Chapter 27 #2
“So, okay,” Jules said. “This is gonna involve a lot of set-up, and some acting skill from all of us to make Suspect X think he can target Sadie without getting caught. But first, we need to find out when the next party is.”
Rod made a disparaging noise. “That’s easy. Friday. At Carter’s.”
Jules laughed. “Is there seriously a party here every weekend?”
“Just about,” Belle said. “It’s a relatively new development, though. Carter Dorbert’s mom got a job out in Utah but she let him stay to finish out his senior year.”
“So he lives there by himself,” Jules said. “I did not know that.”
“His two older brothers are both at UCONN,” Tom pointed out. The campus wasn’t that far away.
“Yeah, but I’m pretty sure they’re usually the ones who buy the keg and bottles of wine,” Belle countered. “Their mother comes back to town every month or so,” she told Jules, “so the party might be cancelled last minute, but as long as Carter keeps everyone following his set of rules—”
“No puking anywhere inside the house,” Rodney recited.
“No glass inside the house—plastic cups only. You spill it, you clean it up now not later, and now means now. If his mom calls, we all go submarine-silent, and if she calls to say she’s coming home unexpectedly during the week, we all drop everything, go over and get rid of the trash, move the keg, clean the house.
Which we also do before her scheduled visits home.
So she doesn’t, you know, walk into any party debris. ”
“You guys know if we do this right,” Jules said, looking around at the faces of his friends. And Rodney. “If Suspect X takes Sadie’s bait and puts his flunitrazepam into her beer—”
“Wine,” she interrupted him. “I cannot with the beer.”
“We’ll get the evidence we need—the drug in Sadie’s wine—ooh, we need to make sure her cup doesn’t get knocked over, we should be prepared with some kind of clean jar to seal it in—”
“I’ll make sure we have that,” Shelly volunteered.
“But that evidence, plus the video of Suspect X putting it there,” Jules continued, “after which we’ll tackle him to the ground and sit on him until help arrives, which will probably be my mother, who will absolutely call the police.
..” He could tell from looking at their faces that his friends didn’t really understand the consequences, so he clarified.
“That will probably be the last party ever, at Carter’s house. ”
None of them looked particularly disappointed, but Tom said it best: “Carter probably should’ve added don’t invite rapists to his list of party rules.”
Shelly raised her hand. “Can I be part of Team Tackle Suspect X to the Ground? Because I really want to help with that.”
Rodney’s little sister Meg spoke up for the first time. “Me, too,” she said.
“Well, all right,” Jules said, looking around at the determined faces of his friends—and Rodney. “It’ll be this Friday, then.” He took a deep breath. “Here’s what we’re gonna do....”
It was a long, strange, lonely week as Jules waited for Friday.
He and his new friends worked hard to completely avoid each other while at school—other than the intentionally dramatic clashes that they’d rehearsed and in some cases choreographed.
The loneliness—and strangeness—stretched throughout the long school days, with their too-brief evening meetings at the summer house jammed with laughter, apologies, and intense group hugs. And somewhat frantic preparation for the next day’s big show, as both Belle and Hobbit called it.
Tuesday’s show was a blow-out fight in the school’s center lobby, right outside the auditorium, between Belle, Sadie, and Shelly—while Tom made himself scarce even though he was dying to watch.
Hobbit managed to leave the auditorium doors open while the three boys lurked in the shadowy darkness, so that Tom could at least listen in because, yeah, the girls were fighting over him.
Faux-fighting. But they were seasoned thespians, so it sounded pretty darn real.
“Just stay the fuck away from him!” Belle shouted, pushing Sadie back so that she knocked into Shelly.
It had been artfully choreographed by Hobbit back in the summer house.
He’d made them work through it slowly, over and over, until the violence looked real while, in fact, no one actually got hurt.
But Shelly loudly feigned injury. “Ow! Ow! Ow! Belle, you’re completely insane! Sadie didn’t go anywhere near Tom! She’d never do that!”
“Actually,” Sadie said, a mountain of attitude in her raised voice, “I did. He told me you guys had a fight, and I figured, finally. He’ll finally find out what it’s like to get with a girl who’s not awaiting the return of the mothership!”
Tom was chuckling and Hobbit was snickering.
“You are such a skank,” Belle said in a killer stage-whisper, her voice loaded with indignant anger.
And that was the part that made Jules laugh—quietly because he, too, did not want anyone to know they were in here, listening.
But back in the summer house, when they’d rehearsed this particular scene, Hobbit had ridden Belle hard on the delivery of that line in particular. “Again,” he’d ordered, because she’d originally shouted it at Sadie.
“You are such a skank!”
“I don’t believe you!” Hobbit shouted back at her. “Again!”
Again, again, again, until it had come out of Belle in that much lower volume but with greater intensity, and “There it is!” Hobbit had said.
And he was right. What was happening out there in the hallway was one hundred percent believable. That is, assuming the crowd of kids who’d stopped to watch didn’t know just how close Belle, Sadie, and Shelly truly were, or that skank wasn’t in their working vocabulary.
“Stay. Away. From him,” Belle said again, her voice carrying clearly into the auditorium.
“Yeah, I think I’m gonna wait for Tom to tell me that,” Sadie shot back. “FYI, he’s not exactly pushing me away.”
“Fuck you!”
“Fuck you!”
“Guys, come on!” Shelly’s blocking had her stepping between the two of them, whereupon they both immediately turned on her.
“Of course you’re on her side!” Sadie said while Belle went with “You lied to my face when I asked you if she’d hooked up with him!”
“I didn’t know, I’m not... I’m not on anyone’s side,” Shelly protested as Sadie and Belle flounced away, in different directions.
“Yeah, well, I’ve always hated both of you so fuck off!” from Sadie, and “Stay away from me, you traitor!” from Belle, while Shelly shot back, “You are both such total bitches, who wants to be friends with you anyway?”
“And scene,” Hobbit murmured.
“That was good, they did good,” Tom said, and Jules nodded.
News would spread like wildfire around the school that the three girls, usually inseparable, were at war, setting up Friday’s pre-party big show that they hoped—no, knew—would make its way to Suspect X.
The rest of Tuesday went slowly, with Jules going into the cafeteria and having lunch alone in the din for the very first time.
It was unpleasant and his stomach was in a knot, but he choked down his sandwich while he tried to read his book.
The rest of his classes had been long and slow, with the exception of Spanish where Belle and Sadie glowered at each other while both Tom and Shelly attempted to ignore them.
At the end of the day, while Jules intentionally made himself scarce, Rodney hip-checked Hobbit into the wall of lockers with a crash and a flood of ugly words.
“Stay away from me, Freak-Show,” Hobbit had muttered as he’d collected the school books he’d needed to take home.
“Oh, I’m the freak show?” had been Rod’s witty comeback as he lunged suddenly at Hobbit, laughing as the smaller boy braced for a blow—that never came. “Yeah, you’re not worth it,” Rod sneered and swaggered away.
“Well done, Cowardly Lion,” Hobbit told Rod that night in the summer house—they’d had to meet late because Rod had had soccer practice immediately after school.
“You are so weird,” Rod said.
“Why, thank you,” Hobbit said. “Are you ready for tomorrow?”
Rod sighed heavily. “No.”
“No, you didn’t talk to the team,” Jules clarified, “or...?”
“Yes, I talked to the team,” Rod said. “I asked about Mexico, and no, no one’s ever been—no one’s gotten close, although Jimmy Leary said I should talk to Trent from Ottersfield, because he was there for spring break both last year and the year before.”
“Ding!” Belle said.
This was great information. “So okay,” Jules asked. “Which one’s Jimmy?”
“Tall, short hair...” Rod said. “You know, Jimmy.”
“Okay, that’s everyone on the team,” Jules pointed out, “at least from my perspective. May I have a few more descriptive words...?”
“He always wears a rugby shirt,” Tom volunteered.
“Got him,” Jules said. “My favorite is the purple and orange.”
“Oh dear God, I know,” Hobbit said. “It’s just so astonishingly in-your-face ugly. You gotta love it.”
“Rugby-Shirt Jimmy’s most likely one of our main info conduits to Trent and the other Ottersfield suspects,” Jules told them. “Let’s keep that in mind, going forward.”
“He was definitely there, watching when we did our scene today,” Sadie reported.
“What color was his shirt?” Hobbit asked even as Jules said, “That’s great!”
“Good on you for thinking to look around,” Belle told Sadie. “I have no clue who was watching—I was a little too tightly in character.”
“I wanna say... navy and maroon?” Sadie answered Hobbit, then told Belle, “Yeah, well, my character was scanning for Tom.” She gave an exaggerated wink in Tom’s direction.
“You guys are so weird,” Rod said as Belle snorted with laughter.
“Let’s not take this method-acting shit too far, please,” she told her friend.
“You never have to worry about that, I promise you.” Sadie hugged Belle, and Shelly joined in.
But, “You are both such total bitches,” she said, and they all started giggling.