“Exactly.”
“So you and Dad are trying to protect me?”
“Your interrogation skills are really weak,” my dad said, tossing a dishrag at me. “You get information when you need it. Here, dry these dishes.”
“Were you and Mom drug smugglers or arms dealers with Dominic or something?” I shot back, ignoring the dish towel. “You’re both orphans. Do you have a secret past?”
My parents looked at each other, but I could tell they were amused, not concerned. “You’re our secret past,” my mom pointed out. “Our little safecracker that could.”
I rested my chin on my fists, thinking about that. “You’re so lucky,” I said. “You were both spies from the beginning. You didn’t have to compromise anything.”
“There’s always compromise,” my mom said. “We compromise all the time. For example, I don’t like onions.”
“And I don’t like hearing about how much your mother doesn’t like onions.” My dad winked at both of us.
“But did you ever want to leave the Collective?” I asked them, now drawing figure eights on the countertop. “Ever?”
There was a pause before my mom spoke up. “We were going to leave after we had you,” my mom said. “We didn’t think it was the best way to raise a child.”
“Are you serious?” I asked, now sitting up straight. “Because of me?”
My dad nodded. “But when you were three, you opened that Master Lock that had been lying on the floor. We were amazed. I mean, our jaws dropped. You had this gift from the very beginning, and you were so talented. You are so talented,” he amended. “If you were a gifted ballerina or sculptress or mathematician, we would’ve done everything we could have to foster your talent. It just so happened that your gift is in locks and safes. So we decided to stay.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “So if it wasn’t for me, you would have left?”
“No. We stayed for you.” My mom covered my hand with hers. “Would you really have been happy living a normal life? Going to school, to playdates, living in the same place?”
I squirmed on my barstool. It was like she knew how I had been feeling for the past year, living as a normal teenager instead of a spy. It was hard to admit even to myself, but I felt an itch that I couldn’t scratch, a need that wouldn’t go away.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But I’m glad I don’t know. I like our life, if that makes sense. It’s been fun.”
“Except for when Colton tried to kill you,” my dad muttered.
“Well, yeah, that wasn’t fun, but we won,” I told him. “Everything always works out, right? I mean, if you two could meet in Paris as teenagers, anything’s possible, right?”
My parents both paused before bursting out in laughter.
“Thank you so much, Maggie,” my mom said. “Really, thank you.”
“You are so young,” my dad added. “So very, very young.”
“I’m seventeen!” I protested. “I’m practically an old woman!”
My parents fell over in further hysterics.
“Well, this has been illuminating,” I huffed, hopping off my stool and going toward my bedroom. “Your onions are burning, by the way.”
But when I looked back, I saw my parents kissing over the countertop as the onions smoked around them.
Chapter 10
The next morning was Tuesday, which meant yet another day of SAT prep class with Roux. I half considered blowing it off, but then I remembered it was the last one of the session. And also, if I didn’t go, my parents would ask why I wasn’t going, and I’d have to explain that things were weird between me and Roux, then they’d want to talk and I didn’t really feel like talking.
I wish there was a way for my parents to know what was wrong without me having to tell them. That would make my life so much easier.
I dragged myself over to the Main Building at NYU, where the classes were being held, and settled myself toward the back of the classroom, a few minutes late and cranky with lack of sleep. I had spent yet another night holed up in my room, working on the lock that Angelo had given me, still no closer to solving it, while I waited for Roux to call me so we could talk.
The phone never rang. The lock never opened. I went to bed and never slept.
Roux was in the middle of the room, a few rows in front of me, her head bent over her travel chess set. Her cheeks were flushed, and I could tell she was actively not looking at me, her hands balled into fists in her lap.
The teacher (some teacher’s assistant that was clearly in it for the summer cash) blathered on at the front of the room about analogies. “Up is to down as light is to … ?” he droned. No one responded, even though it was one of the easiest questions imaginable: half of us were surreptitiously tapping away on our phones under the desks and the other half was too shy to answer.
Well, except for me. I was too annoyed. Like, what difference did this really make? Would taking the SAT have any effect on my life, or anyone else’s? What does it even matter if someone’s good at analogies? How on earth did this become the basis by which intelligence was measured? This, I decided, was why the world’s economy was crumbling. Because of stupid standardized tests!
Like I said, I hadn’t had much sleep.
“Um, Roux? Roux Green?” The TA was consulting a seating chart as he glanced up at Roux. He pronounced her name like “row,” which nearly made me wince. Her head was still down, no doubt planning her next well-strategized move, and I wasn’t talking about chess, either.