“Well done, Cal,” he said. “I hope you’re as proud as we are.” And I was.
A wave of something almost like homesickness washes over me, so strong that my knees feel weak and I have to lean against the wall for support. It hits me, suddenly, that I wasn’t just feeling nostalgic for middle school in the parking lot this morning. I was nostalgic for this—the Before Lara version of Cal—because that’s the last time I can remember liking myself.
Noemi could’ve put it more gently, maybe, but she was right. I’m a shell.
My phone rings, startling both Ivy and me. I answer in a panic to stop the noise, and barely register that it’s Wes before holding it to my ear. “Hey, Dad.”
“Cal?” His voice is tight and worried. “Are you all right?”
“Sure,” I say quietly. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because of that podcast about you,” another familiar voice says, and my heart sinks. Oh God, my dads are conference calling me. This can’t be good.
“It wasn’t a podcast, Henry. Those are audio only.” I squeeze my eyes shut as Wes continues, “Cal, one of my students forwarded a YouTube video recorded by two of your classmates, talking about Brian Mahoney’s death. There was some very unfortunate speculation about your old friend Ivy, but also…they said you were absent today?”
All of a sudden, Mateo’s deny everything strategy doesn’t look so bad. But even without knowing what Ishaan and Zack said about me on Carlton Speaks, I’m positive that won’t work with my parents. “Um, yeah. I was sick. Am sick.”
“Well, then why on earth…” The confused hurt in Wes’s voice makes me feel about an inch tall. “Why didn’t you tell me that when we spoke earlier?”
“I didn’t want to worry you.” I open my eyes and instantly feel worse. There’s something uniquely terrible about having this conversation in Lara’s classroom.
Henry breaks in. “Cal, I don’t understand why we found out about your absence through a pod—pardon me, through an online video. Neither of us called to excuse you, so why didn’t the school call us?”
Sweat starts to bead on my forehead. “Maybe they forgot.”
Ivy is glaring at me; I’m making too much noise. I’m also about to get a bunch more questions I can’t answer, so I quickly add, “I need to throw up. I’ll call you back.” Then I hang up and silence my phone. “I’m as screwed as you are,” I tell Ivy.
“I highly doubt that.” She’s circling the room, eyes roving. “Where’s the Dominick Payne painting?” I’m not recovered enough to answer her, but she spots it on the wall behind Lara’s desk before she’s taken another step. “Aha,” Ivy says, approaching it.
The painting is an abstract cityscape with bold lines and vibrant colors, and I hate the fact that I kind of like it. I’d even complimented it to Lara, though I’d never examined it closely enough to register what the signature looked like. But now that I’m barely a few feet away, I can see a scrawl of black on the bottom. And—
“They’re nothing alike,” Ivy says.
She’s holding the D card up against the painting, and she’s right. The Let’s make it happen note is written in cramped, loopy handwriting, while Dominick Payne’s signature is all tall, slashing letters. The D on the card doesn’t even look like it’s the same letter as the one in Dominick’s signature.
“Huh. How anticlimactic,” I offer. I’m more relieved than disappointed because I don’t care, suddenly, who D is. It doesn’t matter. Well, it matters to whatever case Ivy’s trying to build, I guess, but not to me.
“Yeah,” Ivy says. She looks lost as she stuffs the note back into her bag, and I realize she was counting on this: some kind of breakthrough to distract her from what happened in the car with Mateo. “I guess we can still look around,” she says, stepping behind Lara’s desk and opening the top drawer. Her heart doesn’t seem in it, though.
I gaze out the window at the darkening sky. It’s getting close to dinnertime, and even the late commuters will be crowding the roads soon—including my parents, who are probably worried sick after that last call. They have no idea how much worse it’s going to get, and I need to figure out how to tell them. Not just about today, but about everything.
“Ivy, let’s go, okay? Grab some coffee or something,” I say. There are still things I need to tell her, even though it’s probably too late for them to make a difference. “Maybe you should drop Lara’s day planner here. Let her think she left it in her office. You’re going to have enough to explain soon without having to explain that, too.”