Crescendo

CHAPTER 9

“HOLY FREAK SHOW,” VEE WHISPERED. “DID I JUST SEE that? Did I really just see Marcie climb into Patch’s Jeep?” I opened my mouth to say something, but it felt like someone had stuffed nails down my throat.

“Was it just me,” Vee said, “or could you see her red thong peeking out from under her dress?”

“That wasn’t a dress,” I said, leaning back against a building for support.

“I was trying to be optimistic, but you’re right. That wasn’t a dress. That was a tube top stretched down around her bony booty. The only thing keeping it from springing up around her waist is gravity.”

“I think I’m going to be sick,” I said, the nails-in-the-throat sensation spreading to my stomach.

Vee pushed down on my shoulders, forcing me to sit on a square of sidewalk. “Deep breaths.”

“He’s going out with Marcie.” It was almost too horrific to believe.

“Marcie puts out,” said Vee. “That’s the only reason. She’s a pig. A rat.”

“He told me there was nothing going on between them.”

“Patch is a lot of things, but honest isn’t one of them.”

I blinked down the street where the Jeep had vanished. I felt the unexplainable urge to storm after them and do something I hoped I’d regret—like choke Marcie with her stupid red thong.

“This is not your fault,” Vee said. “He’s the jerk who took advantage of you.”

“I need to go home,” I said, my voice numb.

Just then a police cruiser came to a stop near the club’s entrance. A tall, lean cop in black slacks and a dress shirt angled out. The street was heavily shadowed, but I recognized him immediately. Detective Basso. I’d fallen under the jurisdiction of his job once before, and I had no desire for a repeat performance. Especially since I was fairly certain I wasn’t on his list of favorite people.

Detective Basso shouldered his way to the front of the line, flashed his badge at the bouncer, and walked inside without slowing.

“Whoa,” Vee said. “Was that a cop?”

“Yes, and he’s too old, so don’t even think about it. I want to go home. Where did you park?”

“He doesn’t look much over thirty. Since when is thirty too old?”

“His name is Detective Basso. He questioned me after the incident with Jules at school.” I loved how I kept referring to it as the incident, instead of what it really was. Attempted murder.

“Basso. I like that. Short and sexy, just like my name. Did he frisk you?”

I gave her a sideways look, but she was still gazing at the door he’d gone through. “No. He questioned me.”

“I wouldn’t mind being handcuffed by him. Just don’t tell Rixon.”

“Let’s go. If the police are here, something bad is going to happen.”

“Bad is my middle name,” she said, linking her arm through mine and drawing me toward the warehouse entrance.

“Vee—”

“There are probably two hundred people inside. It’s dark. He’s not going to pick you out of the crowd, if he even remembers you at all. Probably he’s forgotten you. Besides, he’s not going to arrest you—you’re not doing anything illegal. Well, aside from the whole fake ID business, but everybody does that. And if he really wanted to bust the whole place, he’d have brought backup. One cop isn’t going to take down this crowd.”

“How do you know I have fake ID?”

She gave me an “I’m not as dumb as I look” glance. “You’re here, aren’t you?”

“How are you planning to get in?”

“Same as you.”

“You have fake ID?” I couldn’t believe it. “Since when?”

Vee winked. “Rixon is good for more than just kissing. Come on, let’s go. Being the good friend you are, you wouldn’t even think about asking me to break out of my house and violate the terms of my grounding for nothing. Especially since I already called Rixon, and he’s on his way.”

I groaned. But this wasn’t Vee’s fault. I was the one who’d thought coming here tonight was a good idea. “Five minutes, but that’s it.”

The line was moving fast, pouring into the building, and against my better judgment, I paid the cover charge and followed Vee into the dark, sticky, deafening warehouse. In a way, it felt strangely good to be surrounded by darkness and noise; the music was too loud to think, which meant even if I’d wanted to, I couldn’t concentrate on Patch, and what he was doing with Marcie at this precise moment.

There was a bar at the back, painted black, with metal bar stools and pendant lights that hung from the ceiling, and Vee and I slid onto the last two available stools.

“ID?” the guy behind the bar asked.

Vee shook her head. “Just a Diet Coke, please.”

“I’ll take a cherry Coke,” I added.

Vee poked my ribs and leaned sideways. “Did you see that? He asked to see our ID. How awesome is that? I bet he wanted our names but was too shy to ask.”

The bartender filled two glasses and slid them down the counter, where they stopped directly in front of us.

“That’s a cool trick,” Vee shouted at him over the music.

He gave her the finger and moved down the bar to the next customer.

“He was too short for me anyway,” she said.

“Have you seen Scott?” I asked, sitting tall on my stool to try to see over the crowd. He should have had plenty of time to park by now, but I didn’t see him. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to use metered parking and had driven farther out to find free parking. Still. Unless he’d parked two miles away, and that seemed highly unlikely, he should have been here.

“Uh-oh. Guess who just walked in?” Vee’s eyes were fixed over my shoulder, and her expression darkened to a scowl. “Marcie Millar, that’s who.”

“I thought she left!” A jolt of anger fired through me. “Is Patch with her?”

“Negative.”

I squared my shoulders and sat even higher. “I’m calm. I can handle it. Most likely, she won’t see us. Even if she does, she’s not going to come over to talk.” And even though not one part of me believed it, I added, “There’s probably some twisted explanation for why she got into his Jeep.”

“Just like there’s a twisted explanation for why she’s wearing his hat?”

I flattened my hands on the bar and swung around. Sure enough, Marcie was elbowing her way into the crowd, her strawberry-blond ponytail streaming out the back of Patch’s ball cap. If that wasn’t evidence they were together, I didn’t know what was.

“I’m going to kill her,” I said to Vee, turning back to face the bar, gripping my cherry Coke, heat rising in my cheeks.

“Of course you are. And here’s your chance. She’s beelining this way.”

A moment later, Marcie ordered the guy beside me out of his seat and perched herself on top of it. She took off Patch’s cap and shook out her hair, then pressed the cap to her face, inhaling deeply. “Doesn’t he smell amazing?”

“Hey, Nora,” Vee said, “didn’t Patch have lice last week?”

“What is it?” Marcie asked rhetorically. “Fresh-cut grass? An exotic spice? Or maybe … mint?”

I set my glass down a little too hard, and some of the cherry Coke sloshed onto the bar.

“That’s really eco-friendly of you,” Vee told Marcie. “Recycling Nora’s old trash.”

“Hot trash is better than fat trash,” Marcie said.

“Fat this,” Vee said, and she picked up my cherry Coke and underhanded it at Marcie. But someone in the crowd bumped Vee from behind, so instead of sailing straight at Marcie, the Coke spread out and splattered all three of us.

“Look what you did!” Marcie said, jumping off her bar stool so hard she knocked it over. She swiped at the Coke in her lap. “This dress is Bebe! Do you know how much it cost? Two hundred dollars.”

“It’s not worth that much anymore,” Vee said. “And I don’t know what you’re complaining about. I bet you shoplifted it.”

“Yeah? So? What’s your point?”

“With you, what you see is what you get. And I see cheap. Nothing says cheap like shoplifting.”

“Nothing says fat like a double chin.”

Vee’s eyes went slitty. “You’re dead. You hear me? Dead.”

Marcie shifted her eyes in my direction. “By the way, Nora, I thought you’d like to know. Patch told me he broke up with you because you weren’t enough of a slut.”

Vee smacked Marcie upside the head with her handbag.

“What was that for?” Marcie shrieked, clutching her head.

Vee smacked her other ear. Marcie staggered backward, eyes dazed but quickly narrowing. “You little—,” she began.

“Stop!” I shouted, wedging myself between them and holding my arms out. We’d drawn the attention of the crowd, and people were shuffling closer, their interest piqued by the prospect of a cat fight. I didn’t care what happened to Marcie, but Vee was a different matter. Chances were, if she got in a fight, Detective Basso would haul her down to the station. Combined with sneaking out of the house, I didn’t think jail time would go over well with her parents. “Let’s all just back away. Vee, go get the Neon. I’ll meet you outside.”

“She called me fat. She deserves to die. You said so yourself.” Vee’s breathing was ragged.

“How do you plan on killing me?” Marcie sneered. “By sitting on me?”

And that was when everything broke loose. Vee snatched her own Coke off the bar and raised her arm, aiming to throw. Marcie turned to run, but in her hurry, tripped backward over her fallen bar stool and toppled to the floor. I swiveled to Vee, hoping to defuse any further violence, when my knee was kicked out from behind. I went down, and the next thing I knew, Marcie was on top, straddling me.

“This is for stealing Tod Bérot from me in fifth grade,” she said, punching me in the eye.

I yowled and grabbed my eye. “Tod Bérot?” I shouted. “What are you talking about? That was the fifth grade!”

“And this is for sticking that picture of me with a giant zit on my chin on the front page of the eZine last year!”

“That wasn’t me!”

Okay, maybe I’d had a little say in the photo selection, but it wasn’t like I was the only one. And anyway, Marcie was holding that over my head? Wasn’t a year a little long to be clinging to a grudge?

Marcie shouted, “And this is for your whore of a—”

“You’re crazy!” This time I blocked the hit and managed to grab the leg of the nearest bar stool and overturn it on her.

Marcie shoved the bar stool away. Before I could get my feet under me, she swiped a drink from a passerby and doused me with it.

“An eye for an eye,” she said. “You humiliate me, I humiliate you.”

I wiped Coke out of my eyes. My right eye flowered with pain where Marcie had punched me. I felt the bruise spreading under my skin, tattooing me blue and purple. My hair was dripping Coke, my best camisole was torn, and I felt demoralized, beaten … and rejected. Patch had moved on to Marcie Millar. And Marcie had just punctuated the fact.

My feelings were no excuse for what I did next, but they were definitely a catalyst. I had no clue how to fight, but I closed my hands into fists and clipped Marcie in the jaw. For a moment her expression was frozen in surprise. She scooted off me, two-handing her jaw, gaping at me. Buoyed by my small victory, I lunged for her, but came up short because someone had me under the armpits, hauling me upright.

“Get out of here now,” Patch said in my ear, dragging me toward the doors.

“I’m going to kill her!” I said, fighting to get around him.

A gathering crowd enveloped us, chanting, “Fight! fight! fight!” Patch brushed them out of the way and dragged me through. Behind Patch, Marcie got to her feet and flipped me her middle finger. Her grin was smug, her eyebrows high. The message was clear: Bring it on.

Patch handed me off to Vee, then went back and clamped a hand around Marcie’s upper arm. Before I could see where he took her, Vee wrestled me toward the nearest exit. We came out in the alley.

“Fun as seeing you fight Marcie was, I figured it probably wasn’t worth the cost of you spending the night in jail,” Vee said.

“I hate her!” My voice still sounded hysterical.

“Detective Basso was plowing through the crowd when Patch lifted you off her. I figured that was my cue to step in.”

“Where did he take Marcie? I saw Patch grab her.”

“Does it matter? Hopefully they both get hauled downtown.”

Our shoes crunched through the gravel as we ran down the alley toward where Vee had parked. The blue and red lights of a patrol car sliced past the opening of the alley, and Vee and I pressed back against the warehouse.

“Well, that was exciting,” Vee said, once we were locked inside the Neon.

“Oh, yeah, sure,” I said through my teeth.

Vee licked my arm. “You taste pretty good. You’re making me thirsty, smelling like cherry Coke and all.”

“This is all your fault!” I said. “You’re the one who threw my Coke at Marcie! If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have gotten in a fight.”

“Fight? You laid there and took it. You should have had Patch teach you some moves before you broke up with him.”

My cell phone was ringing, and I yanked it out of my purse. “What?” I snapped. When no one answered, I realized I was so worked up that I’d confused the text message chirp with an actual call.

One unread message was waiting for me from an unknown number. STAY HOME TONIGHT.

“That’s scary,” Vee said, bending sideways to read. “Who have you been giving your number to?”

“It’s probably a mistype. It’s probably meant for someone else.” Of course, I was thinking about the townhouse, my dad, and the vision I’d had of him cutting open my arm.

I tossed the cell into my open purse at my feet and bowed my head into my hands. My eye throbbed. I was scared, alone, confused, and on the verge of crying uncontrollably.

“Maybe it’s from Patch,” Vee said.

“His number has never shown up as unknown before. It’s a prank.” If only I could force myself to believe it. “Can we go? I need Tylenol.”

“I think we should call Detective Basso. Police love this kind of scary stalker crap.”

“You just want to call him so you can flirt with him.”

Vee put the Neon in gear. “Just trying to be helpful.”

“Maybe you should have tried being helpful ten minutes ago when you threw my drink on Marcie.”

“At least I had the guts to.”

I turned in my seat, giving her the full weight of my stare. “Are you accusing me of not standing up to Marcie?”

“She stole your boyfriend, didn’t she? Granted, he scares the candy out of me, but if Marcie stole my boyfriend, there’d be hell to pay.”

I pointed a stiff finger at the street. “Drive!”

“You know what? You really need a new boyfriend. You need a good old-fashioned make-out session to mellow you out.”

Why did everyone think I needed a new boyfriend? I didn’t need a new boyfriend. I’d had enough of boyfriends to last a lifetime. The only thing a boyfriend was good for was a shattered heart.