MATT: Really not cool, Faith. Can you just please respond so I know you’re not dead?
CHES: Okay, we’re leaving. Call us if you’re stranded. Matt’s pissed, but he’d turn around if he has to.
CHES: TBH, my feelings are kind of hurt too.
MATT: Whatever, Faith. Have fun with your new famous friends.
Oh man, I feel awful. I fire off a quick group text to both of them. I’m sorry!! I type. I’m alive. Will call you both later. Love you.
This still doesn’t solve the problem currently sitting in my lap. As if on cue, Swan Belle begins to snore. I can’t just leave her here.
Careful not to jostle her too much, I rest Swan’s head on the rooftop and head back inside and downstairs. It takes me a moment, but I find Dakota hovering outside the VIP ropes.
“Faith!” she shouts. “What happened to you? I’ve had Nigel looking all over for you.”
“I’m sorry,” I gush. “I thought I saw someone I knew and then I had to get some fresh air.” I lean in closer so that only she can hear. “I didn’t want to make a scene, but I think that Swan Belle might have gotten a little too inebriated and passed out on the rooftop. Looks like she took a pretty serious tumble.”
Dakota shakes her head. “She’s going to get hurt one day.” She takes a few steps back, and Nigel leans over as she relays the news. I watch as a chain of people pass the news all the way to Margaret Toliver, who sits by herself in an ornate armchair. She wears a crisp white suit with a silk blouse underneath, and her dark purple lipstick is almost black in this light. She might be the coolest person I’ve ever seen in my entire life.
Margaret whispers something to the woman who’s just shared the news with her, and soon a quiet flurry of security guards and publicists are on the move.
Dakota turns to me. “Thanks for being so discreet. Margaret will appreciate it too. For more reasons than one,” she says, practically confirming the rumors about MarTo and Raymond Belle, or as the paparazzi call them, MarMond.
“I’ve got to get home,” I tell her.
“Let me take you,” she says. “Nigel says your friends left you.” She doesn’t bother hiding the distaste in her voice.
I guess, yeah, when I think about it, it was sort of crummy of them to just leave and not even wait for a response. I hadn’t disappeared for that long. “This is your party,” I shout over the music. “You can’t leave.”
“At least let me get you in a car. The whole production staff has a black car service on hand for the night. Come on. I’ll walk you out.”
Dakota says something to Nigel, and he leads us out the back into an alleyway, where a sleek black car is waiting for me.
All manners, Dakota opens the door for me while Nigel stands watch. “You’ll text me when you get home?” she asks.
The driver, a round older man with a dust-colored beard, turns down the smooth crooning music on the stereo. “Where to, Ms. Herbert?” he asks as the door shuts behind me.
I give him my address and spend the whole drive trying to wrap my head around everything that happened tonight. What happens when Swan wakes up? What if she wasn’t as wasted as I’d hoped? I’ve got to do something about Matt and Ches. And Peter Stanchek. I’d recognize him anywhere.
When I get home that night, Grandma Lou is asleep in her recliner with a half-eaten melted bowl of ice cream beside her. I can’t help but chuckle. She’ll be annoyed to have wasted the ice cream.
On the TV is the ten o’clock news rerun.
“The authorities are reporting an alarming string of missing persons cases from the suburban community of Glenwood. Officials say the only definitive link between the cases is that the missing are all part of Glenwood’s homeless community. Officials also admit that it’s hard to say when the disappearances began, since there are few ways to track the activities of those who have gone missing. Most recent among them is Horace Freemont, whose family is speaking out.”
The screen splits in two. One half shows a reporter in the studio, and the other half is on a dark street, with another reporter standing next to a well-kept-looking man in a black down jacket and a green polo tucked into khaki pants.
“Ken Thurgood here with Horace Freemont’s son, Bruce Freemont.” He turns to the man, white air puffing between them. “Bruce, what would you like to tell the people out there?”
“My, uh, my father has been missing for two weeks. My sister, Virginia, brings him food and toiletries every once in a while. She usually finds him down under the Cooper Street bridge with the, uh, other homeless population.” He takes a deep breath and then looks directly into the camera. “I . . . we just want to know he’s safe, wherever he is. If you know anything about him or any other missing homeless people in Glenwood, please call the police hotline.”
Ken points to where the bottom of the screen would be. “You can find that number below, folks. See something—anything—call the number. No detail is too small. Isn’t that right, Nadia?”
The woman in the studio nods as her image retakes the whole screen. “Awful stuff, Ken. Just awful. Let’s get those folks home. Or—” Her voice falters as she realizes what she’s just said. “Back. Let’s get those folks back.”
I turn the TV off as she closes out the show, still tripping over her words, and wake Grandma Lou.
She’s startled at first and then looks immediately to her melted ice cream and balls her hand into a fist. “Well, damn.”
“Come on,” I say. “I could use some ice cream too.”
We sit at the kitchen table as she recounts some neighborhood drama Miss Ella has gotten herself embroiled in, and I give her a very brief recap of the party.
Sometimes I wish my world could stay this small. Just me and Grandma Lou and some midnight ice cream.
12
The most I’ve gotten out of Ches or Matt was a K from Matt and a glad you’re okay from Ches, but since Saturday night my texts and calls have gone unanswered. I write every possible worst-case scenario in my head, and all of them end with a friendless senior year.
On Monday morning, Grandma Lou gets up to take me to school—something she hasn’t done since Matt got a driver’s license. I offer to drive us there so we can stop at the doughnut shop for apple fritters and coffee. I walk out to the driveway, ahead of Grandma Lou, and chuck my backpack into the back seat, when a car honks from the street.
Matt rolls his window down and dangles a carton of chocolate milk. “Going somewhere?” he asks.
“I didn’t think . . .”
“What?” he asks. “You didn’t think we’d ride to school together like we do every other day because you ditched us at some crazy party?”
I bite my tongue to stop myself from saying that they sort of ditched me too by not waiting just a little longer, but I’m just too overwhelmed with relief at the sight of him and Ches in the passenger seat to point fingers. I’ve got plenty of flaws, but needing the last word isn’t one of them.
“I really am sorry,” I say to both of them.
Ches grins. “Yeah, the sad puppy GIFs got me good.”
Matt sighs. “And Ches might have helped me realize that my temper got the best of me.”