I was in a bad mood for the next few days.
And to make matters worse, Drea had zero time to attempt to cheer me up. On this particular day, she was wrangling with an exceptionally challenging bridal party. It’s never easy finding a dress that fit and flattered a dozen bridesmaids of greatly varying shapes, sizes, and ages, but the future Mrs. Charles Cappuccio was really making Drea work for the commission.
“It’s gotta go with the theme,” the bride-to-be demanded.
“Which is?” Drea asked.
“Pretty Woman meets Dances with Wolves.”
Drea—ever the professional—responded with zero hesitation.
“Beverly Hills Heartland.”
I was thinking “Frontier Hooker.” But I doubt my suggestion would have elicited a downright orgasmic reaction from the future Mrs. Charles Cappuccio.
“Yes! Yes! Yes!”
I lacked Drea’s impressive improvisational skills. This is why I worked in the back office and not up front. Drea’s impeccable professionalism is to blame for what happened next. If she hadn’t been 100 percent consumed by the demands of the future Mrs. Charles Cappuccio, she would have used her body as a human barricade to stop my sworn enemy from trespassing on sacred turf.
“Knock knock.”
My ex had already entered the office when he said it. These words—like everything Troy had ever said to me—were meaningless.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
He blinked at me with blue-eyed bewilderment.
“Come now, Cassandra. That’s how you greet me?”
Troy was the only person besides my parents who called me Cassandra. The full-name formality equaled familiarity. I thought it was romantic when we were together, you know, because of the mythological connection between our names. But now, my skin crawled at the sound of those three syllables hissing against his lips.
“You have two seconds to get out of here before I call mall security.”
I picked up the phone to show him I meant it.
“I have your doll,” Troy said quickly.
I held the phone to my ear, refusing to believe what I’d just heard over the dial tone.
“What?”
“I have your doll,” he repeated. “From the freezer.”
I slowly hung up the phone. Troy assumed the arrogant countenance I’d seen hundreds of times at Mock Trial competitions. This wasn’t an act. It was the expression that came most naturally to him and only meant one thing: He had the irrefutable evidence to win his case.
“I don’t believe you,” I lied.
“Believe me,” he said. “I tracked it down.”
Then he reached into the back pocket of his khakis and produced a Polaroid as proof.
“This is the doll you’re looking for.”
A pigtailed girl in purple overalls. No box, which I assumed meant she—unlike the dolls in the basement—had been played with.
Hugged.
Loved.
Thrillingly, a pink envelope rested in her lap. Could I get a good enough look to verify the doctored documentation? Or confirm that this was, indeed, the next clue…?
Troy snatched the photo away.
“You’ve seen enough,” he said.
“You won’t give it to me?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then give it to me.”
He returned the photo to his back pocket.
“I didn’t say that either.”
Troy didn’t know why I wanted the doll, only that I did. And that was enough for him to hold it hostage. As much as it pained me to negotiate with a heartless terrorist, I didn’t want to let Drea down. This was our only opportunity to finish the treasure hunt before I left Pineville for college.
For good.
“Where did you find it?” I asked casually. I couldn’t let Troy know how much this doll mattered to me.
“The family who bought the America’s Best Cookie franchise found it deep in the freezer when they renovated One Potato Twenty,” he explained. “It went to one of the granddaughters.”
Troy had always been a tenacious problem-solver. As his Odyssey of the Mind teammate, it was a quality I had always valued, his unwillingness to give up on what seemed like an impossible problem right up to the second he figured out the solution.
“And you tracked down the granddaughter?”
Instead of answering my question, Troy promenaded the perimeter of the office, evaluating the merchandise as if he owned the place.
“I didn’t have to find her.” He thumbed the ruffle on a blouse. All of Troy’s nervousness from our last meeting was gone. “She’s my boss at America’s Best Cookie…”
Troy worked for the granddaughter all summer? That didn’t make any sense unless …
She was back. Just when I thought she’d ghosted for good.
Zoe.
The granddaughter was Zoe.
Of course the granddaughter was Zoe.
Only nepotism could explain why a phantasmagoric vigilante could rise up the ranks at such an assertively patriotic food court franchise.
“So, Zoe just gave it to you?” I asked.
“Not exactly,” he said sourly. “There were some conditions involved.”
“What kind of conditions?”
“Well, let’s just say that I’m on ABC janitorial duty for the rest of the summer.”
I bet Zoe would’ve just given the doll to me if I had a chance to ask. But the thought of her making Troy do all the grossest dirty work pleased me.
“So, are you going to let me have it or what?”
“I too have conditions.”
Then he laughed like a mustache-twirling villain. Too bad what little facial hair Troy managed to grow only came in sparse, translucent patches.
“Just tell me what you want so I can get back to work.”
“I want,” he said, rubbing his hands together, “a second chance.”
I don’t know what was crazier: thinking he deserved a second chance or bribing me into giving him one.
“How do I know you’ve even got the right doll?”
“I’ve got the right doll.”
“But how do I know for sure?”
“You don’t trust me, Cassandra?”
Before I knew what was happening, a stapler flew out of my hands and struck the wall three inches above Troy’s head.
“Cassandra! What the hell?”
“I trusted you not to cheat on me with a homicidal hamster in acid wash Z. Cavariccis,” I said icily. “And stop calling me Cassandra.”
He was panting, petrified. I dismissed him with a flick of my pinky.
“You can go now.”
And when I thought he’d finally run away with his tail between his legs, he demonstrated why he was so hard to get rid of.
“Bellarosa.”
At first I didn’t understand why he said it. Until I did.
“The doll’s name. That’s why you want it.” His confidence wavered. “Right?”
Rey Ajedrez, Lustig Zeit, Pieds D’Abord, Silva Mundi, En Tatws Ugain.
And now …
Bella Rosa.
A shadow of concern passed over his face. Had he just said more than he should have? I summoned everything I’d learned about manipulation and persuasion by observing Drea at work.
“Of course it is.”
One sunny smile was all it took for Troy’s cloud of self-doubt to disappear. My ex was no longer worried that he’d accidentally revealed the very information I was seeking.
When, in fact, that’s exactly what he had just done.
“One date in exchange for the doll and the birth certificate,” I told him. “Deal?”
He smiled.
“One date is all I need.”