There were no windows in the Howell College bookstore—but there were plenty of phones. Some people activated Flashlight Mode right away; others, including Larkin, were distracted by their newest texts and messages.
Happy to talk, Ed had sent. Maybe after Bonnie’s class?
Going to Howell to meet with the Prez, Larkin’s mother had sent. Will avoid the paparazzi.
did you read the article? Anni had sent.
Larkin ignored Anni. She sent a quick yes to Ed, then added thanks, then added a heart emoji. Even if they ended up breaking up, she could still love him for being happy to talk with her after she’d failed to listen.
Her mother had also failed to listen—and so Larkin asked Ghoti, one more time, “Are you going to tell me who made the signs?”
“Snitches get stitches,” Ghoti said. “If you can’t figure it out on your own, you probably shouldn’t be a detective.”
“Do you think my mother’s job is a joke?”
“I think the entire concept of higher education is a joke,” Ghoti said. “You should have been able to figure that one out on your own, too.”
Larkin saw Ghoti’s single visible eye turn away from her. “And now I gotta go figure out if I’m going to get paid for working in the dark.” She heard, but did not see, Ghoti sigh. “At least Blythe’s birthday party or whatever got ruined.”
“Wait, what?”
Larkin waited for Ghoti to tell her what else she had failed to figure out on her own.
“Blythe called out,” Ghoti called out, “because it was her birthday.”
* * *
Larkin began plowing her way through ankle-high snowdrifts, leaving a trail of boot prints behind her. This would have been an excellent time to have had access to her mother’s palanquin, although Larkin didn’t really know how well golf carts handled in snow. Janessa would, of course. Janessa was another one of those people who knew everything. Larkin seemed to know a lot of those kinds of people, and for some reason they all seemed to like her. One of these days she’d figure out why.
Today she had to figure out who had drawn the second sign.
She also had to figure out what she was going to say to Ed, after Bonnie’s class, before she started listening.
She also had to figure out—and it didn’t feel like a thing she’d had to figure out until it did—why Bonnie was holding her class while Blythe was missing work.
Obviously it was because Bonnie liked working.
And Bonnie had gotten her phone to work.
And if there was some kind of birthday party that Blythe had called out for, Bonnie would still have plenty of time to participate. Nobody threw a party for twin twentysomethings at 2 p.m. on a Monday, after all.
Was Blythe planning the party?
This was the least important question on Larkin’s mind, which was probably why her mind was so eager to answer it. Blythe had to have called off early to do something, unless she just wanted an excuse to skip work, which was completely reasonable—though not completely responsible. Bonnie was apparently the good twin, and Blythe was the bad one. It made sense, given the state of their respective parental gifts; vehicles for their inner selves, as cars so often were.
Except Blythe had said that she was the good twin.
Which made Bonnie the bad one.
Which also made sense—if two conflicting ideas could make sense at the same time—given that their dad had written that entire op-ed about Bonnie. Right? It was too cold and too wet for Larkin to want to check the article—but hadn’t David Cooper written about a daughter who had ruined the family holiday with her smartphone? She hadn’t been present, he was going to withhold presents, everyone in Pratincola was obsessed with puns, you couldn’t talk to an Eastern Iowan without working in wordplay—
Larkin stopped walking. A chunk of snow slid into the inside of her boot.
Bonnie had just gotten her phone to work.
Bonnie and Blythe got identical, expensive presents.
Bonnie and Blythe’s father had threatened to withhold those presents if his children didn’t behave at family gatherings.
Bonnie and Blythe’s father got his children to help him enforce his rules.
Blythe had gotten out of work to prevent Bonnie from using her phone.
Larkin’s feet were getting very wet—and very cold. She peeled off her mother’s gloves and pulled out her phone, trying to decide what to text Bonnie. Watch out seemed a little premature, and your sister wants to make sure you get your birthday presents, so don’t spend your entire party on your phone seemed a little immature.
She went with can we talk before class?
This gave her a little over an hour to find her mother, tell her mother—wait, what was she supposed to tell her? The snow was making it difficult for Larkin to think clearly.
It was also making it difficult for her to see more than a few inches in front of her.
So she turned on her phone’s flashlight and began to inch her way forward, wobbling every few steps as her boots failed to secure themselves against the sidewalk. She was supposed to tell her mother that there had been a coordinated student effort to get Dean Day to resign. That there was a coordinated student effort—Larkin flailed, waved her arms, landed on her butt—and that Ghoti had successfully convinced the first group of students that it wasn’t worth the effort, but a second group of students had emerged.
Under the same student-leader, to borrow her mother’s phrase.
Larkin raised herself to a squatting position. Her feet were completely soaked. Her phone was securely in her hand, but the flashlight had temporarily given way to a low battery notification—and before Larkin could resume her illumination, she had to peel off her gloves and swipe the warning off the screen.
Which didn’t work with wet hands.
Then she saw another light—twin lights, actually. Brighter than her flashlight, and rapidly approaching.
It was the Howell-branded golf cart.
Larkin stood up and waved her arms. “Hello,” she called out, “don’t hit me!”
The golf cart stopped. “I’m not going to hit you,” Janessa said—because of course it was Janessa, how lucky it was for Larkin to have encountered Janessa right then, theater people always made jokes about economy of character but this was fate, the perfect person to help her mother was right here and she had a golf cart—and Larkin stumbled forward until she had gripped the side of the cart with both hands.
The top half of Janessa’s face was obscured by faux fur; her lipstick, underneath the fringe of mink or rabbit or whatever it wasn’t, was perfect. “Oh,” she said, smiling—Janesssa had to be smiling, even though Larkin couldn’t see her eyes to make sure—“it’s you.”
“Yes,” Larkin said. “I need your help—it’s for my mom, it’s a dean thing, it’s a very important dean thing, and I know you’re probably doing something administrative with that golf cart but maybe you could use it to help me get to the President’s Office?”
“Why?”
“Because there are these students—” Larkin stopped, suddenly unsure of whether she should trust Janessa. Ghoti hadn’t trusted Janessa. Ghoti had put a penhole through the one part of Janessa’s face that was currently visible, after learning about the part that Janessa kept hidden. Larkin should have understood this. She should have understood everything.
“These students?” Janessa started the golf cart again. “You mean the ones with the signs?”
“Yes,” Larkin said. “Are you going to give me a ride?” Janessa didn’t have to be trustworthy, as long as she saw the worth of helping Larkin help her mother save her job. The two faces went both ways, after all.
“What are you going to do?” Janessa asked. “Try and stop them?”
“No,” Larkin said. “That’s what my mom’s trying to do. I’m trying to stop my mother from resigning.”
She put one snow-slick, booted foot on the edge of the golf cart, ready to swing herself up into the passenger seat. Janessa swerved, jerking Larkin off the cart and into the snow. Larkin felt her tailbone hit cement, the shock cascading up her spine even with six inches of snow and twelve inches of hand-me-down puffy coat as a buffer. Her right wrist hit next, colliding with what must have been some kind of decorative border rock before all borders had been decorated and then obscured by snow. Larkin withdrew her arm; the impact had drawn blood.
“Hey!” she said. “What was that about?”
“Figure it out,” Janessa said—just like Ghoti had. “I’m late for a meeting with the president and the soon-to-be-former dean.”
She glanced back at Larkin as the golf cart glided over the snow-covered sidewalk—and Larkin saw Janessa’s face slip out of its hood.
Her eyes were not smiling.
They were gleaming with delight—and as the lights of the golf cart disappeared into the curtain of still-falling snow, Larkin realized that she had absolutely no idea what to do next.