What could possibly go wrong?
Chapter 9
I need to stop here to explain something: Jesse Oliver didn’t just live in a loft. He didn’t even live in a brownstone or anything else.
No, Jesse Oliver and his family lived in a house that was on top of a six-story building.
“Someone dropped a house on Jesse’s house,” I told Roux, trying to look up so I could see more of it. Even from six stories down, the house seemed white and massive.
“Oh, yeah, that,” Roux said, then held out her hand toward me. “Want some Brie?”
“I’m good to go on dairy, thanks.” I looked skyward again. “Who lives up there, the Wicked Witch of the West?”
Roux wrinkled her nose at me. “What?”
“You know, when the house dropped from the sky, goes boom on the witch …”
“Are you sure you’re not drunk, too? Anyway, whatever. Jesse lives there.”
“Seriously?”
She hiccupped a little. “Yep.”
“Wow. Okay, then.” I straightened my fedora for the eighty-fifth time, then turned to Roux. “Are you ready?”
“Of course not. Why do you think I got drunk?”
I was about to respond to her when I saw a familiar figure in the bookshop on the ground floor of Jesse’s building. “Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” I muttered, then shoved Roux toward the front door. “Wait for me inside,” I told her. “My phone’s buzzing, I have to answer it.”
“But—”
“I’ll be there in a sec.”
“When did you get so bossy?” I heard her ask just as the door closed behind her.
I mimed taking my phone out of my pocket and answering it, but as soon as Roux was out of sight, I stormed into the bookstore and found Angelo in the rare-edition section of the store. It wasn’t hard to spot him: he was the only man in a ten-block radius wearing a three-piece suit. Everyone else must have thought he was in costume, but I knew that for Angelo, a three-piece suit was casual Friday wear.
“Do you mind?” I asked him.
He turned with a smile on his face and a book in his hand. “Don’t you just adore bookstores?” he asked me. “The smell of old paper and new ideas thrills me every time.”
“That’s great. Are you spying on me?” I asked him. “Really? Have you sunk that low?”
He was trying to hide an even bigger smile, I could tell. “How ironic that you asked me if I’m spying on you.”
I waved to cut him off. “You know what I mean. Come on, Angelo, it’s a party, not an assassination. I can handle this.”
“Your friend appears to be having quite a time already.” Now he wasn’t even hiding his smile.
“Okay, yes, Roux’s three sheets to the wind, but it doesn’t matter. I’ll shove her in a coat closet if I have to. I’m sixteen, I’m going to a party, and I’m going to do my job. It happens.”
Angelo, of course, feigned innocence. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, my love. I was just perusing the first editions—have you read Agatha Christie? Oh, you must, I insist. Intrigue, our favorite thing—when you interrupted my browsing.”
Sometimes Angelo is so calm that it sends my blood pressure through the roof.
“Just … please stay away, okay?” I asked him. “The only people in the house are drunk teenagers and a butler named Jeeves.”
“Really?”
“Possibly. It’s like the kindergarten version of assignments.”
Angelo raised a knowing eyebrow and shrugged. “Let’s come to an agreement. You go to your party, I browse at my leisure?”
“Agreed.” I started to flounce out of the store, but turned around halfway and went back to him. “Hey. Thanks for not listening to my mom and getting me this coat.”
He merely winked and went back to his book.
By the time I caught up with Roux in the lobby of the building, she was more sober … and more impatient. “Sorry, parents,” I said, patting my phone in my pocket. “They get nervous.”
“Gee, how hard your life must be.”
Yes, Roux was definitely sobering up.
There was a private elevator that led directly into the front lobby of the Olivers’ apartment, and when the doors opened up, I almost fell over at the view. Every wall seemed to be made of glass, showing a near 360-degree panorama of the Manhattan skyline outside, and in addition to that, there seemed to be a lot of people in the room as well. It was quite possible that every Manhattan teenager was attending the Halloween party.
“Oh, Christ, everyone’s here,” Roux said under her breath, and I had to lean in to hear her. “Word must have gotten out,” she explained.
I was starting to feel warm, way too warm in my turtleneck, hat, and trench coat. And that was exactly the problem: only a few people were in costume.
Time to reassess.
I took off the hat and immediately crushed it up in my hand, then pulled off my coat and hung it in the front closet because I planned on forgetting it later. I might need an excuse to get back into the Oliver house and coming back for my coat was plausible, and I wasn’t going to leave it crumpled up on a couch so someone could spill beer on it. Burberry plaid, hello.
Roux gave me the eye when she saw my turtleneck and jeans. “I thought you said you weren’t wearing a catsuit,” she said.
“It’s a turtleneck,” I told her. “Totally different animal.”