She raised one shoulder. “You said it, not me.”

“From now on, I think it’s better if we stay out of each other’s way.”

She examined her manicure. “Fine.”

“Good.”

“Just trying to be nice, and look where it got me,” she said under her breath.

“Nice? You called Vee fat.”

“I also offered you a ride.” She floored the gas, her tires spitting up road dust that wafted in my direction.

I hadn’t woken up this morning looking for another reason to hate Marcie Mill ar, but there you go.

Coldwater High had been erected in the late nineteenth century, and the construction was an eclectic mix of Gothic and Victorian that looked more cathedral than academic. The windows were narrow and arched, the glass leaded. The stone was multicolored, but mostly gray. In the summer, ivy crawled up the exterior and gave the school a certain New England charm.

In the winter, the ivy resembled long skeletal fingers choking the building.

I was half speed-walking, half jogging down the hall to chemistry when my cell phone rang in my pocket.

“Mom?” I answered, not slowing my pace. “Can I call you ba—”

“You’ll never guess who I ran into last night! Lynn Parnell. You remember the Parnells. Scott’s mom.”

I peeked at the clock on my cell. I’d been fortunate enough to hitch a ride to school with a complete stranger—a woman on her way to kickboxing at the gym—but I was still cutting it short.

Less than two minutes to the tardy bell. “Mom? School is about to start. Can I call you at lunch?”

“You and Scott were such good friends.”

She’d triggered a faint memory. “When we were five,” I said.

“Didn’t he always wet his pants?”

“I had drinks with Lynn last night. She just finalized her divorce, and she and Scott are moving back to Coldwater.”

“That’s great. I’ll call you—”

“I invited them over for dinner tonight.”

As I passed the principal’s office, the minute hand on the clock above her door ticked to the next notch. From where I stood, it looked caught between 7:59 and eight sharp. I aimed a threatening look at it that said Don’t you dare ring early.

“Tonight’s not good, Mom. Patch and I—”

“Don’t be silly!” Mom cut across me. “Scott is one of your oldest friends in the world. You knew him long before Patch.”

“Scott used to force me to eat roly-polies,” I said, my memory starting to come around.

“And you never forced him to play Barbies?”

“Totally different!”

“Tonight, seven o’clock,” Mom said in a voice that shut out all argument.

I hurried into chemistry with seconds to spare and slid onto a metal stool behind a black granite lab table on the front row.

Seating was two to a table, and I had my fingers crossed that I’d g e t paired with someone whose understanding of science surpassed my own, which, given my standard, wasn’t hard to beat. I tended to be more of a romantic than a realist, and chose blind faith over cold logic. Which put science and me at odds right from the start.

Marcie Mill ar strolled into the room wearing heels, jeans, and a silk top from Banana Republic that I had on my back-to-school wish list. By Labor Day, the shirt would be on the clearance rack and in my price range. I was in the process of mentally wiping the shirt off the list when Marcie settled onto the stool beside me.

“What’s up with your hair?” she said. “Ran out of mousse?

Patience?” A smile lifted one side of her mouth. “Or is it because you had to run four miles to get here on time?”

“What happened to staying out of each other’s way?” I gave a pointed look at her stool, then mine, communicating that twenty-four inches wasn’t staying out of the way.

“I need something from you.”

I exhaled silently, stabilizing my blood pressure. I should have known. “Here’s the thing, Marcie,” I said. “We both know this class is going to be insanely hard. Let me do you a favor and warn you that science is my worst subject. The only reason I’m doing summer school is because I heard chemistry is easier doing summer school is because I heard chemistry is easier this term. You don’t want me as a partner. This won’t be an easy A.”

“Do I look like I’m sitting beside you for the health of my GPA?” she said with an impatient flip of her wrist. “I need you for something else. Last week I got a job.” Marcie? A job?

She smirked, and I could only imagine she’d pulled my thoughts directly off my expression. “I file in the front office. One of my dad’s salesmen is married to the front office secretary.

Never hurts to have connections. Not that you’d know anything about it.”

I’d known Marcie’s dad was influential in Coldwater. In fact, he was such a large booster club donor, he had a say in every coaching position at the high school, but this was ridiculous.

“Once in a while, a file falls open and I can’t help but see things,” Marcie said.

Yeah, right.

“For example, I know you’re still not over your dad’s death.

You’ve been in counseling with the school psych. In fact, I know everything about everyone. Except Patch. Last week I noticed his file is empty. I want to know why. I want to know what he’s hiding.”

“Why do you care?”

“He was standing in my driveway last night, staring at my bedroom window.”

I blinked. “Patch was standing in your driveway?”

“Unless you know some other guy who drives a Jeep Commander, dresses in all black, and is superhot.” I frowned. “Did he say anything?”

“He saw me watching from the window and left. Should I be thinking about a restraining order? Is this typical behavior for him? I know he’s off, but just how off are we talking?” I ignored her, too absorbed with turning over this information.

Patch? At Marcie’s? It had to have been after he left my place.

After I said, “I love you,” and he bailed.

“No problem,” Marcie said, straightening up. “There are other ways to get information, like administration. I’m guessing they’d be all over an empty school file. I wasn’t going to say anything, but for my own safety …”

I wasn’t worried about Marcie going to administration. Patch could handle himself. I was worried about last night. Patch had left abruptly, claiming he had something he needed to do, but I was having a hard time believing that something was hanging out in Marcie’s driveway. It was a lot easier to accept that he’d left because of what I’d said.

“Or the police,” Marcie added, tapping her fingertip to her lip.

“An empty school file almost sounds ill egal. How did Patch get into school? You look upset, Nora. Am I onto something?” A smile of surprised pleasure dawned on her face. “I am, aren’t I?

There’s more to the story.”

I settled cool eyes on her. “For someone who’s made it clear that her life is superior to every other student’s at this school, you sure make it a habit of pursuing every facet of our boring, worthless lives.”

Marcie’s smile vanished. “I wouldn’t have to if you all would stay out of my way.”

“Your way? This isn’t your school.”

“Don’t talk to me that way,” Marcie said with a disbelieving, almost involuntary tic of her head. “In fact, don’t talk to me at all.” I flipped my palms up. “No problem.”

“And while you’re at it, move.”

I glanced down at my stool, thinking surely she couldn’t mean— “I was here first.”

Mimicking me, Marcie flipped her palms up. “Not my problem.”

“I’m not moving.”

“I’m not sitting by you.”

“I’m happy to hear it.”

“Move,” Marcie commanded.

“No.”

The bell cut across us, and when the shril sound of it died, both Marcie and I seemed to have realized the room had grown quiet. We glanced around, and it hit me with a souring to my stomach that every other seat in the room was taken.

Mr. Loucks positioned himself in the aisle to my right, waving a sheet of paper.

“I’m holding a blank seating chart,” he said. “Each of the rectangles corresponds to a desk in the room. Write your name in the appropriate rectangle and pass it on.” He slapped the chart down in front of me. “Hope you like your partners,” he told us. “You’ve got eight weeks with them.”

At noon, when class ended, I caught a ride with Vee to Enzo’s Bistro, our favorite place to grab iced mochas or steamed milk, depending on the season. I felt the sun bake my face as we crossed the parking lot, and that’s when I saw it. A white convertible Volkswagen Cabriolet with a sale sign taped in the window: $1,000 OBO.

“You’re drooling,” Vee said, using her finger to tip my chin closed.

“You don’t happen to have a thousand dollars I can borrow?”

“I don’t have five you can borrow. My piggy bank is officially anorexic.”

I gave a sigh of longing in the direction of the Cabriolet. “I need money. I need a job.” I shut my eyes, envisioning myself behind the wheel of the Cabriolet, the top down, the wind swishing my curly hair. With the Cabriolet, I’d never have to bum a ride again. I’d be free to go where I wanted, when I pleased.

“Yeah, but getting a job means you actually have to work. I mean, are you sure you want to blow the entire summer laboring away at minimum wage? You might, I don’t know, break a sweat or something.”

I dug through my backpack for a scrap of paper and scribbled down the number listed on the sign. Maybe I could talk the owner down a couple hundred. In the meantime, I added browsing the classifieds for part-time employment to my afternoon to-do list. A job meant time away from Patch, but it also meant private transportation. Much as I loved Patch, he always seemed to be busy … doing something. Which made him unreliable when it came to rides.

Inside Enzo’s, Vee and I placed orders for iced mochas and spicy pecan salads, and plopped down with our food at a table.

Over the past several weeks, Enzo’s had undergone extensive remodeling to bring it up to speed with the twenty-first century, and Coldwater now had its very first Internet lounge. Given the fact that my home computer was six years old, I was actually excited about this.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for vacation,” Vee said, pushing her sunglasses to the top of her head. “Eight more weeks of Spanish. That’s more days than I want to think about.

What we need is a distraction. We need something that will take our minds off this endless stretch of quality education spread out before us. We need to go shopping. Portland, here we come. Macy’s is having a big sale. I need shoes, I need dresses, and I need a new fragrance.”

“You just bought new clothes. Two hundred dollars’ worth.