the name of my investigation, it was something of an effort in futility. I drove over to the rapid station and I was all set to hop on the train and question Lucy when I remembered the whole exact-change scenario, which, come to think of it, doesn’t make any sense at all and really is nothing but a big ol’ inconvenience.
Long story short, all I could do was stand there on the platform like some lost soul and watch the train whizz by. That, and wave to Lucy, who—speaking of lost souls—was sitting on the train with her nose pressed to the window, waving back.
And then there was the brawl, of course. The one in the biker bar.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
After my wasted trip to the rapid station, I wasn’t in the best of moods when I got back to the office. Finding Ariel sitting behind my desk didn’t help.
“It’s too early for you to be out of school.” I dropped my Juicy Couture purse into my bottom desk drawer and stepped back, the better to allow her enough room to get her skinny little butt out of my chair.
“Early dismissal. Parent-teacher conferences.”
I pitied the child for thinking I was that naive. That was right about the same time I gave her a probing look. “On a Friday afternoon?”
Oh, she was good. She never batted an eyelash. And believe me, I would have seen it if she had. She wasn’t wearing her clunky dark glasses.
The silver stud was missing from her lip, too.
Surprised (not to mention grateful and not repulsed), I guess I must have smiled.
My mistake. She took it as a sign of weakness.
“You might not believe there are conferences this afternoon, but my mother does.”
“If your mother actually believed there were parent-teacher conferences today, she’d be first in line to sign up.”
Ariel grinned. “She went on Wednesday night. She thinks today’s conferences are for the stay-at-home mothers.”
Like this made sense, I nodded. But was I about to give up? Not a chance!
Since it didn’t look like Ariel was going to move, I strolled around to the front of my desk. “Wow,” I said, as casual as can be, “if I’d fooled my mom like that, I wouldn’t be here at boring Garden View. I would have used the extra time to hang with Gonzalo.”
“Gonzalo. Hmph!” Matchstick arms folded over flat chest, Ariel glared. The entire performance would have been more convincing if I hadn’t used the same sort of posturing myself a time or two when I was trying to prove how much I didn’t care about Quinn. Of course, Ariel’s quivering bottom lip was a giveaway, too.
I dropped into my guest chair. “Fight, huh?”
“He’s unreasonable.”
“All men are.”
“He’s self-centered.”
“Goes with the territory.”
“He writes these incredibly intense poems . . .” She sighed in a very fifteen-year-old-girl way. “You know, poems full of pain and anguish, poems about this bleak, hopeless thing called life. And then…” She gritted her teeth. “And then I saw him over at Starbucks drinking a Caramel Frappuccino. How ordinary!”
I was about to point out that the boy’s taste in drinks probably didn’t really have any direct correlation to how miserable he found life, but Ariel didn’t give me the chance. Now that she’d opened up about Gonzalo’s middle-of-the-road tendencies, she was on a roll. She jumped out of the chair and threw her hands in the air. “With Tiffany Slater!”
Ah, the plot thickened!
“What’s a woman supposed to do, Pepper?” Ariel asked, and it took me a moment to realize the woman she was talking about was her. “What do you do when a guy turns on you like that? When he breaks your heart into a million little pieces and betrays your very soul?”
I wasn’t sure if this was some sort of rhetorical cosmic question, or if her you meant me personally. If it didn’t, I would be better off just letting the whole subject slide. So would my ego. If it did…yeah, I’d have to swallow my pride, but it would give me a
Long story short, all I could do was stand there on the platform like some lost soul and watch the train whizz by. That, and wave to Lucy, who—speaking of lost souls—was sitting on the train with her nose pressed to the window, waving back.
And then there was the brawl, of course. The one in the biker bar.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
After my wasted trip to the rapid station, I wasn’t in the best of moods when I got back to the office. Finding Ariel sitting behind my desk didn’t help.
“It’s too early for you to be out of school.” I dropped my Juicy Couture purse into my bottom desk drawer and stepped back, the better to allow her enough room to get her skinny little butt out of my chair.
“Early dismissal. Parent-teacher conferences.”
I pitied the child for thinking I was that naive. That was right about the same time I gave her a probing look. “On a Friday afternoon?”
Oh, she was good. She never batted an eyelash. And believe me, I would have seen it if she had. She wasn’t wearing her clunky dark glasses.
The silver stud was missing from her lip, too.
Surprised (not to mention grateful and not repulsed), I guess I must have smiled.
My mistake. She took it as a sign of weakness.
“You might not believe there are conferences this afternoon, but my mother does.”
“If your mother actually believed there were parent-teacher conferences today, she’d be first in line to sign up.”
Ariel grinned. “She went on Wednesday night. She thinks today’s conferences are for the stay-at-home mothers.”
Like this made sense, I nodded. But was I about to give up? Not a chance!
Since it didn’t look like Ariel was going to move, I strolled around to the front of my desk. “Wow,” I said, as casual as can be, “if I’d fooled my mom like that, I wouldn’t be here at boring Garden View. I would have used the extra time to hang with Gonzalo.”
“Gonzalo. Hmph!” Matchstick arms folded over flat chest, Ariel glared. The entire performance would have been more convincing if I hadn’t used the same sort of posturing myself a time or two when I was trying to prove how much I didn’t care about Quinn. Of course, Ariel’s quivering bottom lip was a giveaway, too.
I dropped into my guest chair. “Fight, huh?”
“He’s unreasonable.”
“All men are.”
“He’s self-centered.”
“Goes with the territory.”
“He writes these incredibly intense poems . . .” She sighed in a very fifteen-year-old-girl way. “You know, poems full of pain and anguish, poems about this bleak, hopeless thing called life. And then…” She gritted her teeth. “And then I saw him over at Starbucks drinking a Caramel Frappuccino. How ordinary!”
I was about to point out that the boy’s taste in drinks probably didn’t really have any direct correlation to how miserable he found life, but Ariel didn’t give me the chance. Now that she’d opened up about Gonzalo’s middle-of-the-road tendencies, she was on a roll. She jumped out of the chair and threw her hands in the air. “With Tiffany Slater!”
Ah, the plot thickened!
“What’s a woman supposed to do, Pepper?” Ariel asked, and it took me a moment to realize the woman she was talking about was her. “What do you do when a guy turns on you like that? When he breaks your heart into a million little pieces and betrays your very soul?”
I wasn’t sure if this was some sort of rhetorical cosmic question, or if her you meant me personally. If it didn’t, I would be better off just letting the whole subject slide. So would my ego. If it did…yeah, I’d have to swallow my pride, but it would give me a
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