Now Paige leans out the window of a dented blue car. “Desdemona! Are you ready for an adventure?”
“No?” Des says, hesitating on her front porch. Honestly, she doesn’t like adventures. She has tested Hufflepuff in every Hogwarts sorting quiz she’s ever taken. She doesn’t like surprises either. Em tried to throw her a surprise sixteenth birthday party, but she got so stressed about the mysterious surprise and whether she would react appropriately that Em gave in and told her about it three days before her actual birthday.
Paige opens the door and scoots over to make room. “Get in the car.”
Des slides in. Dylan’s friend Ty is driving.
“You know Ty, right?” Paige says, as though she’s the one who’s been living in Remington Hollow her whole life. Of course Des knows Ty. They were in the same grade, and they had a U.S. history class together junior year and some other classes before that. Earth science in eighth grade. Wood shop in seventh. “And, Ty, you know Desdemona?”
“Desdemo—? Yeah,” Ty says, glancing at her in the rearview mirror.
“Doesn’t she look amazing?” Paige strokes Des’s blue curls. “I love the blue.”
“She looks different,” Ty says.
Des can’t tell whether he thinks that’s a good or bad thing. She isn’t sure she cares.
“Next week, I think we should get tattoos,” Paige says.
“Like…permanent tattoos?” Des asks.
Paige cackles. “Yes. Come on. Tell me there’s not some quote from a book you’re dying to get engraved on your skin forever, you nerd!”
Des hides a smile. There is, but she’s never been brave enough.
“I knew it!” Paige says triumphantly. “You need me around, Desdemona.”
“I think maybe I kind of do,” Des admits.
They park on a quiet, tree-lined street behind the Episcopal church and the library, which—like almost everything else in Remington Hollow—closed three hours ago. Paige pulls out a glass pipe, packs the bowl, and then lights it. She smokes and passes it to Dylan. After his turn, Dylan passes it to Ty, who hesitates and looks at Des.
Des looks up and down the shadowy, tree-lined street. This seems like a bad idea but—
“Okay,” she says quietly, accepting the bowl.
They pass it around the car until they’re all giddy. When Paige pronounces it kicked, Dylan throws his door open. “All right, let’s do this.”
“Do what?” Des asks. No one answers her. They’re cutting through the church’s back garden, not through the parking lot or down the sidewalk. “Seriously, guys. What are we doing?”
Dylan points. “We’re going up there.”
Des tilts her head back and looks at the clock tower, five stories above them. She gets a little dizzy and stumbles.
Ty puts a hand on her arm. “You okay?”
Des pulls away. “I’m good.”
“You’re so good.” Paige wraps an arm around her and pulls her away from the boys. “I told Dylan to bring Ty for you. What do you think?”
Des looks at Ty, who’s leaning against the red brick wall of the church. She looks at his blue polo shirt, his khaki shorts, his ugly boat shoes, his shaggy brown hair. She has never understood why he and Dylan are friends. Dylan works on his parents’ farm but, she thinks, reluctantly; he only ever seems interested in comic books and skateboarding. Ty is a preppy rich kid who played tennis and goes to college for free because his dad is a professor.
Maybe it’s as simple as Dylan and Ty both like getting stoned. Still, she isn’t sure what Paige thinks she and Ty would have in common.
“What do you think?” Paige asks again. “Is he cute?”
Des shrugs. He is cute, but she doesn’t have any desire to grab his belt loop and pull him close and kiss him, like Paige just did to Dylan, or thread her fingers through his. She isn’t attracted to him like that.
Paige laughs. “I mean, he’s not as cute as Dylan, but…”
Obviously, Paige finds Dylan, with his shoulder-length corn-silk hair and skinny jeans and that vintage Grateful Dead T-shirt, irresistible. And he is pretty, with delicate, almost elfin features and green eyes. Like the slacker version of Orlando Bloom in The Lord of the Rings movies. But Des doesn’t want to kiss him either. She doesn’t want to kiss anybody.
Paige squints at her. “Desdemona, have you ever had a boyfriend?”
Des shakes her head. She isn’t embarrassed about it.
“Are you a virgin?” Paige asks. Des nods. “Oh my God. Okay. Well. You can do better than this kid. We’ll find somebody better.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Des says. “I mean—I don’t want you to do that.”
Paige looks at her for a minute, and then she nods. “Okay. You’re the boss.”
Dylan and Ty are at the back door of the church. “Wait, are you serious?” Des demands, charging toward them. “Oh my God, we’re going to get arrested!”
“We are not going to get arrested,” Paige says.
“We are. We’re going to get arrested for breaking and entering, and our grandmas are going to have to come bail us out of jail.” For some reason, that is suddenly hilarious. Des doesn’t even know where the town jail is. Is there a town jail? There are town cops, right? And county sheriffs. And state troopers. And…park rangers? Are there any park rangers in Remington Hollow?
“We’re not going to get arrested.” Dylan holds up a little brass key. “We’re not breaking in. My brother gave me the key. He and his friends used to smoke in the cupola all the time. It’s no big deal.”
Des cocks her head. “It’s a church. It’s Father Daniel’s church. We can’t smoke weed in his church without his permission. We’re gonna go to hell.”
“Hell is other people,” Paige says. “Someone famous said that, right?”
“Sartre,” Des supplies. “It’s from his play No Exit.”
Paige hugs her. “Aw, you’re such a little nerd.”
“Kat read that play last summer and wouldn’t shut up about it,” Des explains. But it’s nice to be the smart one for a change. Usually, that’s Bea.
Thinking about her sisters makes Des feel weird and guilty. She is not being a good big sister. She is not setting a good example. Smoking weed and then breaking into the clock tower—entering the clock tower without permission—is not behavior she would want them to emulate.