III

The secretary is a bit skeptical, I could see it in her eyes. Ethan, three feet behind me, leaning against the bulletin board with PSAs about post-secondary education, and ‘safe relations’ on the wall behind me. After a beat of awkward silence, the secretary sighs and retreats back to the announcement microphone. “Blake Weber, please report to the main office. Blake Weber to the main office.”

I give her a tight lipped smile, turning on my heels I stalk out of the office, Ethan’s still soaked converse squeaking behind me. At the door, I take a sharp left then stop. I lean against the wall just outside the office.

“Was that your best idea?” Ethan asks, “Have them call him down for a ‘project’?”

I shrug. “Beats roaming the halls to find him.” Unless you want to walk the halls with me, during lunch, when everyone is in the hallways eating, I want to say flippantly, but now’s not the time to accuse Ethan of being embarrassed in my presence. No, I’m more focused on my own potential embarrassment: Blake Weber is coming to see me -- he doesn’t know that but he will -- here now, when the last time I ever spoke to him was four years ago. I was 12, and embarrassing then. How embarrassing am I now? Oh God, Mom was so right.

Ethan, on the other hand, is the image of serenity. Hands in pockets. Shoulders relaxed. Breathing level. It’s maddening. “You should hide your sweaty palms before he sees,” Ethan says and I look down to my hands.

They’re not that sweaty. Instead of lamely defending myself, I just wipe my hands on my pants and glower at the other wall, imagining it’s Ethan I’m glaring at. He is not helping.

Blake Weber turns the corner: sporting his usual -- as I’ve seen him walking around the school in -- white tee, St. Jacob’s Collegiate Institute football jacket, and trendy -- but too europeen for my liking -- shoes. He comes by his wealth honestly, that’s something to admire I guess.

Blake Weber is people smart, I’ve always known that, so I’m not surprised when he stops a few feet from us. He knows the office didn’t call him down for them, they called him down for us. He doesn’t pivot around, nor flip me off, instead he smiles. If the sarcastic expression on his face could really be considered a ‘smile’.

“Ethan Stock and Charlotte Waters, I thought I’d never see the day.” He looks between us. Ethan’s upright now, hands at his sides. He must think of Blake as everyone does, a lousy excuse for the ‘house on the hill’. His parents don’t do town life very well.

Blake Weber is taller than me but shorter than Ethan, with a stocky build and hands practically the size of baseball gloves, he’s textbook football player. Too, his tan doesn’t do him any kindness in his attempt of assimilation to the town common folk. The Webers travel, a lot. And to exotic places.

“What do you need?” Blake asks when neither Ethan nor I make any comeback to his comment. “I was enjoying lunch, thank you very much. Whatever it is, make it quick, I didn’t think I’d be seeing the likes of you two.”

Harsh. I clench my jaw; he’s as I remember, a snarky boy far older than he looks with a sharp tongue and established power in this town to get away with it.

“Generous of you,” Ethan says, not even bothering to fake gratitude. “We have some questions for your brother.” Or you, if you’ll answer them, I want to add on, but I keep my mouth shut.

“And here I was thinking your mother did all the interrogation. Or don’t you remember, you were there last night,” Blake says, looking from the target of his words to me. Does he expect me to get upset with Ethan? I don’t care he was there last night, nor do I care he didn’t tell me. If it had any importance to me or Ava, he would have. I think.

“Watch it,” I warn mainly Blake, but Ethan too. “Or I’ll have to buy leashes.”

“Oh,” says Blake, “Cupcake, I’m flattered but not only am I not into that kind of stuff, you’re also not my type.”

And I should have known Ethan would make a comment back. Not in my defence of course, but at my expense. “She’s not a cheerleader? Not a dyed-blond?”

Blake exhales out of his nose, with a gentle expression on his face: he’s amused. He deliberately doesn’t answer Ethan before he turns around and begins to walk away. “I’m not as shallow as you may think,” Blake says solemnly, Ethan struck home with that comment. Blake stops, tilts his head over his shoulder then says, “Do follow me, you know how I feel about those office ladies -- old bats.” Blake starts walking again.

I look at Ethan, he looks at me. There’s a silent word of agreement between us as we decide that it is worthwhile to follow Blake to wherever he’s leading us. And hey, it’s two against one, the sheriff’s son’s word against a town outlaw. And Blake knows that.

Blake leads us up three flights of stairs, around a few corners, past fewer and fewer students until we’re the only group within earshot. St Jacob’s Collegiate Insitute matched the time period when it was built, nearly two-hundred years ago: tall red walls, yellowing white pillars, drafty windows, and far too much room for the number of students. Once, SJCI held a collection of youth from the townships and even some from the tri-cities. That was when the school offered French Immersion, then about three decades ago the school board decided it didn’t need French anymore. The number of freshman from that following year was some half of the year before.

The once bustling building was now just for this town and anyone who wanted country life from the cities over -- so, ironically for how often they come to our farmer’s market, not very many.

Ahead of us, Blake stops at a door, then he shoves it open with his shoulder, all while still looking around the empty hallway. It’s the boys’ washroom. I eye Blake when he looks to the two of us.

“Oh, please,” Blake says, “I don’t want anything you have to offer.” Then he turns to Ethan, and with the same amount of pride, he says, “And you, I just don’t like you.”

Ethan, just as fed up with Blake’s charade as I am, pushes through the door frame, pausing only to glance at me with a skeptical look in his eye. Ethan knows how terrible of an idea this is -- that makes two of us, but I’d never admit that.

My birthday is in the middle of October, it had passed months ago, for which I was thankful. I don’t need the gifts my mom buys me that disappear back into her possession or the reminders that they brought with them.

Three years ago, it had been my birthday weekend, Mom and Dad were away. I can’t quite remember why. So when Ava approached me about going to a party with her on a Friday night, I had no valid excuse. That’s how I found myself alone at some stranger’s house party, leaning against the wall, a sealed water bottle in hand.

I hadn’t noticed Blake approach me, so when he spoke in my ear, I had jumped.

“Hey, Lotty,” he greeted, moving to lean next to me.

“Blake, hi,” I said, not too sure how to react. “How are you?”

“Good, good. High school’s tough, though.”

I rolled my eyes. “Tell me about it. It’s weird being back with Ava.”

Blake laughed and took a sip of his ginger ale -- odd kid. “Noah refuses to drive me so I have to get a driver, he’s a total snob.”

A laugh made its way from my throat and I clasped his shoulder. “I’m so sorry for that. Can’t imagine.”

“Don’t patronize me, Lotty. Rumour has it we’re dating.”

“No,” I exclaimed in disbelief. “Do you know where Ava is? She totally ditched me the second we got here.”

“I don’t know.”

My tongue clicked and I crossed my arms. “You’re a liar. Where are they?”

“Fine -- they’re fine. Don’t worry about them.”

Lying snake. Moralless Bastard. Sheep. And all those manifest in the only other person Ethan and I share this room with.

“So, tell me,” Blake says from where he sits on the edge of the semicircle sink. His ankles are crossed. “Why--”

“Why are we working together?” Ethan supplies from his position at the custodial cupboard. He sits, his legs out straight in front of him, bag in his lap.

Blake looks at him. “No,” he lilts, “I want to know why you need my help. You have Detective Playset over there, so why add me to the mix?”

I chew my cheek. “No one knew Ava better than your family.”

“Alas,” he says giving what beneath a sarcastic expression is real remorse. “But Piper Stock has already weaseled everything there is to know out of Noah and myself. Ava’s got this genetic condition where she speaks but doesn’t tell.”

Brick wall, that’s what it’s like talking to him. Or a self-serving insect.

“What’d you tell my mom?” Ethan asks.

“All we know: Ava talked about running away, Noah said he’d go with her.”

“Run away where?” It’s a demand Blake better answer.

Blake stands up from the sink, takes two long strides with his legs that are longer than mine and half my torso combined. He’s in front of me in all his damned glory: cologne, expensive watch, glamourous teeth. I want to shrink back, turn around and grab Ethan by the forearm and hightail it out of the bathroom before Blake gets a chance to even answer my demand. It can’t be that valuable, can it? Did they actually tell the Sheriff? Did they lie?

I don’t do anything, however.

“You might want to check for the goose’s passport,” Blake tells me solemnly.

The basement of my home had never been furnished in all the fifty years it’s been standing: dank and dark, foul and freezing. I made a promise to myself when I was eleven that I would avoid venturing down into the basement at all costs after a rat had babies Dad got Typhus. Now, here I am, at the top of the stairs to the basement, I barely remember finding the rotting rat and rat babies in the laundry hamper.

The stairs are uncarpeted and cement, and they lead straight down to the filing cabinet with all our documents. I take them two at a time, so quick that I find myself as the base of the stairwell before I can even remember when I decided to take the first step. In the darkness, my hands reaches up for the string of the single light bulb; found it, I yank the yarn with a tied knot at the end and the furnace room is brightened.

I kneel down, tearing open the filing cabinet doors with scuffed lock faces. File after file, my fingers sort through. Birth Certificates, Marriage Certificate, Ava’s Graduation Certificate. In the drawer closest to the ground I find them, in their worm ziplock back, I find our passports. I open them to their middle where the pictures and identification hide: mine, Dad’s, Mom’s, Ava’s? Where’s hers? It’s not in the bag.

“What in Christ’s name are you doing?” Mom yells from behind me.

I stop, vomit in my throat. She stands behind me at the base of the stairs, where I was just moments earlier. I turn to face her.

I stand up straight. “Ava’s passport isn’t here.”

Eyes alight, Mom stalks up to me, and yanks the pile of passports out of my hand. She slams them shut and holds them close against her hip.

“Do you think she took it? The cabinets were unlocked.”

She’s cool and calm, until she’s not. Like right now. “Don’t you get it, Charlotte?” She paces around me, circling me until I’m dizzy from turning and turning and turning to watch her moves. “Avaline is not and will not come back. It is everyone’s best interest that she steers clear from this town.”

My voice is barely a whisper. “Do you know where she is?”

“I wish I did!” Mom seethes. Her finger points at me, nails sharp and directly at my jugular. “Then I would personally ensure that girl doesn’t embarrass this family again.”

She knows me, knows that I got what I wanted. So Mom drops the passports back in the cabinet, slams both the drawers shut and makes a turn to head back upstairs.

Biting back yelling, I exclaim: “What did Ava ever do to you?”

She stops. “Your naivety is nauseating. Do you even have the slightest idea of all the money I’ve wasted on her?”

“I don’t!” I yell. “No one ever tells me anything.

“You know what, Charlotte?” Mom asks me. “You are beginning to sound a lot like your sister and unless you want to end up as good as dead somewhere, clean up your act.”

“I’m not her,” I seeth, baring my teeth and clenching my fists.

“Not yet,” Mom growls, “But there’s something to be said about Waters women.”

“What?” I ask. “We’re all bitches.”

“No,” she says. Then she’s up the stairs.