I glanced at Kayla and my cousin. What did they have to lose?
Fear. I could see it in Kayla’s exotically made-up eyes. For some reason, she was afraid of Farah.
Or at least of someone who might be at Farah’s table.
And Alex? Well, from Alex’s dark eyes, I could tell nothing.
I knew Alex had an issue with Seth Rector. I knew the diamond from my necklace had turned a stormy gray when I’d stood in front of the Rector mausoleum that day with Mom in the cemetery, just like I knew it had turned purple when I first saw Kayla in the New Pathways offices.
I didn’t know why these things were happening.
And the truth was, I was keeping a few secrets of my own. So who was I to judge Alex or Kayla?
But I also knew, standing in the parking lot of Island Queen after the night I’d had — after the day I’d had — I just couldn’t do it anymore. The whole point was that I was making a new start: I wasn’t going to be the girl who just watched while the people around me got hurt.
So whatever issues Alex and Kayla had with Seth and Farah — or whoever was sitting at her table out there on the beach — I was going to get to the bottom of them. This time, I was going to protect my friends from the evil.
And the only way I knew how to do that was to find out what that evil was.
“I’ll have a Coke float,” I turned and said to Farah. “That’s a large Coke with a scoop of vanilla ice cream in it. And use this” — I thrust a twenty-dollar bill into her white-nail-tipped hand, then jerked my head back towards Alex and Kayla — “to get them one chocolate chocolate-chip cookie dough Gut Buster and one vanilla Butterfinger bits and M&Ms Gut Buster.”
Farah’s glossy, puckered mouth broke out into a wide smile, revealing a set of perfectly straight white teeth. They were amazing, just like her boyfriend’s.
“Fantastic,” she said. “I’ll meet you guys over at the table.”
I noticed that most of the guys around us in line seemed to enjoy the way Farah sashayed — not walked — away, the pleats of her dark green plaid mini swaying behind her (they were definitely more than four inches above her knees).
Most of the guys except my cousin Alex, that is.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” he spun around to say to me.
“It’s okay,” I said, shouldering my bag. It was heavy because I’d filled it with all the books I’d need if I were going to do my homework. I don’t know why I hadn’t left it in the car. I never think things through. Obviously. There was no way I was going to be doing any homework. “You can pay me back la —”
“You think by buying me a Gut Buster,” Alex said, his anger hurtling down on me like one of John’s thunderclaps, “I’m going to go over and sit with those A-Wingers, and we’re all going to learn, despite our apparent outward differences like that they all wear designer labels and drive brand-new cars their daddies bought them for their birthdays, and I wear clothes from the Salvation Army and drive a rusted old junk heap, that we have something in common? Like maybe we can all sing and dance, and then we’re each going to get parts starring in Isla Huesos High School’s musical, like this is some kind of damned Disney movie? Well, I’ve got news for you, Pierce. That’s not going to happen. And no matter what Grandma says, you’re nothing like your dad. You can’t just throw money at the problem to make it go away. In fact, you know what you can do with your money, Pierce? You can stick it up your —”
“Whoa,” Kayla interrupted, trying to keep the peace. “What is this? I thought we were just here to get ice cream.”
“Thank you,” I said to her gratefully. I’d never seen Alex so mad.
“Don’t thank me yet,” Kayla said. “Who orders a Coke float instead of a Gut Buster? That is just crazy.”
“Oh.” Mom had told me to be careful about inadvertently insulting the locals. I tried to think what Jade would do in my situation. “At least I didn’t ask for a Diet Coke,” I pointed out.
Kayla looked at me and shook her head slowly. “Are you sure she didn’t kill that teacher?” This was directed towards Alex.
“It’s not a joke,” he said. But he wasn’t looking at Kayla. He was looking at me. And he wasn’t talking about what I’d ordered, either. “Some of us actually live here, you know.”
It was what he’d said about the tourists on the way to school that morning.
And it hurt — exactly as he’d intended it to — because I knew it meant that’s how he thought of me…and Mom, too, probably. Like we were just passing through and didn’t care about the locals and their problems.
And it wasn’t even like we didn’t deserve it. Where had we been the whole time he’d been growing up without a mom or a dad, just crazy Grandma?
Of course we seemed like tourists to him. Even Richard Smith, the cemetery sexton, had pointed it out. Mom had never come back to Isla Huesos after I’d been born and Uncle Chris got arrested. I’d never met my grandfather. Not until his funeral. Where I’d met John.
Who, like Alex, just wanted me to leave him alone.
“I’m sorry,” I said to Alex, meaning it. “I know they only invited us because they want to play Check Out the New Girl. But who cares? They’ve got seats in the shade, and we won’t have to wait in this line anymore —”
“Maybe you want to go sit in the shade with them,” Alex said, practically seething with rage. “But the whole world doesn’t revolve around you, Pierce. Some of us might have issues with them. Real issues. Did you ever think of that?”