What would be so wrong about fixing Vicky with Drew? He likes drawing soul-sucking demons, and sheisa soul-sucking demon. It’s perfect.
As if sensing me lasering the back of her head with my eyes, Vicky turns languidly around and gives me the once-over. She taps the eraser tip of her pencil against her chin, then, just as unhurriedly, turns back around.
The door opens. A freshman enters, bearing a basket of candy grams.
Drew’s pen stops. The freshman’s sneakers squeak softly as she walks up and down the rows, doling out candy grams like communion wafers. Melanie shrieks in delight when she gets two.
The freshman stops at my desk, smiling oddly.
Dear God, no. I sense what she’s going to do before she does it. It happens in slow motion. She puts a hand under her basket, then upends it onto my desk.
Candy grams overflow my desk and spill onto the floor. The cloying scent of chocolate and nougat makes my eyes tear. There’s a shocked moment of silence, followed by exclamations and tittering. As I wilt in my chair, I realize why Lauren and Pascha singled me out for advice.
Vicky frowns while Melanie glares at me and stuffs her twopacks of candy into her purse.
As coolly as I can, I sweep the grams into my bag. It’s just as I feared. I missed a few admirers, or ten or twenty. What if they’re anonymous? How am I going to scent them all? No doubt they’ve been touched by several hands—the sender’s, members of the student council, the messengers. I put one to my nose and sniff. Sure enough, the human smells are faint and hard to separate into individuals, plus they’re overwhelmed by the chemical smells of felt-tip marker.
Drew helps me gather the grams that fell to the floor.
“Hey, thanks,” I whisper.
“Bimbo’s Chews.” He holds up a candy bar. Each of his fingers is adorned with silver rings with skulls and crossbones. “These are the best.”
“You can have all of them, but I’ll keep the messages.”
He grins, making his lip ring stand straight out. “Seriously? That’s cool.”
Mr. Frederics waves his hands. “Settle down, class, settle down. Let’s return to the equations on the board. Do I have any volunteers for problem four?”
No one raises a hand.
“Mimosa, since you seem to be the lady of the hour, will you help us out?” He holds the dry-erase pen to me.
I fake some composure and walk to the board. As I start writing, I hear the door open once again, a sound that causes my spine to shrink. Oh no. No more candy grams, please.
Slowly, I turn around.
The dry-erase pen nearly falls out of my grip.
Alice strikes a pose, one hand on the doorframe, the other holding a pink pastry box that I can smell is full of chocolate cake with coconut buttercream frosting, no nuts. A plastic shopping bag dangles from her wrist. Gone is the velour tracksuit, and in its place, a dress in sapphire blue to match her eyes. Her hair is swept into a French chignon, and thanks to her rinse, contains not a hint of gray. She holds up the cake like a pizza and says in a huskier voice than I remember, “Hello, Franklin.”
TEN
“AN AROMATEUR WITHOUT ETHICS, NAY,
SHE IS A RHINOCEROS IN A FIELD OF PANSIES.”
—Myrtle, Aromateur, 1602
“MOM!” MELANIE CRIESout, gripping the sides of her chair like she’s afraid it might eject her. Vicky bites the end of her pencil, eyes lit with amusement.
Still at the classroom door, Alice wiggles her fingers. Her nails are painted glossy red. “Hi, dear.”
Mr. Frederics walks halfway to the door. “Mrs. Sawyer. What can we do for you?”
“Alice, call me Alice.”
“All right, Alice.”
