CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
SHAUNA
Zeke is quick to grab his phone off the chipped Formica tabletop and quickly opens the message. "It's a text from Four," Zeke says. "He's with Tris. They're hiding out someplace, gonna be stuck for a while."
Uriah clears his throat and winds a straw wrapper around his finger. "So, is Tris pretty good friends with this Four guy?"
Another look between Marlene and Zeke. I narrow my eyes. I've always thought that it was Four and Marlene, and I'm not sure why I discounted Tris. Maybe because it's hard to believe that she and Uriah are really over. It has always been Tris and Uriah, even before it was Tris and Uriah. Even as I consider the possibility that Tris and Four could have something going on, I am ready to dismiss the thought. It is difficult to imagine that Tris could possibly have moved on with someone else while Uriah was in such bad shape and in the hospital.
"Well, he's been helping Tris get caught up on her math and stuff," Marlene says as she slowly tears up her paper napkin. "And I mean, after the accident he kind of made sure that everything was being taken care of... you know, like, getting her homework and stuff. Kind of... coordinating things."
"Yeah, I asked him to do that," Zeke admits. "I had to be at the hospital with you, Uri. I wanted to make sure someone was looking out for her."
Uriah looks at his brother for a long moment, then stabs his pancake with a fork. "It's just weird, I mean, he's only been here a couple of months. You all barely know the guy."
"He's been around since September," I offer. "We know him pretty well by now." Uriah just shrugs.
Familiar faces are filtering into the diner. We plaster on fake smiles for a short exchange with Lauren and her little groupies; one of the second-string linemen hits on me and I am pleased at the way that Zeke puts his arm around my shoulders and gives the guy a look that has him walking away in defeat.
After a half-hour has passed, I try Lynn again and get no answer, and now I'm getting really worried. It's almost two o'clock in the morning, and the longer we wait the more I have to resign myself to the likelihood that she was caught. No one has heard from Christina or Will, either. If Lynn got picked up by the cops, my mom and step-dad will know I was there, too, even if I didn't get caught, and I'll be grounded till I graduate, probably. It's just the worst possible timing, right when something is finally happening between Zeke and me, and now I won't even be able to go out. Then he's going to lose interest and I'll have lost my chance, all because of some stupid fight that got the cops called on a dumb party.
What he hasn't mastered, however, is resisting the impulse to check out other girls as they walk by... at least not if her skirt is short enough, as is the case with a sophomore I recognize from my art class. I kick him in the shin- not hard enough to really hurt him, but enough to get his attention.
"Ow! What was that about?" Zeke whines.
"Watch where those eyes are wandering," I warn him, my tone of voice failing to match the stern look I struggle to keep on my face.
Before I can say more, I am startled by the trill of my cell phone ringer. I scramble for the phone, but I freeze when I see the name of the caller: Mom. I clear my throat and try to sound innocent and contrite. I don't know what else to do but to play dumb as I answer the call. "Mom? Is everything okay?"
"Shauna." I cringe at the ice in my mother's voice. "Where are you."
"Um..." I abruptly stand, spinning away from Zeke and our friends. Holding the phone snug against my left ear, I plug my right ear with my finger to hear better. I start to wander toward the diner's front doors. "Well, the football team won the championship! Did you hear? I'm out at a diner with some of my friends. Rob said it was OK..."
"Rob said it was OK to spend the night at Marlene's, not to stay out all night at parties and diners. Now, where are you, Shauna."
I should have known my strategy wouldn't work. My heart sinks to my toes. "Fox Lake," I practically whisper.
"Uh huh. That's what I thought," Mom grumbles. "What's the name of the diner?"
"The Sock Hop," I squeak.
I hear a heavy sigh. "Alright, stay where you are. We'll be there in an hour and twenty minutes."
"Mom..." I plead. "I can just ride back with my friends, you don't need to-"
A derisive laugh echoes through the speaker. "Oh no, you will not be riding anywhere with your friends right now. I have to come up there anyway to pick up your sister from the police station."
And that's when I know all hope is lost. I just hope that Zeke won't get bored and forget all about me by the time I can actually go with him on a date.
LYNN
"I'm still not understanding what you were doing all the way out in Fox Lake. Shauna said the two of you were spending the night at Marlene's," my step-mother, Karen, rants for the third time. "Now we're going to have to wake Hector in the middle of the night and drive more than an hour out of town to get you from the Police Station?!"
"Why the hell would you wake up Hector? You don't both need to come." I'm sure she can hear my eye roll through the phone, because she starts up with her screeching again. "Karen. Karen. Karen!" I am practically shouting by the time I get her to shut up. "Thank you. I am going to run out of time here soon. Let me talk to Dad." Just with the sound of her inhale, I know what's coming and scramble to head her off. "Please. I just want to talk to my dad for a minute, Karen."
Karen can be really nice and for the most part has been good to me, but she is the damn empress of overreaction. Dad is typically the more reasonable parent.
"Fine. I need to track down Shauna anyway." I tap my foot as I listen to shuffling and interference from the speaker. At the door, an uniformed officer leans against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest, looking bored as hell watching me and the other teenagers, a couple of seniors I've never spoken to, shamefully placing calls to our parents. The others remind me of puppies with their tails between their legs as they quietly placate their own irate guardians.
My dad met Karen when I was in the fourth grade. In the three years since my mom died, he had been out on a couple of dates, but none of them ever led to any real relationships. Of course the one that stuck had to be Shauna Walsh's mom. Shauna and I were classmates and had never had much to do with one another; she was one of those girls whose report cards report that they 'talk too much', while mine always relayed concerns that I was withdrawn and 'not connecting with my peers'; Shauna spent recess playing tetherball or four-square, while I spent that time drawing or reading. I had never had a sibling, and any semblance of a normal motherly influence left my life after my mom got sick when I was five years old. Karen gradually stepped into that role once we had all moved in together the following year. I think Shauna and I learned to get along just to avoid the drama that Karen's melodrama brought into the house.
Dad, on the other hand, has always been quiet and reserved. He can get going with the anxiety-induced freak out too, but instead of ranting and wildly doling out punishments (something that is an inevitability once Karen gets ahold of Shauna and me) he holes up in his home office and researches the thing that's got him worked up until he knows everything and has a solution. I would bet money that Dad is in front of his laptop right now reading up on Illinois State law and jotting down the contact info for a few lawyers, just in case. But I expect that by now, he will have found that his world isn't about to spiral out of control, and be ready to deal with all this like a normal person - something Karen will certainly not be capable of tonight. Sometimes I think that Karen's tendency to freak out might be why Shauna's dad left her for someone else (someone a little less high-strung, maybe?) but I will never make the mistake of voicing those thoughts aloud again; the one time that I lost my temper enough to say it aloud, I ended up grounded for six weeks. I have never seen Karen so upset or my dad so angry before or since.
A little more fumbling, and I finally hear Dad's familiar deep voice. "Hi, Sweetheart. Are you okay?" My tension drains away; it's clear that whatever research he has done so far has chilled him out.
"Yeah, I'm fine. They're not charging me with anything, I wasn't drunk or carrying anything on me," I assure him; a few students got into some trouble, but I at least had time to ditch the can of beer I was been drinking when I heard the sirens, and I never reached the point of stumbling or slurring. Christina had a pack of gum in her purse that disguised the alcohol that was on my breath. "Have you heard from Shauna? She isn't here, I don't know what happened to her." I don't even bother pretending she wasn't at the party, they would never buy it.
I talk to him for a minute before the officer starts giving me dirty looks and I know I need to wrap this up. I manage to get Dad to agree that he should come get us and leave Karen at home with my three-year-old half-brother, Hector, but I won't know whether he's succeeded in talking Karen off the ledge until one of them actually shows up here to collect me.
After I hang up, a cop escorts me back to the holding cell. This must be a lot of excitement for a little town like this, there is no one over the age of 18 in either this holding cell or the one across from us. I sit in a corner near Will and Christina. Most of the people here are the trendy, popular type, the ones who either are cheerleaders and jocks, or want to be. I feel out of place, but I am used to that, because I stick out like a sore thumb around my own stepsister and friends. And they aren't the only people I ever hang out with; I have made some friends in my art and film classes, and through working behind the scenes in our school's rendition of Twelfth Night last year.
I haven't really talked to anyone since we got picked up at the party, but Christina hasn't shut her mouth the whole time. I can't even believe that Will is still sitting by her. He must have the patience of a saint, because I'm about ready to strangle her. She has whined about everything from being bored without her phone to the old gum hardened on the concrete floor. Even that is like a reprieve, because most of the time she is berating Will for his loyalty to Al.
"It was bad enough that you made us hang out with that loser," she is complaining now. "I never understood why you were friends with that guy in the first place. He's weird. And now you got us arrested over him, even after the rumors he spread about Tris!"
Will scoffs. "I don't think you want to talk about the rumors, Christina, and who was repeating what."
I raise my eyebrows at the implications of that statement. It's common knowledge that Christina likes to gossip. She and I aren't exactly close, and she isn't my favorite person, but even I thought she was better than that. I have always suspected Christina was jealous of Tris, but I wouldn't have guessed she would help spread a rumor like that about her own supposed friend.
"Besides," Will continues before I have a chance to comment on that revelation, "he and Peter got in that fight because Al was defending Tris."
"Too little, too late," Christina scoffs.
Al has never really fit in. I don't fit in either, so I have always felt a sort of comradery with Al. Al was always watching from the sidelines, never really meshing with the groups he tried to be a part of. Will has been probably Al's only real friend since he moved here when we were in middle school; the others all accepted Al (all except, apparently, Christina...) but no one really made any extra effort to connect with him, either. Once he lost Tris's acceptance, he was quickly abandoned by the rest, too.
But even after the rumors, Tris wouldn't have ever asked any of her friends to abandon Al. She herself would have tried to help him, had she been there. When we were kids and my dad got together with Shauna's mom, Tris was the one to reach out to me in friendship. Shauna and I didn't like each other; to her, I was the enemy, so Shauna saw this as a betrayal and didn't talk to Tris for a week. I didn't make it easy on Tris, either. I actively tried to get rid of her at first. But she's stubborn, and soon enough she wore me down. It helped that once it was clear Tris was determined to befriend me, Marlene joined in. I've always liked Marlene, even when I preferred not to talk to anyone.
"If you think Tris would agree with you on this, you don't know her at all," I hiss at Christina. "What is wrong with you? Did you not see how bad Peter fucked him up? Nobody deserves that. Al is lost and lonely and just wants to fit in. I doubt you'd even have cared about what he did to Tris if everyone else hadn't taken her side."
"Whatever, Lynn. I'm not just some follower."
"You are when it benefits you."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"It means, Christina, that your only loyalty is to yourself. You hedge your bets. You take what side you think will win instead of which side is right, and you try to hide behind other people's choices instead of manning up and owning your shit. We should be worrying about whether Al is okay, and instead you're talking shit about him and whining because you'll get yelled at by your mom. Get over yourself."
Christina's eyes are shooting daggers at me and she even lunges forward, but Will gets between us, keeping us separated. I wish he wouldn't - I'd kick that Barbie doll's ass. Soon though, Will has dragged Christina to the opposite corner of the cell, shooting me a look that clearly demands that I stay where I am.
This is going to be a long night.