Jodie Picoult - Nineteen Minutes

Peter didn’t know how to answer, and then realized that Mr. McCabe was not asking him for his opinion-just for directions. “Yeah,” Peter said. “Turn here, and then it’s the third house on the left.”

Mr. McCabe pulled up in front of Peter’s driveway, but didn’t turn in. “I’m telling you this because I trust you, Peter. And because if you need someone to talk to, I want you to feel free to come to me.”

Peter unbuckled his seat belt. “I’m not gay.”

“All right,” Mr. McCabe replied, but something in his eyes went soft at the edges.

“I’m not gay,” Peter repeated more firmly, and he opened the car door and ran as fast as he could toward his house.

Josie shook up the bottle of OPI nail polish and looked at the sticker on the bottom. I’m Not Really a Waitress Red. “Who do you think comes up with these? Do you think it’s a bunch of women who sit around a conference table?”

“No,” Maddie said. “They’re probably just old friends who get drunk once a year and write down all the flavors.”

“It’s not a flavor if you don’t eat it,” Emma pointed out.

Courtney rolled over, so that her hair tumbled over the side of the bed like a waterfall. “This is bogus,” she announced, although it was her house and her slumber party. “There’s got to be something exciting to do.”

“Let’s call someone,” Emma suggested.

Courtney considered this. “Like a prank?”

“We could order pizza and have it delivered to someone,” Maddie said.

“We did that last time with Drew,” Courtney sighed, and then she grinned and reached for the phone. “I’ve got something better.”

She put on the speakerphone and dialed-a musical jingle that sounded awfully familiar to Josie. “Hello,” a voice said gruffly on the other end.

“Matt,” Courtney said, holding up a finger to her lips to keep everyone else quiet. “Hey.”

“It’s fucking three in the morning, Court.”

“I know. I just…I’ve been wanting to tell you something for a really long time, and I don’t know how to do it, because Josie’s my friend and everything-”

Josie started to speak, to let Matt know he was being led into a trap, but Emma clapped her hand over Josie’s mouth and pushed her back on the bed.

“I like you,” Courtney said.

“I like you, too.”

“No, I mean…I like you.”

“Geez, Courtney. If I’d known that, I guess I would be having wild sex with you, except for the fact that I love Josie, and she’s probably less than three feet away from you right now.”

The silence shattered, laughter breaking it apart like glass. “God! How’d you know?” Courtney said.

“Because Josie tells me everything, including when she’s sleeping over at your house. Now take me off speakerphone and let me say good night to her.”

Courtney handed the receiver over. “Good answer,” Josie said.

Matt’s voice was smoky with sleep. “Did you doubt it?”

“No,” Josie replied, smiling.

“Well, have fun. Just not as much fun as you’d be having with me.”

She listened to Matt yawn. “Go to bed.”

“Wish you were next to me,” he said.

Josie turned her back on the other girls. “Me, too.”

“Love you, Jo.”

“I love you, too.”

“And I,” Courtney announced, “am going to throw up.” She reached over and punched the disconnect button of the phone.

Josie tossed the receiver on the bed. “It was your idea to call him.”

“You’re just jealous,” Emma said. “I wish I had someone who couldn’t live without me.”

“You’re so lucky, Josie,” Maddie agreed.

Josie opened the bottle of nail polish again, and a drop spilled off the brush to land on her thigh like a bead of blood. Any of her friends-well, maybe not Courtney, but most of them-would have killed to be in her position.

But would they die for it, a voice inside her whispered.

She looked up at Maddie and Emma and forced a smile. “Tell me about it,” Josie said.

In December, Peter got a job in the school library. He was in charge of the audiovisual equipment, which meant that for an hour after school each day, he’d rewind microfilm and organize DVDs alphabetically. He’d bring the overhead projectors and TV/VCRs to classrooms, so that they were in place when the teachers who needed them arrived at school in the morning. He especially liked how nobody bothered him in the library. The cool kids wouldn’t have been caught dead there after school; Peter was more likely to find the special-needs students, with their aides, working on assignments.

He’d gotten the job after helping Mrs. Wahl, the librarian, fix her ancient computer so that it stopped blue-screening on her. Now Peter was her favorite student at Sterling High. She let him lock up after she left for the day, and she made him his own key to the custodial elevator, so that he could transport equipment from one floor of the high school to another.

Peter’s last job that day was moving a projector from a bio lab on the second floor back down to the AV room. He had stepped into the elevator and turned a key to close the door when someone called out, asking him to hold the door.

A moment later, Josie Cormier hobbled inside.

She was on crutches, sporting an AirCast. She glanced at Peter as the doors of the elevator closed, and then quickly down at the linoleum floor.

Although it had been months since she’d gotten him fired, Peter still felt a flash of anger when he saw Josie. He could practically hear Josie ticking off the seconds in her head until the elevator doors opened again. Well, I’m not thrilled being stuck in here with you either, he thought to himself, and just about then the elevator bobbled and screeched to a halt.

“What’s wrong with it?” Josie punched at the first-floor button.

“That’s not going to do anything,” Peter said. He reached across her-noticing that she nearly lost her balance trying to lean back, as if he had a communicable disease-and pushed the red Emergency button.

Nothing happened.

“This sucks,” Peter said. He stared up at the roof of the elevator. In movies, action heroes were always climbing through the air ducts into the elevator shaft, but even if he stood on top of the projector, he didn’t see how he could get the hatch open without a screwdriver.

Josie punched at the button again. “Hello?!”

“No one’s going to hear you,” Peter said. “The teachers are all gone and the custodian watches Oprah from five until six in the basement.” He glanced at her. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

“An independent study.”

“What’s that?”

She lifted a crutch. “It’s what you do for credit when you can’t play gym. What were you doing here?”

“I work here now,” Peter said, and they both fell silent.

Logistically, Peter thought, they’d be found sooner or later. The custodian would probably discover them when he was moving his floor buffer upstairs, but if not, the longest they’d have to wait was morning when everyone arrived again. He smiled a little, thinking about what he could truthfully tell Derek: Guess what, I slept with Josie Cormier.

He opened an iBook and pressed a button, starting a PowerPoint presentation on the screen. Amoebas, blastospheres. Cell division. An embryo. Amazing to think that we all started out like that-microscopic, indistinguishable.

“How long before they find us?”

“I don’t know.”

“Won’t the librarians notice if you don’t come back?”

“My own parents wouldn’t notice if I didn’t come back.”

“Oh, God…what if we run out of air?” Josie banged on the doors with a crutch. “Help!”

“We’re not going to run out of air,” Peter said.