I shook my head and smirked.
“Come on, Lily.” He crouched and kissed my cheek. “We’ve sung this song together so many times.” His green eyes glinted because it was true. Tag had always offered to duet with me when I’d first needed to learn the lyrics. “Pleasegive me my time to shine.”
My heart swelled. “You’re such a dork,” I told him but didn’t say no. Instead, I queued up the music and shooed him off the couch. “It’sLieslwho dances on the gazebo benches.”
Tag’s voice was hoarse from his meet, so he was a terrible singer that day and I couldn’t stop laughing. But we could dance together; we were so good at dancing together, even if it wasn’t remotely the right choreography. And of course, Liesl and Rolf’s scripted kiss was supposed to be light and quick like a butterfly, but instead Tag put one hand on my waist and weaved the other through my hair. I rose up on my tiptoes and wrapped both arms around his neck. “That wasn’t meant for the stage,” I said when we pulled back a few inches for air. Our breathing was heavy but fully in sync.
“How convenient that we’rebackstage, then,” Tag quipped, and before long, we ended up tangled together on the couch. His warm skin smelled like chlorine. “Do you want to?” he whispered after a little while.
“Yes,” I whispered back, feeling his hands slipping up my skirt. “I do.”
“Me too,” he said, nodding as I kissed his neck. “I do too.”
So we did, because we loved each other.
I made zero progress on my speech that afternoon, racked with too many nerves. My mom ordered Italian for dinner, but I only pushed around my ravioli, appetite nonexistent. She didn’t notice because she was overwhelmingly preoccupied with her plans tonight. Headmaster Bickford was a member of a local wine club, and so was my mother…theoretically. The club met once a month, but my mom had managed to get out of the last eight gatherings. “You know I’m not ageist, Lily,” she once said, “but Iamthe youngest member by at least thirty years, and those women…” She huffed. “I have nothing in common with them.”
“How would you know?” I goaded her. “You haven’t been to a single meeting.”
“Because Penny took me to that ladies’ luncheon, remember?” She rolled her eyes. “All they talked about was the goings-on at their country club. It was a full-on gossip session. Penny had to keep feeding me information to keep me in the loop.”
I made a face. “Penny’s a member?”
“Yes, almost every family in town is.”
Right. Most of the faculty was from elsewhere, but Penny Bickford was a true Rhode Islander. She had a whole community outside of Ames.
Unfortunately for my mom, there was no getting out ofwine club tonight. It disbanded for the summer, so this was the last meeting until September, and Penny wasn’t taking “I’m swamped with schoolwork” or “Josh’s family is in town” for an answer. She’d even politely insisted on driving my mom to the hostess’s house.
Which, as I later watched the two of them speed off in Penny’s jet-black Jaguar, gave me the perfect opportunity to commit tonight’s impossible crime. I spotted the Red Sox lanyard lying lazily in the kitchen catchall with the usual assortment of crap. Lip gloss, spare change, hair ties, Post-its, colorful gel pens, and way too many Bed Bath & Beyond coupons. My stomach somersaulted with excitement.
This could work, I thought as I unzipped my backpack’s front pocket and pulled out my own red-white-and-navy lanyard.This just might work…
Josh had given us the matching lanyards last year, and like my mom, I kept my Ames ID and house key on it. Butunlikemy mom, I didn’t have a hundred other keys and kitschy key chains.
Time to get to work.
I needed my mom’s ID and master keys, but I also knew this couldn’t be an overwhelmingly obvious theft. Sprucing my lanyard up with her key chains and leaving it in my mom’s usual place would be a good enough disguise…right?
My fingers fumbled as I unhooked key chains and transferred them to my lanyard, soon finding a rhythm. The only thing that caught me off guard was the Chicago Cubs key chain.My mom had tried to convert Tag to Boston’s sports fandom, but he had remained loyal to his hometown. Once upon a time, that key chain had been a “teacher appreciation gift.”
Now it wouldn’t budge. I pried as hard as I could, but the Cubs logo was determined to stay linked to the Red Sox.
Leave it, I told myself.One key chain is not going to make or break this mission!
I let out a deep breath when I finished. If you didn’t check the photo on the ID card, my lanyard was now a dead ringer for my mom’s and hers for mine. Now all I had to do was carefully position it in the catchall. My gut told me that she wouldn’t touch it once she got home, but the Red Sox logo needed to be visible in case she glanced over in that direction. I made sure to tuck my ID under a coupon. Again, my red hair stuck out like a forest fire.
Then I ran upstairs and hid her keys under my pillow.
Penny’s Jaguar pulled back into our driveway at 9:45 p.m. “It was wonderful, no!” I heard my mom say after getting out and shutting the passenger door. “No, you should definitely order a case of the Sancerre. And no, Cynthia’s bathroom renovation was stunning. I loved the gilded mirror!”
Oops, too many nos, I thought.She must’ve really hated it.
“Okay, fine, I’m lying,” she admitted after Headmaster Bickford called her out on the last part. “That mirrorwasa travesty.” She laughed. “Thank you for tonight, Penny!”
Once I heard her heelsclick-clackon the front walk andthen a twist of the doorknob, I assumed my position on the couch: curled up under a blanket withPride & Prejudiceon TV.
The 2005 version, of course.
