This choice: Meet with Fairfax and friends • Go Back...Chapter #41You Are Who You Are, and Her As Well by: Seuzz   You don't need to avoid Stephanie's family, so you don't see the need to meet with Fairfax. But it won't do to blow him off. You toss aside your old phone and call him directly on your new one. The truck trundles half a city block before Fairfax answers.
His tone is very tentative. "Hello?"
"Yeah, it's me. What do we need to talk about?"
You bite the inside your cheek as you wait for him to reply. "Stephanie?" he says.
"Yes." You pinch the bridge of your nose. "I told you—" You take a breath. "It's me, it's all set, like I said in the text. It went off fine. Your beta was very helpful, unlike some others I've had to deal with."
You shoot a glance at Beta-Will from the corner of your eye. Maybe he's concentrating on the road, or maybe he doesn't get the reference to "betas," but he makes no sign.
"So, I got her copied, I'm in, uh, the impersonation now. You said in your text we needed to talk. What do we need to talk about?"
"Well, you need a reason to avoid going back to her house, and you can maybe help us catch Maria Vasquez."
"Stephanie doesn't know Maria. Not to hang out with."
Another pause. "How do you know?"
"For the same reason I don't need to avoid going home. I've got her memories already. All of them, I'm pretty sure."
Every time you say something, it seems to knock Fairfax back a step, so he has to collect himself before replying. You wonder if it's the subject or if Stephanie intimidates him the same as she intimidates you.
Now he says, "You might have some of them. A few can filter in early, but—"
"Didn't you hear what I—?" You try to thrust Stephanie's personality behind you, but she's proving as forward inside your head as she was to your face. "I think I've got all of them. I'm remembering stuff I couldn't possibly know, some of it pretty random and some of it stuff I really don't want to remember."
"Oh? Like?"
You want to tell him to shove his nose and the rest of his head up his ass. But your claim and his question have triggered some unpleasant associations, and before you can reply, a thing like a closet door bursts open in the back of your head, and a couple of nasty items come tumbling out.
"Okay," you say slowly, and frantically shove away Stephanie's memory of accidentally running over a dog last year. "Uh, remember I told you that she and her friends were talking to Braydon Delp about some creepy stuff? I know what that was all about now."
Beta-Will turns his head fractionally. You give him a cold look, and he shifts his overt attention back to the road. Fairfax says, "What was it?"
"They're trying to put a hex on another girl. Well, trying to frighten her by pretending to."
"Gee—!"
Your lip curls a little at Philip's exclamation. You can tell it came out that way only because he clipped off the "-zuz!" at the last moment. "I don't want to talk about it, not here," you continue, "but I can tell you you were right, it's not got anything to do with us. So that's one thing I'm remembering. You wanna know her mom's maiden name? Her favorite color? How long her Uncle Tom's been staying at the house and stinking up the guest room?" You brace yourself as Beta-Will brakes to a hard stop at a light. "I can tell you that we just got through moving her grandmother's dining room set into storage to make way for a new dining room set that Stephanie's mom has been pestering her pop to get for about three months, and I can tell you the kind of names she was calling him before he—"
"Alright, alright! You made your point. I only half believe you, but—Well, if you're right, then that's another reason I'd like to talk to you tonight. Maybe you did something different with the preparation of your mask. And you could still— Did you say Stephanie does not know Maria?"
"Not to talk to. An airhead like that? Pfht!" You drum your fingers on your knee, then lift them to stare at. The nails are polished and smooth, not at all like the ragged ones your beta will be using to dig wax out of his ears with. You get them done by a Vietnamese girl in a strip center on Orlando Road.
"You could still help anyway. Do you mind meeting with us?"
"It has to be a homework date. At least technically, at the city library. That's about the only way I can get out on weeknights."
"There in an hour then, okay?"
You can probably swing that. It depends on how much trouble you're in for hauling off the dining room set without permission. Because that's something else you now remember—it was Stephanie who made a command decision to do that.
* * * * *
"I'll see you tomorrow, at least," you tell Beta-Will through the passenger-side window of his truck, and bang the roof of the cab fondly. "Cash's class. Thanks for letting me borrow your truck this way." Might as well try to get as totally in character as possible before meeting the parents.
Beta-Will replies with a totally fake smile, "Sure, no problem, we should do it again sometime." He peels away as you step back.
You're already steeling yourself as you trot up the walk to the front door. The Fiesta—the car Stephanie's parents use—is back in the driveway, next to Uncle Tom's rattletrap Crown Victoria and the old Ford Focus station wagon that Stephanie is forced to drive. The front door opens before you reach it, and Robert Wyatt braces himself inside the doorway.
Like Tom, his older brother, Stephanie's pop has graying hair and a moustache and goatee. He's more powerfully built than Tom. But before she was much past puberty, Stephanie had noticed a fragility in the eyes that both brothers share. They look like thin window panes, easy to blow out, and they mark both Wyatts as easy to cow.
So you're not the least bit daunted when your pop says, "Care to explain what happened to our dining room furniture?"
"I found a place for it, took care of it." You try to move past him, but he doesn't move his arm. "Does mom have a problem?"
A purple flush appears in his forehead. "Tom says you put it in a storage unit. Are you paying for it?"
"I don't have to. It belongs to a friend. It's his unit."
"And he's just going to let you park it there?"
"Sure, it's a favor, it's what friends give each other." You tilt your chin.
Your mom appears behind him. Her expression is grave, but it has none of the suppressed anger in your pop's.
"Honey," she says, "you should have called, we should have talked about—"
"I can have it back tomorrow afternoon, right back where it was, if you want." You let your arms dangle confidently at your side. "'S'as easy to bring it back as taking it out. Easier, right?" You tilt your chin a little further.
Your mom's lips twitch—that alone tells you it's a victory for the girls. Your pop wilts even as his face flushes.
"I guess that's true," he says. "But you need to—"
"Oh, let it go, Rob," snaps your mom. "What's done is done." But she looks at you sharply. "And it's not costing anything?"
"Nope." You wipe the soles of your feet on the mat before stepping into the house. "It's in a climate-controlled unit, too. Belongs to a school friend, his uncle actually owns the complex so he gets the unit for free. He uses it as an exercise room, keeps his weight set there, works out there after school. Big unit, too." You hold out your arms, as though embracing a washing machine. "Only got his bench and barbells and a footlocker in it, all the other footage is going to waste."
Your mom brightens up. "In that case, we can—"
"Call Jerome in the morning," your pop says, and throws his hands into the air. "Tell him to get a truck—"
"I can get a truck," you say. "Same guy who helped me move the stuff just now. I think he's got a crush on me." You waggle your eyebrows and grin.
Your parents say nothing. Over in the corner, Uncle Tom glowers. But the look of defeat is plain on his face. You can just bet he was gloating prematurely over seeing your butt nailed to the wall.
Your mom is so pleased she practically volunteers to drive you to the library when you mention the study date. You gobble down two slices of the pizza they brought back, then dash upstairs to change. Not that you need to, but you're meeting Eva and Jessica, so—
Your heart flutters and a nerve in your stomach quivers, even though you know it's not really them, and that there's no chance it'll be anyone except them and Fairfax at the rendezvous point.
Maybe you should mention that to Fairfax when you see him—that it's not just Stephanie's memories and personality traits you've got, but even physical reactions like weak-kneed crushes.
You keep the jeans but change into pink Converses. You strip off the work shirt and pull on an equally pink polo shirt, fluffing it out to let it settle on your curves. You force a stiff brush through your curls, redistributing them without making them appreciably neater. (The curse of hair like yours is that it takes serious chemical treatments to get it to behave other than it wants to—one reason for keeping it short.) From the jewelry box you take a silver chain with a small crucifix, and pull it tight around your throat.
You brush the line of your neck, and allow Stephanie's eyes to sadden. It gives you odd satisfaction to see her so gripped by a romantic crush.
The dressing-up is pointless, of course. Marc Garner won't be at the library with his sisters. You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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