It was better to keep quiet.
“Megan?” He poked his head in the doorway.
She forced herself to smile at him. “I’m fine, Dad. There’s nothing wrong. Everything’s fine.”
Her father had met his deadline and successfully completed his most recent project, so, for the first time in a long while, their family went out to dinner to celebrate. Megan was in the mood for Mexican food, while James wanted to go to Fazio’s because they had pizza, but, as always, their parents were the ones who got to decide, so they ended up at that lame hippie health-food restaurant Radicchio. That was bad enough. But what made it worse was the fact that Brad Bishop was sitting with his dad two tables over. She ignored him, and he ignored her, but Megan knew he saw her, just as she saw him. It was impossible to be cool when you were with your parents, and she settled for acting bored and above it all, as though she’d been forced to come here. She tried not to look over at Brad but couldn’t help glancing up at him periodically. Each time she did, he seemed as bored as she was pretending to be.
Dinner lasted way longer than it should have. Service, as always, was poor, and one of their parents’ friends stopped by to chat, which made her want to sink into the floor with embarrassment. Luckily, Brad and his dad left soon after, and while they passed directly by her family’s table on their way out, neither she nor Brad acknowledged each other.
It had been light out when they arrived, but it was dark when they left, and Megan wondered what time it was. It seemed like they’d been in that stupid restaurant for hours. “Great celebration,” she said sarcastically.
“It was, wasn’t it?” Her dad was either genuinely oblivious or pretending to be oblivious in order to antagonize her, but she refused to take the bait and engage him. Instead, she opened the door of the van and got in.
A few blocks later, near the park, the van’s headlights illuminated a yellow sign at the side of the road: SLOW CHILDREN PLAYING.
“Look out for retarded kids,” she told James.
“Megan!” her dad said sternly.
“That’s what the sign says.”
“I see one!” James announced.
“James!”
The two of them giggled.
They arrived home a few moments later. Her parents never let her keep her phone on when they were out in public doing family activities, so the first thing Megan did when she got inside was turn on her phone and check for messages. There was one text she’d missed, and she immediately announced that she’d be in her room and headed upstairs, not wanting James or her parents to see the message. It was probably from Zoe, and for her eyes only.
There was a split second of hesitation as she reached the top of the steps—
—but then she heard the sound of James’s footsteps coming up the stairs behind her, she flipped on the hall light, and all was normal. Walking over and into her bedroom, she turned on both the ceiling light and the lamp on her desk before closing the door and checking the text.
It looked like those symbols that were strung together in order to depict obscenities in comic books.
Megan pressed her friend’s speed-dial number, but Zoe did not answer right away, like she usually did, and after six rings there was a message, Zoe talking in a subdued, dispirited voice: “I cannot use my cell phone right now. If you wish to speak to me, please call my home phone.”
Megan dialed her friend’s home phone, and Zoe’s mom answered. “Hello?”
“Hello, Mrs. Dunbar? This is Megan. May I speak to Zoe?”
“Oh, Megan! How are you? Hold on a sec; I’ll get her.”
Zoe came on the line, and there were a few moments of awkward innocuous chitchat until her mother left the room. “Okay,” she said finally. “What’s up?”
“Did you text me earlier? About an hour ago?”
“No. How could I? My mom took my phone away because my stupid sister caught me talking to Kate when I was supposed to be pulling weeds. I can’t get it back until Monday!”
“Well,
“You always know if it’s from me. I don’t block anything.”
“Yeah.” She almost told Zoe about the other messages she’d received, but her friend started complaining about her sister and her mom, and it didn’t seem like the right time to bring it up. Zoe went on to tell her that Kate had seen Jenny Sanchez at Dairy Queen yesterday and she had really short hair and it was blond!
“Why would she do that?” Megan wondered.
“God knows.”
“Oh, that reminds me,” Megan said. “I saw Brad at Radicchio.”
“When?”
“Just now. We got back, like, five minutes ago.”
“No one’s seen him since school got out! I heard he moved.”
“Obviously not.”
“Who was he with?”
“His dad.”
“His parents got divorced, you know. At the end of last year.”
“I know. And his dad got custody. Which means that his mom must be really …”
“Yeah.” There was a pause. “Did you talk to him?”
“No!”
“
From the hallway outside Megan’s door came the sound of running footsteps as James hurried back downstairs.
She wished he were staying up here.
“Are you still there?” Zoe said. “Hel-
“I’m here.”
“You should’ve at least waved to him or said hi. This was your chance.”
Megan reddened, glad that her friend couldn’t see her.
From somewhere in the background came the sound of Zoe’s mom’s voice: “Time’s up.”
“I have to go.” Zoe’s tone was formal and subdued. “She
“Zoe,” her mom said loudly.
“Gotta go. Bye.”
Megan was left holding a silent phone to her ear as the connection was terminated, and she quickly shut the phone off, feeling nervous.
Even with all of the lights on, the room did not seem as safe as it should have, as it usually did. Looking around, she saw a poorly cleaned section on the drawn front shade, more off-white than the surrounding area, that resembled the shadow of a man’s head. A seeping coolness made her wonder whether the window behind that shade was open. Atop her desk, two books were out that she could not remember leaving there. Had someone moved them to that spot while rifling through her room?
She was being stupid. She was in her own bedroom, in her own house, and it was probably the safest place on earth she could be.
Ordinarily, she would have gone online and browsed for a while, but Megan realized as she looked at her
