Tom Dolby - The Trust

Lauren glared at her, though inside she was completely mortified. Someone must have planted the earrings in her bag while she was working. Her bag had been in her locker most of the afternoon. The lockers were in an employee staff area, and anyone could have gained access to it-that is, anyone with the master combination.

Who would have done it? One of the Society’s lackeys? A Giroux staff member? Sebastian himself? Sebastian was a member of the Society, but Lauren couldn’t imagine him doing this to her.

It didn’t matter who had done this; it only mattered that it had happened. She was being sent a message, just like the handbag she had received back in September. Only this time, it was a message of a different type: a spiteful reminder that she shouldn’t miss any more meetings.

“No charges will be pressed,” Sebastian said to his staff. “We’ll handle it internally. You can all go home for the night. Lauren, please stay behind so we can discuss this.”

Everyone filed out, a few of them giving Lauren sympathetic looks and others averting their eyes.

Lauren sat down on a chaise where customers usually tried on shoes. “Look, I am completely horrified, but you’ve got to believe me, I have no idea how those earrings got into my bag. It was in my employee locker for most of the afternoon-could someone have slipped them in there? I mean, come on, Sebastian, you know me. If I really wanted those earrings, I would have asked my mom to buy them for me. Why would I do something to jeopardize my relationship with the store?”

Sabrina shrugged.

“She’s right,” Sebastian said. “Sabrina, you and I can discuss this between the two of us. Good night, Lauren.”

Lauren zipped up her bag and slinked away. No one at the store would have done this to her. Even though Sebastian was in the Society, she knew that he liked her. The horrible thing, of course, about being accused of something like this was that even if you didn’t do it, you still felt guilty.

And that, she imagined, was exactly what the Society had wanted her to feel.

That afternoon, Patch went downtown to shop for some new music. The kind of stuff he really loved he couldn’t find on iTunes: remixes, obscure tracks, bootlegs. He had even bought a used pair of direct drive turntables and was starting to expand his record collection so that he could start DJing using real vinyl. The store he had wanted to check out, East Village Sounds, was on Sixth Street, and was two steps down from street level. It was a dank, musty shop, with walls covered in posters, stickers, and graffiti, each year’s tastes obscured by the next. At the front, they sold T-shirts, and the countertop was covered in flyers for shows at local venues: $2 COVER! FIRST HOUR, FREE WELL DRINKS! OPENING ACT: BEELZEBUB’S KITTEN!

It was a far cry from the posh, slick nightclub world that Nick and his friends inhabited, but Patch liked it.

He browsed around the store, carefully tracing the perimeter of the room and avoiding contact with the girl with dark eyes and jet black hair who was staffing the counter. She had on her earbuds anyway and seemed disinterested in the fact that Patch was in the store.

There was a listening booth near the cash register, like in the old days, where you could bring a record to the front and they would unwrap it for you. There was one Patch wanted to hear, but it was forty-five dollars. It was a limited-edition press of an album by some obscure French DJs; he had read on a blog that it was huge all over Europe.

He brought it up to the front and smiled at the girl. She was pretty, lithe, half Asian, perhaps. She wore a baggy sweater, one shoulder off, over a long black Goth skirt, over leggings. Though it might have made some girls look sloppy, on her it looked cool.

Patch had grown more confident lately, which made him less shy about interactions like this: his arms were muscular from his trips to the gym, his hair was shorn in a way that, even though he had done it himself with a pair of clippers, didn’t look half bad, and he had noticed that his new attitude had somehow made his skin look clearer, brighter. What had changed in his life on the outside that could have caused this? The Society, for one thing. But maybe he had changed on the inside as well.

She sighed as he handed her the album, giving him a weary look. “You want to listen to that one?”

Patch nodded. “Is that okay?”

“Oh, you’d only be about the eighth person this week who’s requested it. No one ever wants to buy it because it’s too expensive.”

“What if I do want to buy it?”

She scoffed. “Why would you buy it when you can rip it off the net so easily?”

“Maybe I like vinyl.”

She paused. “Oh. Seriously?”

“I just bought a pair of turntables last week.”

“Last week? Wow, you must be really experienced.” She gave him a shy smile.

Was she making fun of him? Or was it possible that she was flirting with him?

“Come on back here,” she said, placing the record aside. “I’ll show you some stuff that’s far better than those Parisian twits.”

Patch’s eyes widened. “Don’t you have to watch the store?”

“It’s cool, there’s a sensor on the door so I can hear when someone comes in.” In the storeroom in the back, she grabbed a box cutter and for a moment, Patch was cautious. She started opening several UPS boxes. “We just got these in,” she said. “I’ve been waiting for the right moment to open them.”

“Why is now the right moment?”

She smiled. “I don’t know. You’re the first semi-normal person to walk in today.”

“Maybe someday I’ll make it to normal,” Patch said. It was a weak attempt at humor, but she didn’t seem to mind. He felt happy here, a warm feeling that seemed miles away from Chadwick and his life on the Upper East Side. “So what’s so special about these albums?”

She held them up in their slick plastic wrappers, the wild colors of their artwork flickering in the light. “You know when music can completely transport you?” she said. “That’s what I’m after. I don’t do drugs, I don’t drink, I don’t smoke. These are my drugs.” She motioned to all the record albums and grinned. “They will get you more messed up than any drug can.”

Patch knew what she meant. He wanted to stay off drinking himself, but around Nick and the others, it was hard. Now, standing there with this girl, it was cool to meet someone who didn’t need chemicals to keep herself entertained.

She turned on the music, and it washed over them both, track after track. It was their own private listening booth, much more exclusive than the little phone booth-sized compartment in the front. She smiled at him. She had a gap between her two front teeth, which was cute.

“I’m Lia, by the way,” she said.

Patch nodded. He realized, half a song later, that he probably should have told her his name, but the moment had passed.

In between one of the tracks, she cracked a smile for no reason.

“What?” Patch said.

“It’s nothing.”

“No, tell me!”

“You really want me to? I barely know you.”

What was it? Did he have bad breath? Did his socks not match?

She leaned forward and touched a spot on his jawline. “You have a patch where you missed shaving,” she said. “That’s all.”

Patch felt his face turning red.

“Oh, now you’re blushing!” she teased him. “It’s not a big deal. My ex-boyfriend used to do it all the time. He was always in such a hurry, he would miss a spot.”

“Sorry,” Patch said, chagrined. “Though I’m not sure why I’m apologizing to you.” He felt like such a dork.

“What’s your name, anyway?” she asked.