At first I thought the scraping was a sound in my dream, but since my dream was about Jack and me on a deserted Caribbean beach eating ice cream sundaes, it didn’t quite fit.
Neither did the distinctive sound of the door handle turning on the outside door of my room.
I needed something to use as a weapon to protect myself. Polly always keeps a pair of stiletto heels by the bed for emergencies, but I can’t wear them because they make me too tall, and anyway, I’d probably hurt myself in the middle of the night. I knew there was a Bible in the night table and that seemed like the kind of weapon a penitent Model Daughter would use to protect her virtue.
I took it and I crept out of bed. The way the room was laid out, there was a little entryway between the sleeping area and the front door. Off of that was the bathroom. I couldn’t hear anything over the sound of my breathing, so I held my breath as I pressed my back to the wall and peered around the corner toward the door.
Nothing.
With the Bible in one hand, I slid toward the bathroom, kicked the door open, hit the switch, and yelled, “Ha!”
No one.
I looked in the little separate room with the toilet in it. I looked in the closet. I even bent down and looked under the sink, even though I could see standing up that no one was there.
I was alone in my room. The bolt on the door was locked. The security chain was still in place.
I must have dreamed the noises.
Then I looked at the floor. There, lying on the carpet, was a piece of paper. It was an envelope with the hotel name on it, the kind that came in the stationery set in the desk.
JASMINE CALLIHAN
ROOM 35017
was written on the outside, so there was no question it was for me.
I admit it, as I carried it and my trusty Bible to the desk near the windows, my hands were shaking, partially from being scared and partially because I kept thinking: What if it was a note from Jack?
The curtains had been closed the night before by the hotel staff, and when I opened them, I was surprised to see it was already daytime. The clock on the desk read 7:19 as I took the piece of notepaper out of the envelope. It was mostly blank, except across the center where someone had written:
STAY OUT OF IT,
FOR YOUR OWN GOOD.
A FRIEND
How nice, I thought. I have a friend interested in my well-being.
Not.
What I thought was, “Stay out of what?” and then, “Someone is threatening me.” So when I heard footsteps behind me, I picked up the Bible and hurled it at the intruder.
Who happened, unfortunately, to be my dad. Coming in through the door that connected our two rooms.
“Bloody hell, Jasmine, what are you doing?” he said, catching the Bible. Before I could commend him on his outstanding reflexes (and I wasn’t even going to add “for an older gentleman”), he said, “Never mind. I don’t care what you are doing now. I only care what you did last night. Blast all, can’t you stay out of trouble for two hours together?”
Which did not seem to mark this as the right time to tell him that I had a mystery correspondent concerned about my longevity. Or lack thereof.
Pretending to stretch, I shoved the note in the elastic waistband of my pajamas. “Sorry, Dad, you scared me.”
He was flipping the Bible over in his hands. “Were you reading this?”
“Yes,” I said. “I was. To repent. For last night. Sometimes I like to do that.”
“I’ve never seen you reading the Bible before.”
“Well, you know, I like to think my literary tastes are a bit eclectic.”
“I thought your literary tastes were limited to books like Introduction to Crime Scene Investigation and The Detective’s Handbook.”
If my dad had ever wanted to try knocking me over with a feather, that would have been a good time to choose. I had no idea he even knew about those books. They were strictly on the No Read list, which the Thwarter uses to crush my dreams. I’d had to save my allowance for three months for each of them. And pull up a corner of the carpet to make a hiding place. This meant serious trouble.
But then I remembered what Roxy and Tom’s older brother said when their parents caught him with pot in his sock drawer right out of rehab, and I saw a ray of hope. I looked my dad in the eye and said, “I’m just holding them for a friend.”
Only after I said it did I recall that Mr. and Mrs. Hernandez hadn’t bought it.
“Humpf,” my father said, or snorted. “We’ll talk about that later. Now, about the limo—”
“I was bringing it back. I just got a little lost. I had to take it because these guys were chasing us after Al—”
“Jasmine?”
“Yes?”
“Stop talking. I do not want to hear another excuse about how something else ‘happened’ to you. About how you accidentally punched a man in the nose. I—”
“What? I didn’t—”
“I know all about it. Alyson told her parents. And we will deal with that at a future time. For now, your uncle thinks the entire situation is hilarious. He says he’s thrilled Alyson got out and had some fun.”
My poor, poor misguided uncle. But what was bad news for the world—Alyson out sharpening her claws on the world’s collective couch leg—was good news for me. Because my father adored his younger brother. And if his younger brother wasn’t mad and wasn’t punishing Alyson, then I was in the clear. Although the fact that Alyson fobbed that right hook off on me smarted.
“Not that I am happy about it, mind you,” my father felt forced to conclude. In case I suddenly thought that he had grown a new limb and filled it with Pop Rocks and kindness.
“Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll have a chance to ground me again soon,” I said.
(But I was joking. Do you hear that, Fates? JUST JOKING.)
(Little Life Lesson 14: The Fates have no sense of humor.)
My dad looked at me for a loooooong time, one of those searching looks that make you want to start hopping around on one leg and flapping like a bird to make them stop. He said, “I sincerely hope not, Jas. And to see to it that there is at least a moment of peace around here, I would like you to stay close to Sherri! and me for the rest of the day.”
“Sure, okay,” I said, and even my dad was surprised by how enthusiastic I sounded. He didn’t realize that I was figuring whoever had threatened me would keep their distance so long as I was near my parents.
Or that I needed to get him out of the room for what I had in mind.
I dialed Polly’s number as I changed into my swimsuit.3 When I got her voice mail, I whispered, “Polly, I need to talk to you urgently. Call me as soon as you get this.”
Then I put the note carefully into my underwear drawer to deal with later. It was my first piece of evidence.
Good-bye, Model Daughter, we hardly knew ye.