I found my phone and dialed Angelo’s number, waiting for him to pick up. Four rings later, I heard, “Hello, you’ve reached my mobile. I apologize for not being able to answer at the present time….”
“Damn it,” I said, hanging up. That was Angelo’s “I’m out on a job” message, not his normal away message. I had no idea if he was in Cincinnati or Zaire and even less of an idea about when he’d be returning.
I knew I was right, though. I knew it. Angelo used to always talk about instincts, about following them to see where they led. “People lie,” he said, “but instincts do not.” I knew my instincts were kicking in about Armand killing the story, and it wasn’t just because I liked Jesse, even though that’s what my parents thought.
I started to think about everything that Angelo had told me. Listen. Be beige. Never look back. There is always a choice.
By that night, I had something better than a choice.
I had a friend.
Chapter 27
I came out of my room around six that night, waving my “for civilian use only” cell phone. “Hey,” I said.
“Hey,” my mom said. “Your dad and I were talking and we just think we need to talk about this more. As a family.”
But talking hadn’t gotten me very far. I was ready—very ready—to start doing.
“Can we talk later? Roux just called.”
“Roux,” my dad said. “The ‘idiotic’ Roux?”
He was trying to make me smile, but I wasn’t in the mood. I was still smarting from our argument, from the idea that I might not be what my parents wanted me to be. Would they still love me, or even like me, if I left the Collective?
Was I even allowed to leave?
“Yeah, it was Roux,” I said, ignoring his joke. “She just broke up with this guy she met at the Halloween party. She wants me to come over.”
“Right now? We were going to order Chinese.”
My parents were obviously tiptoeing around me. It was bizarre.
“Can I go see Roux instead? She wants me to spend the night.”
“Spend the night?”
I sighed the longest, most world-weary sigh in the world. “Yes. That’s what girls do. They have sleepovers. Or am I not allowed to do that now?” My lying skills had improved. God knows I had had enough practice.
“What about school?”
“I’ll just go with her tomorrow. Look,” I added when my parents didn’t say anything. “I know I’m not supposed to make friends. But if Roux starts to think that something’s up with our so-called friendship, then she’s going to be a nightmare to deal with and it’s going to mess up everything at school. Trust me, there are serious girl politics going on here. And I told her I’d come over.”
My parents looked at one another. “It can’t hurt,” my dad finally said, just as I knew he would. He was always the pushover. “It’s just one night.”
“Will you get enough sleep? You’ve had a long day and you were out late.” I let my mom come close enough to brush some hair out of my eyes. “You look tired.”
Which is, of course, the least helpful thing to say to someone who’s tired, but I let it go. “I don’t know. It depends on how upset Roux is. She’ll probably cry until about midnight or so.” Roux would have pitched a fit if she could hear how I was describing her. “She’s on hold right now, I told her I’d ask you.”
“Just for tonight,” my mom said. “School tomorrow, you come home, we talk in the afternoon. Deal?”
“Deal,” I said, then turned around and spoke to the nonexistent person on the other end of the phone. “Roux? Yeah, it’s cool. I’ll be there soon…. Okay, okay, bye.”
My mom came into my room as I was finishing up packing. “Honey?”
“What?” I shoved a sweater into my bag, then packed a clean uniform.
“Your dad and I were talking earlier, and we were saying how hard it is to be a spy, but how much harder it is to raise one.” She smiled a little. “We’re learning here.”
“Why don’t you just trust me, then?” I asked. The day suddenly felt a hundred hours long. “Why can’t you just say, ‘Okay, Maggie, we believe in you. Go forth and do your job.’”
“Because when you do this job, it’s hard to not have your judgment clouded, especially on your first solo assignment.”
“And you think Jesse is a cloud.”
“I think …” My mom was choosing her words carefully, I could tell. “I think that you want to protect him from whatever his father might do, even if you don’t realize that.”
She was right.
“You’re wrong,” I said. “I don’t think his dad’s going to run the article.”
“That may be true, but that’s not your decision to make. It’s the Collective’s.”
“What if they’re wrong?”
My mom shrugged. “Then they’ll deal with the consequences.”
“But if it affects Jesse’s dad, then Jesse has to deal with the consequences, too. You don’t understand. His mom …”
I stopped myself before I got started. I had promised Jesse that I wouldn’t tell anyone about his mom leaving, and I intended to keep at least one of my promises to him. “Can I go?” I said instead. “Roux’s waiting, and you can imagine what she’s like when she has to wait.”