Secrets and Lies(10)

Tenley squared her shoulders, smoothing down the zipper that ran up the front of her red dress. She wouldn’t let them see her weakness. She’d lived by that rule her whole life: after her dad’s death, after Caitlin’s kidnapping, after her move to Nevada. She wasn’t about to fail it now. Plastering on a smile, she marched over to the table. She’d gotten stuck talking to her English teacher after class, so most of her friends were already there. Hunter, Tyler, Nate, Marta, Emerson, and, in Tricia’s old seat, Jessie. Sean wasn’t there yet, but she caught sight of him in the hot-food line, waiting to fill his tray.

“Hey, Tenley, hold up!”

Tenley looked over her shoulder to see Tim crossing the cafeteria, a brown-bag lunch in his hand. He was wearing beat-up jeans and a white T-shirt, and his messy bed-head hair looked especially blond against his dark tan. He stopped in front of her, and in the bright lights of the cafeteria, she could see all the different shades of blue in his eyes. It reminded her of the ocean at dusk, the way the surface was always changing. “You’re gracing the school with your presence?” she asked, feigning shock.

“I had to come make sure my surfboard didn’t cause any permanent damage.” His eyes ran over her, and she found herself wondering if he was checking her out. She quickly straightened up to her full five foot two. In her gymnastics days, she’d had a figure that was more boyish than boy magnet. But ever since she got her implants, her shape had drawn a lot more attention. Most of the time she loved it, but sometimes it made her feel like an impostor in her own body. “I don’t believe I detect a limp,” he said.

“Nope.” She silently chided herself for being ridiculous. Of course he wasn’t checking her out. “Just a bruise the size of Texas on my hip. But I’m sure it will heal.” She shuddered dramatically. “Eventually.”

Tim laughed. “Poor baby. Well, tell your bruise I owe it an apology coffee.”

“I’m sure it will be pleased,” Tenley said solemnly.

“Hey… in all seriousness.” Tim lowered his eyes, suddenly very focused on his flip-flops. “It was great talking last night. About Cait. I haven’t really had anyone to do that with. Just saying it out loud kind of helped, you know?”

“I do.” Tim’s voice had grown almost reverential when he’d mentioned Cait, and Tenley was surprised to feel a tiny twinge of jealousy. Her face flushed, and she quickly cleared her throat, willing the feeling away. “Well, you know where to find me if you’re ever looking for a repeat performance. A little-known place called ‘school.’ ”

Tim laughed. “Hey, want to come eat with us?” He pointed toward a table a ways down, where his joined-at-the-hip surfer friends, Tray Macintyre and Sam Spencer, were laughing as they watched a freshman attempt to spoon up the hot-food line’s chili using a broken ladle. “I could probably cough up a pudding cup for your bruise.…”

“It would have to be tapioca,” Tenley replied. She tossed her hair over her shoulder. “That’s all my bruise eats.”

Tim pulled a tapioca pudding cup out of his lunch bag. “You ask, I deliver.”

Tenley considered saying yes, ditching her friends, and spending forty-two minutes listening to surfing talk. But she couldn’t back out on the plan she’d hatched with Emerson. They were going to feel out Sean during lunch today. As Tricia’s boyfriend, he’d been the person closest to her before she died. He was their best bet at finding this darer. “I think my friends already saved me a seat,” she told Tim.

Tim nodded understandingly. “I wouldn’t want to deprive them.”

“They would be devastated,” Tenley agreed. “But… maybe we can talk more sometime. About Caitlin,” she added quickly.

She felt a strange pang of disappointment as she carried her own bagged lunch over to her friends’ table. She’d never been into surfing, but the idea of listening to a debate over wave size sounded almost blissful right now. It didn’t matter, though; she had a job to do.

“How could this happen?” Marta was saying as Tenley took a seat at the table. Emerson was sitting on the other side, twisting a strand of thick black hair around her finger. She exchanged a tense glance with Tenley. “Have you seen this, Ten?” Marta asked. She pushed a pink sheet of paper over to her. “Abby’s official Homecoming Nomination Memo. She just stuck them in everyone’s locker.”

Tenley studied the memo. There were four girls nominated: Delancey Crane, Emerson Cunningham, Sydney Morgan, and Tenley Reed. So it was official. She was on the ballot. She’d thought she’d be thrilled to see her name there, proof that she was truly part of Winslow again. But she felt strangely empty inside.

“Sydney Morgan?” Marta continued. “Is this some kind of joke?”

“Seriously,” Jessie chimed in. “Marta was robbed. Hunter, Sean, Tyler, and Nate are all nominated; you should definitely be on there, too, Mart.”

“So should you!” Marta exclaimed. “You’re captain of the freaking cheer squad. How did Sydney get nominated over you?”

“Maybe she got the artsy vote,” Nate offered.

“All eight of them?” Tenley joked as she dug into her sandwich. It was surprising that Sydney had been nominated. She’d grown on Tenley this past month—being hounded by Tricia had made them unlikely allies—but she wasn’t exactly popular at Winslow. She spent most lunch periods in the darkroom, and her only real friend seemed to be super-nerd Calum Bauer.

“You’ve got to see this, too, Ten,” Tyler said. He grabbed a second sheet of paper out of Hunter’s hand. “I saw Abby hanging them up.”

“Please tell me it’s not about that stupid statewide Purity Club contest,” Tenley groaned. Abby had been publicly obsessing over the contest for weeks now. Something about winning an all-expenses-paid spa trip.

“For once, no.” Tyler slid the paper across the table. “Apparently, Abby’s already started campaigning for Delancey.”

Marta rolled her eyes. “As if advertising the Purity Club is going to get anyone elected homecoming queen.”

Tenley looked down at the flyer. It showed a photo of Delancey working with the Red Cross in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. PURE HEART, PURE MOTIVES, PURE REIGN, it read.

“I think Abby wants to turn homecoming queen into purity queen,” Hunter said.

“I bet she puts a big gold P on the crown this year,” Tenley grumbled.

As she said it, she glanced over at Emerson. Em’s expression told her she was thinking the same thing Tenley was: This was as good an opening as any, especially since Sean was on his way over. “I wonder what Tricia would have thought of this,” Tenley said. She struggled to use her saddest voice. Bringing up Tricia at lunch made her feel like Cruella De Vil. She might as well have been shoving a storm cloud directly over their table. But she didn’t have a choice. She took a deep breath, channeling her beauty-pageant persona: the girl who could perform a flawless rhythmic gymnastics routine in the middle of a burning building. “Tricia was also in Purity Club for a while, right?”

“Freshman and sophomore year,” Marta answered. “Before she was friends with us.”

“Before she lost all that weight,” Jessie added.

“Do any of you know what she was like back then?” Tenley asked. She gave Hunter her best wide-eyed, heartbroken gaze. If she could get Hunter to open up about Tricia, then Sean would be forced to join in when he sat down. She could practically feel the neon BITCH sign stamped across her forehead, but she clenched her jaw, refusing to back down. If there was one thing she’d learned about life, it was that sometimes you had to be a bitch to get what you wanted.

“Don’t look at me,” Hunter said with a shrug. “I thought she was a new student last year. It took me a whole week to realize the girl I kept hitting on was Fatty Patty.”

“And then only another week to get her in bed,” Tenley joked. She leaned across the table, flashing Hunter her flirtiest smile. “I can only imagine what other hookup secrets you’re hiding, Hunter Bailey.”

She expected Hunter to laugh, or even preen—she knew how much he loved his playboy rep—but, instead, he flinched. Tenley bit down on her lip, worried she’d taken it too far. “I’m kidding,” she said quickly. “I know you really cared about her.” Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Sean climb the steps up to their table. “You and Sean both did.”

“Both did what?” Sean asked.

“We were just talking about Tricia,” Emerson told Sean as he took a seat.

Sean dipped a french fry into a pile of ketchup. “Everyone’s favorite topic these days.”

“It’s just sad to think how much we didn’t know about her,” Tenley said. A distraught look crossed Sean’s face, making Tenley falter. Pageant persona, she reminded herself. Somewhere, lying in wait, was a psychotic stalker who wanted her hurt—maybe even dead. That was bigger than anything, even Sean’s feelings. “I mean, there was this whole part of her that changed when she became friends with you guys, right?” she continued. “Did she ever open up about that time?”