Any Red-Blooded Girl (17 page)

I shot him a charming smile. “Actually
there’s nothing wrong with it,” I said. “My parents bought it for
me for my birthday—I just turned sixteen—and my boyfriend also got
me one too. So I don’t need them both. That’s why I want to return
on this one.”

Okay…
way
too much information; I was
rambling like a motor-mouth with ADD.

The returns guy just stared at me like I was
a mental freak. “All right. Let me check with my manager. You said
you have the receipt at home, correct?”

“Uh-huh,” I lied again.

He shook his head. “Because we’ve been having
some problems with fraud lately, so I’m not sure we’ll be able to
help you without the receipt. But I’ll give it a try. You can wait
over there,” he said, pointing to a metal bench on the wall near
the photo machine. “I’ll be right back.”

As he ducked through the door to work his
magic, I tried to squeak out a
thank you,
but my vocal cords
were paralyzed. After all, he’d just mentioned fraud. To me. The
fraudster.

For what seemed like enough time for the
returns guy to build a Blu-ray player from scratch, I waited in
silent terror. I mean, what the hell was taking so long? This was
supposed to be a quick operation. In and out. Instead, it had
turned into a torture-fest that was going to kill me for sure. And
I wasn’t the only one getting antsy either; a steady stream of
customers had piled up in the rope-maze to wait for the Incredible
Disappearing Refund Dispenser.

And to be honest, I was on the verge of
disappearing myself, when the returns guy finally graced us with
his presence again. But the peculiar thing was, he didn’t even look
in my direction. He just pushed the fake Blu-ray player aside and
stared straight ahead at the next customer like I didn’t exist.

Determined to reclaim my spot in line, I
stood up and took a step toward the counter. And that’s when I
heard the most frightening sentence of my life.

“Excuse me,” the gruff voice said, “we’re
going to need you to come with us.” Before I could even respond,
the muscle-bound brute and his scrawny assistant cornered me.
“We’re store security, and we’d like to ask you a few
questions.”

The brute nodded to a well-dressed woman who
had suddenly appeared behind the returns counter.

My mind was blank. “I...I…”

By the reaction of the security guard, it was
entirely possible I was shaking like a leaf. “Just relax and follow
us,” he said. “If you cooperate, there won’t be any trouble.”

Now I’ve never had a near-death experience
before, but I’m pretty sure it would be exactly like this. Because
my mind had inexplicably detached from my body, and I was watching
myself march into the Pit of Doom as if my life were a flickering
reel-to-reel movie.

“But…what?” I tried, still unable to form a
coherent sentence.

The men led the way and the woman followed
behind me, lugging the box I’d tried to return. Meanwhile, I
shuffled along on autopilot as our little troupe slugged through
the
Associates Only
door, up a wide, industrial staircase,
and into a bare, claustrophobic cubicle of a room.

“Sit down,” the scrawny security guard
ordered, pointing to a weathered wooden chair in the corner.

All three of my tormentors squeezed into the
narrow space beside me, which made me feel like a million invisible
bugs were crawling under my skin.

“Would you care to tell us exactly what’s
going on here?” the muscle-bound brute asked.

I just blinked uncontrollably.

The brute took the Blu-ray box from the woman
and dropped it on an empty desk, where he zipped a sharp tool—maybe
a razor blade—across the tape I’d so meticulously applied.

“You don’t know anything about this?” he
asked, pulling a single brick from the Styrofoam peanuts. “I find
that hard to believe.”

My mouth refused to move. It was as if I’d
swallowed a bucketful of stones, and they were creeping up my
throat to choke the life out of me. The last thing I remember is an
out of control sensation, kind of like falling off a cliff in a
dream. Then things went blank—that is, until I recovered from
fainting and the police hauled me off, handcuffs and all.

Nineteen

I’LL spare you the gory details of my arrest
and the dramatic, emotional scene that played out when I was
released from jail. Suffice it to say that my parents nixed the
hunt for Champ, hired an excellent defense attorney, and encouraged
me to rat out Mick’s cousins, which I eventually did after much
prodding.

And lucky for me, I guess, the voodoo lawyer
pleaded my case down to a charge of Disorderly Conduct, which is
technically a violation in New York, not a crime. And my parents
paid the two hundred and fifty dollar fine, pending repayment by me
through a sick method of their choosing. Meanwhile, until the whole
ugly mess got sorted out, my family and I bunked down at a grungy,
rat-infested motel adjacent to a meat processing plant. How
stellar.

Now given the circumstances, you’d probably
assume getting arrested was the most disturbing experience in my
universe at the moment. But tragically, you’d be wrong. Because
instead of obsessing over the consequences of my criminal activity,
like the absolute certainty my mother was going to monitor me like
an air traffic controller until I turned eighteen, I was wrapped in
a bubble of distraught self-pity over losing the love of my life.
After all, nothing held any significance—good
or
bad—in a
world without my sweet-hearted, gorgeous Mick Donovan. Even a
ground-splitting earthquake or a raging wildfire wouldn’t have
fazed me much. I’d given up caring.

“Hey, Flora. Your bag,” Will said, nudging my
arm as we pulled into our driveway back in Punxsutawney.

Oh boy, now I could wallow in misery
somewhere more familiar.

At the pace of an inchworm, I dragged myself
around to the back of the Maroon Monstrosity, where I attempted to
sling my duffel over my shoulder. Instead, though, I just ended up
scuffing the thing along behind me limp-armed in the dirt.

I guess you could say the Valium my mother
had slipped me was still in effect, because I felt about as flat as
humanly possible—unless, of course, you counted psychopaths. At
least I was still more in touch with my feelings than
they
were.

“Are you okay, honey?” my mother asked, as I
hiked the stairs to my bedroom in a foggy daze. “Can I get you
anything?”

Instead of considering me a criminal, like
the courts had, or a victim, like my father had, my mother had
simply decided I’d lost my mind. And that’s how she was treating
me: like I was such a fragile, unpredictable mess she’d better
tiptoe around in my presence. And even though I probably should
have been offended by the insinuation I was an incurable mental
case, somehow I figured it was better than the alternatives. I
mean, at least if she thought I was crazy, she’d probably leave me
alone.

“Nope. All set,” I said. “See you in the
morning.”

“Um…uh…okay,” she stumbled. “Let me know if
you need anything.”

I just nodded.

Still dazed, I wandered into my room, dropped my
bag on the floor, and collapsed on my unmade bed. It was almost
nightfall, but I didn’t bother turning on any lights. Because
honestly, the mere thought of returning to my old life like nothing
had happened, like I hadn’t suffered an immeasurable loss, was just
too sad to bear. All I wanted to do was linger in the warm, happy
memories of Mick. So I pulled the covers over my head and closed my
eyes, determined to fall asleep—for one last night, at
least—knowing I was the center of Mick’s universe and he was madly,
deeply, unyieldingly in love with me.

I’m pretty sure it was because of the Valium,
but I got an amazingly solid first night’s sleep back in
Punxsutawney. So solid, in fact, I didn’t even wake up until after
everyone else had eaten lunch.

And on the first day of my new life, reality
was already starting to set in. Because as much as I wanted to
continue ignoring the truth, Mick was gone; he wasn’t coming back.
And there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. I could wish
and hope and dream all I wanted, but it wouldn’t make a damn bit of
difference. Mick Donovan was nothing more than a stranger to me
now. A stranger without even an address or a phone number. A
ghost.

Without warning, my bedroom door creaked
open. “Hey, Flowbee,” my dad said, all upbeat. “Want something to
eat?”

“Nah,” I mumbled. Whatever he’d cooked
smelled pretty good, but my appetite was nonexistent.

He frowned. “Well, if you get hungry, let me
know. Oh, and Jessie called. I told her you’d call her when you got
up.”

Since when were my parents intervening in my
social life? I guess they were even more worried about me than I’d
realized. “Uh-huh,” I agreed half-heartedly. “I’ll call her
later.”

But the funny thing was, I had absolutely no
desire to talk to Jessie. I mean, don’t get me wrong, she’s great
and everything. But she could never really understand how hard I’d
fallen for Mick, which meant she’d probably try to cheer me up. And
I didn’t want to be cheery. I wanted to be as miserable as I’d been
happy with Mick. It was the only way I’d know for sure our love was
real. Because if there was even a shred of a chance I could just
snap my fingers and get over him…well, then our relationship wasn’t
what I’d thought it was to begin with.

For another few seconds, my dad lingered in the
doorway staring at me before he finally left. And that’s when I
noticed just how unfamiliar my room had become. How it didn’t seem
to fit me anymore. How it seemed like it belonged to someone else.
And the longer I sat there, the more uncomfortable I became. So
even though I didn’t want to talk about Mick, I decided to walk
over to Jessie’s and see how her trip to Europe had panned out
after all.

“Oh my God! Come in! Come in!” Jessie yelped,
as I moped through her front door. She threw her arms around me and
squeezed. But when I didn’t squeeze back, she didn’t seem to
notice. “I’ve been calling you for like two days,” she
complained.

We pulled our regular stools out from the
kitchen counter. “I was on that lame camping trip with my parents,
so…” I started to say.

“Ugh. I know,” she interrupted, rolling her
eyes. “Tell me all about it.”

I was sure she didn’t mean it literally. “How
was Europe?” I deflected. “I wish I could’ve gone.”

“No, you don’t,” she said. “I mean, it
should’ve
been fun, but just about everything went wrong.
You’re lucky your parents went all Nazi on you.”

“What do you mean everything went wrong?” I
asked, trying to act interested when all I could think about was
Mick.

She sighed. “Well, let’s see… First my dad
threw his back out and we had to spend like a month in the hospital
in Paris.”

“That sucks,” I muttered.

“Yeah, for
him
. He spent the rest of
the trip all drugged-out and hunched over,” she said, chuckling at
her father’s misfortune as she passed me a chubby pretzel rod that
resembled a cigar.

I still wasn’t hungry, but what the hell. It
couldn’t hurt to suck all the chunky salt crystals off the thing
until it was naked and soggy.

“So promise you won’t think I’m a total
freakazoid…” Jessie said, like I was supposed to know what the hell
she was talking about.

I took the pretzel out of my mouth.
“Huh?”

“I wouldn’t tell this to anyone but you, I
swear. But I caught some weird virus, and my parents barely let me
out of the hotel. It was a disaster,” she said, pausing for my
reaction.

“What kind of virus?” I asked. Maybe if she
gave it to me, I could just die already and get it over with.

“I don’t know. It had some freaky name like
Parvo-something,” she said. “Do you think it’s French?”

“I have no idea.”

“Sounds French to me,” she said. “Anyway,
first I thought I just had a cold—like a runny nose and a sore
throat and stuff.” She stuck out her tongue in disgust. “But then I
got this crazy red rash all over my face. It was hideous.”

I stared, but there was nothing visibly wrong
with her. “I don’t see anything,” I remarked.

“Oh, it’s gone. It only lasted like a week or
so,” she explained. “All better. But of course my parents treated
me like I had the Bubonic Plague, so I missed Big Ben, Madame
Tussaud’s, Buckingham Palace…”

“London?” I asked, confused. “I thought you
said you got sick in France.”

She shook her head. “No, not really. I
probably
caught
it in France. In the hospital. At least
that’s what my mother thinks. But I didn’t actually get sick until
we got to London.”

“Bummer,” I said, trying to work up the
appropriate amount of concern in my voice. I must admit, though,
I’m a pretty bad actress. If Jessie didn’t catch on to the fact
that I was severely depressed, she wasn’t paying much
attention.

“So basically Europe was a bust,” she
continued without missing a beat. “Ridiculous.” She rolled her eyes
and shook her head. “What about you? Did you have fun in… Where was
it again?”

“It was supposed to be Lake Champlain,” I
said, “but we never actually made it there.” I was toying with the
idea of telling her the whole sordid story, but I stopped at,
“There was a problem, and we had to come home.”

“Like what? A dental emergency?” Jessie
joked.

It
would’ve
been just like the Mental
Hygienist to drag us back to Punxsutawney so she could assist in
some gory dental procedure. “No, nothing like that—believe it or
not,” I said. “Just something that screwed everything up, that’s
all. I’ll tell you about it later. Promise.”

“Uh…okay.”

Obviously, Jessie was stuck for words. And I
couldn’t blame her. I mean, in our whole friendship, I’d never
intentionally kept anything from her—until now. And it wasn’t like
I didn’t want her to know about Mick; it was just too soon. I’m
sure if the shoe had been on the other foot, I wouldn’t have known
how to react either.