“Thepointis, we gotta tell Greer.” I pulled my phone out of my jacket pocket. “Will you come with me to talk to her? I can have her meet us at my room.”
“Hang on,” Holiday said, holding a hand up. “Wait a second.”
I paused, but only for a second, still scrolling to Greer’s name in my contacts. “Why?”
“Because we don’tknowanything yet, Michael.”
That stopped me. “What do you mean we don’t know anything?” I gaped at her. “Why do you keep trying to slow this whole thing down?”
“I’m not trying to slow anything down,” Holiday argued. “I’m trying to keep us—or, more specifically, I’m trying to keepyou—from showing your ass to everyone in the entire commonwealth.”
“I can cover my own ass,” I snapped, more loudly than I meant to, then stopped and scrubbed a hand over my face. “Look,” I tried. “We know Margot and James are hooking up, which means James is Boy Genius. We know Greer is onto them, which would give them motive. And Margot wasn’t at the lacrosse party.”
Holiday looked deeply skeptical. “What about the note, then?” she asked. “You owe me?”
“Maybe Margot wrote it to try to intimidate Greer into keeping quiet,” I suggested. “Or maybe it’s completely unrelated.”
“Maybe,” Holiday said, clearly unconvinced.
I sighed. “The point is, if we just went andaskedGreer about it instead of sneaking around behind her back, she could tell us—”
“Greer has already been super clear that she thinks this whole thing is a shit show,” Holiday argued. “Bringing her in now is just going to ruin the entire investigation.”
“It’s not going to ruin— Can I ask you something? What is it about Greer that bothers you so much?”
“Aaaand I’m going to stop you right there,” Holiday declared, eyes narrowing. “You know what, Michael? Do whatever you want. We all know that’s what you’re doing to do anyway.” She yanked her phone out of her coat pocket, glancing down at the screen. “Ihave to get back,” she announced snottily. “Duncan’s coming with me to a ballet thing at the Majestic.”
“Oh, right.” There was no reason for that to piss me off so much. “I forgot what a lover of ballet he is. Patron of the arts, truly.”
Holiday gaped at me. “Oh, my god,” she announced. “Oh, my god!” She put her hands on her face and made a big show of pulling her cheeks down, like the strain of talking to me was causing the flesh to melt right off her bones. “Why are you being like this?”
Uh-oh. Danger, Will Robinson. “Like what?” I asked—stalling, playing like I didn’t know what she meant. At the very least I wanted to make her say it first.
Holiday wasn’t having it. “Uh-uh,” she said, holding a finger up. “You know like what.”
“I really don’t.”
“Like you’re four years old and he’s playing with your trains and you don’t like it.”
“My trains, in this analogy, being you?”
Holiday blushed, which was the point. “That’s not—” She shook her head. “I can’t do this with you anymore, Michael.”
“Can’t do what?”
“Can’t do any of it!” She whirled on me. “Why didn’t you come to my showcase?”
I blinked. “Wha—”
“I told you about it, the night we went to South Street. You said you’d be there.”
She had, I realized, with the sick, panicky feeling you get in a dream about sleeping through an important test, that warm wash of horror from your chest to your feet. She had told me about it—and not only had I forgotten to show up for it, I’d never even asked her how it went. All at once I remembered the night we’d gone to the party at the lax house, how quiet she’d seemed on the walk over:Did something happen last night?Somethinghadhappened. I’d flaked on her fucking show. “Shit, Holiday,” I said. “I’m sorry. Why didn’t you remind me?”
“First of all, I talked about rehearsals pretty much constantly,” Holiday retorted. “And second of all, why does it have to be my job to remind you? Like, why do I have to do the emotional labor of constantly reminding you of every commitment you’ve ever made to me?”
“You said it wasn’t a big deal!”
“And youbelievedme?” She made a face, and I didn’t blame her. “Of course it was a big deal! Look, Michael, I don’t know how to tell you this without sounding like an asshole, but I’m kind of like, doing some pretty cool shit for a freshman over at my school. And I can’t even enjoy it because I’m always on the other side of the river traipsing through some garbage pile with you. And for what?”
