“Shut up,” I advise him.
He grins wickedly. “You got some messages.” And hands them to me.
Jordan Cartwright. Jordan Cartwright. Jordan Cartwright. Tad Tocco.
Wait. Who’s Tad Tocco?
“I’m getting coffee,” Tom says, getting up with his mug. “You want any?
“Yeah,” I say, barely paying attention. “Coffee’d be good.” Who is Tad Tocco, and why is his name so familiar?
Then, after Tom’s left the office, I yell, “Put some hot cocoa in it!”
“Okay,” Tom yells back.
Tom’s office door is tugged open, and Dr. Kilgore sticks her head out to look at me.
“Could you,” she says testily, “keep your voice down, please? I have a very distraught student in here.”
“Oh, sure,” I say guiltily. “Sorry.”
She glares at me and slams the door.
I slump more deeply into my seat. Sarah has left a copy of the school paper on her desk, open to the sports page. There’s a photo of Coach Andrews on it, clapping his hands and yelling at a blur on the court in front of him. The caption reads, Steven Andrews shouts encouragement to his players.
And my blood goes cold in my veins.
Steven. Steven Andrews.
And the next thing I know, I’m on the phone to the Athletic Department.
“Uh, hi,” I say, when someone finally answers the phone. “Is Coach Andrews in today?”
Whoever answers sounds cranky…possibly because he, like me, was forced to come in to work on a Snow Day.
“Where else would he be?” the cranky person asks. “He’s got another game this weekend, you know.”
The guy hangs up on me. But I don’t care. Because I’ve found out what I need to know. Coach Andrews is around. Which means I can go over to the Winer Complex and question him about his relationship with Lindsay….
No, wait. I can’t do that. I promised. I promised everyone I wouldn’t get involved this time….
But I promised Magda I wouldn’t let Lindsay’s name be dragged through the mud. And if Coach Andrews was sleeping with her, as Kimberly suggested, then that meant Lindsay was being taken advantage of by a person in a position of power. Well, as much power as a basketball coach can have over a cheerleader. At the very least, the relationship was completely inappropriate….
But what could Lindsay possibly have left in the cafeteria that she’d needed to give back to Coach Andrews so desperately?
There’s really only one way to find out. Which is why I get up from Sarah’s desk and, after stopping by the recycling pile at the bottom of the basement stairwell and snagging a good-sized box, I hurry out into the lobby, winding my scarf back around my neck and nearly colliding with my boss, who is carrying two mugs of coffee out of the cafeteria.
“Where are you going?” Tom wants to know, eyeing the box.
“Lindsay’s parents called,” I lie. It is seriously scary how easily these things trip off my tongue. It’s no wonder I can’t seem to find the guts to sing in front of anyone. It’s becoming more and more clear my true talent lies in a completely different direction than vocal performance. “They want somebody to clean out her locker over at the Winer Complex.”
Tom looks confused. “Wait…I thought Cheryl and her friends did that already. When they got the sweater.”
“I guess not,” I say, shrugging. “I’ll be back in a bit. ’Bye!”
Before he can say another word, I throw myself out into the wind and cold, using the box to shield my face from the snow. It’s slow going—no one has had a chance to shovel the sidewalks yet, due to the fact that the snow has only slowed down a bit, not stopped. But I have my Timberlands on, so my feet stay dry and relatively warm. And anyway, I like the snow. It covers the empty marijuana baggies and nitrous oxide canisters that litter the sidewalks, and muffles the sounds of sirens and honking car horns. True, car owners won’t be able to dig out their vehicles for a week, since the snowplows—their lights blinking orange and white, orange and white, as they go by, reflecting against high drifts piled on either side of the street—will just cover them again.
But it sure is pretty. Especially in Washington Square Park, where snow now completely fills the basin of the fountain, and has capped the statues of George Washington with wigs of winter white. Icicles glisten on the twisted black branches of trees from which, in another age, criminals were hanged. Only squirrels disturb the white expanse of snow beneath those trees, where once paupers’ graves, not green benches, rested. The dog run is empty, as are the play areas, swings dangling forlornly back and forth in the wind. The only signs of life come from the chess circle, which is, as always, occupied, by homeless people who eschew the dubious safety of the local homeless shelter, and diehard players who are willing to brave the elements in order to get in a good game.
This is how I like my city: all but empty.
God, I really am a jaded New Yorker.
Still, pretty as the town looks, I’m relieved when I pull open the door to the sports complex and am able to stomp the snow off my boots and onto the rubber-backed mats inside. My face slowly defrosts as I pull out my ID and show it to the security guard, who waves me through the hand scanner. The building, as always, smells of sweat and chlorine, from the pool. It’s pretty empty—most students don’t seem to feel the need to brave the elements in order to get in their daily workout.
Not so with the Pansies basketball team, though. I spot them as I look over the atrium railing, down on the parquet court below, practicing the slam dunks they aren’t allowed to try during a game, hanging on the rim, that sort of thing. The court looks bigger with all the bleachers pushed back. As I watch, someone passes Mark—I recognize his flattop—the ball.
“Shepelsky,” his teammate says. “Go for a layup.”
Mark expertly catches the ball, dribbles, then shoots. I swear there are three feet of air at least between the soles of his sneakers and the court. When he lands, I hear the same squeak of rubber on a smooth, shiny surface that I heard last night, when Manuel’s masked assailants fled the scene.
Not that that means anything. I mean, all sneakers sound like that. Besides, Mark and his friends were probably in the locker room while Manuel was being stabbed, getting reamed out by their coach. They couldn’t have had anything to do with what happened to him.