At five, I called my mom, who was in New Hampshire.
“Checking in,” I said. “How’s work going?”
“Same old. You?”
“I’m at Enzo’s trying to study, but the mango smoothie keeps calling to me.”
“Now you’re making me hungry.”
“Hungry enough to come home?”
She gave one of those “it’s out of my control” sighs. “I wish I could. We’ll make waffles and smoothies for brunch on Saturday.”
At six, Vee called and talked me into meeting her for spinning at the gym. At seven thirty, she dropped me off at the farmhouse. I had just finished showering and was standing in front of the fridge, hunting down the leftover stir-fry my mom had stored there yesterday before leaving, when there was a loud knock at the front door.
I squinted into the peephole. On the other side of the door, Scott Parnel made the peace sign.
“Battle of the bands!” I said aloud, smacking my palm to my forehead. I’d completely forgotten to cancel. I looked down at my pj pants and groaned.
After a failed attempt at fluffing my wet hair, I turned the bolt and opened the door.
Scott checked out my jammies. “You forgot.”
“Are you kidding? I’ve been looking forward to this all day, I’m just running a little late.” I pointed over my shoulder at the staircase. “I’ll get dressed. Why don’t you … reheat some stir-fry? It’s in a blue Tupperware in the fridge.” I took the stairs up two at a time, shut my bedroom door, and called Vee.
“I need you to come over now,” I said. “I’m on my way to battle of the bands with Scott.”
“Is the point of this call to make me jealous?” I put my ear to the door. It sounded like Scott was opening and closing cabinets in the kitchen. For all I knew, he was hunting for prescription drugs or beer. He was going to be disappointed on both counts, unless he had unrealistic hopes of getting high on my iron pills. “I’m not trying to make you jealous. I don’t want to go alone.”
“So tell him you can’t go.”
“The thing is … I kind of want to go.” I had no idea where this sudden desire had come from. All I knew was that I didn’t want to spend the night alone. I’d put in a full day of homework, followed by spinning, and the last thing I wanted was to stay home tonight and check off my list of weekend chores. I’d been good all day. Make that good my whole life. I deserved to have some fun. Scott wasn’t the best date in the world, but he wasn’t dead last, either. “Are you coming or not?”
“I have to admit, it sounds a lot better than conjugating Spanish verbs in my room all night. I’ll call Rixon and see if he wants to come too.”
I hung up and did a quick inventory of my closet. I decided on a pale silk cami, a miniskirt, opaque tights, and ball et flats. I sprayed perfume in the air and walked through it for a light, grapefruity scent. In the back of my mind, I wondered why I was spending the time to clean up for Scott. He was going nowhere in life, we had nothing in common, and most of our brief conversations including flipping insults at each other. Not only that, but Patch had told me to stay away from him. And that’s when it hit me. Chances were, I was drawn to Scott because of some deep-rooted psychological reason involving defiance and revenge. And it all pointed back to Patch.
As I saw it, I could do one of two things: sit home and let Patch dictate my life, or ditch my Sunday-school-good-girl self and have a little fun. And even though I wasn’t ready to admit it, I hoped Patch found out I’d gone to battle of the bands with Scott.
I hoped the thought of me with another guy drove him crazy.
Mind made up, I flipped my head over, dried my hair just enough to give my curls definition, and breezed into the kitchen.
“Ready,” I told Scott.
He gave me the second full-body scan of the night, but this time I felt a lot more self-conscious. “Looks good, Grey,” he said.
“Right back at you.” I smiled, going for chummy, but I felt nervous. Which was ridiculous, since this was Scott we were talking about. We were friends. Not even friends.
Acquaintances.
“Cover charge is ten bucks.”
I stood there a moment. “Oh. Right. I knew that. Can we stop by an ATM on the way?” I had fifty dollars’ worth of birthday money sitting in my checking account. I’d already all ocated the money to go toward the Cabriolet, but it wasn’t like withdrawing ten was going to kill the deal. At the rate I was saving, I wouldn’t be able to buy the Cabriolet before my twenty-fifth birthday anyway.
Scott tossed a Maine driver’s license on the counter, with my yearbook photo copied onto it. “Ready, Marlene?” Marlene?
“I wasn’t joking about the fake ID. Not thinking of backing out, are you?” He grinned like he knew exactly how many points my blood pressure had shot up at the thought of using ill egal ID, and he’d bet all his money that I’d back out in five seconds.
Four, three, two …
I swiped the ID off the counter. “Ready.”
Scott drove the Mustang through the center of Coldwater to the opposite side of town, down a few winding back roads and across the railroad tracks. He pulled up in front of a four-story brick warehouse overrun with weeds that twined up the exterior.
A long line of people waited outside the doors. From what I could tell, the windows had been covered from the inside with black paper, but through the cracks between tape jobs, I saw the slice of a strobe light. A neon blue sign above the door glowed with the words THE DEVIL’S HANDBAG.