This choice: Hang out with your friends, as planned • Go Back...Chapter #48An Ambush on Birdbrook by: Seuzz   Jessica's lust for Alec "Brownie" Brown is like a deep-swelling, over-topping wave, and it rises now within you, capsizing your gut and dragging it down toward your knees. But this waves shares the spaces of your body with a more obdurate rock: your own indifference to Brownie's masculine virtues.
Of course you can recognize them: the smooth summer-tanned skin and strong bones of his face; the dark stubble; the close-cropped hair that shimmers with mingled blondes and browns. He's in a loose gray sweatshirt and jeans, but you—and Jessica—know he's got a strong, well-proportioned physique under it. And there's the bold gaze he's turned on you, as though daring you keep up with a guy who can gallop easily over hard and broken ground.
If you were looking out for Jessica's interests you'd tell him "I'm not busy tonight" and let him make the next, obvious proposal. If you were looking out for your own interests you'd tell him you were busy in a way that would discourage him from any kind of follow-up at all. Hammered as you are between Jessica's urges and your lack of the same, and some faint, conscientious knowledge that you shouldn't screw thing up too much for Jessica, you try a middle course. "I've already set up a girls' thing with Kelsey," you reply. "But I'm free tomorrow night."
You are so focused on his face that you can see the faint twitch in his nostrils. "Tomorrow night I'm going to the Warehouse. I've got a friend playing in a band there, going to support him." His gaze is direct and powerful. "I'll pick you up at nine if you can make it."
That's less than what Jessica would want from, and much more than you would want after your last experience at the Warehouse. But it's that or you shoot him down completely with no hope of recovery. "That'd be great," you reply. Your smile feels desperate, and you hope for Jessica's sake that it looks eager and not merely sickened.
He doesn't show his teeth in the smile he returns. "Awesome. Nine o'clock. You ever been out there?"
"Sure," you gasp.
"So you know not to dress up too nice," he says. He grips the back of the chair with strong, brown hands as he gets up, and your eyes—guided by Jessica's instincts, not your own—go to his ass as he walks back to his regular desk. As you tear your gaze away, you catch Laurent looking at you. He breaks into a very toothy grin, and leans forward to whisper something to Brownie after he's seated himself. Blushing furiously, you turn toward the window. Several long, humiliating minutes pass before you feel the hot flush leave your cheeks.
* * * * *
Eva looks a lot happier after last period when you find her at the orchestra room. "Hey, just reminding you I'm getting a ride out to Kelsey's after school," you tell her. "Can you tell Mom and Dad I'm doing homework at her place and you and Marc will pick me up for dinner and the movie?"
"Sure. You got plans for tonight?"
You grab Eva by the forearm and rise onto tiptoes. "Tomorrow night I'm going out with Alec Brown!" Your voice would rise to a shriek except that it's choked with excitement.
Eva grabs you back. "That's so great! But I thought— Never mind. Jeremy asked me out tonight, so I'm going with him." She at least manages to keep her cool; but of course she's been anticipating the invitation all day.
No more gets said about either of your dates, and neither of you acknowledge that the other set it up. You do wonder, though, why if Eva could have set up this dream date between Brownie and Jessica, she had never done so before.
Connor is visible on the far side of the parking lot, but you wait, lingering on the curb until Marc and Eva have left before going out to meet him. "Took you long enough to spot me," he grumbles as you approach. "I was about to come over and get you."
"Do I know you?" you retort. "I saw you, but I didn't want my dear brother and sister to see me with you." You get in his car, and he gets in too. "Besides, I don't have to be out to Kelsey's until four. What's this, that 'spy kit'?" You open the plastic bag he has on the seat between you.
"I think it's got everything you need. Here's the mask for Kelsey," he says as he takes it and a small plastic container out. "That's to seal it."
"Why the clothes?"
"Those are my clothes, to go with my mask." He digs down and draws out a second mask. "It's all set to go. All you have to do is—"
"Where are you going to be?"
"I'm explaining," he says with a slightly strangled impatience. He must having a hard time holding back his excitement. "Out at Kelsey's, you get the mask onto her, get her undressed, then before she wakes up you put my mask onto her. Call me, I'll be down the street— Wait a minute, where does she live?"
"Out in Essex Hills."
"Oh God."
"Exactly. Her dad owns Blankenship Motors, do you think they actually live in town? They live on Birdbrook."
"What's the house number?"
"No house number, Hutchison. They have Birdbrook all to themselves."
"Are you fucking kidding me? So what's the mailing address? Just 'Birdbrook'?"
"You think I send snail mail to Kelsey Blankenship? How the fuck should I know?"
"There's not a private gate or anything, is there?"
"No, just a long driveway. But you'll be down the street?"
"Yeah." He starts repacking the bag. "Call me, I'll come out. You should have my minion ready to go by then, and he can instantly exit."
"You're leaving it all to me, then?"
"Why, you think you can't handle it?"
You stick out your tongue at him. "I've got lots of reasons to smash Kelsey Blankenship in the face, and some of them are Jessica Garner's reasons. Don't worry about me."
Connor looks like he's salivating.
* * * * *
Essex Hills is a development northwest of the city, and you believe you've heard it's not even technically part of Saratoga Falls, but is a kind of self-governing enclave of ultra-snooty rich people. In middle school, Kelsey told people in that bragging way she has that not only is the area named after the county in in England, but that all the streets are named after actual towns and cities in Essex. That just called attention to her street name, and it took a couple of years before she managed to shake the corrupted tag "Birdbrain" that people hung on her address. Not that "Birdbrook" sounds much better, you think, which sounds less England-y than merely suburban.
But there's nothing suburban about the empty streets with their widely spaced entrances in the gently rolling hills. Large white or red-brick houses with steeply pitched gray roofs and tall, shimmering windows peek out from behind their curves, or from inside screens of trees. Birdbrook is on the far side of the development—as far as you can get from the city without toppling over into raw countryside. So what if it makes for a long commute? Her dad owns the largest chain of car dealerships in the city, he and his family can afford to wear out their cars.
Birdbrook is a short but winding street, and even though it has only one house on it, the carriage drive—as Kelsey says it's called—to the house is still set off from the street by two low mounds and an arched gate. The house itself actually looks like two houses, joined together by an entry hall topped by an ornamental tower. Connor stares up at it and lets out a low whistle. "Don't waste any time, okay?" he tells you. You smile and pat his cheek and get out of the car.
Up the steps to the front door. You ring the bell; the answer comes over an intercom. "You're early," Kelsey says. "Come on in." She has unlocked the front door remotely; and as Jessica has been to the house lots of times before, you have no trouble finding your way to her suite in the east wing.
She's standing in the hallway when you get to the top of the stairs, her face turned down to her iPhone. "I thought you wanted to talk about Eva and Marc," she says querulously.
"Yeah." You clutch the plastic bag a little more tightly. You really want to get the mask onto her before you have to improvise some talk about the rest of the Garner siblings.
"Then why am I getting this text from Cindy about coming out?" she asks, sounding very pissed off. She stalks back into the bedroom. "She's talking like you invited her along. I wish there was a fencepost big enough in town that she could impale herself cunny-side down on it."
That's all I can take, you think, and as she turns a corner to the bedroom, you pull the blank mask from the bag. Kelsey's still got her back to you when you step through the doorway. Her very large bedroom is all done up in peaches and tans, but you've time to admire it later.
Kelsey's thumbs are tapping on the pad of the phone, and so absorbed is she that she doesn't notice you coming up behind her with the mask. You drop the bag on the floor with a thud, put one arm around her chest, and sweep the other around to her face. For an instant she goes very stiff, then folds up and takes you to the floor with her.
You scramble out from under her. There's no chance of anyone hearing, but you close the door anyway. Then you scoop up the fallen iPhone. Before putting it on the vanity, you glance at it. Kelsey has typed a fairly rude reply to Cindy, but hasn't hit "send" yet.  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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