Paul Griffin - Burning Blue

I gave her everything I had and instructions on what to do with it, then I headed for the shower, lay down in the tub and let the water burn me.

From Nicole’s journal:

What day is it? What night? I’m burning, burning, burning blue.

Thursday morning I woke late. No way I’d make it to second period on time. I forged myself a note from my father and headed off for school, stopping in at the Clarion on the way. “Do I look as bad as you do?” Pete said.

“Do you feel as crappy as I do?” I said. I asked him if he could talk to his boss about killing the Burned Beauty’s Beau storyline. He said he knew nothing about it. I flipped the paper to the gossip page.

“You think I read this rag?” he said. “I just work here.”

“Can you get Puglisi to back off Nicole?”

“He’s not one of ours. We don’t have the budget anymore to do stakeouts.”

“He’s on your payroll.”

Pete frowned. “Now Jay, I’m not going to ask how you know that. Anyway, if we are cutting him checks, it’s on a freelance basis. I’m sure we pick up his pictures from the syndication pool. And even if he was in-house, the chances of my being able to freeze this story are zero.” He circled the cap line over the picture: BURNED BEAUTY BEHIND THE UMBRELLA. “This kind of trash is the only thing selling papers these days. Her best bet is to stop running. The story dies when the mark comes forward and sits for an interview.”

“The mark?”

“The object of attention. Nicole. Gossip junkies love the chase. End that, you end the story.”

“She’ll never sit for an interview. The only alternative is to nab him.”

“Say again?”

“The perp. Catching him would kill the story.”

Pete shook no way. “That’s when it begins. They’ll be running columns and talking-head interviews with so-called experts until the trial ends and they march the unrepentant nutcase to the psych ward. Your friend is going to be living with this for a long time, and the more she hides, the worse it’ll be.” Pete studied the picture of Nicole, her mother and me in the diner parking lot, doing our best to hide behind Mrs. Castro’s umbrella and only half succeeding. “My advice?” he said. “Stay the hell away from her.”

My phone had been buzzing with a text. Starbucks Cherry: Hey, have you been getting my texts? Swing in for a free coffee sometime. Don’t. Be. Scared. I don’t bite, promise. I merely gnaw.

The seizure the night before left me feeling punked. I felt a lot better after two cups of cafeteria coffee. Toward the end of the school day, I got a text from Nicole: Need help please call soon as you can.

I called her after sixth period, from a stairwell. Schmidt had emailed her to tell her that due to an emergency faculty meeting, she couldn’t do her 3:30 session. The only slot she had open was two p.m. This meant Nicole would have to enter Brandywine Hollows High School during school hours.

“Skip it,” I said.

“That’s what Mom said too, but Dr. Schmidt said it’ll be good for me,” Nicole said. “Being in the building when other students are around. You know, a first step toward coming back to school. Do you have class seventh?”

“Free.” I’d petitioned the registrar to have seventh and eighth periods open in case BJ’s had extra hours available.

“Can you walk me?”

I’d skipped lunch, and I was starting to crash. No food, no sleep, no meds: Perfect recipe for a seizure. I headed to the cafeteria for a Coke. On my way out of the vending machine alcove, this dude accidentally bumped into me. One of Rick Kerns’s crew. As he drove his shoulder into mine, he whispered, “You’re gonna burn.”

Nicole parked right up front, in the handicap spot. A blue tag hung from her rearview. She wasn’t in the Subaru but a black Saab.

“Yours?” I said.

“I know, I’m spoiled.”

The bell had rung a few minutes earlier, but a straggler clipped us. The phone double-flashed hot pink light. The girl might as well have punched a nail into my visual cortex. The picture was MMS’d by the time we were halfway to Schmidt’s office. People leaned out of classroom doors. Nicole smiled, waved once to the hall monitor, but mostly she kept her head down.

“Yo, Spaceman.” Rick Kerns was up in my face before I’d turned all the way around. “Are you insane?”

“And are you serious, Rick?” Nicole said. “You need to chill.”

He ignored her. “Sneaking around out and about is one thing, but parading through school like this, disrespecting Dave?”

“You need to back up, Rick,” Nicole said.

“You need to shut up, Nicole.”

She hit his chest with the heel of her hand. It did nothing to push him back, and she hurt her wrist. She winced as she rubbed it, but she stood her ground between Kerns and me. I kept trying to step between them, but she wouldn’t let me. “Look, you don’t speak for David, okay? We’re cool, he and I. David knows about Jay and me.”

“No shit. You guys are flaunting it everywhere.”

“That we’re friends, idiot.”

“Not what I hear,” Kerns said.

“You know what, I really don’t care what you hear,” Nicole said. She hooked my arm and marched us toward Schmidt’s.

Kerns called out, “Faithless bitch.”

“Dick,” Nicole muttered.

We were at Schmidt’s office twenty minutes before Nicole’s appointment. We sat. Her new sunglasses were the kind that lightened indoors. She looked out the window, to the empty soccer field. The grass needed cutting. Schmidt’s waiting room was stifling. I was taking off my jacket when the alarm went off. Nicole jumped.

“It’s just a fire drill,” I said, but I knew that somebody pulled the alarm to flush Nicole outside and get a look at her.

“Let’s stay here,” she said.

Or did he want to keep her inside while everybody else was outside?

Schmidt’s door opened. She was on her cell with a headset. “Right, yes, but do we really want to do that?” She motioned for us to follow her into the hall. As we went through the doors, most people were nice, smiling, saying hi. Then somebody in the murmuring crowd said, “Did you see her? Dude, she’s right there .”

Outside, a teacher did a double take on her and came over to give her a hug. “We need you, Nicole,” the teacher said. “When are you coming back?”

“Soon.”

They both pretended she was telling the truth.

Nicole put on a brave face, but I could see she was halfway to freaked, too many people coming up to her at once. They all said the same thing: “You look great.” They too wanted to know when she was coming back. Didn’t she know the tennis team sucked this year without her? That the student council was in open revolt against Mr. Davies, the moderator, without Nicole around. Nicole smiled and laughed and took them all in, until she couldn’t anymore. Her hands shook as she pulled her phone. She checked the screen and said, “Guys, I’m sorry, I have to take this.” She hooked her arm through mine, and we rounded the corner to the back parking lot and hunkered behind a Dumpster.

“Nice fake,” I said.

“I wasn’t faking.” She handed me her phone. The text said: Enjoying all the attention?Caller ID: UNKNOWN.

I forwarded the text to my phone and worked it up for a trace.

“Just how much of a hacker are you?”

“You should know I rarely do this in front of people. This is akin to show me yours, and I’ll show you mine.”