Chapter 22 Then
Then
“Hi, uh, I need a new calculus textbook.” I stood in front of the checkout desk at the library.
“What happened to your old one?” Ms. Garcia asked, turning her attention to me from scanning books into the system.
“I can’t find it.” I did not add that it may have, for some unknown reason, been taken by an FBI agent.
I already felt like the whole school knew that, knew about the raid, even though nobody had said anything to me.
But whenever there was a lingering gaze or two people talking in whispers, I was sure they were talking about me.
My dad. Those thoughts were making me jumpy or grumpy in public. Probably both.
“That’s not how this works. I don’t just hand out new books when you misplace your old one.”
“But the midterm is coming up soon and I need it.” A potted plant sat on the desk in front of the computer, its leaves beginning to yellow. It wasn’t getting the proper amount of water. The soil in the pot was wet, so maybe it was being overwatered.
“You’ll need to pay the lost book fee, and then I can issue you a new one,” she said, bringing my attention back to her.
“Okay, how much?” I dug my wallet out of the front pocket of my backpack and opened it up.
“Let me see…” she said, pushing a few buttons on the computer. “Seventy-five dollars.”
My eyes went wide as I held up the single twenty-dollar bill I’d found in my wallet. “Seventy-five?”
“Yes, we have to replace the one you lost.”
“Right,” I said. “I’ll come back tomorrow.” Hopefully my mom would give me that money even though I’d overheard one too many fights over that subject. “You’re watering your plant too much.”
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
I left the library and headed to the courtyard, where I ate with my friends at lunch. Ava and Caroline were already sitting at one of the wrought iron tables near the entrance. I plopped down across from them.
“Where have you been?” Ava asked.
“Library,” I said. “I lost my calc book.”
“How do you lose a calc book? That thing traveled from the school to the desk in my bedroom the first day it was given to me and it hasn’t left my desk since.” Ava tossed me a bag of potato chips.
Caroline held up her bag of hot Cheetos, lifting her eyebrows, asking permission to trade. I pushed the chips toward her.
“I don’t know how I lost it,” I said, spinning the bag of Cheetos that Caroline had just handed to me around and around on the table. I couldn’t eat them. My chest was already burning. “It’s not at either of your houses, is it?”
“I haven’t seen it,” Ava said. “Have you ever done homework at my house?”
“I’ve done homework everywhere,” I said.
“So it could be anywhere?” Caroline asked, crunching into a chip.
I waved my hand at her. “You know what I mean.”
“It’s not at my house either,” she said.
“Great,” I said.
“Are you mad at me?” she asked in a soft voice.
“What?”
“You seem angry,” she said.
“I’m mad about my book.”
“Not just today,” she said.
“Well, I lost it a while ago.”
She held my stare, challenging me, but I dropped my gaze first, unable to face her hurt. Knowing I was causing it, but not knowing how to douse the anger that had felt like a constant presence since Thanksgiving break.
“Maybe it’s at Beau’s house.” Ava was looking over my shoulder.
I turned to see Beau walking toward our table, hand in hand with Harper.
“Did Indy leave her calculus book at your house?” Ava asked when they reached us.
“You actually lost it?” he asked.
I nodded, my stomach tightening. We hadn’t talked since I’d copied off his test a few days ago.
Well, we’d talked, but we hadn’t talked about that.
We walked out of class side by side that day and I’d tried to find words to explain what I’d done.
Why I’d done it. There were none. At least none I could say in the middle of school.
None I hadn’t told my mom I wouldn’t say. So I said nothing.
Now I looked at him with pleading eyes, as if to say this was part of the reason—my missing book.
But he was avoiding my stare. “I haven’t seen your calc book,” he said.
“Okay,” I said.
“Neither have I,” Harper offered.
“Cool,” I said, with the same snarky edge to my voice that I was unable to shake. Beau shot me narrow eyes.
I should’ve said sorry. Instead I stood without having eaten anything and muttered something about checking lost and found.
And I did check lost and found, in the main office.
It wasn’t there. I could’ve gone back to my friends, eaten the lunch I’d packed or that bag of Cheetos I’d left on the table, but I didn’t.
I went to where I knew Cody hung out…when he was at school.
I hadn’t seen him today. But as I was approaching the football field and the big square of asphalt just outside of it, I saw him standing at the bottom of a flagpole with a couple of people.
They were staring up, and when I followed their gaze to the top of the pole, I saw a backpack tied up.
That’s when I noticed that one of the people standing there was arguing with Cody.
It was obviously his backpack that had been taken prisoner and hoisted to the sky.
Cody and the other guy were just laughing.
I was surprised a teacher hadn’t told them to stop.
Cody seemed to do whatever he wanted, I was learning, with no care in the world.
I wondered how that felt. To not be constantly stressed about grades and rules and parents.
“Cody!” I called when I was within shouting distance and he still hadn’t noticed me.
All three of the guys looked over. A wide smile formed on Cody’s face and he sauntered toward me, hopping onto his skateboard in the process.
He was coming fast, directly in my path.
I tried not to flinch or move as he got closer.
I wondered if this was a game of chicken when he didn’t deviate either.
My heart picked up speed, but I held my ground.
And finally, at the last second, he put his foot down.
The board bumped into my ankle. It stung a little, but not too bad.
He was wearing a green pair of Converse with a hole in one toe.
I could see his white sock poking through.
“Hey,” he said.
Behind him the backpack guy was lowering his bag with a few choice cuss words in Cody’s direction.
“Did I or did I not give you my phone number?” I asked, crossing my arms.
He tilted his head and his eyes crinkled with a smile that didn’t quite reach his lips. “You did.”
“And yet you haven’t used it.”
He pulled his phone out of his pocket, typed something onto the screen, and then tucked it away.
My phone buzzed in my back pocket. I checked it. I hadn’t saved him in my phone, so it was just a number. But the message read: Your cute.
I tried not to focus on the incorrect grammar. That would make me a snob. It was just a text. There were typos in texts all the time. I wasn’t a perfect texter.
I typed back: Then you should kiss me.
I didn’t know what had gotten into me. Being around Cody felt exciting and unpredictable and, most important, different from what I’d been feeling in my everyday life recently. I needed different.
I hit send.
He pulled out his phone and a wide smile spread across his face as he read my message. Then, without hesitation, he closed the distance between us and pressed his lips to mine.
The kiss didn’t last long. He tasted like Doritos, he smelled like grass, and he was a little sweaty.
But it was nice. Unlike our first, cold kiss, this was soft and warm.
His arms around me felt good, and it got my mind off of everything for the rest of the school day.
Because instead of thinking about my missing book, or my dad’s job, or the way Beau had looked at me, I thought about how it had felt to be in Cody’s arms. How he kicked his board to the side while we were kissing, out of our way, and pulled me close.
How he laughed against my mouth when his friend let out a “Whoop!” in the middle of our kiss.
How he said, “More of that later, Jones,” when the bell rang and he’d skated off.
When I got home from school, my life seemed to crash over me again.
I searched the house for my book, but it wasn’t there.
My dad wasn’t home. I wasn’t sure where he was, because he hadn’t been going into the office since the incident.
The office was on holiday. That’s what their official recorded message said when people called in. It helped that it was December.
By the time my mom got home, I was worked up.
Before she’d even had a chance to hang her keys on the hook in the kitchen, I said, “Those stupid FBI people stole one of my schoolbooks.”
She gave me a look of disbelief. “Highly unlikely.”
“It’s been missing ever since they were here.”
“It’s probably just in your room somewhere.” She was wearing green scrubs today, which made the green in her hazel eyes look more intense as she gave me a tired stare.
“I’ve looked everywhere.”
“Maybe you left it at a friend’s house. Did you ask Beau?”
“I asked everyone.”
“Where is your father?” she asked, hanging her keys and setting her purse down on the counter.
“I don’t know. He wasn’t here when I got home.”
Her expression went dark.
“Can you have Dad ask if my book was taken with everything else?”
She sighed. “What would they want with your book?”
There was a small bowl of pistachios on the counter, and I picked one out and took off the shell but didn’t eat it. “I don’t know. Maybe they think it’s funny. Maybe they like to play pranks. Maybe one of them really wants to learn calculus.”
She released a small chuckle. “Again, not likely.”
I let out a grunt and dropped both sides of the shell and the pistachio back in the bowl. “Well, whatever. It’s missing and it costs seventy-five dollars for a new one and that’s so much money! I’ve been saving up for a car and I’m almost there, but that would knock me back down again.”
“You’re almost there?” she asked.
“What?”
“How much money have you saved?”
“With the paycheck I’ll get on Friday, I think I’ll be at eight hundred.”
“That’s really good, Indy.”
“Thanks.”
“Let’s go get you a car.”
“What?” I asked. I had heard the words, understood each one, but I didn’t think she meant to string them together in the order she did.
“We’re going to get you a car. Have you thought about what kind you want?”
I stood there, still unable to process, the barstool at the counter pressing into my hips. “We’re going to get me a car? Right now?”
“Do you not want a car?”
“No, I mean, yes, I do. For sure.”
“Then get your shoes on. Let’s go.”
I looked down at my feet. I wore a pair of fuzzy striped socks. “What about Dad? Should we ask him? Wait for him?” Wait until their money situation was more stable? I didn’t say that last one out loud.
“No,” she said in one short staccato response.
“Okay, shoes,” I said, rushing off to grab them. Maybe this made me selfish, wanting a car despite everything, but my own car felt like freedom right now, like escape, and I needed that.
Innocent or not, I wondered if this investigation was going to ruin my parents’ marriage, our family.