I MADE IT TO SCHOOL just in time for lunch. After tossing my backpack in my locker, I checked in at the attendance office and then headed for the cafeteria. I passed a group of freshmen arguing loudly about football, two boys in college sweatshirts pushing and shoving across the table as they made a friendly wager.
It made me think of Preston, how he hadn’t wanted to surf because he was avoiding Jonas Jacobsen. I scanned the caf. Jonas’s brother Jared stood in the salad line, fiddling with his puka shell bracelet while the cashier made change. He took his tray to the condiment station and then headed toward the lobby. It looked like he was going to eat outside. I used to do that too, before Preston transferred to Vista Palisades.
I followed Jared through the glass doors and out into the sunlight. “Hey,” I said, plunking down on the front steps next to him. As usual, his nose was peeling a little, new pink skin emerging from beneath his perpetual tan. The wind whipped his blond dreadlocks around his mouth, obscuring part of his expression.
“What’s up, Cantrell?” His eyes flicked around the parking lot and then back to me. He picked up a shrink-wrapped vegan cookie and popped the package open.
“How much money does Preston owe your brother?”
Jared set the cookie down on his tray next to a wilted spinach salad. He shook his dreads back from his face. “What makes you think DeWitt is doing business with Jonas?” he asked slowly.
“He told me he was avoiding your brother because of the UCLA game.”
Jared blinked twice. “I don’t know what to say, brah. As far as I know, DeWitt hasn’t invested with Jonas in months. Maybe he found better odds elsewhere.” He shrugged and turned away, his tan fingers snapping the hard cookie into pieces.
“But that doesn’t make sense,” I said, more to myself than to him. “Why would Preston tell me that if it wasn’t true?”
Jared swallowed hard, watching as the breeze stole a few pieces of spinach from his tray and sent them dancing toward the parking lot. “I guess you don’t know your friend as well as you thought you did.”
“Guess not,” I mumbled. I went back inside and glanced around for Parvati. She wasn’t in our usual spot. It looked weird, those empty seats at the end of the long table, like a seesaw with only one rider. And something else was off too. There were usually about twelve kids at the table, sometimes more if Astrid or Preston felt like inviting someone else over. But today there were only six. A couple of the football players were missing. Astrid glanced up and caught me staring. She held my gaze for a few seconds, her tan face slightly reproachful, as if it were my fault that the All-Stars had lost half their members.
“Max.” Parvati snuck up on me from behind. “What’s going on? Where have you been all morning? Where’s Pres?”
I skipped past the first two questions. “I don’t know. Did you eat?”
“I’ve been collecting fees for Liars, Inc.,” she said with a grin. She opened the pouch of her tiny silk purse to show me a wad of twenties. “I was going to grab a protein bar from my locker and then work on something for the newspaper. It’s not like I want to eat with them by myself.”
“Yeah. Me neither.” I could still feel Astrid’s eyes on me as I turned away. Parvati and I headed down the main hall to where all the seniors had their lockers.
“A hundred of this is yours, by the way,” she said.
I barely heard her. I spun my combination lock and opened my locker. Then I pulled my phone out of my pocket. No texts. No missed calls. “You haven’t heard from Preston today, have you?”
She shook her head. “No, but some kid named David caught me after second hour and was freaking out about his calculus exam. I had to refund him his money. Pres was supposed to swap tests with him today.”
“Yeah. So weird.” I rattled off a quick text: Dude. Where the hell are you? Everyone is freaking out.
“Are you all right?” A mass of wrinkles formed across her forehead. “You’re acting kind of strange.”
I glanced down at my phone again, even though I knew Preston hadn’t responded in the last five seconds. “I need to talk to you in private.”
“Ooh, secrets.” Parvati smiled. “I know where we can go.” She kicked my locker closed with one of her boots and led me through the halls past the gym to the Olympic-sized indoor lap pool. One girl was swimming in the far lane. It looked like first-team all-American breaststroke champion Cassie Rhodes.
“Seriously?” I asked. “You want to talk here?”
“It’s not like she’s going to hear us.” Parvati took my hand as we started circling the pool, carefully navigating the wet spots. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“I set up an alibi for Preston,” I admitted. “He wanted to go to Vegas this weekend.” I paused for a second. Parvati was still moving forward but she had her head turned, staring at me. “He never came home. I’ve tried calling him like a million times.”
Cassie Rhodes broke the crystal surface of the water. She pushed her wet hair back from her face and then used the side of the pool to propel her body out of the deep end. With trails of water streaming from her arms and legs, she padded barefoot across the painted concrete to the low diving board where she had left her towel. Parvati waited until Cassie had toweled off and disappeared into the locker room before continuing.
“Vegas?” she asked. “How come I didn’t know about this?”
“Pres wanted it to be top secret,” I said. “He went to hook up with some girl.”
Parvati used one hand to brush imaginary dirt off the lowest level of bleachers. She sat down, just the faintest sheen of sweat glistening on her forehead. I sat next to her.
“What girl?” she asked.
“Violet something.”
Parvati made a face. “Are you sure she’s real?”
“I never heard him talk about her before,” I said. “He said he met her playing online poker, and that she seemed cool and invited him to go hang out.”
“So then what’s the big deal if he’s a little late coming home? Senator Dad making a federal case out of it?”
“Literally. I got questioned by the FBI this morning.”
Parvati whistled under her breath. “That’s heavy. Did you tell them where he was?”
“Not really. I didn’t want anyone to get in trouble for lying. I basically told them he left the beach early and I didn’t know where he went.”
The ends of her hair bobbed up and down as she nodded. “Maybe his phone is dead or he’s just having too much fun to call anyone back. I’m sure he’s fine. He’s Preston, you know? Pretty street-smart for a spoiled little rich kid.”
As usual, she made me feel better. “Like someone else I know.” I nudged her in the ribs.
Parvati made a mock offended face. “Hey. I come from humble origins. The daughter of an immigrant and a hardworking military man.” Her eyes sparkled. “Hopefully Pres will be back today and everyone can quit overreacting. It would suck if he bailed on your birthday.”
I had almost forgotten that the next day was my birthday. I shrugged. “It’s no big deal. I don’t have any major plans.” Or any plans, for that matter.
“I wish I could spend it with you.” Parvati glanced up at the clock on the wall. “You know, Coach Raymond will be in here to set up for the freshmen any second.”
“So?”
“So this.” She tilted her neck up and pulled my head down to hers. Our lips met. I wrapped my arms around her back, threading my fingers together. She teased the inside of my mouth with her tongue and I almost slid right off the bleachers.
I broke away. “Enough. Or I’m going to have to take a cold shower before next period.”
“That’s kind of sexy.” She winked.
“Really?”
“No.” Parvati took my hand with a smile, just as Coach Raymond appeared from the locker room in a plain black racing suit with a pair of canary-yellow gym shorts over it.
It was definitely time to go. Teachers in swimwear—generally an epic fail.
Parvati and I walked back to our lockers together and then I headed to fifth period. My acting teacher paced back and forth as she talked about the play Arsenic and Old Lace. It sounded halfway interesting, but I couldn’t focus on pretend mysteries when a real-life one was brewing right under my nose.