***
We stayed in the cafeteria for lunch. It felt like we were in a bubble, the silence surrounding us palpable, but it was just too damn cold to go outside.
“How’s it going?” Sarah asked Nat after we, too, had sat in silence for a while. “You hanging in?”
Nat nodded. “It’s exhausting, honestly,” she said. “I can see everyone thinking about it and no one talking about it. Like they’re afraid I’ll break if they bring it up, even though watching them think about it is worse.”
We nodded, none of us sure how to handle her either, and we were her closest friends.
“You don’t remember anything at all, Nat?” Trip asked softly. “Other than . . . you know, what you told us before? You didn’t hear anyone come in?”
Her jaw tightened, and I thought Trip had been wrong to ask that. She shook her head. “No.” Her voice was hoarse.
“Do you know who usually came by?” he pressed.
Natalie looked up. “You mean who his customers were?” He nodded. “Not all of them.” Her eyes darted away from us, taking in some of the nearby tables, filled with our classmates. “But you’d be surprised who I’ve seen at the house.”
I definitely would be, I thought. Nat never talked about it, but I’d sensed it a couple times, the weird dynamic between Nat and people she’d never cross paths with otherwise. Kids like Moose gave her an extra wide berth, treating her a little differently from how he treated the rest of us. Not like they were friends or co-conspirators but like she had them by the balls. Which she did.
“Do they know?” Trip asked.
“Some do,” Nat said cryptically. “Some probably don’t.”
“Did you tell the cops?”
“Of course.”
He hesitated a second, then asked, “Did you ever see Galen Riddock?”
“Yes.”
“How about that night?”
She stared at him. “Why?”
Trip hesitated. “I don’t know,” he said. “Just . . . he was asking. About stuff. At John Peters’s party. I just wondered if he . . . you know, followed up on it.”
***
But of course there was more. Trip called me around five thirty. I was in my room doing homework, and he’d just finished practice. I could hear him breathing hard, imagined him crossing the lot to his car.
“I’ve been hearing things,” he said.
“Maybe you should see a doctor.”
“Not that,” Trip said. “I like the voices in my head. This stuff is about Nat’s dad. And that night.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“I’ll tell you when I get there.”
Great. Like I could concentrate on physics now. And I’d already finished all my mindless homework.
I gazed at the textbook for another five minutes or so, but after reading the same paragraph for the third nonsensical time, I gave up, tossing it onto the floor beside my bed.
It was quiet in the house with my mom asleep. I could hear the hum of the boiler, the tick of the clock in the living room.
I thought of the binoculars in my drawer, where they’d been since the night we’d gone back to the cave. I hadn’t wanted them here but definitely hadn’t wanted to leave them there, either. And no one else would take them. Not that I could have let them anyhow. Now I got the strongest urge to take them out, remembering Nat’s words: It was exactly what I saw.
What would I see if I looked again?
I had my hand on the knob of my top dresser drawer when the SAT postcard caught my eye. FINAL REMINDER.
I picked it up instead, turned it over absently. Seventy-three dollars. It would have been forty-three a month ago, but this was a final warning, rush reminder. The only time they were offered locally. My last chance. I knew without looking that we didn’t have the money, couldn’t remember the last time we’d had that much to spare.
But you couldn’t get into college without taking them. How could that be my future if I didn’t take the test?
Maybe I was wrong about the money. Maybe I could somehow squeeze out enough.
I took the postcard to the living room, searched out the checkbook and the overdue bills to be paid this week. Then I called the bank. My paycheck was in, bringing our available funds to $133.12.
It was enough for the SATs or the bills. But not both.
So unfair.
I studied the payment slips, wishing they would morph into different dates or amounts. They aren’t that overdue, I thought. There are grace periods. Payment plans.
I walked up to my room, dug through the stack of papers beside my bed, and finally spotted the one I wanted. I’d gotten the SAT registration forms from the guidance counselor a few months back when I’d planned to sign up.
Before I could second-guess myself, I wrote it all out. The registration, the check. I put the stamp on the envelope just as Trip beeped outside.
CHAPTER 14
I SLID INTO THE PASSENGER seat, still holding the envelope.
Trip glanced at it. “Need to drop that off?”
“Yeah.”
“Writing to Justin Bieber again?”
“Something like that.” Trip pulled away from the curb, turning toward town, and I asked, “Where are we going?”
“To see Galen Riddock.”
I wasn’t surprised. I’d suspected Trip’s questions at lunch hadn’t been random. “What’s the deal?”
“Remember at the Dash party when he was looking to score something?” I nodded, and Trip continued, “One of the guys told me he did. Late night.”
I whistled, low. “So he’d have been the last person to see Nat’s dad alive.”
“Maybe the very last,” Trip said grimly. “He was drinking when we saw him. I could smell it. And he’s kind of an ass**le when he’s drunk.”
“And when he’s sober.”
Trip pulled over by the post office. I hopped out, hesitating only a second before tossing the envelope into the black slot. No turning back. I climbed into the car, asking, “Do the cops know?”
“I don’t think so.”
“So tell me again what we’re doing?”
“We’re going to go ask him about it.”
I stared, incredulous. “And you think he’s just going to tell us?”
“I don’t know,” Trip said. “I guess I thought we’d just . . . figure something out from how he reacts.”
“Maybe,” I said doubtfully. “But I think you’ll do better on your own. Galen and I aren’t exactly pals.”