Blind Spot Page 8

  “Suspended? That’s the first time I’ve missed!”

  “I’m not going to discuss the number of days you have or have not missed, Miss Hart. Do you have an excuse for yesterday?”

  “No.” I didn’t know how to fight anymore. Go ahead, I thought, I give up.

  Mr. Dellian leaned back in his chair. “Were you by any chance with Ms. Torres?”

  “Ms. Torres? You mean Heather? How do you . . . ? You don’t—”

  “No, I don’t have her in any classes, if that’s what you’re asking, but I am aware that she has been absent these past two days and that you two are friends. How is she?”

  “She’s . . . hanging in there?” Why was he asking about Heather? Had something happened to her?

  “Please tell her I asked about her. I’ll erase this absence for now, but if you miss again without an excuse, you’ll be suspended. Understood?”

  “Yes.” He was erasing it? That didn’t make sense. None of this made sense. I yanked my cell phone out and dialed Heather’s cell as I left the room.

  Greg was waiting. “What happened?”

  The call went straight to voice mail. “Heather, this is Roz. Call me.” I shut the phone and looked at Greg. “I need to find Heather’s address.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Maybe. I need a phone book.” We walked down to the main office and borrowed the white pages. “What’s her dad’s name?” Greg asked. “There are tons of Torreses.”

  Crud. I had no idea. “Wait!” I said as he closed the book. “Look up Dellian!”

  “Mr. Dellian? I thought you wanted—”

  “He lives below her! Find his address and we can—”

  “Find hers,” Greg finished, his head already scanning the book again. “Got it, and”—he flipped back to the T section—“got it. Let’s go!”

  When we’d pulled onto the highway, Greg asked, “So why the urgency?”

  “Mr. Dellian asked if I was with Heather when I skipped class yesterday.”

  “Reasonable assumption—you were both absent, and you’re friends.”

  “You don’t understand. She doesn’t have him for any classes. She didn’t even know he was a teacher. She thought he was Tricia’s boyfriend because Tricia’s there all the time.”

  “At his apartment? Yuck!”

  “I know. Anyway, Dellian told me to tell Heather he’d asked about her.”

  “So he’s being neighborly.”

  “No!” I cried. “She doesn’t know him. She doesn’t talk to him. How would he know she was sick if she isn’t in any of his classes and she doesn’t talk to him?”

  “Okay.” Greg nodded. “That is a little weird.”

  “More than a little.” I tried Heather’s cell phone. Again it went to voice mail. I dialed the home number Greg had copied from the phone book. It rang and rang.

  “When was the last time you talked to her?” Greg asked.

  “Friday afternoon. I asked her to go to the museum with me.”

  “You haven’t talked to her since Friday?” Greg glanced at me. “And you’re just now getting worried?”

  “I’ve been busy!” I said. “And I don’t know her that well. I thought maybe skipping was routine for her.” But his question shamed me. I was a lousy friend. “I’m worried now, though. Really worried.”

  We climbed the stairs to Heather’s third-floor apartment and knocked. No answer.

  I put my ear near the door and listened. “She’s in there.”

  Greg pushed his head up against the door and listened. “I don’t hear anything.”

  “Well, I do. I have sonic ears; trust me. She’s on the other side of the door. Heather?” I said into the door. “Come on, open up. It’s Roz.”

  The chain clanked. Heather slowly opened the door. Dark half-moons covered the skin below her eyes, rubbed mascara maybe, or lack of sleep, or both. Her hair was tangled and matted.

  “Hey.” She stiffened when she saw Greg. “What’s he doing here?”

  “I drove,” Greg explained. “But I don’t have to stay.”

  “Okay,” Heather said.

  Greg shrugged at me. “I guess I’m going. Call when you’re ready to go home.”

  “You have football practice, right? I’ll take the bus.”

  “No, call me.” He took my cell and began pushing buttons. “I’m programming me into your speed dial.” He handed it back. “Number 2 for my cell, number 3 for my home.”

  “Only number 2?” I asked. “Why not number 1?”

  “One’s voice mail.” He paused. “You were being sarcastic. I can take my numbers out if you don’t want them.”

  “No, I want them.” I brought my hand up just as he went to grab the phone back. Our fingers tangled. For a startled second, his eyes caught mine.

  I pulled free and looked away as Greg shoved his hand in his pocket.

  Heather grunted and shuffled back into the dark apartment, letting go of the door.

  I stuck my foot between the door and the frame to keep it open. “I should go. Thanks, Greg.”

  “Promise you’ll call.” Something in the soft way he said it made my stomach flutter. An uncomfortable flutter I didn’t want to have. Not for Greg. I nodded and walked into the apartment, but I knew I wouldn’t call him.

  The thick drapes that hung over the sliding glass doors were drawn closed, making it seem much later than it was. I wrinkled my nose at the smell of bleach-masked vomit in the air. “Is your dad home?”

  Heather sat on the couch and hugged a pillow to her chest. “He’s in South America until next week.”

  I sat on the edge of a recliner. “You’re sick, huh?”

  “I was. Saturday night.”

  “So how come you missed school?” I asked.

  “Avoiding humiliation.”

  That didn’t sound good. “Does Dellian have anything to do with that?” Her head shot up and I knew he did. “He asked how you were today.”

  “Oh God!” Heather threw the pillow over her head. “I can’t go back to school.”

  I moved to the sofa next to her. “What happened?”

  “Drank too much at Ethan’s. I woke up in the stairwell downstairs. That teacher and Copacabana were trying to help me up the stairs. I was covered in puke.”

  “Eew!” I said, imagining Tricia and Dellian hanging on each other as they walked into the building. Stopping when they saw Heather. “I mean the two of them together, not the puke—well, I guess that’s gross too.”

  Heather kept her head buried in the pillow.

  “Doubt they’d say anything about it. They’d have to fess up to being together, right?” I offered.

  Heather pulled the pillow from her face. “I’m not worried about them.” She sighed. “I made a fool of myself! And I puked in”—she glanced over at me—“some guy’s car. It’s fifth grade all over again. I can’t face school.”

  “Fifth grade?” I asked.

  “You don’t remember?” She snorted. “You’re probably the only person in the whole state of Alaska who doesn’t remember.” Heather rolled off the couch and padded into the kitchen. “You want a pop?” she asked, holding open the refrigerator.

  “No, thanks.”

  Heather opened a can and took a drink. “Remember that end-of-the-year dance to celebrate our promotion to middle school, graduation from fifth grade, all that garbage?”

  “Something happened at the dance, right?”

  “Mm-hmm, my mom happened. She chaperoned. Spent the entire night dancing with our English teacher—”

  “Ms. Brody!” I finished her sentence. “I forgot about that!”

  “Well, I didn’t. Now they share a condo across town.” Heather took a final swallow and walked back to the couch. “That’s when I found out Mom’s gay. Unfortunately, so did everyone else. The stuff people said. Especially Rona.”

  “Rona’s a bitch,” I said.

  “Yeah, well, at least that humiliation wasn’t my fault. This time . . . G
od!” She buried her face in the sofa.

  “By next weekend, no one will even remember.”

  “Maybe.” She rolled onto her side. “So, you and Stanford?”

  “No!” I blinked at her. “I’m with Jonathan.”

  Heather flicked something off her sweatshirt. “I thought he was mad at you.”

  “Not anymore.” I grinned. “He asked me to homecoming yesterday.”

  “Oh,” she murmured. “Then why are you with Stanford?”

  “I’m not with him. I freaked when Dellian asked about you, and Greg was there.”

  “He’s always there, Roz.”

  “I’m with Jonathan, okay? Greg’s nice and all, but, as you said, he’s no Zeus.”

  “No,” Heather said. “He’s not.”

  Three days before

  Wednesday morning Jonathan called at the last minute and said he wasn’t going to school. I had to wake Mom for a ride and got there late. I fully expected another lecture from Dellian, but he wasn’t there yet. I slipped into my seat, grateful for the break. In most classes, a teacher’s absence triggers out-of-control chatter. Not in Life Skills. No one spoke or studied. We just sat staring at our desks or our feet, or, in Tricia’s case, the back of our eyelids.

  As the silent seconds ticked on, I became disturbingly aware of Tricia’s breathing. “Hey, guys—” I said.

  “Shhh!” Jeffrey hissed. “Not supposed to talk when Mr. Dellian isn’t here.”

  I sighed. “Okay, but”—the sound was too much to stay quiet, though—“don’t you hear Tricia, Jeffrey? She sounds as if she can’t breathe. Does she have asthma?”

  This caught his—and everyone else’s—attention. “Wake her up,” Ruth said, coming over.

  JJ drove up alongside and carefully moved Tricia’s stringy blond hair to peer down at her face. “Yeah, we should totally wake her up.” Even Bart, who seemed to be disconnected from the rest of us most of the time, made his way to Tricia’s desk.

  “Tricia. Wake up,” we called in unison. JJ gave her a gentle shake. “Tricia!”

  Still she wheezed on, unaware of the circus ring around her.

  I filled a cup with water and brought it back to Tricia’s desk. Bart’s eyes got big. Jeffrey covered his mouth in horror. But they all watched in perverted glee as I pulled Tricia’s head up by the hair and threw the water in her face.

  “What—the—” Tricia leaped out of her chair, demon possessed.

  Everyone scattered.

  “Roz did it!” JJ tattled as he zoomed out of the line of fire.

  “Morning, Sunshine,” I said, handing Tricia a paper towel. “You’ve got a whole tube of mascara running down your face.”

  Tricia glared at me. “What’s your problem, bitch?”

  “My problem? Your wheezing. I didn’t want you dying in your sleep.”

  Tricia snatched the paper towel from me. “I don’t wheeze.”

  “Yes, you do,” Jeffrey said.

  “Did I ask you?”

  “Leave him alone. Come on, I’ll help you clean up. Jeffrey, tell Mr. Dellian I took Tricia to the bathroom.”

  “I hate you,” Tricia said.

  “The feeling’s mutual.”

  I held open the bathroom door. Tricia walked into a stall and locked it behind her.

  I was rubbing liquid soap onto a paper towel when a sickly sweet smell, like burned sugar, reached me. “Are you smoking something?” I dropped to my hands and knees and crawled across the crusty tiled floor into the stall. Tricia was propped up in her usual place, smoking from a green glass pipe. “What is that?” I demanded. “Weed?”

  “You’re not afraid of me,” Tricia said, ignoring my question. “So why don’t you ever look me in the eye?”

  “I . . .” I shrugged. I wasn’t going to discuss my eyesight with her.

  She took another hit off the pipe. “That’s how animals show submission, you know. They avoid eye contact.” She held the pipe out. “Want some?”

  “No.” I shoved it away.

  “Yeah, you don’t need this. You’re tough.” She slipped the pipe into her pocket, her fingers lingering on the soft brown material of her cloak. “My mom made this so I could be tough and no one would hurt me again.” She’d morphed into a little girl, sad and vulnerable.

  “Hurt you? Like Wayne did?” I asked.

  She brushed a long strand of blond hair from her face. “He said I could help pay the money she owed him.” A sad grin crossed her lips. “But she made him pay.”

  “Tricia? Does Dellian . . . ?” I took a deep breath. My heart pounded in my chest. “I mean Rodney. Does he—”

  “I wanna dance!” She leaped onto the toilet seat, teetering off balance as her spiked heels straddled the seat.

  “Not up there.” I tried to steady her with my hands while I coaxed her down. “Come on, you can dance in class.”

  She tugged her arms free but jumped to the ground. As soon as she landed, she began singing some crazy lyrics I didn’t know. Flashbacks of “Copacabana” flooded my brain. Should I take her to the nurse? She’d slept it off last time, right? Dellian had overreacted? I decided to guide her back to the classroom.

  “Tricia’s . . . not well,” I told Dellian as we walked in. Tricia was singing some hip-hop song now while flopping her arms around like a hysterical rag doll. “Should I take her to the nurse?”

  “Oh.” He looked around the room. Everyone was watching him. “No, thank you, Miss Hart. She can stay here today until she feels better.” As he said this, he gave me a look. A look that said . . . what? The way he was focused so fully on me, I knew that look had a ton of meaning. Unfortunately, I was clear across the room, so I couldn’t see his eyes or his facial expression, and his silent message was lost on me. But I got the feeling he was hiding something. Something maybe . . . he was afraid I knew?

  At lunch, I decided to see if Tricia was still sleeping it off in Life Skills. I found her leaning against the wall just outside the classroom door, squirting Insta-Whip in her mouth, while the distinct voices of Jonathan and Dellian argued inside.

  “What’s going on?” I moved to the door to listen.

  She grabbed my arm. “We need to talk.” I followed her into the bathroom, and she locked the door behind us. “Swear you won’t tell Rodney about today.”

  “You mean that you were smoking crack?” I smiled at her look of surprise. “You think I don’t know the difference between a crack pipe and a peace pipe?” When she folded her arms across her chest, I shrugged. “So I guessed. It didn’t smell like pot.”

  “I’m not addicted, okay? It’s not like the heroin. I can stop anytime. But if Rodney finds out—”

  “You think he couldn’t tell? He’s not an idiot, Tricia.”

  “Just swear you won’t tell him.”

  “I’ll swear,” I said, “if you tell me the real deal between you two.”

  Her jaw tightened. “I can’t talk about that.”

  “Then I can’t swear.”

  “People could get in trouble, okay?”

  “Who? Dellian? Maybe it’s time you protected yourself for a change.”

  “As if you care! You only want to nail Dellian to get him off your ass!”

  “Maybe.” I unlocked the stall door. “But at least he’s not nailing my ass.”

  “Screw you!” Her voice trembled. “You don’t know anything!”

  “I know he’s using you. I think I’ll bypass Dellian and go straight to Ratner with all of this.” I stepped out into the hall. And stopped. Wasn’t I using her too? I didn’t care if she got hurt; as she said, I only wanted to get at Dellian. I ducked my head back in the door. “Okay, I promise not to tell if you promise that whatever’s going on, you’ll find a way to stop it. You deserve better.”

  Mascara and tears streaked her face; she wiped her nose. “I . . . I will. Monday, okay?” She pulled out her green pipe and stepped back into the stall. “Just let me get through homecoming.”

  Hours before
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br />   I skipped the homecoming game Friday night. Last year I froze my butt off while people like Missy paraded around on the field during halftime to make sure everyone knew they had been nominated for homecoming royalty. I didn’t see the need to watch a repeat. Besides, Jonathan told me he couldn’t hang out with me anyway—too much “homecoming stuff” to do.

  “Hey, Beautiful,” Jonathan said when he called Saturday morning. “I can’t pick you up tonight. Homecoming stuff, you know? Can you meet me at the dance?”

  “I guess so.” I rolled my eyes. What “stuff” could he possibly have to do that meant he couldn’t pick me up? I was his date!

  He launched into his usual rant about the scouts who would be watching him play hockey this year and how Dellian was going to mess it up because he was trying to have Jonathan benched for grades. I’d given up trying to interject my own Dellian woes long ago. Jonathan never listened.

  I hung up and called Heather. Ever since Ethan’s party, she’d been on the fence about going to the homecoming dance. Now that I wasn’t driving with Jonathan, I figured I could talk her into coming with me. “Sorry,” Heather said. “Stanford made reservations for us at Café de Paris before the dance.”

  “What?” I wasn’t sure I’d heard right. “You’re going with Greg?”

  “Stanford didn’t tell you?”

  “His name’s Greg! And no, neither of you told me. Last time we talked, you just went on and on about the paradise-themed dress code. You never said anything!” It shouldn’t have bothered me so much. But it did. “I gotta go. I’ll meet you there.”

  “Remember to dress tiki!” Heather yelled as I hung up.

  I didn’t dress tiki. Besides the fact that I was in a foul mood, I really didn’t think that many people would. Nobody but cheerleaders and drama club members ever participated in themed events like pajama day or Halloween. I figured this would be the same. I mean, it was homecoming! Who dressed in beachwear for homecoming? So Mom helped me pick out a little black dress from her closet—classic, knee-length, spaghetti strap—and dropped me off at school.

  Decorations had transformed the gym into a tropical paradise. Grass skirts and bamboo lanterns dressed the tables. Lights that filtered through a special lens created green and orange palm trees on the floor. Flowers floated in the punch bowl, and little umbrellas stood in each cup. Everyone wore gardenias in their hair and leis of fresh flowers around their neck to accessorize their paradise-themed attire. Everyone, that is, except me.