The wall clock ticked deafeningly. Twelve fifty-seven.
The door flew open and everyone jumped. The mus-
tached cop who had been at the school came in.
“Okay, everybody, I’m Officer Collins,” he said, looking up from a clipboard of papers. Everyone sat up straighter, even Dr. Weaver. Travis folded his hands on the table in front of him.
Officer Collins seated himself at the table across from Travis, his heavy leather belt creaking with importance, and flipped through a few pages on his clipboard.
“Uh, let’s see …” He squinted at some type and read in a monotone: “Travis Jason Helding, eighteen, charged with disorderly conduct, destruction of property and”—
Officer Collins looked over at Mr. Tippen—“theft. I guess that was your golf cart, sir.”
Celeste’s father nodded grimly and tightened his arms over his chest. Travis’s face was perfectly blank. He might as well have been listening to a lecture in class.
Remorse! Think remorse! Celeste tried to mentally tele-graph him.
Collins flipped to a blank form and poised a pen over it. “Okay, which of you is Dr. Weaver?”
“I am,” Dr. Weaver said.
“All right, this young man is a student of yours?”
Dr. Weaver started to nod and then stopped.
“Actually,” he said after a pause, “he’s not anymore. The diplomas are officially issued the day before the com-mencement exercises, which are merely a ceremony meant to—”
“Fine.” The cop cut Weaver off. “So, you won’t be expelling him?”
Mr. Ransick shrugged irritably. The skin on his neck looked redder than ever. “There’s nothing we can do.
It’ll have to be up to the police.” He looked hopefully at the cop.
Collins sighed. He turned to Celeste’s father. “All right. Ah …” He glanced at his papers again. “Mr. and Mrs. Tippen. The golf cart was stolen from your property, the Pinyon Ranch. Would you like to press
charges?” He looked at them expectantly.
Mr. Tippen opened his mouth to reply, but before he could say anything, Celeste leaped up from her seat, startling everyone in the room. “Dad!” she said, more loudly than she’d intended. All heads swiveled toward her. Collins rolled his eyes. “Can I talk to you outside for just a second?” She didn’t wait for a response. “Great, thanks, we’ll be right back, everyone.” Everyone was staring at her. She flashed the room a toothy smile and grabbed her father by the arm, pulling him toward the door.
Outside in the hallway, Celeste faced her father. The fluorescent lights overhead glowed harshly, making him look old and tired. “What is it, Celeste?” he asked.
“Dad,” she began, “I know Travis was an idiot.
Obviously.” She carefully avoided the words stole and criminal. “But it was just a stupid senior prank. Please don’t press charges! This is your own daughter’s boyfriend!” Celeste clasped her hands together in front of her chest and tried to make her eyes as big as possible.
Her father sighed, rubbing his brown hair. “You know I’ve never particularly liked Travis. But I trust you, and I know you care about him. But now this …”
“Dad, come on—didn’t you ever do anything stupid when you were young? Should you have gone to jail for it, really?”
Her dad’s face softened for a moment. A small smile played across his face and she knew there was an opening. A teeny, tiny opening.
“See! Everyone does dumb things. Um—what if you
think up some other punishment for Travis? Would that be okay?” Celeste resisted the urge to bounce up and down on her tiptoes.
Her father sighed. “All right, fine. You win. But”—he held up his finger as Celeste started to fling her arms around him—“he’s still going to have to pay us back.”
“Oh, I know.” Celeste kissed her father on the cheek.
“Thank you, thank you!”
Inside the room, everyone still looked like they were waiting for a funeral to start. Celeste tried to give Travis a thumbs-up sign with her eyes before hurrying back to her seat.
Her dad leaned over and whispered to her mother for a few seconds. “We’ve decided not to press charges for the theft of the golf cart,” Mr. Tippen said aloud. Travis exhaled audibly and slumped back in his chair. “Instead, Travis will spend the summer working at the resort to pay off the damage. Three months of labor should take care of the cost.”
Celeste couldn’t stop her eyes from widening in
excitement.
What? Travis at the resort? All summer? Celeste resisted the urge to leap onto the table and thank her dad all over again. Her father thought this was a punishment?
Travis made a strangled little noise and opened his mouth as if to protest. Celeste waved her hands at him frantically. Shut up! Shut up! she mouthed. He must have gotten the message, because he closed his mouth and aimed a feeble smile in the direction of her parents.
“Okay!” Collins stood up and tapped his papers into a neat rectangle. “Well, then, that’s settled.” He looked at Travis severely. “Mr. Helding, I never want to see you back here again.”
“Yes, officer,” Travis croaked as everyone stood up with a loud scraping of chairs. Dr. Weaver and Mr.
Ransick nodded at Celeste’s parents and quickly started down the hallway, leaving Celeste trailing behind with Travis.
He leaned close to her and she caught a whiff of his Acqua di Parma aftershave. Even here, even with him wearing those ridiculous orange scrubs, knowing there was a purple thong underneath, she still wanted to throw herself at him.
“This sucks!” Travis whispered fiercely.
“I know,” Celeste said automatically. Then she realized what he’d said. “Wait a minute—what do you mean, this sucks? You’re going to be at the resort this summer.
I won’t have to drive up to the beach every weekend. We can be together!”
Up ahead, Celeste saw her father turn around. She dropped Travis’s hand as if it were on fire and switched on her innocent, daughterly smile. Her father turned back forward and she grabbed Travis’s hand again.
“Yeah,” Travis muttered. “Working for free.”
Celeste stopped walking. “Are you serious? You’re not the tiniest
