OCTAVIAN COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL
THE BOMB SHELTER
Friday, April 30th
2:19 P.M.
“Hurry!” Claire squirmed while Massie worked the key in the lock of the bomb-shelter door.
Her urgency no longer stemmed from a fear of Principal Burns, Mr. Myner, or compost duty. Claire needed instant access to the room for one reason only—and that was to see how her story would end.
She’d felt the same way after the season-three finale of The O.C., when Marissa Cooper died. She needed to know how the characters would process the tragedy. Needed to see how their stories would unfold, now that everything had changed. Needed to know if there was still a chance for a happy ending.
“We’re in!” Massie pushed through the heavy door.
The salty, fishy smell of seaweed hit them like a tsunami when they entered. Brown-stained chopsticks, silver foil trays filled with drying wasabi, and red-and-white packets of Kikkoman soy sauce were scattered across the black rubber floor.
“Was Dylan already here?” Massie asked playfully, while clicking on the large-screen TV.
Claire tried to giggle, but she’d been frowning for the last forty-eight hours and her facial muscles seemed locked in a perma-pout. She was hoping a good episode of ESP—one where Cam explained that Nikki was an eight-year-old camper he mentored—might loosen them back up.
“Have you noticed her face swelling?” Massie tightened the gold belt on her navy minidress and pulled up her faded jeans. “One more Philly cheese steak and she’ll need to go up a size in sunglasses. Should we be worried?”
“About what?” Claire asked as she settled into the pink faux-fur chair, waiting for the picture to appear on the screen.
“Dylan!” Massie snapped. “She’s been gaining weight. Haven’t you noticed?”
Claire shrugged. Maybe Dylan’s angular face was looking a little doughy lately, but so what? She was having fun. If doughy meant happy, Claire would take it any day over her current diet of tears and fingernails.
“Well, have you noticed Alicia’s been acting like a grandmother? And what about Kristen? One day it’s death metal and the next it’s—”
“Yes!” Claire interrupted, as the classroom flickered on-screen.
The picture flashed, scrambled, and faded. It made Claire think of a sneeze-tease, where you gasp and gasp and gasp and then, right when the tissue is in position, the sneeze disappears.
“What happened?” She jumped out of her director’s chair and gripped the corners of the screen.
Massie aimed the rhinestone-covered remote at the lifeless monitor and clicked; it hummed like a rebooting computer. “Give it a minute,” she said to Claire’s light blue Old Navy overalls. “Have you been wearing those all day?”
Claire looked down and nodded. “What’s wrong with them? Dylan wore overalls last week and you said they were cute.”
“Yeah, but hers were expensive.” Massie shifted her bangs right with a delicate finger-swipe. “Don’t you think it’s kind of lame that they decided to stay in class? It’s like they have their dates, so why bother? If I were them, I’d wanna find out what Derrington’s issue is, or who Nikki is, because I’m a good friend. But they ah-bviously care more about topsoil and manure than us. Which is fine. I’m just not going to tell them anything we hear.”
Claire heard what Massie was saying in the same way she heard her parents’ conversations through their thin bedroom wall: Her voice seemed distant, the words intended for someone other than her.
A vibrating cell phone put a sudden end to her chatter. Massie flipped open her Motorola and sighed.
Claire sneaked a peek at the message, which simply said, “Tick… tick… tick.”
“What are you going to do about Chris and Skye?” Claire asked, in an effort to care about something other than Cam.
“This.” Massie pulled a crumpled note out of her AG jeans pocket and handed it over.
Claire unfolded the lined paper and read. The handwriting looked like Massie’s, only thinner, and the letters were smashed together, boy-style.
Angie,
I’ll be at your party. I’ll be the guy dressed in a white shirt with blood all over it, because my heart bleeds for you. Can’t wait!
xoxo Brad (Chris Abeley)
PS—Once again, don’t mention this note. I’m still very, very shy.
Claire handed it back.
Massie jammed it back in her pocket. “I’ll give it to her after class,” she explained, as if she were reading Claire’s mind. “It’s the only way.”
“Sounds good,” Claire said… or maybe she just thought it. It was hard to know for sure, because the picture came back on the monitor, and everything else fell away.
A shaggy black hair-wall hung over Griffin’s face as he read under his desk. Plovert and Kemp were seated peacefully beside each other; Josh was hatless, since Alicia was now a fan of New York Yankees caps; and Derrington was painting his nails with Wite-Out. The only person Claire couldn’t see was Cam. Which meant…
“He’s holding the bear!”
Claire couldn’t believe her luck and timing. She was finally going to get the answers she needed.
“That was a great trust exercise,” Dr. Loni’s voice boomed, still from beyond the camera’s reach. “Now that we’re all warmed up, let’s touch on some unresolved issues. I want to start with Derek’s issue with May-ssie, and we will get to that next—”
“It’s Maa-ssie!” she shouted at the screen. “And stop calling it an issue!”
“But first, it seems as though there was an incident between Cam and Claire the other night.” Throats were cleared. Chairs creaked. “And I am very pleased that you boys pulled together and created a safe house for Cam and his feelings, which I understand were hurt very badly. Tell me, is it Nikki again?” Claire’s stomach lurched when she heard that name.
“It’s awn.” Massie leaned forward, like she was watching a suspenseful chase scene in a movie.
And then, in a single flash, everything went dark.
“What just happened?” Claire screeched.
Massie pressed her thumb into the remote with cuticle-whitening determination.
Nothing.
She pressed harder.
Nothing.
She gripped her charm bracelet, pinched the gold crown, and jammed one of the spires into the POWER button.
Nothing.
“It’s dead,” she announced. “Time of death: 2:27 p.m.”
“It can’t be.”
“It is.”
“Why is all of this happening?” Claire smashed her fist on the wood handrest of the director’s chair. The throbbing ache that followed felt good, the same way getting punished for doing something terrible can sometimes be better than living silently with the guilt.
“Relax,” Massie insisted. “All we have to do is get into that classroom and fix whatever broke.”
“But the party’s tomorrow night,” Claire whimpered. “And now we’re going to have to face Derrington and Cam without knowing—”
“You don’t think I know that? You don’t think I’ve spent the last three nights spritzing my pillowcase with Crabtree & Evelyn lavender sheet spray to help me relax? Derrington has an issue with me and everyone knows about it but me.” Massie tried the remote one more time. But it was pointless. “Ugh!” She whipped it onto the floor and looked away in anger when the black plastic battery cover bounced off. After a deep, composing breath, she turned to Claire, her tone noticeably calmer. “We’ll have to file until this camera is fixed.”
“What?”
“File. Fake-smile.”
“How are we going to do that?”
“What? File or fix the camera?”
“Both.”
Massie tapped her fingernails against her pearly white teeth until her lips curled into a confident half-smile and her eyes lit up.
“Well, do you know?” Claire asked again.
“No.” Massie marched to the exit. “But I bet Layne does.”
“Layne?”
All of a sudden, Massie flicked off the lights, leaving Claire in the dark to wonder if she was, in any way possible, serious.