond hair fanning out. “Just let me get this out.” The quiet plea stops me with my hands clutching my locker door. I face Destin, braced for whatever painful anecdote he’ll tell me next. I asked, and he deserves my attention while he shares his pain, makes himself vulnerable. For me.
I wait.
“Gracia never told me when she was working on an article. She liked to research and get the entire thing written before she showed me. The last couple of weeks before she… died, she was working on something, but it was different. She was even more secretive, but excited, too. I don’t have a clue what it was about, but she let it slip that thought she found something big. That’s all I know.”
I close my locker door, thinking. “Did she talk to anyone out of the norm? Any other students or teachers?”
“Not that I saw. Sorry.”
Down the row, Janice takes a small glass vial from her locker and spritzes herself.
Destin goes rigid, nose lifting in the air. “Do you smell that?” His skin has gone pale, taking on a weathered shade of verdigris. His head falls back against the locker bank on a moan. “I smell it.”
My eyes narrow, because I can smell something too. “What perfume was it?” I murmur, rubbing a gentle hand along his shoulder.
“Tucci Eau de perfume.”
That vial in Janice’s hand. It’s gotta be her. Of course, she’d wear a dead girl’s perfume, unaware of how it might affect anyone else who knew Gracia. My body coils, ready to pounce.
Destin’s hand snags mine. “Val, don’t.”
Ignoring his plea, I drop my backpack to the floor. Power walk to where Janice leans against her locker, drawing on Rock’s hand with a sparkly pen. “Wow, Janice, I didn’t know you were such an artist. That’s a great dolphin.”
“It’s a female dog,” Janice tosses at me. “You should recognize it since you’re one too.”
My hackles rise. So much for the fragile truce we made outside the newspaper office. All bets are off, no weapons barred. “Why don’t you spray your perfume all over him if you want to mark your territory? You’re wearing enough of it. I gotta say, wearing Gracia’s perfume? It’s gauche, even for you.”
Rock flinches when Janice’s pen digs into the skin on the back of his hand. “Jan.” He yanks it away.
Storing the pen in her backpack, Janice squares up to me. Well, above me. Janice is taller, so when I say we’re facing off eye to eye it’s really more eye to chin. I glower up at her narrowed eyes.
“It’s Tucci Eau de parfum, and it was Gracia’s favorite. I like wearing it to remind myself of her.”
I . . . can’t argue with that.
“What about you?” Janice asks. “I hear toilet water is popular among the fugitive set.”
I keep my frown. “Here’s a tip: wear less perfume.”
“You’re the only one complaining. Why don’t you work on finding your dad, and stay a while? I promise not to miss you.” Her dismissive finger wave makes my fists clench at my sides.
“Jan,” Rock admonishes her.
“My father is missing. You have no idea what that’s like.”
“I have no idea what it’s like to have an absentee dad? Because prison visitation is the same thing as living under one roof?”
“That’s not. . . My father is innocent. Yours is a convicted felon.”
Janice flashes her long nails. They’re extra sharp today. I don’t step so much as a toenail backward. Janice has been pushing my buttons, which I can handle, but hurting Destin with Gracia’s perfume? That stops now.
Rock shoulders in between us. “Low blow, Valencia.”
“Me? Did you hear what she--”
“You started this. And considering all the shit people have said about your old man lately, you should understand how that feels and stay above their level.”
My mouth opens. Nothing comes out. Rock is right. After all my railing against townies for thinking the worst of my dad, I’ve turned it right around on Janice. Even if her dad was guilty, it’s not cool to rub her nose in it. Further, Rock’s dad went down with Janice’s, and I don’t want to knock him down, too.
A cold flash moves through my chest at the turn this conversation has taken. Rock couldn’t help who his dad is. Neither could Janice, even if that girl brings out the worst in me.
“Rock. I didn’t--”
His teeth grit. “Leave it alone.”
Three tiny words. But they banish any remaining vocal arrows I could aim at Janice. She looks from me to him, her expression morphing from annoyance to sadness. Frankly, it messes with my perception of Janice to see the depth in her eyes. I am not a fan of the confusion it inspires beneath my ribs. The slow cut of Rock’s disappointment makes it even worse.
Flipping around, I snag Destin’s arm and pull him along behind me.
“Where are we going?” he asks, looking over a shoulder.
“Home.”
The school parking lot is a three-ring circus. My heart explodes as something pounds on the trunk of Mom’s car just as I put it in reverse.
Jerking the car to a stop with a foot slamming the brake pedal, I compress it all the way to the floor. My heart batters my ribs and I battle it down. Clutching at the wheel, I look in the rearview mirror. Please tell me I didn’t barrel someone over with the car.
Rock. All in one piece, from what I can see. His reflected glare is ice cold.
Finding my voice, I roll down the window. “Did I manage to kill you?”
“Do I look dead?” he shoots back.
“Then get out of the way. I’m driving here.”
“What was that, just now?” he snaps, stalking around the car to hover at my window. His eyes are wild. Angry. Injured. “Why do you have to go after Janice like that?”
I relax my grip on the steering wheel. I could hit the gas and spin out without answering him, but once upon a time I told Rock everything. When we were ten, I thought we’d be best friends for the rest of our lives. I can give him this small admission. “She was wearing Gracia’s perfume. It was torturing Destin.”
Rock’s mouth loosens. He looks past me to my friend in the passenger seat. I stare at Rock’s pointed jawline. Then he withdraws. “I’ll talk to her.”
“Don’t do me any favors,” I say. I can’t afford to pay them back.
“Not doing it for you, Valencia.”
I walked right into that, but it still stings. “Can you move now?”
“Can you drive without running anyone over?”
“If no one gets in my way.”
He lifts his hands, backing away from the car. I reverse out of the spot, refusing to look in the rearview mirror until I’m at the end of the row. Rock stands in the middle of the lane, blocking traffic. Watching me go.
The Lick Test Yields Mixed Results
A tiny white flower falls from Portia’s hair to her shoulder as we’re walking to lunch. “My Queen Ann is fading. Meet you in the caf.” She drifts into the bathroom.
I’m still stuck on yesterday’s perfume fiasco. It dogs me through the hot lunch line and into my seat at our usual table. Destin hasn’t arrived yet, since his class is a lot farther away than Portia’s and mine. I’m grateful for the few solitary seconds, hoping to put the stricken look on Janice’s face when I confronted her out of my head.
The slap of a tray dropped on the table snaps me out of it.
“Did you get all the flowers out of your hair?”
“Didn’t go with my outfit. This seat taken?” Rock slides into the chair next to mine and attacks his chicken fried steak with gusto, in spite of the flimsiness of the provided plastic utensils. Like it’s no big deal for him to eat lunch with me.
I stare for a second before shaking it off.
Hopping lunch tables is weird, but not against any unwritten school rules. Glancing over my shoulder to where he normally sits with his friends, my attention snags on a pair of hostile brown eyes. Janice is glaring at me so vehemently it’s a wonder I don’t turn to stone. Unable to stop myself from needling her, I wink. She stabs her chicken and saws it with her plastic knife, not breaking eye contact.
Wow, girl is pissed. Maybe I shouldn’t have egged her on, but I still haven’t forgiven her for hurting Destin yesterday. I can admit, now that I’m not in the moment, that it’s not uncool for her to wear Gracia’s perfume in her friend’s memory. Maybe she’s using the scent to cope, like I am with my dad’s car. Same grief, different security blanket. I have no idea what to do with this sudden commonality with Janice.
