This Is Me From Now On (20 page)

When it came time for her to hand back mine, she pressed her hand on my shoulder. “Evie, would it be okay for you to stay after class for a minute?”

My stomach flipped. “Oh sure,” I said brightly.

As soon as she walked away, Nisha poked me. “Don't freak,” she whispered. “It's probably just because she loved it.”

I nodded because I couldn't even talk.

When class was over, everybody walked out of the room and went off somewhere to rip open their envelopes. Espee sat at her desk reading something on her computer. When we were the only two left, she closed the door and then handed me Angelica's diary, my essay, and the white envelope.

Which had a funny little bulge in it.

“I thought you should have it back now,” she said quietly. “Open the envelope, Evie.”

So I did.

And the locket fell onto my desk with a hollow clank.

“I'm so sorry!” I blurted out.

She cocked her head to one side. “Are you? What for?”

“I put it on your desk! It was all my stupid idea, and I know I shouldn't have done it, and I feel terrible!”

She smiled, but only just a little. “Well. I'm glad you're being honest, Evie.”

“Then you're not mad?”

“Hmm. That's sort of a tricky question, actually. Let me put it this way: What I'm more upset about is the letter.”

“The letter?”

“I think you know what I'm talking about. Someone sent a letter in my name to another teacher. And they had no right to do that.”

I thought I'd faint. Just collapse in a blobby, boneless heap, right there on the floor. “Please don't be mad, Ms. Pierce. She was only trying to—” I stopped; I wasn't sure how to finish that sentence.

“What, Evie? What exactly
was
Francesca trying to do?”

I stared. What had just happened? I hadn't said Francesca's name, had I? But if Espee had already figured it out, did it even matter what I'd said? I swallowed hard and asked, “Then you knew Francesca sent it?”

She pursed her lips. “Not right away. When Mr. Rafferty first showed me the letter, of course I recognized what I'd written for the Civil War Mystery Box. So naturally I suspected Katie and Brendan.”

“Oh, no,” I said, horrified. “Katie and Brendan would never—”

“And then I got the locket, so I realized that the prank wasn't just about the Attic Project. But the letter and the locket were obviously related, so I decided to use the locket as a test.”

“A … test?”

She nodded slowly, watching my face. “I figured whoever reacted when I wore the locket probably had something to do with the letter. And when you saw me wearing the locket, you turned bright red. So I knew you were involved, even though I couldn't see you forging the letter. But I started wondering about your partner.”

Deep breaths, Evie,
I said to myself.

“Then on Monday I received this absence excuse from
Francesca's aunt.” She opened her desk drawer and took out Samantha's note. “And that obviously settled the question.”

She put the pale green absence note on my desk. Then she reached into her leather briefcase and took out an official-looking folder. She opened the folder, held up a second sheet of pale green paper, and put it right beside the absence note. My eyes stared blindly at the identical monograms, then at the words written below:
Unable to attend. Due to family. O my darling. Cruel fate has come between us.
I'd delivered the absence note to Espee, written on the same stationery Francesca had used for the love letter. I hadn't meant to expose Francesca, but that really didn't matter now. “Is she in trouble?” I asked softly.

“Well, sure she is. Do you think she could forge a teacher's handwriting and
not
get in trouble?”

I couldn't answer that. Because the truth was, ever since I'd first met her, Francesca had me convinced that most rules didn't apply to her. “What's going to happen?”

“I'm not sure. That's up to the principal.”

“And … is Mr. Rafferty mad too?”

“Well, he's not happy. But I have to tell you, Evie, I'm a little more upset than he is. Maybe because Francesca used
my
words and
my name
.”

Her voice wobbled, and suddenly I understood that she'd been fighting with Theo about this. That's what I'd overheard in front of the main office, when she'd told him,
Don't tell me how I'm supposed to feel.
And could this also have been what they'd been fighting about in the parking lot? It was too much to even think about.

My throat was starting to ache now. “Ms. Pierce,
please
don't blame everything on Francesca. I was the one who read your computer. And I told Francesca about it, but that was before we knew he was married!”

Espee crossed her arms. Her face was pale and her aquamarine eyes looked dark. “Evie,
you
read my computer?”

I nodded.

“That's a violation of my privacy. I'm surprised. I never thought you'd do something like that.”

“I know!” I said, my voice croaking. “I completely messed up! I've just been acting weird lately, I don't know what's wrong with me, but it's like I got all carried away and my brain turned off. But it's back on now, I'll never do any of this again, and I'm just really, really sorry.”

The words
really, really sorry
stayed in the air for a few seconds, like the way fireworks shimmer in the sky before they disappear. And if I could have kept them up there a
little longer, I would have. Because truthfully, seeing that disappointed look in her eyes, I'd never been sorrier in my life.

Espee sat down in Nisha's chair. Her hair swung forward, and she tucked it behind her ears. “Listen to me,” she said quietly. “Every single person in the world has a unique story. In a way, that's all we have. And one person's story isn't better than anyone else's. Or more real.”

“I know that.”

“Do you? Because everything that happened here—the letter and the locket—makes me wonder if you've been trying to write my story. Which no one has a right to do but me.”

I nodded blindly. Espee pressed my shoulder with her cool, dry hand. “All right, Evie, never mind about Francesca. Why don't we talk about Angelica.”

My head was spinning. “Angelica?”

“Why? Is that surprising?”

“Well, no, except there really isn't much to talk about. I mean, her diary is just so … empty.”

“You think so? You know, Angelica Beaumont grew up to be a compassionate, creative, powerful woman.”

“I heard. Francesca told me. But—”

“Which leads me to wonder if some
of those same impulses were apparent in her diary. Beneath the surface.”

I thought about that for three seconds. “I don't think so. I mean, Ms. Pierce: All this
stuff
was going on around her, and all she did was obsess about her own dumb little world. And about a stupid crush that was probably based on nothing.”

Espee's eyes sparkled. “So at age sixteen she was in a bit of a rut?”

“What?”

I could see her crooked teeth. When she smiled like that, she looked about eight years old, the way she did in that photo. “The point I'm trying to make,” she said, “is that you were pretty hard on Angelica in your essay. And I know it's tempting to think you can tell someone's whole story just by looking at them in one light. But you can't. People are complicated. And everybody's story has many chapters.”

She stood up. “You'd better go now. Do you want me to send the locket home to Francesca?”

I suddenly realized that if she did that, Samantha would know we'd stolen it. And Francesca was already in enough trouble. “No, that's okay,” I said quickly. “I'll give it to her myself.”

Then she went back to her computer and started typing something, so I stuffed the locket and the diary into my backpack and left the room, holding my essay and my envelope. As soon as I was out in the hall, I ripped open the envelope.

Espee had given us a B+. Not the best grade in the world, but not the worst, either.

Underneath the grade, this is what she'd written:

That night I was clicking aimlessly around Theo's website, thinking maybe he'd posted an up-to-the-minute photo:
The Artist and His Beloved Family
, or
A Dog Is Forev.
And all of a sudden, there was a window on my screen. An IM to
*eveningstar*
from someone named scalawag.

Scalawag?

“Hi, Evie,” it said.

I immediately typed back: Who is this?

Scalawag answered: Quentin. Frankie's cousin? Remember me, thou miserable wench?

I had to laugh. I typed back: Sure I do, scurvy dog. How did U get my screenname?

scalawag: How do U think? Frankie.

*eveningstar*
: Right. Stupid me. Speaking of her, what's going on? Have you talked to her?

scalawag: Yeah. Couple of times.

*eveningstar*
: Is she coming back here?

scalawag: IDK. Aunts are duking it out right now. Big family melee.

*eveningstar*
: 2 bad. Tell her I'm not still mad, OK? Tell her I turned in the project.

scalawag
: What project? You mean the one about Angelica?

*eveningstar*
: Yeah. Can't believe you remembered.

scalawag
: Yarrr. I forget nothing, rascally knave. Maybe I can read it sometime?

*eveningstar*
:

scalawag
: Evie? U still there?

*eveningstar*
: Yes … um, Quentin? Do you ever visit Blanton?

scalawag
: Sure. Sometimes.

*eveningstar*
: Next time you do, want to go to the
movies with me? We'll have to invite like 10 other people, but …

scalawag
: Cool. Yeah. That would be great.

*eveningstar*
: OK. Well, B4N!!!

I logged off.
Well, yee-haw,
I whispered to myself, grinning.

A few days later, I still hadn't heard anything from Francesca and was starting to think that maybe she was gone for good. Because hadn't she said that her mom loved the beach house? And that she personally wished she could stay there forever? I imagined the two of them taking long walks on the beach, finding clamshells in the sand and discussing cosmos questions under the stars. And Francesca so happy to be reunited with Mother Darling that she wasn't even wearing her sparkly blue stilettos.

Besides, I asked myself, why should Francesca
want
to come back to Blanton? Especially if she had the chance to stay at the beach house, or possibly fly off with Mimi to Paris. I wondered if Samantha Pattison would walk across the yard to tell me if Francesca had left for good. And of course Samantha was never home after school, so I couldn't just ring the Big Ben doorbell and ask.

That Saturday afternoon, Nisha and Lily were hanging out in my bedroom. Grace, miraculously, had gone off to the movies with a bunch of friends, so for once we could make as much noise as we liked. Which was a really good thing, because Lily's cousin had given her a ton more magazines, and we were laughing our heads off as we took the dorky personality quizzes.

“Here's one for Evie,” Nisha said. “‘You've just discovered that your BF is a brainless, two-timing loser. Do you (a) Keep it to yourself, even if that causes indigestion; (b) text, like, practically everyone in existence; (c) Confide only in your nearest and dearest—'”

“Let me see that,” I said, snatching the magazine from Nisha. Just as my eyes were focusing on the tiny print, the doorbell rang.

“Shouldn't you answer it?” Lily asked, reading over my shoulder.

“Nope. Mom's in the kitchen; she'll get it. Oh great, you guys. Now I've lost my place.”

“‘Nearest and dearest,'” Nisha said, pointing.

“Right. Here we go. ‘Nearest and dearest. Or (d) Toss a water balloon in his face.'”

Lily grabbed the magazine. “It
says
that?”

Nisha laughed. “Of course not, Lily! That's just Evie being
mature
.”

“I
am
mature,” I said, sticking out my tongue. “More mature than you think.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” Nisha demanded.

“Oh, nothing.”

There was a knock on my door. We looked at each other.

The door opened slightly. “Evie?” Francesca said.

I ran over to hug her. She smelled sharp and salty, like the ocean. “Omigod,” I cried, “I'm so glad to see you! When did you get back?”

“I don't know. Maybe ten minutes ago.”

“With Mimi?”

“Yeah. But she just left for the airport. Aunt Sam's giving her a lift.”

“Already?”

She shrugged.

“And you're okay?”

“I'm fine. Just so bloody relieved to be back!”

I looked at her face. Her eyes seemed pale and tired, as if she hadn't been sleeping a whole lot lately. And her golden tan was completely gone by now, so you could see
she had pale freckles on her cheeks. Or maybe she'd always had them, and I'd just never noticed before. Or maybe I'd just been looking at her in a single kind of light.

“So,” I said quietly, “have you heard anything from school?”

“You mean from the principal?” She scrunched her forehead. “Sadly, yes. So has Mimi. And Daddy, I'm afraid.”

“Does that mean you're getting—”

“No, no, I'm not expelled. And Daddy was merciful, so I'm spared Aunt Beebee. But she's ready to pounce, so of course now I'll have to be on my absolute most perfect behavior.”