Death Comes to Suburbia (Book 2 Molly Masters Mysteries) Page 7

  I found an empty desk in Tiffany’s homeroom. The teacher, a short black man with wire-frames, kept looking at a notebook on his desk and at me. Finally he asked, “I’ve never seen you before, have I?”

  “She’s my cousin,” Tiffany immediately piped up. “She’s here visiting today and tomorrow.”

  The teacher smiled as if relieved to learn he hadn’t been hallucinating. “Take her down to the office and sign her in.”

  The office? Was Lauren at work yet? Tiffany rose and headed out the door assuming I would follow, which I did, for lack of a better plan, though I worried about Lauren’s reaction when she saw me. She knew I’d be here today because we’d arranged for her to watch Nathan after kindergarten till I got home.

  Lauren was seated directly in front of the notebook we needed to sign. She took one look at me and started to laugh, which she quickly turned into a fake coughing attack. Tiffany, who knew that Lauren and I were friends, said in a loud, rehearsed voice, “Yeah, uh, Ms. Wilkins, this is my cousin, Molly Saunders, from Colorado. We need to sign her in as a visitor.”

  Lauren quickly stifled her giggles, met my eyes briefly, and shoved the notebook toward us. “So you’re Molly Saunders? Just sign here and make a name tag for yourself.” She turned her attention to the ringing phone, winked at me, and said, “Enjoy your visit, dear.”

  Feeling awkward and embarrassed, I stuck my name tag on my shirt as we headed back toward homeroom. Tiffany froze and gaped at me. “Hey, Don’t you think that name tag would make you look a little less lamo if you, like, put it on your forehead?”

  “Where should I put it?”

  She ripped it off my shirt and crumpled it, then jammed it into her pocket. We went to homeroom and waited out morning announcements.

  At the bell, Tiffany told me, “I’ve got English class first period. Nesbitt is a…well, I guess you’ll see for yourself soon enough. Class is always interesting, though.”

  We entered another classroom and Tiffany pointed out a desk for me to use directly behind hers. The woman in the front of the classroom wore old-fashioned, laced black boots and a faded paisley peasant dress that looked as if it had come from a secondhand store. Clearly visible along the low scooped neckline of the dress was a tattoo of a bird in flight. Her plain brown hair was piled atop her head in a frizzy rat’s nest. While waiting for her students to take their seats, she marched back and forth in front of the blackboard as if charging her batteries. Her desk was such a mess it even made my office look neat.

  The moment the bell rang she clapped her hands crisply three times, then said. “The Women’s Room. The Color Purple. What do those books have in common, Madison?”

  “Um, they both start with the word ‘the’?” Madison replied self-consciously.

  A couple of students snickered.

  “Lame answer,” Ms. Nesbitt shot back. She scanned the room. “Someone who is awake.” She stopped at me and pointed. “You there, with no business being in my classroom. What do those two books have in common?”

  Though startled, I stammered, “Both books portray men as egotistical brutes.”

  “Good answer. You can stay, even if you’re here by mistake.”

  “She’s my cousin,” Tiffany offered. “She’s just—”

  “Oh, Tiffany,” the teacher said gently. “I’m glad you’re back at school. I meant to go to your father’s funeral yesterday to pay my respects, but I had a meeting that I couldn’t rearrange. Please pass along my condolences to your mother.”

  I stared at the teacher in surprise. Why would she mention Tiffany’s loss in front of the entire class? Could she have known Preston or Stephanie personally? Judging by the Saunderses’ obsessiveness about physical appearance, they would probably have treated Ms. Nesbitt as a pariah.

  Returning to her drill-sergeant’s voice, she said, “So, Cousin of Tiffany. Do you agree with the authors’ conclusions about men?”

  “No. Overall, I think both books are excellent, but the portrayals of men aren’t well-balanced, and the male characters are too stereotypical.”

  Tiffany turned her head and shot me a warning look.

  “Ah,” the teacher said, raising her eyebrows. “Stereotypical. Wouldn’t you say it was high time men in literature were portrayed in stereotypical ways? Aren’t you sick of male authors being termed ‘brilliant’ despite their paper-doll female characters? Don’t you think, Tiffany’s Cousin, it’s high time the combat boot was on the other foot?”

  “Yes, actually I do think so, as long as the theme of the difficulties women face in a male-dominated society isn’t so overstated that the reader suspects the author’s agenda is to reinforce her own hatred of men.”

  Tiffany started coughing wildly and waving her hand. When Ms. Nesbitt called on her, Tiffany wheezed that she had to get a drink of water. She threw her chair back so violently it slammed my desk into my stomach, then she left the room.

  “Let’s get some male perspectives on this, shall we?” The teacher paced in front of the blackboard. “Roberto. Do you think the men in these two books are accurate representatives of your sex?”

  Roberto, a pimply-faced boy across the room from me, straightened. “I, uh, guess so.”

  “You guess so? So then you realize that men are basically aggressive egomaniacs.”

  He shrank down in his chair, his cheeks reddening. “Some of us are. But only because we have to be to get ahead.”

  Ms. Nesbitt stopped pacing, smiled, crossed her arms, and rocked on her heels. “Aha. The fault lies in our society. So who makes the rules of society?” She waited a moment for Roberto to answer, then looked out at the faces. “Madison, are you ready to join us now in a serious discussion?”

  While Tiffany quietly reentered the room, Madison nodded and answered that parents pass on social rules to their children. That led to one of the livelier debates I’d heard in some time, as Ms. Nesbitt engaged the class in a discussion of how and when society changes and what the individual’s role is, especially with respect to the “war between the sexes.” Realizing belatedly that I was incapable of taking part in a debate while pretending to be an inarticulate youth, I managed to remain silent and spare Tiffany from another coughing fit.

  Ms. Nesbitt had a tendency to cut off the boys and dismiss their comments. It occurred to me that she could harbor enough feminist anger to be a member of a militant women’s group such as STOP. Yet surely, as a literature lover, she would be an adamant free-speech proponent.

  This begged the question: Would she belong to an anti-pornography group? When the bell rang, I raised my hand. She nodded at me.

  I ignored the noisy intake of breath from Tiffany and asked, “What effect, if any, do you think pornography has on our society, Ms. Nesbitt?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Pornography is perhaps the major reinforcement to men who think of women as sex objects. As long as we continue to promote pornography in this country, women will never achieve equality. Class dismissed.”

  I rose and headed toward the door, but paused by Ms. Nesbitt’s desk. I needed to find out if she could have left the building Monday morning when Preston was shot.

  “Ms. Nesbitt? Could I sit in on another of your classes during third period?”

  “No. That’s my free period.” She turned and erased her scribbling on the blackboard.

  We filed out into the hallway, my thoughts going a mile a minute as I considered the possibility that Ms. Nesbitt was Preston’s killer. Tiffany yanked me by the shirt into a deserted doorway. Wagging a finger in my face, she said under her breath, “If that was the best you can do at pretending to be a teen, I’m sideways! You got that?”

  “Well, actually, no,” I whispered back. “What does sideways mean?”

  “It means, ‘I’m outta here, you lamen!”

  Chapter 7

  Toss Chow, Shoot the Gift, and Totally Sideways

  I sat through a second-period biology class in which I learned precisely two things: The man teaching it h
ad lovely blue eyes, and, some twenty years later, I still didn’t know or care what an enzyme was.

  I had high hopes for third period, though. This was the time slot in which Cherokee, Dave, and Jose had escaped the building on Monday. Giving the excuse that I was having a hard enough time learning teen-speak, I deserted Tiffany to her Spanish class and went looking for Cherokee.

  I found him in “study hall,” an enormous room that sat some two hundred students, possibly twelve of whom were actually studying. The monitor, who was wearing earplugs and had his nose buried in a paperback, didn’t even notice me.

  I strolled up to Cherokee’s desk and explained I’d recognized him from Tiffany’s description and was her Colorado cousin, which he seemed to believe. The only description she’d ever really given of him to me was “(Sigh) He’s just too studly.” Actually, he was a bit blobby around the waist and pimply around the chin, but otherwise reasonably good looking: tall with lots of curly brown hair.

  He gestured at me to pull up a chair. The two boys on either side were watching me with interest, and to my delight, Cherokee introduced me to Dave and Jose, the two boys, I assumed, he’d cut class with when Preston was killed.

  Except for his muscular upper body, Dave was a nondescript sort; his sandy-colored hair was cut short but for one tress that hung down his neck like a rat’s tail. Jose was wiry and dark skinned, wearing those ridiculous billowing shorts in which the crotch was halfway down his skinny thighs. If his parents were to have insisted he dress like this, he could have charged them with abuse. His straight, black hair was closely cropped along his neck; the top was long and hung into his face. He was practically panting as he ran his eyes over me. Hooking up with someone half one’s age is supposedly a popular middle-aged woman’s fantasy, but it was decidedly unappealing from where I sitting—namely among three teenaged boys. Frankly, they weren’t that great looking. With such silly hairstyles and clothing, what was left for future teenagers, such as Karen and Nathan, to do to their appearances when they wanted to shock their elders? Seed their scalps with lawn turf?

  “How’s Tiffany doing?” Cherokee asked me. “I haven’t talked to her since the funeral. Did she say anything about me?”

  “Be a mensch,” Dave said, swatting Cherokee in the arm. “You gotta get over her, man.” He leaned around Cherokee and said to me, “You’re her cousin and all. So you probably want to be loyal. But like, Roke here is three years older than her.”

  I made an appreciative whistle at the spectacular concept of three entire years.

  “How old are you,” Jose asked, leaning closer to me.

  “Twenty,” I said, half expecting him to guffaw. Instead his eyes lit up. That is, the portion of his eyes that was still visible behind all that hair lit up.

  “Yeah? I’m gonna be twenty in a couple months.”

  “Yeah, right, “Dave interjected “Make that in fifteen months.”

  Undaunted, Jose continued. “How long you gonna be here?”

  “I’m leaving tomorrow.”

  “Better move fast, Jose,” Dave said with a laugh. Then he settled back into his seat and said to Cherokee, “Did ya hear? Falmont got taken to the curb.”

  “By that skinz he was with last month?” Cherokee asked.

  “Now he’s sprung on Lisa. Galloway caught ‘em mackin’ it in his hoopty last night.”

  “No way.”

  “Yes way.”

  I felt like screaming, “Which way?” I’d have a better chance of understanding Tiffany’s Spanish lesson. I needed to change subjects before they dragged me into this unintelligible one. “Any of you know where I can get hold of a gun?” I blurted out.

  All three heads turned toward me. I grinned sheepishly. “I need it for, like, self-defense.”

  “Sorry, dudette,” Dave said with a chuckle. “This ain’t the gun club.”

  Cherokee, too, laughed. “Yeah. None of us bear arms or arm bears.”

  “But I’ll show you my bare arm, if you’re interested.”

  Dave pulled up his sleeve and flexed for me. He was apparently all too aware that his muscular arms were his best feature.

  “How about you, Jose? Do you know where I could get a gun?”

  “Maybe, but—” He stopped and stared at a spot past my shoulder. I turned and watched Tiffany rapidly head toward us, looking as if she intended to strangle me on the spot.

  “Hey, Tiff,” Jose called to her. “It’s been a grip. Sorry ‘bout your Pop duke.”

  Her eyes met Cherokee’s. The electricity between them was palpable. It was appalling to me that these two children had already “gone all the way.” And what, pray tell, was that called nowadays? Bahugen badoinking, maybe.

  Cherokee grabbed her hand, but she quickly pulled away and focused on me. “Molly. You have to come with me now. Aunt Mary’s waiting for you in the office.”

  I went along with her ruse and left. En route to her Spanish class, we agreed that I would not speak to Cherokee without her being present. In exchange, she would arrange for me to talk to Madison, Cherokee, Dave, and Jose during lunchtime, in an hour.

  At the start of lunch recess, Madison, Jose, and Cherokee were leaning against a van outside the cafeteria as Tiffany and I approached. Cherokee’s eyes lit up as he watched Tiffany, and he greeted her with a hug. Once again she pulled away quickly, and the disappointment was written all over his face. In the meantime, Jose was undressing me with his eyes. If he only knew.

  Dave sauntered toward us and gave Jose a friendly jab on the shoulder. “Got any dead presidents? It’s dunkers at the caff. I want to bus one, get some grubbin’ and, like, grind, but I’m clean out of bank.”

  “Think it ain’t.” Jose pulled out his wallet and opened it. “I got two Jacksons. Tell ya what. Let’s all bus.”

  “Beauteous maximus, dude,” Dave replied with a big grin.

  Then the group agreed that whatever had just occurred was, indeed, “beauteous maximus,” and they headed toward the exit.

  “What do you say, Moll?” Jose asked. “Want to?”

  Want to what? “Uh, sure. Why not?”

  The dudettes—Madison, Tiffany, and I—were led by the dudes—Cherokee, Dave, and Jose—to a rusty Ford Galaxy. Jose unlocked it. As luck would have it, I got positioned in the middle front between Jose and Dave. Jose used the excuse of the tight quarters to put his arm around me while he drove. This made me more than a little nervous. Young male drivers have a hard enough time steering with two hands, let alone one. Not to mention the possibility of his resting his arm on some stray lump of cellulite.

  Jose smiled at me. So much hair was in his face only his left eye was showing. I had to bite my tongue to keep myself from saying: For heaven’s sake, comb your hair out of your eyes so you can see well enough to drive!

  “How ‘bout gettin’ on some phat flavor, Molly?” he asked as we left the parking lot.

  Fat flavor? Was he asking me if I wanted to stop for ice cream? “Thanks, but I’m on a diet.”

  Dave laughed heartily, but Jose merely looked confused. “I meant music.” He gestured at a plastic box by my feet. “Pop in a CD.”

  “Sorry. Where I’m from we call CDs … spoolers.”

  “So,” Madison called from the backseat. “Where’s your dibs, Molly?”

  “Colorado,” Tiffany answered on my behalf.

  Okay. So “dibs” had something to do with where I was from. But did it mean my friends? Family? School? Or had I misheard and the word was ‘digs?’

  “Yeah, um. Boulder. That’s where I go to college, at CU.” I fumbled through the music collection, none of which I recognized, and popped in a CD at random, hoping it wouldn’t be choir music. To my relief, it sounded horrible.

  In the meantime, Tiffany engaged Madison in some noisy, mindless chatter aimed at blocking me from potential conversations. We pulled into the parking lot of McDonald’s. When we reached the counter, I learned that Jose intended to treat all of us to lunch. He was somewhat offende
d when I insisted on splitting the cost with him.

  We found a table for six, and I promptly asked everyone how they liked school, intending to work the conversation around to what happened when they cut study hall last Monday. I was answered with shrugs and grunts, along with Tiffany flicking at the corner of her eye.

  “We’d better toss chow,” Tiffany then said anxiously.

  “We’ve got time to shoot the gift,” Jose replied.

  “Thank goodness,” I muttered.

  Tiffany shot me a withering look and again rubbed at the corner of her eye.

  Jose put a hand on my shoulder. “So, I hear Boulder’s the bomb, dudette.”

  “Absolutely,” I agreed.

  “Sweet hookup for you, huh? Can you show me the sights if I get up there sometime?”

  He was either asking to visit or making a sexual advance. I opted for a noncommittal shrug and, “No problem.”

  “Awesome.” Jose grinned at me. “So shake me up on Boulder.”

  At last! A phrase I knew. “You want the four-one-one, huh?”

  “Yeah. Put it on the set. Do you, like, board?”

  All eyes were on me. Board. Was he asking if I liked to go downhill on a snowboard? Or if I was bored? Or was it a euphemism for something illicit?

  Oh, what the heck. Time to wing it. If I couldn’t understand them, my safest bet was to make darn sure they couldn’t understand. me, either, “I gotta give you the Abe’s, dude. Compared to Boulder, Carlton is bogus behoochies. You’ve got nothing but poodunks here. Out there, it’s pure razinoids. And, of course, the boarding is glacier cataracts. You jet down those verts through powder that’s like, pure snazz. We’re talking alts to the minks! Not to mention the rays. When you’re doing the ‘tude anyway, you’ve got to slice some beaners for breakfast and honk it for the plumers, or you—”