Red Heart Tattoo (4 page)

“I’ve been looking on the Web,” she said. “So far nothing.”

“I have the gift of persuasion on my side.” He balled his hands into fists.

“No pounding,” Morgan said. “Promise me.”

“No pounding,” Trent said.

But it was too dark for her to see if his fingers were crossed when he said it.

T
he Watchers stood against the wall of the atrium on Monday morning … watching. The area was thick with bodies, swarms of students standing, sitting, talking, eating, clustering in groups of belonging. The edges of each group didn’t touch. Unwritten rules of high school. No mixing. No touching. No mingling. If you were in the atrium before first bell, you were in a group. You were a part of something. No standing room for loners, for those who were different, who didn’t fit in.

The Watchers had found each other in seventh grade because they never belonged to any group. Their very separateness made them a group of two automatically.

“What did you think of Friday’s pep rally?” the taller, thiner one asked.

“Hysterical,” the shorter, heavier one said, taking a bite of a toaster pastry. “Wish we’d thought of it.”

“The whole school’s talking about it.”

“Might be cool to have the whole school talking about something we did.” The pastry eater wiped away fallen crumbs. “In a neat way, of course. You know, admiration.”

“You think?” the thin one said.

“Sure. Wouldn’t you like to be the ones they’re talking about? Sort of our secret. ‘I know something you don’t know.’ ”

The thin one rocked back against the wall. “The fireworks were clever, but not genius. Can’t imagine any of them smart enough to think of it.” The thin one gestured toward the mass of students. “Look at them. A bunch of stupid cows.”

In unison their gazes shot to the low wall where the most popular of the popular were gathered, the seniors, the beautiful ones who everyone knew and wanted to be like, even the social rejects. The outcasts never verbalized their yearnings, but the Watchers knew it to be true. It was written on the faces of the others, in looks of either downright envy or disdain. Everyone knew who the best of Edison were. No secrets about that.

“I hate them,” the short one said. “Every stupid one of them.”

“How much?”

“What do you mean?”

“How much do you hate them?”

“I don’t know. A lot.”

“Enough to do something about it?”

The short one stopped chewing the pastry. “Like what? What are you thinking?”

“Do you really think you could stomach something more than a toaster pastry when it comes to doing something to them?”

The heavyset one turned red, embarrassed by the tone of derision in the other’s voice. “I told you I hate them just like you do.”

“Maybe I should think of something to get everyone talking.”

“I’m listening. What are you thinking of doing?”

“I don’t know. Yet.” The tall one smiled coldly.

“You’ll tell me when you think of it?”

“It’ll be better than fireworks, that’s a promise.”

“And we’ll do it together?”

“You’ll be the first to know. We’re friends, aren’t we?”

The short one felt relieved to be back in good graces. The thin one was mercurial, quick to verbally torture, just as quick to change direction and focus. Sometimes impossible to read.

Just then first bell rang and the groups began to spread out before the tardy bell rang. “Look at them. They’re like cockroaches.” The thin one shoved away from the wall. “See you after school. We’ll talk more.”

“About …?”

The thin one grinned. “Immortality.”

They sauntered to classes down separate halls.

“W
hy do you do that?”

“Do what?” Roth turned toward the girl who’d just walked up.

“Stare at that conceited Morgan.”

They were in the cafeteria on Monday. Roth was slouched in a metal chair, a palm-size electronic video game—strictly forbidden on school grounds—in his hands and the black hood of his sweatshirt pulled over his head. “Well, just say what you think, Liza,” he retorted.

Liza Sandiski sat down with a clunk in the chair next to his. “Well, it’s true,” she said huffily.

Roth and Liza had been friends for years. They were both outsiders. Her short, spiky hair was cut asymmetrically and dyed coal-black with purple tips. She wore studs in her nose and tongue and a line of small silver hoops the length of one ear. She sported a small star, inked by Roth’s
uncle Max, on her right cheek, just under her eye. None of her other tats showed, but Roth knew where each one was located on her body because he had explored it thoroughly. “Bad weekend?” he asked.

She shot him a mean look. “Don’t change the subject. Why do you keep sneaking peeks at Morgan? Or is it her boyfriend who turns you on?”

Roth saw Mr. Champs casing the cafeteria for behavior problems and contraband, so he shoved his video game into the kangaroo pocket of his sweatshirt. “Now you’re just being snarky,” he told Liza. “Trent’s a total jerk. Morgan’s just pretty. Easy on the eyes, and I like her long legs.” He knew he was being hateful to Liza, who had body issues. She was short, heavier than she wanted to be, always railing against skinny models in magazines or movie and TV stars showing off bony arms and legs. He’d tried many times to make Liza feel better about herself, but it was a losing battle. He saw her stiffen, felt bad about his comment, put out his hand and held her wrist. “My bad.”

She glared at him.

“Truth is, I’m casing Morgan’s table for signs of them knowing anything about last Friday.”

Liza’s gaze shifted to the senior table filled with Edison elites—Morgan, Trent, Kelli, Mark, the cheerleading squad—all of the people she disliked by sight. “The pep rally?”

Roth grinned.

“The fireworks.” Liza’s eyes widened. “It was
you
!”

“You might not want to shout that out.”

“No way!”

“Way.”

Liza smiled, her whole face softening. “You turd.”

“Yeah … ain’t I a stinker.”

“When did you set it up?”

“Four in the morning. I figured no one would check a cardboard box painted with school colors lying on the field under the goalpost. And I was right.”

“But how—?”

“Secret’s all mine.” Roth thought she looked skeptical, as if she didn’t quite believe him and thought he was taking credit for someone else’s prank. “I did it,” he insisted.

“You should have told me. I would have helped.”

“This needed to be on me if I got caught.”

“Where’d you get the fireworks?” Still skeptical.

“Bought over July Fourth.”

“You’ve been planning it since July?”

Roth shrugged. “Not sure when the idea came to me. It just did.”

“Why?”

“Why not? Thought it would be fun to shake up the new student council administration, I guess.”

Liza’s eyes narrowed and she homed in on Roth’s face. “So it still comes back to Morgan, doesn’t it?” She stood, scooting back her chair, making it scrape the floor. “You need to get another hobby, Roth. She’d never be interested in a guy like you.”

Liza stalked off. Her words cut him like a knife, not because they were cold and hurled like stones, but because they were true.

•  •  •

“I don’t like the way that guy keeps looking at you,” Trent said into Morgan’s ear as he leaned down and kissed her neck.

“Don’t do that. Champs is on the prowl,” she said, embarrassed. “What guy?”

“That creep over there. Tattoo guy.” Trent nodded toward a corner of the room where only a few kids sat alone gobbling lunch or reading a book.

Her gaze darted up and instantly connected with Roth’s. Her cheeks burned because his look was raw, intense and unreadable. She quickly glanced away. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t seen him staring at her before. What was worse, her heart thudded and her pulse raced whenever she caught him watching her. There was a tingle that came with it, a thrill she was drawn to in spite of loving Trent. She felt like a traitor.

“Just sit here with me,” she told Trent. “Ignore him.”

“I want to knock his face in.”

“Why?”

“Principle.”

“Stop it,” she said with a smile. “Looking’s harmless.” From the corner of her eye, she saw Roth get up and leave the cafeteria by a side door. She felt relieved—not because Roth irritated Trent, but because his presence distracted her.

“Thought I’d come over after football practice,” Trent said. “Hang out. If that’s okay.”

“I have a council meeting until four-thirty. Then I’m
supposed to meet Mom at the Sub Shop. Dinner,” she said. “Dad’s working late.”

Trent groaned. “I can’t come by after midnight all the time just to see you.”

Morgan saw heads lift all around them. She elbowed Trent in the side. “One time,” she corrected.

He grinned, waggled his eyebrows. “But it was a very good visit.”

Her friends made mocking tsk-tsk noises.

Morgan squared her chin, glanced around at the group. “All right, everyone. Show’s over. Get back to work.”

They laughed. Everyone except Kelli. She barely mustered a smile. Morgan thought Kelli hadn’t been very sociable on Saturday morning either. She’d chalked it up to the pain her friend was experiencing. Now she wasn’t so sure. Come to think of it, Mark wasn’t his usual jovial self either. A fight? Usually Kelli spilled her guts to Morgan whenever she and Mark had it out.

Morgan made a mental note to corner her best friend and make her tell what was going on. Then she remembered all the stuff she had to do—classes, meeting, dinner, homework. She’d text her, although she was sure Kelli wouldn’t confess anything in a return text message. Morgan sighed and picked up her tray. There were just too many things going on in her life right now. How was she going to juggle it all and keep track of Kelli’s boyfriend problems too?

The bell rang, so Morgan hustled to class.

“S
he cut you? She can’t cut you! That’s just wrong. Who does Linda Holland think she is?” Kelli’s mom raged. They stood in their kitchen, where Kelli had just told Jane about her last class of the day and a meeting with her phys ed teacher.

“She’s the coach, Mom,” Kelli answered wearily. She’d hoped her mother wouldn’t explode when she told her the news about being cut from the squad, but obviously it had been wishful thinking. “And she didn’t cut me. She benched me. She needs someone who can perform and be tossed around. I can’t.” She held up her wrapped sprained wrist to make her point.

“Well, we’ll just see about that!” Jane fumbled for her cell.

“Mom, please! It’s all right. I’m not upset because I got benched.”

“Well, I am.”

Kelli wanted to shout,
It’s not your life
, but she didn’t. In truth, Jane had never embraced that almost twenty years had passed since she’d attended Edison High School and been voted most popular and been a queen bee, dating Brock Larson, the football team’s quarterback. Kelli snatched Jane’s cell phone away. “Don’t call her. Please!”

“What’s wrong with you? You love performing on that squad.”

“Not right now. Classes are hard this year. I don’t mind stepping back.”