“It’s also a microphone and a GPS tag,” she says sweetly.
I blink. “A what.”
“Recording device. Tracking device.” She waggles it at me. “I’ve been tinkering. Don’t make that face—your boyfriend does virgins in confessionals and all I do is solder in the computer engineering lab.”
“My boyfriend?” My voice jumps a register it doesn’t usually visit. “I do not have?—”
“Fine,” she says, unbothered. “Your…mysterious man with a pulse and hands. Look. The cross is the mic. The top bead in the third decade is the switch—press and hold three seconds to start recording, same to stop. It uploads to the little cloud account I made for you labeledrecipes.If you tug the centerpiece twice, it pings me your location. If you tug it three times, it pings me.”
I go still. “But why?”
“Because despite being a chaos gremlin I am not an idiot,” she says. “Sometimes the dog with the biggest teeth is your friend. And sometimes your friend needs to be told where to stand to bite the right throat.” She winces. “Okay, that metaphor got away from me. The point is—if anyone tries to do anything to you, I will know where to look and I know exactly what to do to get you free.”
I stare at the rosary like it has a pulse. “And if they don’t and I’m just wearing it while I do…penance?”
“Then it’s jewelry,” she says, shrugging. “A pretty string of Hail Marys that matches your aesthetic ofnun, but make it noir.”
I try not to laugh and fail again. It leaks out, thin and grateful. “Pru, I can’t record my family.”
“You can record anyone who thinks they get to write your future for you,” she says, suddenly ferocious in that way she keeps hidden under jokes. “You can recordmeif I start acting like I know better than you. It’s leverage if you need it. It’s a breadcrumb trail if you don’t. I don’t care if you never turn it on.” She presses the rosary into my palm. The beads are cool and weighty. “I just want you to have a thing that’s yours.”
I think of last night—the other thing that’s mine now. The wayyesfelt like a key in my mouth. The way he saidthank youlike the prayer belonged to both of us.
“Roisin Shannon is going to be at the sit-down,” I say, surprising both of us. “My father wants me to meet her. He called her competent.”
“Good,” Pru says instantly. “A woman with a knife and a ledger. She’ll like you.”
“You don’t know that. I’m…chattel.”
“Stop that right now. Women like us always spot each other,” she says. “Even when we’re playing different games.”
I roll the rosary across my palm. The matte beads catch on my lifeline, one after another, like a count I can start and start and start. “If I wear this into that room and nothing happens—if everyone is very civilized and no one raises a voice and they hand each other a napkin with…I don’t know…numbers or something on it—am I still the kind of person who needs a recording device?”
Pru leans back and studies me with the seriousness she usually reserves for choosing the right donut. “You’re the kind of person who has learned to be careful. That doesn’t make you a spy. It makes you a survivor.”
“This makes me very nervous.” I tell her.
“I’m nervous for you,” she says lightly, and steals one of my fries.
We eat until the paper boats look like the aftermath of a small war. My Coke turns watery. The wind sneaks down the neck of my sweater and raises goosebumps along my spine. Somewhere, bells mark the hour like they’ve always had the right to.
“I have to go,” I say reluctantly, glancing toward the direction of the sanctuary. “Penances don’t pray themselves.”
Pru stands too, slings her bag like a weapon, straightens my scarf with the competence of a girl who can both start and stop fires. “Text me when you’re done. Or don’t. I’ll assume you’re fine unless my gremlin cloud tells me otherwise.” She taps the rosary. “Three tugs if something doesn’t feel right.”
“What on earth would you even do?” I ask, half appalled, half…reassured, God help me.
“I am going to call whoever gets you out cleanest,” she says. “If that’s a librarian with a stern bun, so be it. If that’s a man who can lift two men at once, also fine. I’ve got friends and people who owe me favors everywhere, girl. And I’ll call in every single favor to get you free.”
“You terrify me,” I say, and meanthank you.
“Good,” she chirps. “Fear is respect with confetti, and I’ll gladly walk around picking it out of my hair all day.”
We walk back to campus. The wind has scraped the sky clear; it’s the color of a fresh bruise that’s decided not to form. Pru hugs me without warning, hard and quick, like she learned it from a stolen movie. “Be good,” she says into my hair. “Or be interesting. Both is too much work.”
“I’ll try to be orderly,” I say.
“Boring,” she sings, and peels off down the steps toward her econ class and the boy who keeps trying to argue feelings with spreadsheets.
