When Rose had first walked into the classroom at the beginning of the period, Mr. Warren had been there, talking quietly with Mr. Shaw. The guidance counselor’s brow had been furrowed, like their conversation was a matter of life and death. If only he knew what he should really be worried about.
It felt a little ridiculous to be sitting in study hall right now knowing that unless she and Justin solved a mystery that hadn’t even happened yet, Mr. Warren would be dead by the end of the week.
Rose was jolted out of her fog by a note sliding onto her desk. You okay?
She turned to see Lisa peering at her concernedly over her calculus textbook and gave a small smile. Just a lot on my mind, she jotted underneath Lisa’s handwriting before passing the note back.
Lisa’s eyes darted to the door; then she looked at Rose with raised eyebrows, her question clear. Want to get out of here?
Rose nodded, and Lisa’s hand shot up. “Mr. Shaw, may Rose and I please go to the library?”
He grunted his assent, and a minute later, they were both out the door, each clutching a bright-pink hall pass.
“What’s going on with you?” Lisa whispered once they were in the hallway.
Rose sighed. As much as she yearned to talk about it, there was nothing she could safely say without sounding insane. “Nothing,” she said.
“Uh-uh,” Lisa said, shaking her head, sending her painted green earrings swinging. “Something is up. You have some guy show up out of the blue, that no one has ever heard of, who you’ve apparently been writing letters to for long enough that he decided to come visit you?”
“He just had some free time, that’s all.”
“Why would you keep a pen pal a secret?” Lisa pressed. “Why haven’t I ever seen any of his letters? Have you been hiding them? It’s just the two of us now. You can tell me if something’s going on. I promise I won’t tell anyone else.”
“Nothing’s going on,” Rose insisted. “Maybe you just didn’t notice. You’ve been really busy lately.”
Lisa paused in the door of the library, frowning slightly. “You still could’ve told me.”
Rose shrugged. “I just didn’t think it was that big a deal.” She knew it was a little mean to imply that it was Lisa’s fault she didn’t know about Justin, when the reality was that neither had Rose until a few days ago. But she couldn’t help it. Sure, Lisa couldn’t have known about Justin, but there were plenty of other things she’d missed.
After showing their passes to the librarian, they picked a table in the back corner of the library, dropping their stacks of books onto it between them. Lisa leaned forward, folding her hands on the table. “So tell me about him. How did you guys become pen pals? What did you talk about in your letters?”
Rose bit her lip. She really didn’t want to dig deeper into her lie. She knew the truth wasn’t an option, but the idea of concocting a whole complex history that didn’t exist created an uncomfortable pit in her stomach. Was there anything she could be honest about?
“We talk about fate,” she said finally, hoping Lisa wouldn’t press her on the question of how they’d met. “You know, like whether there is a purpose for everything.”
“Oh.” Lisa blinked, tilting her head in thought. After a moment, she said, “I believe in fate.”
“You do?” That was surprising. Of course, Lisa attended church along with the rest of their family, but she’d never given Rose the impression that she bought into any of it.
“I mean, I want to, anyway,” Lisa said. “It would be nice to believe there’s a reason why things are the way they are. That it’s not all just pointless and cruel.”
Rose smiled. “You sound like him.”
“Yeah? Maybe we should hang out sometime.”
“No,” Rose said quickly. She winced at Lisa’s hurt expression. “I mean, you’re just always so busy,” she amended. “And he’s not going to be here that long.” I hope, she added to herself.
Part of her wanted to introduce Justin to her friends. He seemed so lonely, and she didn’t think he had many friends at home. Maybe he’d fit in better here than he did in his time.
But that would create a whole pile of problems on top of the ones they already had. Justin barely knew anything about the time he was living in and was constantly mentioning things that didn’t even exist yet. The more people he interacted with, the more likely someone was to notice something about him that didn’t add up.
Plus, there was a little part of her that selfishly wanted to keep him for herself. Right now, she was the most important person in his world. She’d never been that before, to anyone, and she wanted to hold on to it as long as possible.
“I’m actually . . . not that busy right now,” Lisa said, studying her hands.
Rose raised an eyebrow. “Lisa, you practically live at Charlene’s.”
“No, I don’t,” Lisa said. “If you’d been around this week, maybe you’d have noticed.”
“If I’d been around?” That was rich. “You’re the one who’s never around.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lisa snapped. Her lower lip trembled slightly and her hands balled into tight fists on the table, causing Rose to wonder if something could be wrong.
“Lisa,” Rose ventured, “is everything okay?”
Lisa was quiet for a long moment, then pushed her chair back, standing abruptly. “You know, I actually just remembered,” she said, a little too loudly, “I have a question for Mrs. Thompson, so I should probably get to Calc a few minutes early.” She scooped her books into her arms. “I’ll see you later.”
“Oh,” Rose said, deflating. Had Lisa even heard her question? “What do you need to ask her about?”
“Um, you know, the current lesson,” Lisa said hurriedly, pushing in her chair. “I don’t really get it.”
“Really?” Rose was surprised to hear Lisa was struggling with math, since that was one of her best subjects. “What part? I could—”
“Oh, you know,” Lisa said, waving the question away without answering. “See you later!”
“Wait—” Rose started to say, but realized it was no use. Lisa was already gone.
Chapter Thirty-Four
VERONICA
“Diane.” Veronica hurried over to the front desk of the library, taking advantage of the brief lull between patrons. She’d been waiting for an opportunity to talk to Diane all morning, but between books needing to be shelved and people asking to use the copier and a slight cataloging disaster in the microfiche section, her first chance didn’t arrive until after lunch.
Before running Diane’s campaign, Veronica had never considered how difficult it was to run for public office while also holding down a full-time job. No wonder most people didn’t want to do it. Must be nice to be rich like Franklin Gibson, who was able to devote himself to his campaign full time while his employees ran his car dealership. “I need to talk to you for a minute.”
“I know, I know,” Diane said, slipping her reading glasses off her nose as Veronica approached. “I talked to Lloyd again and he swears those buttons will be ready by Saturday afternoon, which I realize is cutting it close, but I think—”