All Fall Down (6 page)

“Of course I know you,” I say, and her eyes soften. I can almost hear her thoughts, contemplating giving me a makeover, molding me in her image. I am the
Before
, I know. She is most certainly the
After
.

“I’ve attended seven schools in ten years,” I explain. “So you can rest assured I know you. You’re the girl who thinks being cruel is the same thing as being witty. You think being loud is the same thing as being right. And, most of all, you’re the girl who is very, very pretty. And also very, very … common. Trust me. There’s at least one of you in every school.” I watch her features shift. “Oh. Wait. Did you think you were
unique
?”

When her face hardens, I can tell she isn’t hurt; she’s offended. I snicker a little, unable to keep it in. “Oh my gosh, you
did
, didn’t you? You thought you were special. I’m so sorry.”

But I’m not sorry.

I am standing on ground where I have never stood before, looking at a stranger. But this moment is so familiar to me that I could script out every gasp, every insult, every cajoling sneer.

I even know what she is going to say before she opens her mouth to tell me, “I don’t like your attitude, new girl.”

And that turns my snicker into a laugh. It has to. It is the absolute best weapon I have in this situation.

So I laugh louder. “Oh my gosh — you’re serious. You really think I should be scared of you. Oh, that’s so sweet.” This confuses her. Her dark eyes narrow. “And kind of pitiful.” I reach out to pat her hand. “I’m sorry. You just aren’t a very big deal to me. It’s okay.”

The girl pulls her hand away before I can touch her again.

“No one told me the new girl was a freak!” she spits out.

“There you go,” I say, my voice dripping with mock kindness. “Keep your chin up. Eventually, you will meet someone who cares about your opinion. I’m so sorry I’m not her.”

For a moment, there is silence on the cliffs. That must be why the voice carries to me so clearly, why there’s no mistaking it when I hear, “Lila, are you okay?”

I turn at the sound and see another girl behind us. And before I even realize what I’m saying, I blurt out, “Megan, is that you?”

Of course it’s her, I realize. But I can’t help myself. Megan looks different. In fact, she looks … like Lila. Well, not
like
Lila. Megan’s mother is Indian American, and she’s also shorter than Lila by a head. But they both wear silk scarves wrapped around their necks and bejeweled headbands in their hair. Short skirts and at least a dozen bracelets on their wrists. Megan is the same girl I used to know, just shinier. Much, much shinier. Embassy Row might not have changed, but Megan has, I realize as she steps closer.

“Grace?” Megan sounds stunned. It’s like she’d never thought she’d see me again — like maybe she’d heard that I was dead or comatose or worse.

She no doubt heard I was
worse
.

And the awful part is that it was true. And Megan knows it. I liked this party a lot more when I was surrounded by strangers.

“I didn’t know you were back,” she says.

“Surprise.” I force a smile and feel whatever momentum I’d had against Lila seep away. The cliff’s edge feels closer than it should.

“You two know each other?” Lila asks, confused.

“Grace used to spend summers here. With her grandfather. The
ambassador
.” Megan emphasizes the final word, and I see its meaning land.

My grandfather is the ambassador for the United States. He’s also Megan’s mother’s boss. That makes me important on Embassy Row. This fact makes Lila shift, but it doesn’t make her like it.

“You were friends with
her
?” Lila asks Megan in a whisper that she totally wants me to hear.

I look at Megan, and Megan looks at me. Her mother is important at the embassy. Well liked. Every summer of my childhood I would arrive at Embassy Row and Megan’s mom would bring her over. Day after day.

Megan would ask if I had any dolls. I would ask if she knew where my mother had hidden my slingshot. She would invite me over for tea parties. I would ask her to keep lookout while I followed Jamie and Alexei over the wall.

We were not friends.

We were simply what becomes of kids who are thrust together so often that, eventually, they run out of reasons not to go play.

I keep looking at her now, realizing that neither one of us has a clue how to answer Lila’s question. And, if that is the case, then the answer is most certainly
no
.

“Listen,” Lila finally says, to me this time, “you’re new, so allow me to spell it out for you. This is an important place. Our parents are important people. Everyone here is significant in some way. I’m not in charge because I want to be. I’m in charge because somebody has to be.”

The scary thing isn’t what she’s saying — it’s that she means it. It’s that, on some level, she might even be right.

“Do you know what happens if someone gets hurt at our party?” Lila asks. “If your little German friend does a backflip and lands on the Japanese ambassador’s daughter? What if the Australians or the French bring alcohol and then the South Africans try to drive home and get into a car wreck with the Egyptians? That could happen, you know. And believe me when I say none of us are ready for the consequences.” She crosses her arms and steadies her nerves, quite certain that her place in the hierarchy has been restored. “There has to be order. There have to be rules. It’s not my fault everyone looks to me to make them.”

“Congratulations,” I tell her with a slight bow. “I hope you and your power trip will be very happy together. Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for me to go.”

I turn, searching the crowd until I see Noah. “Grace,” he says, coming cautiously forward with two bottles of water in his hands. “Hey. Maybe you and I should —”

“Get out of here, loser,” Lila says, spinning on him.

“Okay.” I try taking a deep breath, but my blood has begun to boil. “Now you’ve done it.”

“Done what?” she asks with a snarl.

“Messed with my best friend.”

This time it’s Lila who laughs. “He’s not
your friend
.” She crosses her arms. “He’s
my
brother
.”

I shoot a glance at Noah, who shrugs. “Twin brother, to be specific.”

And finally I know who Lila looks like.

Lila reaches for me — to do what, I do not know. It’s like she’s moving in slow motion. She is smaller than Dad, slower than Jamie. She is no contest for me, but her hand never reaches my shoulder.

Before I know what is happening, a small blond blur bolts between us. Rosie grabs at Lila, pulling the beautiful blue-and-white scarf from around her neck.

“You!” Lila snaps.

“Leave her alone!” Rosie yells, and I pull her back.

“Okay. Everybody leave
everybody
alone,” I say.

“Here, give me that,” Megan snaps at Rosie. She grabs at the scarf, pulling it from Rosie’s grasp. But the wind gusts at just that moment, and the scarf flutters, flying free. For a moment all we can do is watch as it floats over the cliff’s edge and down the hill. It is soaring over the trees and out to sea when the wind shifts and blows it toward the lone dark building on Embassy Row. There is nothing but a cumulative gasp as it catches on the roof, flapping in the breeze over what is technically still the country of Iran.

“Okay. This is bad,” Noah says. His eyes are wide and filled with terror. “This is very,
very
bad.”

I feel the mood shift around me. Lila is pointing to the night sky as if in disbelief. Rosie shakes and says, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” over and over so silently it is like she’s locked in a very bad dream.

And then Noah grabs hold of me and Rosie and starts trying to pull us toward the path.

“Noah?” Rosie looks at him.

“Go home, Ro,” he says calmly. “You were never here. We were never here. Everybody!” he shouts. “Party’s over!”

“She
was
here!” Lila shouts, pointing at Rosie. “That little terror was here and it’s her fault.”

Megan steps toward her. “Lila, it’s —”

“Do not talk to me!” Lila snaps.

“Okay, Lila, let’s go.” Noah takes his sister’s arm. “Go home, Rosie, Megan. Everybody just go —”

I have this habit. It’s not a good one. It’s not like I’m proud of it or anything, but sometimes I find things funny when they really, really aren’t.

It’s a scarf on a pole on an abandoned building
, I think as I look at the panicking people around me, and I don’t even try to hold my laughter in.

“Grace, come on,” Noah says, reaching for me.

“It’s a scarf,” I say. “A
scarf
.”

I’ve been awake for almost forty-eight hours. I’m jet-lagged and exhausted, tired of these people and their drama.

“It’s not like it’s an international incident.” I look from Lila to Megan to Rosie, and then finally I let my gaze linger on Noah, who eases closer, lowers his voice.

“Actually, Grace, it kind of is. We’re Israeli. And
that
is Iran.”

When I look back at the blue-and-white scarf, I realize that, from a distance, it bears a striking resemblance to the flag of Lila and Noah’s home nation.

“The Israeli ambassador gave that scarf to our mom. In fact, he gave scarves like it to
all
of the women on his senior staff,” Noah says. “If anyone sees that up there …”

Lila grabs Megan and the two of them move toward the trees. Most of the others have already started the climb down the overgrown path.

“So don’t let anyone see.” I shrug. “Go get it.”

“We can’t!” Noah snaps. He’s not mad. He’s scared. And I know that being friends with me is already far more trouble than he bargained for. “We can’t just traipse into Iran anytime we feel like it.”

“I can get it,” I say.

“Really, Grace?” Noah asks. I can hear his impatience, his nerves. “What can you do?”

“This,” I say.

I don’t stop for anything. Not for protests, not for logic. I don’t care about the height of the cliffs or the rocks that line the shore.

I run as hard and as fast as I can toward the ledge and then I reach out my arms, swan-diving into the sea.

A
dria has the deepest shoreline on the Mediterranean, and that’s how I know the fall won’t kill me. Still, my stomach stays on the cliffs even as my body hurtles through the salty air. I feel free and just a little bit aware that I might be wrong. I know, deep down, that I should be terrified. But I’m not. So I close my eyes and breathe out as I hit the water. Cold swallows me. My lungs burn. And that is how I know I’m still alive.

By the time I crawl out of the water and onto the sandy beach, they’ve turned off the music. Or maybe I just can’t hear it from here. There is nothing but the sound of the waves crashing onto the beach and then receding slowly back to sea — like an infantry trying to take the shore, pushing against it wave upon wave, going nowhere.

The wind is cold, and it hits me, chills me through my jeans and wet shirt. I push my hair out of my face, and realize that I survived the fall, but pneumonia might totally get me. And I decide that that’s okay.

Noah was right. The Iranian embassy’s property actually stretches right out to the beach. I stumble along soft, wet sand fit for a five-star resort. When the clouds shift I see a crumbling fence failing to keep the world at bay.

The boards are rotting. A weather-beaten sign announces
Keep Out
in five different languages as it dangles by a single nail over a place where the sand has been washed away. This is where I cross, crawling slowly, carefully, on my stomach like all new recruits are taught to do during basic training. I used to run that obstacle course just for fun every chance I got. It feels strangely just like coming home as I slowly slither, inching into the sovereign nation of Iran.

Inside the fence, I wait for something to change. A light to flip on. A siren to sound. For a moment, I stand silently in the dark, heart pounding in my chest, but nothing changes. No one comes. I am alone as I cross the final stretch of private beach toward the high stone wall that surrounds the entire city and, with it, the back of the mansion.

An iron gate hangs between the wall and the base of the cliffs. There is an arching doorway that actually leads
through
the massive wall that rings the city. This old passageway is why the Iranians are the only embassy on the row with private beach access. The passageway was probably well hidden five hundred years ago, but the Iranians were no doubt more concerned with reaching the beach than keeping out invaders, so they left it there, exposed for all the world to see. Whatever guards were once posted there are now long gone.

Once I break that barrier, I know there will be no going back, no good excuses. It should bother me, I’m certain. If I had good sense. If I had the proper amount of fear and respect for authority. But I’m not thinking about Ms. Chancellor and her warnings; I’m too busy thinking about Lila and her smirk.

I step into the courtyard.

There are a few chairs and tables. Trees line the wall, but mostly the space has been taken over by grass and weeds and bushes that have grown, unchecked, for decades.

I hear a flapping noise, the gentle metallic sound of a chain banging against metal. Even in the dark, it’s easy to see the blue-and-white scarf that has wrapped itself around a flagpole on the very top of the building.

I search the back of the four-story structure, but there is no fire escape, no ladder that I can see. There’s not even a drainpipe or tree that I can scamper up. But there
is
a broken window. A few stray shards of glass cling to the inside of the frame, so I’m careful as I reach to unlock it, slide the broken section up, and ease my way inside.

The floorboards are rotten, at least in the place where I’m standing. I have no way of knowing when the window broke, but it’s probably been years. Decades even. Rain and sand have collected here, and when I start to move, I feel the floorboards shift. I smell mold and dust and abandonment. I almost feel sorry for the building.

When I ease away from the window, the floor starts to feel more solid. There are once-marvelous chandeliers above me, dusty and dim. Part of me wants to reach out and try a switch but I know better. At best, there is no electricity to the building. At worst, there will be and the sight of a light burning will bring about all the things I’m here to stop. So I creep on carefully, silently, through the dark.

I pass through a long room with a dining table that seats thirty. In the parlor, there are dusty paintings and furniture covered with dingy white sheets. Room after room I see, all of them furnished and lived in, empty and abandoned. It feels as if a very large family simply picked up and left for the season, as if they were going to come back just as soon as some mysterious drama were over. But, I guess, some dramas never do end.

When I reach the broad, sweeping staircase I move faster. It feels like the US embassy, so my feet grow more certain as they run, taking the stairs two at a time.

The full moon slices through the windows, the only light in the dark, dusty space. I break through cobwebs as I reach the second story and then the third. That’s where I find a smaller, more utilitarian staircase, so I take it to the highest floor.

Here the ceiling is lower, the rooms smaller. If I’m right, then the flagpole is directly above me. There has to be a way to reach it, so I glance out a window and find a small metal landing. I ease carefully outside and see a ladder rising from the landing to the roof.

I’m careful as I climb. The ladder is old and hasn’t been used in ages, but it holds my weight. The worst part is that I’m now on the side of the building. Someone could see me from the Italian embassy next door; I could be spotted from the street. So I move as quickly as I dare up the side of the building, then climb out onto the flat section of roof where the flagpole stands.

From here, the sea is gorgeous. I turn to my left and take a second I don’t have to scan down the long line of embassies. I can make out thirteen flagpoles all in a row, waving in the glow of their spotlights, ringing the wall like soldiers.

A security car is driving down the street, a searchlight washing over the exteriors of the embassies, their fences and gates. When it flashes onto the roof of Iran, I fall, crashing hard onto my stomach, lying perfectly still upon the roof. I move my head slightly, just enough to see the top of the beam of light catch the bottom of the scarf’s fluttering edge. And then the light is gone.

I wait a second, then bolt to my feet and start untangling the scarf from the pole. But it’s so twisted and snagged that I have to pull the tiny knife that my father got me for my birthday from my pocket and saw away at the silk.

Soon it’s in my hands and I’m wrapping it around my wrist over and over before I climb down the ladder so quickly I almost lose my grip.

I throw my leg over the windowsill and scurry back into the embassy’s fourth-story hallway, slam the window closed behind me, and start to run down the stairs.

I’m going too quickly. I’m going to fall.
Someone is going to hear me
, I think, before I remember I’m alone. And yet I cannot shake the feeling that I’m wrong.

I listen for my mother’s voice, but it doesn’t come. I have no memory of her here, in this building where I have never been. But I swear that I hear footsteps, that someone’s on my tail.

When I reach the main landing, I turn and rush down a hallway, toward a narrow alley I saw from the roof. I have to get out of here. I have to give Lila back her scarf and return to my own embassy, my mother’s bed. There are ghosts inside these shadows, I’m certain. I can feel them. So I run faster.

I hurl myself around a corner, then skid to a stop, breathing hard, staring down at a massive, gaping hole in the floor. The boards are rotten and broken. What was probably once an incredibly expensive Persian rug hangs over the edge, like a piece of asphalt not quite taken by a sinkhole. Down below, I see water glistening, hear the
drop, drop, drop
of more water falling into a huge, ornate swimming pool that lies in the basement.

I stand on the precipice, listening to the water drip — my heart pounding.

When a voice says, “We shouldn’t be meeting here,” I can’t be sure that I’m not dreaming. The man speaks in Adrian, but it’s the language my mother spoke to me just like her mother spoke it to her. Without trying, I understand every word.

“In Adria, the walls always have ears,” someone else answers. “What better reason to meet in Iran?”

The man’s laugh is low and dark. Perhaps it is the decaying building, but it sounds sinister and menacing. I expect there to be sharks circling in the swimming pool, a cable with acid dripping onto it, ready to plunge me to my death.

I step back, but I move too fast and the floorboards creak beneath my feet. For a moment, I think I’m going to crash right through the rotten wood, onto the men below me. But I don’t fall. Instead I stand perfectly still, waiting.

“What was that?” one of the men asks.

“Your nerves are not what they used to be, my friend,” the other man says.

And then one of the men walks to the pool. He looks down into the almost-still water. Silently, I gasp but force myself to stand motionless, knowing that if he looks up, he’ll see me. And if he sees me …

I refuse to think about what happened the last time someone saw me.

For a long moment, the man keeps his gaze locked on the pool, almost like he’s lost in thought.

“Are we going to have a problem?” the unseen man asks.

“I have no reason to think so,” the man by the pool says.

“But if a problem develops …”

“Then I will deal with it.” The man places his hands in his pockets and turns to his companion. “I always do.”

The basement is dim — the hallway only lit by moonlight. The whole building is a kaleidoscope of dark and light blending into swirling shadows. But for a second I see him clearly — I really do. Dark hair speckled with gray. A nice suit. A strong jaw.

A scar.

I am absolutely certain that I see a scar.

And that is why my hands shake. My lips tremble and I squeeze them together, swallowing the cry that is rising in my throat, fighting against the tears that fill my eyes.

And then I
do
hear my mother’s voice. A haunting cry.
“Grace, no!”
she tells me.

It is the last thing she will ever tell me.

As soon as the Scarred Man steps out of sight I stumble backward. Somehow, I make myself inch slowly, quietly, down the hall. When I reach the broken window I hurl myself through it, and then my feet begin to move faster and faster, running back the way I came, through the overgrown courtyard and the broken gate, back across the soft, sandy beach.

I hate my footsteps, how easy it will be for someone to see where I’ve been. But I don’t dare stop to smooth the sand behind me.

I’m on my stomach, belly-crawling back beneath the wooden fence, onto public land, when my shoulders leave the ground completely. Suddenly, I’m slammed into the rotting fence. I can feel the raised letters of the
Keep Out
sign through my wet shirt as I look up at the big, blue eyes that stare at me.

I tremble as Alexei says, “Grace, what have you done?”