CHAPTER SIX

BAILEY

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was gonna throw up. I couldn’t do this. I wasn’t cut out to be a mail jumper.

Pacing the quay behind the Riviera, I watched the kids gather on the pier a few paces away. There was the boss. The judges. The people from the TV stations and the newspapers—they never missed the annual appointment of the famous Lake Geneva mail jumpers. I swung my arms and clapped my palms together while sucking air through my lips. This was it. Go time. I needed to get out there and join the show. It was time to do this thing!

I couldn’t. I planted my back against one of the brick pillars and buried my face in my hands.

It was lousy weather for your first try at mail jumping. Woolly gray clouds hung low in the sky, occasionally spitting a little mist. The boards beneath my feet were dappled with water, as would be every pier around the lake. What if my shoes didn’t stick? What if I fell and broke my nose? My arm? My neck?

What if I didn’t make the team?

Out on the pier, a reporter pushed a microphone towards Tommy. I was just close enough to overhear. “Are you going to take it easy on the newbies today?” I recognized the reporter as Tim Fairchild from WISN12. Another man standing behind him balanced a camera on his shoulder.

“Nah,” Tommy said. “The run will do them good.” He chuckled.

I stared at Tommy and felt a big, hungry hole in the pit of my stomach. Like when you haven’t had a bar of chocolate in forever ’cause your foster parents save them all for the two-year-old ’cause he’s so darn cute! and for some reason you’ve developed a ravenous craving for chocolate. I just wanted something good to happen in my life for once, you know?

A voice spoke behind me. “You came.”

I jumped and whirled. Baron Hackett smiled, his arm casually thrown up against a brick pillar, his other hand hooked through the strap of his backpack. Like all the kids, like me, he was wearing navy shorts and a white polo shirt bearing the logo of the cruise line company. The cowrie shell on his necklace peeked out from between his collars and the diamond stud glittered in his ear.

“Uh… yeah,” I squeaked. “Yeah, I came.” Why did you have that key card to the police station? I swallowed hard and hoped my skull wasn’t see-through.

He smiled—the kind of grin that would convince millions of the TV-viewing public to buy whatever aftershave he was advertising. “You’ll do fine,” he said with raised eyebrows and a big nod.

Was it that obvious I was nervous? Was my face green? Oh, God, maybe my skull was see-through…

“Look, uh…” He shuffled his feet uncertainly. I’d never thought Baron could feel uncertain. What was wrong? He was all but guaranteed a spot on the team. “I don’t actually know if I’ll be around much this summer.”

I frowned. “Then why are you trying out?”

He shrugged. “Wishful thinking, maybe?” He grinned at me, a lop-sided smile that was sad and heartbreakingly beautiful all at once. His secretive, magical eyes connected with mine. Delved into my very soul. Searched me. Searched for me.

My heart turned into a chunk of ice, sending frozen tendrils into every extremity of my body. What was he saying? Why was he looking at me like that? Did he… Oh, God, did he like me?

My brain screamed that I didn’t have an acceptance letter from Harvard, a requirement for any girl before she could be noticed by Baron Hackett, much less liked by him. What was he thinking? Couldn’t he see the school newspaper headlines? Prince Falls for Pauper—Hackett, Johnson a Couple?!

I shook my head and stepped back from him.

Baron’s face fell. “What’s the matter?”

I stared at him wide-eyed. This didn’t feel right. Nobody liked me. Nobody even liked me enough to keep me. Invisibility was the only world I knew how to function in. But how did you tell the king of Badger High to stuff it?

Worse, how did you tell him you thought maybe he was the one who broke into the police station? But of course I’d never say that. I hadn’t even built up the courage yet to call the number Tommy had given me.

“Uh…” My mouth felt like sand. I glanced toward the Mailboat. “They’re starting,” I said, relieved for an out. “We should go.”

He followed my gaze. Saw the kids stepping away from the reporters and gathering around our boss. Baron looked into my eyes again. He must have felt the wall of ice there ’cause he backed off. “You’re right,” he replied, and it was probably the nicest thing anyone had ever said to me.

We fell into step side-by-side but with an awkward, wonderful space between us. Baron’s stride was straight and strong like always, as if nothing had happened. I was pretty sure I wobbled down the pier like a top running out of spin.

I reached into my pocket and touched a wad of paper, folded up into a tiny square. The envelope Tommy had given me with the number to the police station. Why did I have to be the one sucked into this whirlpool? Why was I the one who had to make this decision?