Secrets, secrets everywhere 2 страница

I went back to the blog and read a few more entries. After a while, I noticed something. All the comments to the blog posts were just disgruntled people. But the person writing the actual blog seemed to know an awful lot about Lexi and her friends for an outsider.

“Whoever this mystery blogger is,” I told my friends, “he or she seems to know Lexi and her friends intimately. And if the things in those blog posts are true” — something I noted to ask Lexi about later — “it has to be coming from someone pretty close to her.”

“Like maybe an ex-boyfriend by the name of Scott Sears?” George suggested.

“Maybe,” I admitted. I turned to Bess. “Bess, what do you —?”

But when I saw the look on her face, I knew I was in for trouble. She wore an evil grin, one that made her left eyebrow arch and set her dimples deeper than ever.

“What?” I asked, afraid to hear the answer. “Bess, last time you looked at me like that, I wound up being a contestant in a beauty pageant.”

George chuckled beside me.

Bess sat on the edge of the bed, looking at me like a concerned mother about to tuck her sick child into bed. “Nancy,” she said slowly, “just hear me out. I know that things got a little… hairy with you going undercover in that pageant.”

I snorted.

“But you solved the mystery!” she reminded me. “And you did it all the way from New York City.”

“Cut to the chase, Bess,” I urged. “But let me warn you — I am not going on a diet this time around.”

“You mean pretending to go on a diet.” Bess giggled.

I shot her a look.

“Okay!” she squeaked. “Just let me explain….”

Back at Boom Babies, I rotated in front of the dressing-room mirror with a frown on my face. I felt ridiculous.

“Come out!” Bess called from outside the stall.

“No,” I grumbled. I could hear George’s muffled laughter, and I pictured Bess putting her hand over her cousin’s mouth.

“C’mon,” Bess coaxed. “This is for a good cause — in order to know them, you have to become them. These are the clothes that will get you in with Lexi Claremont and her crew.”

I sighed at my reflection in the mirror — short navy blue and hunter green plaid mini. Cream-colored lightweight Italian cashmere sweater. And cute gold strappy kitten heels I doubted I’d last five minutes in without falling down. How could a girl break into an empty house or follow someone soundlessly wearing kitten heels? This was definitely not a sleuthing outfit.

I pushed the dressing-room door open and glared at George, whose hand was covering her mouth — but not well enough to conceal the enormous grin that reached all the way up to her eyes.

“Don’t. Say. A. Word,” I warned.

Bess squealed. “Ooh, Nancy — you look adorable in that outfit!”

I turned around and looked at myself in the three-way mirror, surveying Bess’s handiwork. “This is all in the name of solving a mystery,” I repeated out loud for the billionth time since we’d entered the store.

“Exactly,” Bess enthused. “And you couldn’t exactly infiltrate Lexi’s clique looking like…” She glanced at the rumpled jeans and light brown coffee-stained T-shirt that sat on the dressing-room floor. “Well, you.”

I frowned. “Are the heels absolutely necessary? You know I will fall in these. Remember what we learned about my lack of grace from the beauty pageant?”

“The heels stay,” Bess said, eyebrows raised in a warning.

“But they make me look so…”

“You look like a reject from an hourlong CW drama,” George said, finally allowing her laughter to escape.

“It’s perfect,” Bess agreed.

MEET THE IT-GIRLS

I’m sorry, but in order to gain entrance, I’ll need your ticket.”

I giggled at my boyfriend, Ned, who stood behind the ticket counter in the high school parking lot. “What are you doing here?” I asked.

Ned shrugged. “I was supposed to cover it for the paper, but someone else took the piece. So I thought I’d come by and lend a hand instead.”

That was Ned. He was a stand-up guy and the nicest, most honest person I knew. When he wasn’t working at his father’s newspaper, the River Heights Bugle, he was volunteering to help throughout town.

“Well, I’m sorry, sir, I don’t have a ticket. You see, I thought the carnival didn’t open until tomorrow,” I teased him.

“I guess I’ll settle for a peck on the cheek then,” he said, smiling.

I leaned over the counter and kissed him, smearing the peach lip gloss I’d borrowed from Bess on his cheek.

“What is this?” he said, wiping the sticky stuff off his face. Then he took in my outfit. “Is this an imposter I’m looking at? What have you done with my girlfriend?”

I explained the latest mystery to him, telling him that I was going undercover as Lexi’s friend.

“Lexi Claremont?” Ned asked. “She’s already here — over by the frozen yogurt stand.”

I rolled my eyes in mock annoyance. “First,” I told him, “you’re supposed to call it fro-yo. Otherwise you’re just totally uncool.”

“Well, excuse me.” Ned laughed, running a hand through his close-cropped light brown hair. “And what’s second?”

“Second,” I said, peering out at the parking lot, which was beginning to look a lot like a real carnival. “I called Lexi last night. She told me exactly where to meet her, and I made her promise not to tell anyone who I was or let anyone know that I’m helping her. If I’m going to get close to her friends, I need them to believe I’m one of them. She agreed — so let’s just hope she’s a good actress.”

“Well, does Lexi Claremont’s new friend have time to meet her boyfriend for a hot dog later?” asked Ned.

“She might,” I said. “If she can take time off from her fabulous gig helping set up a fro-yo stand.”

“Ugh,” said a voice behind me. George. “Please stop saying fro-yo. You already look the part, I don’t need to hear it too.”

“But she looks so adorable!” Bess chimed in beside her, and looked at Ned for confirmation.

Ned held his hands up. “Hey, don’t drag me into this,” he said. “Nancy looks adorable no matter what.”

“Good answer,” I said, beaming at him.

“Wow, look at this place,” Bess said, letting out a low whistle. “Where did they get the money for all this?”

I looked around. She was right — this was turning out to be a pretty lavish setup compared to past years’ events. A bunch of rides had already been put up — a Tilt-A-Whirl, a carousel, a huge Ferris wheel, a crazy-looking roller coaster that seemed designed more for hanging upside down than right side up — and several tents were being set up for games and food. I’d learned from Lexi over the phone last night that all seniors were required to participate in the carnival. Which, I decided, would be a major help to my investigation.

“Mrs. Mahoney,” Ned answered. “She donated a ton of money in her husband’s memory. She paid for a lot of the carnival, and she’s even presenting one graduating senior with a Mahoney Scholarship Award on Sunday — it’s the Celebration’s closing event.”

“Wow,” I breathed. I knew Mrs. Mahoney was wealthy — my dad, Carson Drew, was an attorney, and she was one of his clients. He never said much about any of his clients’ personal information, but I knew that her husband, Cornelius, had been sort of a crooked businessman who left her a lot of money when he passed away. Mrs. Mahoney herself was sweet as pie and a major philanthropist in the town of River Heights.

“So.” George grabbed my arm. “I have some good news.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” I said, waving good-bye to Ned and walking toward the crowds of people setting up, Bess and George on either side of me.

“I worked all night trying to hack into the IP of hatethesegirls.com,” George said in a low voice.

“And?” I asked, getting excited.

“And I was able to find out some information, but not all of it.”

“Tell her!” said Bess, her eyes sparkling with excitement.

“The last few blog entries were posted from Club Coffee.”

“Are you kidding me?” I asked.

“Nan-ceeee!” I looked toward where the voice was coming from and saw Lexi waving me over from a big white tent.

“Gotta go,” I said to my friends. “But Bess — I’ve got a job for you.”

“Anything,” Bess said, showing her dimples and smoothing her pretty pink skirt and white V-neck shirt.

I thought for the millionth time how lucky I was to have friends like Bess and George, who offered help anytime I needed it, no questions asked.

“According to Lexi, the entire senior class should be here at some point today. I need you to find a guy by the name of Scott Sears. He’s Lexi’s ex, and he might have reason to want to sabotage her in some way. I know you can charm him into a conversation — and given this new information about the blog’s IP, I’d love to know if he has a penchant for caramel macchiatos.”

“Got it,” said Bess.

“Nan-ceeeeeeeeeeee!” Lexi shouted again.

“I guess I should head over,” I said. “But, George — thank you.”

“I’m not done yet,” she said, holding up her netbook. “I’m going to try to get some more information out of that IP. Whoever set up this blog really knows what he or she is doing. In the meantime, I put up an alert on Lexi’s name — so if the blogger posts anything else about her, I’ll get a notification on my PDA right away.”

“You’re the best!” I told her, speed walking over to the fro-yo stand — which, as I suspected, was not the easiest thing to do in kitten heels. I was already regretting not bringing my running shoes with me.

“You guys!” said Lexi, grabbing my arm and pulling me toward her friends. “This is the girl I was telling you about! She’s going to help us with the stand. I, um, met her at… the nail salon, and you’ll totally love her!”

“Oh we will, will we?”

I looked at the source of the sour voice and felt my heart sink. Deirdre Shannon. Of course. Deirdre shook her long, dark waves out behind her and smirked at me. “Nice outfit, Nancy Drew.”

I gave a wavery smile and tried to hide my chewed-up fingernails (nail salon!!!). Deirdre and Lexi were with two other girls, both of whom I recognized from hatethesegirls.com. One had strawberry blond hair with expensive-looking platinum highlights — Lexi introduced her as Heather Harris.

The other girl was shorter than the rest. Her name was Aly Stanfield. She was Asian and very athletic-looking. She had the hair I’d always dreamed of having: perfectly straight brown-black hair that was silky smooth and cut in fashionable, razor-sharp layers, the shortest of which was just long enough to pull back into a ponytail.

Once I’d been introduced to all the girls, I realized that they were wearing the same exact outfit — a short white tennis skirt and a pink tissue tee — though I did notice that Lexi’s shirt was a vibrant hot pink while everyone else wore pastel, even Deirdre. I took a look at their shoes and my spirits sank. They were all wearing silver flip-flops adorned with a tiny rhinestone heart. Ugh. Waaay more comfortable than kitten heels! Bess was going to hear about this.

“When Lexi told me she’d made a new friend,” Deirdre purred, “I would have never guessed it would be Nancy Drew.”

I smiled sweetly, despite the fact that her tone of voice clearly indicated that this was a put-down. “Well, we just… hit it off, I guess!” I tried to sound chipper, but it came out more squeaky than perky.

“You two know each other?” Aly asked, applying lip gloss without even using a mirror.

A worry line formed over Lexi’s forehead, and she looked at me, expectant. Apparently, she was just as worried about my acting skills as I’d been about hers.

“Oh,” I said. “Sometimes you just… click with someone, I guess. We didn’t even know we’d been classmates until we started talking about RHH.”

“Have any of you met Nancy’s boyfriend, Ned?” asked Deirdre, looking at me dead-on. “He’s quite the charmer. I’ll have to introduce you later.”

I sighed inwardly. Deirdre had been after Ned for as long as I could remember. I knew I had nothing to worry about — Ned had no interest in her whatsoever, and I knew he was devoted to me completely. But I’d be lying if I said that Deirdre’s flirtation hadn’t gotten to me on more than one occasion. And I couldn’t help but remember the line on hatethesegirls.com about Lexi’s boyfriend-stealing skills.

“You have a boyfriend?” Heather asked, leaning toward me and running a comb through her golden highlights. “Here?”

“I know, hard to —,” Deirdre started.

But at the same time, a petite woman in a pretty gray skirt and matching suit jacket approached the table. “Hello, my favorite girls!” she said in a happy voice.

“Hi, Mara,” said Lexi, smiling a very pageant-girl-like smile.

Mara adjusted the cream-colored silk ruffle shirt under her suit jacket and then flipped through some papers she’d attached to a clipboard.

“Aly, honey, your lip gloss,” she said, pantomiming wiping off a corner of her lip.

Aly flushed red and wiped away the errant gloss.

“And who do we have here?” Mara asked, looking at me with wide, curious eyes.

“Oh, I —”

“This is my new friend, Nancy Drew,” Lexi cut in. She sure did that a lot. “She’s, um, here to help out at the stand? Nancy, this is Mara Stanfield. She’s the head of the PTA and the president of the Daughters of River Heights Association. Oh, and Aly’s mom, of course.”

Mara extended her hand to me and shook it — ow — a little too firmly.

“It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Stanfield,” I said.

“Please,” she said, throwing up her hands, palms out. “Call me Mara. Mrs. Stan- field is my mother-in-law. It makes me feel so old.”

“Mo-om,” Aly complained.

“Oh, Aly, stop!” Mara shrieked. She was way too peppy. I wondered how many macchiatos I’d have to drink to have her kind of energy. Not to mention her heels were much higher than mine, and there wasn’t a trace of the pain I was feeling visible on her face.

And then it occurred to me — Mara was Aly’s mom? Interesting. If she was the president of the DRH and she’d been involved in the election of one of Aly’s best friends as this year’s Daughter, did that bother Aly at all? As Mara rattled off a list of fro-yo protocol and detailed the importance of customer service, I studied her daughter.

Aly was gritting her teeth throughout her mother’s speech and shifting her weight from side to side. At one point she began to pick at her bright pink nail polish, and then even began to nibble at her nails. Out of all the girls here, I imagined that I would probably get along best with Aly. She seemed a little more down-to-earth than the rest, more reserved. Then I saw Lexi shoot Aly a look. Aly immediately stopped biting her nails and dropped her hands by her sides, and her face flushed again.

I held in my eye roll at Lexi’s obvious “It-Girls Don’t Bite Their Nails” judgment. Poor Aly. Between Lexi and her mother, I wondered how she ever got a word in. I felt for her, but I also felt something else: a possible motive. Aly didn’t seem like the type to write a publicly mean blog about one of her best friends, but being bullied and told what to do all the time could make people do things they wouldn’t ordinarily do. I made a mental note to ask Bess and George if either knew anything about Aly Stanfield.

Across the parking lot, I spotted a familiar face. Or thought I did. The man I’d known last as my math teacher had been much heavier, and had more hair. But that pink face and those wire-rimmed glasses were so familiar. Forgetting that I probably shouldn’t interrupt Mara’s fro-yo server etiquette speech, I blurted out, “Is that Mr. Steele?”

Mara sighed. “Where?”

I pointed to where the man who might be Mr. Steele was heading back into the school building.

“Ah yes,” Mara said with a bored expression. “There he is.”

“Boy, he sure has changed a lot,” I said.

“I’ll bet he went on the South Beach Diet,” Deirdre remarked, tossing a look at him over her shoulder.

“Well, good for him,” said Mara, in a chipper tone that sounded forced. “Hopefully that brings more joy to his life.” And then, under her breath, “Although heaven knows why a high school math teacher so clearly disgruntled with his job would choose to head up the carnival committee.”

“What?” I asked. That sure came from nowhere!

“You girls are all set,” Mara said, ignoring my question. “I’m sure you’ll do a great job tomorrow! Right, Alyson?”

“Sure,” Aly quipped. “Great.”

Once Mara left, the girls and I started wiping down the table and the fro-yo machine parts, counting cups, and assembling the machine. I was reading the instructions for the yogurt machine and had long since taken off my kitten heels when I felt ice-cold fingers grip my wrist.

Startled, I looked up.

It was Lexi Claremont, holding a small square of sky blue paper. And she looked ghost-white with fear.

WALKING ON SUNSHINE

“A note?” George asked me.

Ned, George, and I were off the fairgrounds at a picnic table, eating the hot dogs Ned had gotten for us — just far enough away from everyone so that our conversation could be kept private.

I nodded, licking yellow mustard off the corner of my finger. “Apparently, she opened her purse to get her lipstick” — George rolled her eyes — “and she found the note inside her purse.”

“Creepy,” Ned said.

“What’s creepy?” asked Bess, plopping down beside George. She helped herself to a hot dog from the center of the table.

“Someone planted a threatening note in Lexi’s purse while she was working on setting up the fro-yo booth,” George answered for me.

Bess froze with the hot dog halfway up to her mouth. “What did it say?”

I held up the note for her to see.

KEEP SHOWING UP AND YOU’LL BE SORRY.

“Whoa,” Bess said, her eyes gleaming with concern. “A gossipy website is one thing. But threatening notes inside her purse? Maybe she should contact the police.”

We all traded looks. The River Heights Police Department ran a pretty good operation. But we all knew that Chief McGinnis had bungled more than his fair share of cases. He and I had worked together before — mostly without his knowledge. The way it tended to go was, I found out who committed the crime and where, and Chief McGinnis arrested them once he got my phone call. He was a good guy, but not someone I’d necessarily want solving a crime committed against me.

“I agree — it’s übercreepy,” I admitted. “And I promise I won’t get in over my head.”

George snorted, and I shot her a pointed look.

“But,” I continued, “there’s something about this whole case. It’s like every time I’m close to putting my finger on something, that something moves a little to the left.”

I examined the sky blue note in my hand. It had been written in black ink, and I could tell the person who wrote it had been writing with his or her nonwriting hand by the way the letters were slanted at odd angles. And there was something I hadn’t noticed at first — a black smudge on the very edge of the paper. Not a smudge from the pen, exactly. Something chalkier, almost like charcoal.

I tucked the note in my purse and turned my attention to Bess. “Oh!” I said. “I al- most forgot — did you find Scott Sears?”

“Lexi’s ex,” Bess answered the question written on Ned’s face. “And yes, I did.” She beamed.

“Uh-oh,” said George, folding up her napkin and taking a sip of soda. “He was cute.”

“And chatty,” Bess chimed in after finally taking a bite of her hot dog. “Fifteen minutes into a casual conversation, he volunteered the fact that his last girlfriend had cheated on him — and that he’s glad to be rid of her.” She held up a piece of paper with a phone number scrawled on it as further proof of how over his ex- girlfriend Scott really was.

“Lexi cheated?” I asked, a little annoyed. That was sort of a big detail for Lexi to have left out of the story. If that wasn’t motivation for taking someone down, I didn’t know what was.

Someone’s phone started buzzing, and George pulled her PDA out of her pocket. “It’s the alert I put out on Lexi’s name!” she said. She punched in some keys on her phone, examined it closely, and then looked back at me with a solemn expression on her face. “There’s a new blog entry on hatethesegirls.com.”

“Can you read it from your phone?” I asked, my pulse quickening.

“I can,” George said slowly. “But you’re not going to like it.” She held her phone out and I took it, Ned reading over my shoulder.

Is Lexi Claremont so pathetic that she had to hire an amateur detective to find out who the author of this blog really is? (A) Yes, or (B) No. If you’ve guessed the letter A, you win a prize. The Princess of River Heights High has sunk to a new level.

A couple more questions: Who can dish it, but can’t take it at all? And who is so vain that one little blog would threaten her place on her throne enough to make her take action? That’s right, Lexi Claremont — that would be you. Sad, sad, sad.

“What?” I screeched. “I told her explicitly not to tell anyone about hiring me!”

“Well,” said Bess. “Either she’s not too good at following instructions, or the author of this blog knows who you are and saw you with Lexi and just put two and two together. Or maybe Deirdre blabbed. She knows you’re a detective, and I wouldn’t put it past her to mouth off about it.”

“Can I just reiterate that I don’t like this whole thing?” Ned said. “I don’t know, Nance. I know you want to help this girl, but now you’re showing up on the blog? I’m not sure it’s worth pursuing. Remember what happened last time you were online?”

“But don’t you see?” I said, the realization hitting me suddenly. “From this blog entry alone, we know more now than we did before.”

“What’s that?” George asked.

“The blogger has to be someone here. Do you guys think it’s just a coincidence that we’re all on our lunch break from setting up the carnival, and suddenly a new blog entry goes up?”

“It has to be Scott,” said George. “I mean, this just went up, and Bess left his side about twenty minutes ago.”

Bess shook her head. “I don’t think it was him,” she insisted. “I talked to him for a while, and he seems really sweet. He seemed more hurt about Lexi cheating on him than anything. I just didn’t get that he’d be capable of something like this.”

“Of course not,” George said, nodding toward the phone number in Bess’s hand.

“No,” I said, thinking back to the blog entry. “I agree with Bess about Scott. This blog is serious into the gossip. It has ‘girl’ written all over it.”

“Guys can be pretty gossipy,” said George in a singsong voice.

“Why did you look at me when you said that?” Ned asked, mock-offended.

George laughed.

“Is there anyone in particular you’re thinking of, Nancy?” Bess asked.

“Actually, yes,” I said. “What if it was someone in Lexi’s inner circle?”

“Like Deirdre?” George asked, looking hopeful. Deirdre bugged all of us, but she annoyed George more than anyone else on the planet. She was everything that George hated — entitled, spoiled, rude, and vain.

“Sorry, George,” I said. “But I’m thinking more along the lines of someone Lexi’s own age. Does anyone know anything about Aly Stanfield?”

I looked around at my friends, all of them slowly shaking their heads.

“The name Aly doesn’t sound familiar,” Ned said. “But why do I know the name Stanfield?”

“Mara Stanfield,” Bess chimed in, as if waking from a dream. When she realized everyone was staring at her, awaiting an explanation, she went on. “She’s like River Heights’ very own Supermom. President of the PTA, head of the town’s Optimist Club, plus she’s the head of the DRH….”

“Exactly,” I said. “She heads up the DRH.”

“And her daughter is a friend of Lexi’s?” George asked. “Ouch. That’s got to sting a little.”

“Seriously,” Bess added. She looked at George, then back at me. “Do you know if she’s any good with computers?”

“No,” I said, holding Ned’s wrist out to read his watch. “But I intend to find out. It’s time to head back anyway. I’ll touch base with everyone later on. And George? Could you —”

“Check on the IP of the latest blog entry?”

I nodded.

“Already on it,” she said, pointing toward the high school’s computer center.

“Thank you,” I said.

“And I’m heading back to the paper,” Ned said. “But Nancy, please be careful. Promise me if this looks like it’s getting any more serious, you’ll leave it to someone else to solve the mystery this time.”

“Promise,” I said, giving him a peck on the cheek before he headed back toward the parking lot.

Ned was the sweetest boyfriend a girl could ask for, but I knew he got nervous about what I did sometimes. He was only looking out for me, but I had a hunch I was onto something with this Aly Stanfield lead, and I wasn’t quite ready to give it up.

Bess and I gathered our napkins and the empty packets of mustard from the center of the table and stuffed them into a plastic bag to take with us and throw out back at the carnival site. As we moved closer, I saw that everything was coming together beautifully.

It looked like a real carnival now — all the rides were completely set up and running (no one was on them yet, so I imagined it was just a few test runs), and the tents were up, each one containing a different game or food vendor that the high school students had arranged. I had to say, it looked really impressive. I was happy for Mrs. Mahoney and the town in general that everyone would have this place to look forward to when it opened tomorrow.

Just then I heard a commotion coming from what looked like a ring-toss booth. Bess and I caught each other’s gaze briefly before automatically heading over.

“And I appreciate that,” said an upbeat, cheery voice — Mara Stanfield. “But sometimes there is more to participation than just simply being somewhere! Right? Right!”

The girl standing next to Mara looked familiar, though I couldn’t quite place her right off. She had hair so black it almost looked blue, and all black clothes from head to toe. Her scowl was dressed up in cherry red lipstick, and she had a bracelet around her wrist that — oh!

“Bess,” I whispered. “Do you recognize that girl in the black?”

“I don’t know who she is, but I feel like I’ve seen her before.”

“Was it yesterday afternoon, at Club Coffee?” I asked.

“Yes!” Bess said, snapping her fingers. “She was in a booth in the corner and she was —”

“Working on her laptop?” I finished. I didn’t know who she was, but if she knew me and had seen Lexi and me together at Club Coffee, it was possible she could have put two and two together.

Bess nodded, and we locked eyes. Without another word, we walked closer to the tent.

“This is a carnival, after all! So let’s look like we’re having a little bit of fun!” Mara chirped. “Service with a smile!” She knocked on the back of her clipboard with one knuckle, as if for good luck, and then click-clacked away in her heels.

Once Mara’s back was turned, the girl in all black rolled her eyes.

Bess and I approached the tent.

“Ring toss?” I asked, indicating the bottles set up in the back of the booth.

The girl in black took in Bess’s and my outfits skeptically. I wanted to shout, I don’t normally dress like this! I don’t own a stitch of cashmere! And I NEVER wear plaid minis — I’m undercover! But that would have defeated the purpose. So instead, I extended my hand. “I’m Nancy Drew,” I said, “and this is my friend, Bess Marvin.”

After a moment’s hesitation, the girl took my hand and shook it with a rough squeeze — possibly the only thing she would ever have in common with Mara Stanfield, I thought, stifling a smile.

“I’m Sunshine Lawrence,” she said, after shaking Bess’s hand.

Bess and I must have raised our eyebrows in tandem — it was impossible not to notice the irony of Sunshine’s appearance paired with her name — or else she was used to it, because right away, she sighed and said, “My parents were hippies. Don’t even ask.”

“She’s kind of intense,” I said, nodding toward Mara, who had made her way to the cotton candy booth across the way.

“Kind of?” Sunshine scoffed, but I saw a hint of a smile tugging on the corners of her mouth, and I felt her warm up to me immediately.

“So how did you get roped into this?” I asked, playing off the we-hate-this vibe.

“We were required to do something, so I figured I’d pick something solo that requires little or no attention, so I can read or write during downtime.” She nodded to a stack of books and her laptop.

“Smart move,” said Bess, playing along.

“What about you guys?” Sunshine asked. “Didn’t you already graduate?”

Okay, so she did know us — well enough to know we’d already graduated, anyway.