Chapter Five
Five
So much for my hope that Marcus didn’t overhear my voice note to Mo.
The only thought more infuriating than realizing I might have to talk to Marcus Riddick again is accepting that I might have to bargain with Marcus Riddick.
Since our run-in on Monday, I’ve been scoping out who knows what about Jason and me, and as far as I can tell, only Marcus knows about the breakup. And for some reason, he’s kept it to himself. I’ll need to shake the truth out of him and beg him not to breathe a word to anyone.
My soul and dignity in exchange for his silence.
How is deadbeat Marcus my biggest problem? I whisper to myself as I ring the doorbell of Jason’s house. I smooth down my dark blue dress, fix my hair while I wait.
After Jason’s family held a service at the Lutheran church this afternoon, they’re now hosting a reception for friends and loved ones in their house.
The good news is, I’m pretty sure Marcus will be here today.
The bad news is, I’m pretty sure Marcus will be here today.
“I have a surprise for you, Zadie!” Jason’s mother singsongs when she opens the front door of their house for me.
“Don’t try to guess,” Mrs. R tells me, which, of course, makes me desperate to guess.
My obvious hope is that it’s Jason, that he’s out of his coma, but since I saw him earlier this morning, I know that can’t be it. And Mrs. R is excited now, but no way her reaction would be this muted if her son was awake.
“I promise, I won’t,” I say as I move into the house. The Riddick house is something you would find in Architectural Digest. Not those expensive houses with vintage furniture that pretend to be homey, but the rich-and-proud-to-be-rich houses. Everything is sleek and modern and neutrals-colored.
The only time Mom has ever been here, she oohed and aahed over everything, polite to a fault until we got into the car. Then she told me it looked like a “McMansion.”
“It just doesn’t have a very attainable, lived-in feeling,” she said.
Attainable is one of Mom’s words. It means to be of the people, to be thought of as normal, down-to-earth, trustworthy, all things that my mother is always aspiring toward as a politician.
Other words for attainable: approachable, relatable, and electable.
I wouldn’t describe our house as lived-in either, but that’s not something I’d ever tell Mom.
“Oh my God, don’t look now, babe, but this absolute stunner just walked in,” Amber loud-whispers to her boyfriend, Talon, as I enter the living room.
“Where? Where?” Talon swivels around, pretending to look. Then he nuzzles into his girlfriend’s neck. “Only stunner I see is you, babe.”
“Wow. I don’t know whether to feel rejected or objectified,” I deadpan.
“Maybe both?” Amber suggests, taking my hand and pulling me into their group. “Why are your nails giving Night of the Living Dead, and why do I love it?”
“Thanks,” I say. My nails are painted black with silvery glitter dust today.
The open secrets started when Dad died. So many times since that day in August, I’ve wanted to not do my makeup and not put in my contacts and just dress like a slob because what does anything matter when my father is gone?
But I never had the courage to do any of that.
I’ve remained tidy, affable Zadie Cartwright, with her carefully chosen clothes and cute hair and flawless makeup.
Instead, I started to choose one thing each day that would reflect how I truly felt. Something subtle.
At least the nails aren’t clashing with my church outfit.
The Riddick house is big enough for the twenty-five or so of us who just left the service and are having lunch at their house.
Of course, the meal is catered, people in uniforms slipping between and around us while classical piano music floats through the house speakers.
The somber, formal tone reminds me of Dad’s wake.
I remember feeling like I was drowning in a sea of faceless bodies that day, all of them dressed in black.
Nobody knew what to say or do. It felt utterly hopeless too; nothing I did could bring Dad back.
Today, though, there is an unspoken undercurrent of hope, like we are just simply biding our time, going through the motions until Jason wakes up.
Mrs. R is settling down next to her husband, who is showing Coach Kyle and his wife ancient photo albums of Jason as a kid.
Jason’s parents have shown them to me multiple times over the past year.
Jason playing soccer. Jason winning the golden boot, the mini-league version of MVP.
Jason meeting his idol, Cristiano Ronaldo.
I’m only the slightest bit grateful that their spiel is directed at someone else today. “Where’s Mo?” I ask. It’s weird that she’s been gone for this long.
“Somewhere around here,” Amber says, voice strangely high-pitched. Behind her, Talon points at Amber then makes exaggerated throat-slashing gestures at me.
“You cut…kill…killed her?” I say, trying to do my best with his clues.
“Are you miming behind my back again?” Amber asks, turning on Talon. “It’s really not in your skill set, babe. And Zad, I love you, but if I had to choose between having you and a walrus on my charades team, I’d pick the walrus.”
“They don’t even have hands,” I point out with a laugh.
“Exactly,” Amber says.
“Epic,” Talon remarks, and based on his laughter, I take it he found Amber’s comment funny.
“Fine. Mo and I had a baby argument,” Ambs admits. “And she stomped off.”
“An argument? About what?” I ask, alarmed.
My friends and I never fight. I call our trio a friend-ocracy because whenever two of us disagree, the third casts a tie-breaking vote.
Amber and I have been pretty much inseparable since the day in kindergarten when she gave Brady Westhaven a valentine that he rejected.
Rightfully annoyed, Amber picked it up from where it had been discarded on the floor and gave it to me instead.
Amber being as famously glamorous and tender-hearted (even then) as she was, I intrinsically understood the value of what she was offering me, and we’ve been a pair ever since.
Then, years later, after showing Monique around the school when she first moved here, I invited Mo to sit with me and Amber at lunch.
I was overjoyed to finally have another Black person in my class.
Amber and Mo could not be more different.
Ambs with her expensive everything and heart made of actual mush, and Mo with her backpack full of pins depicting great scientists, plus the marker-tattoo she wore on her wrist for all of junior year that read WWAFD (What Would Alexander Fleming Do?).
Then there’s the app Mo is trying to launch before winter break (she’s looking for investors and everything).
But Ambs and Mo quickly discovered that they both have an affinity for true crime podcasts and almost always agree on who the killer is, which is no small feat.
I can’t stand true crime, but somehow the three of us make it work.
“I don’t remember,” Amber says now, clearly lying. “Honestly, it was so stupid.”
I don’t like any of it: the fact that my friends are fighting at all, and the fact that it’s not over something minute enough for me to just tie-break away. “If it was stupid, why hasn’t she come back?”
“Maybe she got caught up in another conversation?” Talon offers.
“I’m going to check that she’s okay,” I say.
Amber sighs. “Sure. Fine.”
“Epic,” Talon says, and I try not to flinch. Talon uses that word like most people use “awesome” or “big” or “happy” or “sure.” Basically, most things in his mind are epic.
My search for Monique takes me throughout the entire downstairs level of the house, which is roughly the size of my whole home. I traipse through the family room and the piano room, and then open the door that leads into the garage. There, I come upon…Marcus Riddick.
There are three expensive cars in the massive garage space, but all I see is him.
He’s slumped over in a chair, legs outstretched, head thrown back. For one second, I worry he’s not breathing and my heart flips in my chest, but a big noisy inhale quickly cures me of that concern.
“Unbelievable,” I mutter to myself. Marcus gets his legendary status from the time he allegedly crashed so hard after a game that he made it all the way to Cranwell before he realized he’d been sleeping in the back of the wrong team’s bus, and no one laughed harder than Marcus.
Before I can take this opportunity to confront him, to tell him that I’ve been looking for him for days, my phone vibrates with a text from Mo.
SOS is all her text says, and I’m already moving back the way I came. I slam the door shut as I leave, the image of Marcus jerking awake in alarm bringing a smile to my face.
On driveway, a second text says before I can send one asking where she is.
On my way, I write back.
* * *
Mo generally doesn’t send SOS texts; she answers them, always ready to fix a problem. Maybe it’s a side effect of being the oldest of four kids who were left to raise themselves. Or maybe it’s just the personality you need to want to cure the world’s most pressing diseases in your lifetime.
I button up my cardigan because outside is getting more Maine-y by the day. I know it’s controversial, but I love that we get actual seasons, that the air gets sweater-weather cool in fall and the kind of cold that forms icicles in your nostrils in winter.
I find Mo sitting on the driveway, looking miserable. She’s not even working on her app, which she is always doing. I plop down next to her and rest my head against hers. “What happened?”
She echoes Amber’s words. “It was stupid.” We are both silent for a while, then Mo says, “Do you know Ambs thinks she’s found her soulmate?”
I groan. Because three months is in no way enough time to know someone is your soulmate. Plus, Talon is in his second senior year. I like him, but I might be fighting with Amber too if she told me he was her one true love.