THE ELLINGHAM COACH SYSTEM WAS BACK IN EFFECT THE NEXT DAY on a special schedule to allow students and parents to meet.
There were two stops—the rest stop and Burlington. Stevie had arranged to meet her parents at the rest stop. She waited for the coach with a number of other people. To settle herself, she had her earbuds in and her podcasts on.
And she was settled, until David sidled up next to her. He was not dressed in his normal David gear of wrecked jeans and some old T-shirt. He had on a crisp blue fitted dress shirt, one that tapered elegantly down to a pair of well-cut black pants. He even wore black dress shoes. Everything about his appearance was crisp and tailored and showed off his slender, muscular frame. All of this was capped off by a slim-fitting black coat.
Stevie had limited experience with guys in dress clothes. (Suited detectives on TV didn’t count.) David was showing his plumage, and it stirred feelings in Stevie that were physically agitating.
“I hope you get the job,” Stevie said, looking away from him. “I think they really need you up in corporate accounting.”
“Is that a deduction?” he said. “Get it? Accounting joke and detective joke.”
“Where are you meeting your parents?”
“I’m not,” he said, pushing his hands deep in the pockets of his long black coat. “They are safely far away. I’m just getting the hell out of Dodge.”
“So why the . . .”
“I like to look nice when I go to see His Majesty, the Burger King. And where will you be going?”
“To eat. And hopefully coming back to school if my parents don’t think this place is full of deranged liberals that let people get murdered, which is sort of what they are currently thinking.”
The coach pulled up and Stevie and David got in. Stevie sat by the window, and David plopped down next to her.
“So,” he said, “you want to talk?”
“About what?”
“About the other night?”
Most of the other people in the coach—not that there were many—were talking or listening to something already. But this was still public. Stevie felt herself break into a cold sweat.
“Is there a reason you’re doing this?” she asked.
“I just want to know. I like learning. That’s why I’m an Ellingham student. Learning is fun. Learning is a game.”
“How serious are they about the policy regarding using violent language with another student?” she asked.
Her palms were starting to sweat. And her forehead. And her feet? What the hell was that? Why was the human body such a jerk? Why did it flood you with hormones and sexy feelings and also flop sweat?
“Deadly,” he said sternly.
“Look,” she said, “I have enough to worry about. My parents are probably going to pull me out of school tonight, so . . .”
“Life finds a way,” he said. “Didn’t you learn anything from Jurassic Park?”
He rested his head back and put a large set of over-ear headphones on and left Stevie to think that one over.
The coach made its way back on the path past the farmyards and the maple-candy stores and the glassblowers and the Ben & Jerry’s signs, back to I-89, and all the way to the rest stop where Stevie’s parents waited now, next to their maroon minivan, bundled tight.
David stood to let her go by, and then he continued right off the coach. She thought he was just taking extreme steps to make room for her, but he remained off the coach and followed her right to her parents.
“I’m David,” he said, extending his hand. “David Eastman.”
Why was David introducing himself to her parents?
“Nice to meet you, David,” her mother said. “Are you meeting your family here?”
“No. Stevie said I could maybe ride into Burlington with you? If that’s no trouble. If it is, I can just catch the coach when it comes by again.”
Stevie saw the light come on in her parents’ eyes. They looked from David to Stevie and back to David again, and they liked what they saw. Stevie felt the ground moving away from her feet.
“Of course not!” her mom said. “You’ll come with us.”
“We’re going to get something to eat,” her father said. “If you’d like to come.”
Stevie couldn’t move. Her body had gone rigid. David, don’t, David, it’s not a joke, David . . .
“Sure,” he said with a smile. “If it’s not a bother?”
“Oh, it’s no bother,” her dad said.
She saw David take in the EDWARD KING sticker on the back of the minivan. He gave her a sideways look, then went to the back door of her family’s car and opened it.
“After you,” he said.
“I will kill you,” she said in a low voice.
“I’m telling you they are serious about that policy.”
She walked around to the other side.
All four of them were off together in the Bell family minivan, down I-89, as the dark fell over the land. The ride into Burlington was quick. They rode through the university section, got stuck on the waterfront road along Lake Champlain, and turned back onto one of the many small and charming streets.
The entire order of the world was now thrown. There should be no David here, with her parents, in this place. Though the volume was turned low, Stevie could hear the familiar mumble of her parents’ favorite talk radio show—the one that always talked about how “those people” were trouble, the one that proselytized about Edward King. They switched it off, which was something.
There were many fine restaurants in Burlington, and fine restaurants tend to be expensive. Stevie had looked up a place off Church Street, the main shopping and social area, that looked like it had good sandwiches and salads and didn’t cost too much. There were free places to park as well. The restaurant was the kind of place where you ordered at the counter and paid and took a number back to any table you liked.
Stevie’s mom and David ordered first. Stevie’s dad took longer to examine the menu, and Stevie considered impaling herself on the potato chip display rack.
“Vegetarian roast beef sandwich,” her father said. “I wonder how that works.”
“They use a substitute,” Stevie said in a low voice.
“Then it’s not roast beef, is it?”
Stevie’s eyes fluttered closed for a moment.
“Don’t make that face,” he said. “I’m just making a joke. Can’t I make a joke?”
Don’t make that face, Stevie. Don’t be smart, Stevie. You think you know so much, Stevie, but wait until you get into the world you’ll see things don’t work that way. . . .
“We came up to see you. Can’t we make this a good visit? We can always take you right back home.”
Don’t react. Don’t give in. Just get through this, go back.
The moment settled.
“I like him,” her father said. “Very polite. Opened the door for you.”
“He’s a treasure,” Stevie said.
At the end of the line, down where you picked up your order, David appeared to be entertaining her mother to no end and . . . oh no. He was getting out his wallet. He was insisting, clearly insisting that he pay. There was the credit card. Another joke. She was laughing away, charmed half to death.
Stevie distinctly felt part of her soul die. She hoped it wasn’t an important part.
They took a table by the window. The cold air penetrated the glass, and Stevie invited the chill. It suited her mood. She examined her overstuffed chicken sandwich, found it was too heavily stuffed to ever pick up and eat, and so tipped it to the side and ate the component pieces with a plastic fork while her parents quizzed David.
David, for his part, was all dark hair and eyes and waggling eyebrows on the other side of the table. He managed to get his massive sandwich in his mouth and conduct a conversation at the same time. His speaking voice was clearer, she noticed, like he was putting on a show.
He was messing with her head.
“So what do your parents do?” Stevie’s father asked.
“My mom is a pilot,” he said between bites.
Stevie looked up. David calmly ate a fry and then stacked the remainder into a Jenga pile.
“A pilot?” her father repeated. “That’s very impressive. Must be hard to have a family when you do that kind of job. What does your father do?”
“Well,” David said, breaking a fry in half and examining the fluffy insides. “He runs a fertilizer plant.”
Stevie looked up at him sharply. Was he making fun of her parents? A pilot and someone who ran a crap plant? Stevie felt a wall of rage building inside of her. She may not have agreed with her parents on things, but they were her parents, not for anyone else to taunt.
“Very impressive,” her dad said.
Her face was burning. She put her cup on her cheek for a second to cool her skin.
“So,” her mother said, “we need to talk about what happened. This is a pretty serious conversation we need to have with Stevie, David.”
“Sure,” David said. “I had it with my parents too.”
“And what did they say?”
He leaned back in his chair with that ease that only guys are supposed to possess and that Stevie intended to master.
“It’s horrible,” he said. “But accidents happen.”
“How did the school let this happen?” her mom said. “That stuff should have been under lock and key.”
“It was,” Stevie said. “He broke in.”
“Couldn’t have been that well locked up, then,” her dad said.
“Some people go to a lot of effort to get into locked places,” David said with a long, steady look at Stevie. “He stole someone’s pass.”
“He was famous,” her mom said. “The news is making him out to be a nice kid.”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” David said. “The news can’t tell you what people are really like.”
“That’s the truth,” Stevie’s dad said.
Stevie tensed. Please don’t start.
“Stevie and I don’t see eye to eye on some things,” her dad went on. “But the media . . .”
She felt her resolve slipping. Her eyes were going to roll back into her head and she was going to exit via the window and escape. She could live in the mountains and eat rocks.
“. . . tells us what we want to hear, generally,” David said.
Stevie felt her heart stop for a moment. Also, now her father was going to go for him, which would be something to see.
“Interesting,” Stevie’s father said, nodding. “You’ve got a smart one here, Stevie.”
It was like she’d been punched in the gut. Stevie said stuff like that all the time and was told she was wrong. David said it once and he got a nod and a compliment.
Oh, the magic of dudes. If only they bottled it.
“We got a call, Stevie,” her dad said, picking a bit of tomato out of his sandwich. “Edward King called us. Well, his office. His people.”
“Edward King is our senator,” her mom explained to David. “He’s a great man. But Stevie is not a fan.”
Stevie clasped her hands together into a knot and pressed them into her solar plexus.
“We’ve been asked to become the volunteer coordinators for the entire state,” her dad said. “I know you won’t like this, Stevie . . .”
Turn to stone, Stevie. Become a mountain.
“That’s amazing,” David said, slapping on a huge smile. “Congratulations.”
Her parents were both looking at her. This was the test of fire. She could explode. That was her instinct. That mountain she had become was really a volcano. But . . . if she could swallow it—if she could handle this—she would appear to be changed in a way they liked. And if she could do that, then maybe the door was not shut. Maybe, just maybe . . .
It hurt. It genuinely hurt. The muscles of her face resisted. Her throat wanted to close.
But she pushed. She forced herself into—if not a smile, then something that sort of resembled one. She pushed the air out of her lungs, up her throat, and out of her mouth.
“That’s great,” she said.
Two words. That’s great. The worst two words she had ever uttered. Her parents looked at her. They looked at David in his dress shirt. This whole strange little drama had an effect. And she knew at that moment that they would let her stay.
So why did it feel like she’d just lost the game?